FOREVER YOUNG

Scores of vintage clothing stores, fair trade coffee bars and the latest “must try” food trucks are sure signs you’ve stumbled upon one of Austin’s trendy stomping grounds, where the people are perpetually young and life seems a little more carefree.

 

If you didn’t know better, you might think you’ve found the proverbial fountain of youth.

 

With millennials comprising 27 percent of the population, Austin boasts the highest concentration of young adults in the nation, according to a Fannie Mae Survey.

 

While most Austin residents are familiar with gentrification, few have heard of “youthification,”  a process that accounts for the growing presence of millennials in Austin and explains why young parts of town tend to stay young.  

 

Markus Moos, a faculty member of the School of Planning at The University of Waterloo has spent the last 10 years conducting extensive research on the what, where and why of youthification.

 

“Youthification is not completely different from [gentrification], but what we’ve seen happening is now there are neighborhoods where people move in when they’re young and move out as they get older,” Dr. Moos said. “I refer to this as ‘neighborhoods forever young.’”

 

Austin is not alone. According to Moos, millennials across the nation are flocking to urban cores and bringing their lifestyle preferences with them. New York, Calgary and Toronto are among the cities included as part of his “Generationed City” project, which examines the demographic trends of young adults in metropolitan areas across North America.

 

“I noticed that young people are living more separately from the rest of the population and that wasn’t the case ten, twenty years ago,” said Moos.  “We kind of knew that people of different age ranges lived in different areas of the city, but the fact that that’s becoming more pronounced really got me interested.”

 

According to Moos, youthified neighborhoods are marked by their wealth of cultural amenities such as music venues, bars, coffee shops, convenient public transit options and proximity to downtown destinations.

 

However, living in desirable areas doesn’t come without costs. In many cases, Austin’s most youthified neighborhoods are also some of the most expensive.

 

Austin’s demographer, Ryan Robinson, said he believes rising housing costs pose the greatest challenge to millennials looking to stay or relocate to the city.

 

“In really simple terms, even though we’ve got this giant population of millennials, they are having a tougher and tougher time affording to live in the central city, which is clearly their preference,” Robinson said in an interview with KUT.

 

To help offset the high cost of renting, Moos noticed more and more millennials opting to pool resources and share space with multiple people, or what he calls “adaptation strategies.”

 

“People move in with roommates, people are willing to move into old basements or really small apartments just to make it work,” said Moos. “People do that because the location in and of itself is just so desirable that people are willing to cut back on the home space and in even some cases the quality of the home.”

 

For University of Texas senior Elizabeth Aviña, moving away from the hubbub of campus life after four years was made possible with the help of  two roommates interested in splitting the cost of housing. Together, they were able to secure a three bedroom house in the amenity rich neighborhood surrounding North Loop.

 

“Since half of us were still in school and half not, we wanted a place where [Beth] could go to school but we weren’t too close to the craziness of West Campus,” Renee Heine, Beth’s roommate, said. “It’s decent rent compared to West Campus. I feel like I pay a lot less and get a lot more.”

 

Will millennials eventually decide to follow in the footsteps of previous generations or buck the suburban dream in favor of city living?

 

For now,  the future of youthification in Austin remains unclear. However, Moos believes the trend will only intensify as the millennial cohort continues to come of age.