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Turns Out The Youngs Don't Like The Suburbs, After All
By
Lauren Evans
Published Apr 17, 2014
Modified Apr 17, 2014
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By
Lauren Evans
Published Apr 17, 2014
Modified Apr 17, 2014
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A few months ago, the New York Times was breathlessly telling us the suburbs had become hip—did you know there's not one but several yoga studios in Tarrytown? Did you know those hayseeds in Irvington can access their own locally-sourced cold-brew coffee with nary a trip to Brooklyn? Just when we were set to pack the Subaru and say goodbye to the land of eyebrow transplants forever, the paper of record reverses course and tells us that no one wants to live in the suburbs anymore. Which is it? Are the suburbs cool or not? Are eggs healthy or not!?
But today is a new day, and today New Yorkers in their 20s and 30s aren't retreating back to the lawn gnome-bedecked vistas of yore with the same reliability they used to, to the alarm of so many Chambers of Commerce. Apparently the allure of comically high rents and Rat Trains aren't enough to drive today's pseudo-youths back into the bosom of suburbia, where they're supposed to go after "dawdling for a few years" in the city. (Life Before Children=Dawdling.)
Civic leaders in the quaint hamlets of Westchester and Nassau are doing lots of hand-wringing over the loss of their youngs. "Why won't they come back? We built them a bicycle lane," they seethe.
Some experts attribute the diminished interest in a backyard with a porch swing to the lack of affordable apartment buildings, but that sure hasn't stopped anyone from taking up residence around here.
The other prevailing theory is that people are simply choosing to submit to the banal reality of adulthood later in life—in the parlance of the Times, we're just dawdling longer, fuckin' around with our "careers" and our "happy hours" deeper into our 30s and even 40s before choosing to slap down a mortgage and shoot out a couple of kids. “Parents used to be 35ish, now they’re 45ish,” said Edwin J. McCormack, communications director for the Westchester County executive. “What we’re seeing is not so much an exodus as a later arrival.”
Suburbanites will try to seduce you with talk of "this great little fusion tapas resto" that opened just a short drive from their kid's public school, but you know what? All the "revitalized Main Streets" and "ample parking" in the world will never replace this anarchist puppeteer and his spray foam head dress. Besides, we got lawns here.
Tagged
city life
real estate
suburbia
suburbs
Lauren Evans
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