Here's the real trend:
People who are currently 25 own less cars than people who were 25 ten years ago.
People who are currently 30 own less cars than people who were 30 ten years ago.
People who are currently 35 own less cars than people who were 35 ten years ago. (Note, these are the people who at 25 owned more cars than current 25 year olds)
Yes, when the people who are currently 25 turn 35 (aka the millennials age), they will own more cars than they did at 25. But all trends support the idea that they will own less cars than the people who are currently 35.
While not exactly purchases, I like this graph showing every age cohort is less likely to take out a car loan today than in 2003.
http://public.tableau.com/profile/joe.cortright#!/vizhome/Ca...
And also this graph about how many people have driver's licenses, every age cohort has gone down since 2008. And for young cohorts, it has gone down tremendously since 1983.
http://public.tableau.com/profile/joe.cortright#!/vizhome/Dr...
People who are currently 25 have less babies than people who were 25 ten years ago. People who are currently 30 have less babies than people who were 30 ten years ago.[0]
People living familyless lives longer means that the cars will come later in their lives. Having children and not have a car is a very tough proposition, considering the volume and mass of babystuff you have to handle.
Of course the cars might not come at all if people continue to chose solitude over offspring.
[0] http://www.childtrends.org/?indicators=fertility-and-birth-r...
Both of you seem to be describing the same thing in related, correct ways.
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/01/14/46281645...
I don't claim this is the case per se, nor that it explains the effects entirely. Just that it's a consideration and it might be unfair to say the thinking is necessarily "in much the wrong way".
I don't think you can really extrapolate from generational history here. As recently as the 1940s, most kids were raised in the city or in rural areas. You've got maybe three generations raised in the suburbs. Not exactly ancient history.
It's also worth noting that what the suburbs are is changing to become less car dependent. Lots of people having kids in new developments in Reston, VA, which is a suburb but organized more like the bedroom communities of yore (with a little downtown) than the sprawling subdivisions that prevailed from the 1960s to 1990s.
Why would you want to transport your dog inside the city? Apart from the occasional visit to the vet maybe?
For their walks, you could always use your neighborhood and peripheral places -- shouldn't there be some suitable spot within 1 mile or so at least?
My office has an open dog policy, but I almost never see dogs in the office, and when I do, they're inevitably small (the kinds you can hold on the subway). Meanwhile, on the Mountain View campus, dogs everywhere. You need a car to bring your dog to work with you.
And how does that work for people trying to concentrate while working, with barking etc? Or are those dogs parked outside of the office?
People are considerate enough not to bring poorly-behaved dogs to work. I've run into many dogs around the office and have never had a barking problem - they usually just roam in a small area around their owner/team, quietly.
Pretty much the only time I've heard a dog bark at work was when someone accidentally kicked it...
That sounds quite distracting in a small/medium office space by itself.
My experience has been people who bring dogs to work are often oblivious to the nuisance they cause to others who try to focus.
Besides, I don't work at Google. At the companies I did work, when someone brought a dog to work (few times) it was always a problematic situation, people tried to ignore the ruckus, moved to nearby desks etc.
I like the dog policy, because every so often I have the nice surprise of being able to pet a fluffy dog, at work. In practice it's not so bad as what you're thinking it might devolve into.
We commute by bike or transit as a family in Boston through all seasons. We own a car but it sits parked unless we're going on a special weekend trip or something; the car averages 6k miles per year and I'd estimate that Christmas, etc account for about 1/3 of that.
I fit that profile. I've lived in LA for >15 years & didn't use my car much.
I now have two small children.
Still don't use my car much.
Groceries? Google Express. Diapers & other random things? Amazon. Taking my son to preschool? I hooked up a trailer to my bike & drop him off on the way to work.
My son loves trains, so taking the Metro is a blast with him. It's maybe a 30 minute walk to the closest stop & from there we can hit the beach, downtown SM, the Science Center & so on.
