Rightsizing, not downsizing, is what the next gen is about
One size does not fit all, which has been the model of the industrial revolution. It’s encouraging to know that model driving the creative, information, knowledge economy of the present is based on providing what people truly want, and that perhaps the right size that personally suits us is finally being provided as an option.
Rightsizing Living
Regular readers know this has been well covered in this blog, that the next gen wants smaller homes, that the housing crisis needed a correction as housing sizes got out of control. According to a 2011 report, What’s Next? Real Estate in the New Economy, by a leading real estate organization, the Urban Land Institute (ULI), Gen Y (in their teens and early thirties) prefers smaller homes in favor of an easier commute and better lifestyle. Perhaps this will lead to ‘people rightsizing’ in a country where two-thirds of the population is overweight.
Rightsizing Commuting
As stated above, people are rightsizing their commute, looking to live closer to work and creating new, less expensive options for getting there. As stated in a new study by Zipcar, more Gen Yers are selling their cars or never buying one in the first place, opting for car sharing when they absolutely need one. The same is true even for bicycles with the rise of bike sharing.
Rightsizing Working
Many major companies will decentralize and value smaller office locations in 24-hour urban centers to enable innovation by being closer to where the creative, next gen populations are migrating to. For example, Google has invested in one of the largest buildings in downtown Manhattan, a beaux arts building in central Paris, a warehouse in downtown Pittsburgh, and a new building in downtown Boulder, Colorado… a far cry from the office parks of the 20th century. The aforementioned ULI report also states that office tenants will decrease space per employee, transforming into meeting places more than work places, with an emphasis on open configurations that foster interaction.
In a March 17, 2011 news article, “Zappos CEO envisions a new community downtown“, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh shows he’s fully invested in rightsizing to benefit his employees, “Hsieh is exploring building 500 to 1,000 units of 100-square-foot spaces rented for $100 a month - enough room for a bed and a closet, while bathroom facilities would be shared. Maybe a bar or lounge would be attached to the building and renters would crash there whenever they wanted. “Maybe call it the Crash Pad,” he said. Renters would be screened to keep it from becoming a homeless or hooker option, he said.“
Now, this may be well suited for people who live in cities, but of Americans surveyed in 2009, 51% indicated that they would prefer to live in either a small town (30%) or rural area (21%). What about them?
Rightsizing Towns
Why can’t small towns also benefit from rightsized living, commuting and working? This is where the idea of “micropolitans” comes in, defined in association with the Micropolitan Manifesto as “a place anchored with a human-scaled, walkable downtown in the smallest cities possible, that each have the potential to be simultaneously “micro” and “cosmopolitan”.
So, what’s next? Now’s it’s time to decide what rightsizing means to you in your community. If it is and you’re committed to doing something about it, it’s on to organizing a group of like-minded people to crowdsource that vision into reality. It’s what this blog is all about helping you do.
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