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The American Dream of the twentieth century was one of a brick house on a perfectly manicured green lawn with a white picket fence. In this dream, a Labrador retriever scurries around the house as the mom pulls in to the 2-car garage in the mini-van used for taking her 1.7 kids to soccer practice and the dad is starting up a barbeque in the backyard.
This dream is boring; at least, to a twenty-or-so-year-old. And that is the reason why so many of the younger generation are moving to urban centers. According to the 2000 Census, young, college-educated Americans between the ages of 25 and 39 were the most likely to move to urban centers, a trend that has increased from that of previous generations.
“The idea of living in the city has a lot more value to it,” said Melissa Azul, an LSA Junior who plans to move to a city on the east or west coast after she graduates. “If you’re from the city, you are considered hip, cool, with the times…I think that’s why a lot of college students move to cities right after graduation.”
“The American dream is not the same as before,” Azul continues. “Our ideas of the American dream are different. What was satisfactory before is not what is satisfactory now.”
Sarah Avellar, an LSA Junior who grew up in the suburbs of San Antonio, says that she wants to move to Los Angeles after she graduates because “that’s where the job opportunities are in the field in which I want to work.”
So if a white picket fence and 1.7 children aren’t the immediate dreams of the young, educated generation, then what are they dreaming about?
“We’re not as focused on family and more focused on money and having materialistic things,” claims Azul. “Being entertained and stimulated by artificial things…technology, money…is much more important these days than before.”
Avellar also sees a difference between how the younger generation of today defines the American dream. “I think the American dream for my parents was to do better than their parents did and I think that it is different for people of my generation,” she says.
“I think that there is a lack of motivation to achieve success beyond what can be given to you easily and instant gratification and fame are much more important.”
This gratification and fame are the reasons that young hotspots are cities such as Seattle and Washington, D.C., where many of the young, college-educated population have flooded to make their make on the big stage.
Another driving reason that young, educated people are increasingly moving to urban centers is because marriage and childbearing have been delayed as a direct consequence of women’s liberation in the second half of the last century. Because of this, young people are more free to move wherever they please. However, a question still remains: What happens when the young and free-spirited of today become the parents of tomorrow?
“I eventually plan on moving to the suburbs when I’m older, established,” said Azul.
But not all have this same mentality. Haven Moore, an Engineering Junior who wants to move to a city after he graduates and plans to stay in there even after he has a steady job and a family, holds that belief that “human society in general needs to urbanize more efficiently.”
And because of this thought coming from the younger generation of today, perhaps the American dream of the twenty-first century will replace the brick houses and mini-vans of yesterday with the sky-high apartments and compact cars of tomorrow.
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