To be fair we do have a car. Rare is obviously rare, but when it happens, I use the car. Along with trips to home depot or to see a friend on the other side of town.
But honestly, LA is a great to live car free. If you develop your life around a car it naturally becomes hard to remove the car. But if you start off developing your life w/o the car, it's much, much easier to ditch it.
If that was the case, you'd see it repeated in every generation, but we don't. People in the 50s and 80s still wanted a car even when they were 16, and bought one as soon as they could afford it.
People in general buy less cars nowadays, and those that do buy, also buy smaller cars increasingly more.
Still, it increased much less than it otherwise would have because we love getting around without a car and because driving is not a status signal to our peers. I might be wrong, having not lived through previous generations, but I think actively preferring to not drive is relatively common now, and it seems like there used to be some stigma attached to not owning a car that is now utterly absent.
European prospective: in most cities and towns it is not hard at all to have a family with kids and have no car. Many things are at walking distance and for the rest there is a widespread public transportation network.
The only people that _need_ cars are those living in rural areas or on the new suburbia-style boroughs born along secondary highways (new development of the last 50 years).
Here all my friends with young kids are buying 4x4s and people carriers as taking a baby and a toddler on the bus is a bit of a nightmare.
I'm in Norway living in a decent sized city (for Norway). The public transportation is great here, and taking a baby or toddler on the bus doesn't seem to be an issue at all. People often don't take young children out of their strollers.
Now, off in the countryside, it seems that public transportation thins out (though isn't non-existent), and more people have cars. Usually small-to-medium sized front wheel drive cars, families usually have a 4 door model.
But I do think most folks that say such things wind up with long-term relationships (legal marriage isn't as attractive with many) and a child or two when they are 25-30, either by accident or something changes when their mind stops developing.
30 years old now, still don't want kids. I've Never felt even a pang of paternal instinct.
Then it becomes a "right tool for the job" situation. We had a car in Italy, but regularly rode our bikes, or took public transportation for various things.
I can quite well imagine not buying a car for the next decade and instead rely on a combination of all of the above, something that would have been very hard for my parents generation.
Of course, plural of anecdote and all that, but I'd be curious if there's any actual data on the trend. Know of some?
I also hope that similar ride sharing systems take deeper hold in Phoenix... Personally, I really enjoy driving, so seeing traffic become less dense (currently not nearly as bad as the coastal cities by any means) would be nice.
I was able to do this because the office space I moved in to is only 4mi from our house so I ride my bicycle or my motorcycle. I know a motorcycle is technically cheating in a way, but it gets 45mpg, means I never have to ride share, and costs me 1/6th as much to insure as the $55k truck did.
We live about 14mi south of downtown Portland- which has pretty good public transport, but means we've got pretty piss poor options if you don't want to spend 2+ hours getting downtown.
My gym is 2 blocks from the office, we chose our suburb neighborhood because there's literally a dozen parks and playgrounds within walking/biking distance for toddlers.
We, as a family, absolutely need the car for 99% of things. Me, as a 34 year old guy going about his daily non-family business, can get by even in the 'burbs without a car.
The first car was only used by dad who worked in another city with – at that time – no train line existing yet, and the second car was only used whenever we’d go camping or buy large amounts of groceries.
We kids by ourselves always used bike or bus, and when we with our parents went to the city, or shopping, it almost always was bus, too.
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/forget-stereotypes-mil...
You see this play out with every generation. I read an article recently that incredulously reported that Millenials - the car rejecting generation! - have started buying cars. Of course they have, because they're coming into the age where they get married, have kids and move to the suburbs.
So, you're right, in that this is a young/old split. But don't expect it to persist as the young become old.
EDIT: the more I think about it, the more interested I'll be to see if there is, in fact, a trend in the opposite direction. The suburbs are a total compromise - close to job centers, retail facilities, etc etc, while far enough from city centers to be affordable. The coming era of remote work and efficient delivery services might mean that living further away from the city makes more sense. But there are a lot of caveats in that.