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Gen Y and Rural Living: A natural fit.
December 10th, 2009 by Mike Knutson
Gwendolyn Bounds’ article in the Wall Street Journal titled “Green Acres Is the Place to Be” highlighted a small but hopefully growing trend of young people who are moving to rural places. I spotlighted Bound’s article here, and I’ve been wondering ever since, “What is really going on here? What is it that is attracting Gen Y to rural places? (Note: Bounds’ article focuses on urban residents called “ruralpolitans” who move to rural places, but young people appear to be a major focus of those currently moving. )
First and foremost, we need to recognize that the ruralpolitans Bounds describes are moving to rural places because they sense an opportunity for them. Brandon Peaks speaks directly to this issue in the last paragraph of the WSJ article:
“I can’t tell you how many people at work say, ‘Man, I’d like to do that,’ “Mr. Peak says. “Everybody is looking for the next opportunity for hope.”
Peaks, an Intel Corp technician in Phoenix, sees opportunity in working with his parents on a dairy operation they recently purchased in Missouri. It means he will escape the uncertainty of the job market in his industry, and will enable him to move from a city that has seen a major housing market collapse. (Admittedly, most of us Midwesterners probably see dairy farming a risky venture with milk prices as low as they are, but at least Peaks will be able to see his wife and children on a regular basis, something that doesn’t currently happen.)
Other rural transplants see different types of opportunities:
- Shane Dawley, a 40-year-old former parking lot attendant, sees opportunity in being able to grow his own food on his five-acre farm.
- Kathryn O-Shea-Evans, a 25-year-old freelance writer, believes buying land in Rural America is a better investment opportunity than the stock market or urban housing markets.
- Kent Wiles, 48-year-old small business owner in the city, looked at owning a small acreage as an opportunity to raise horses, goats, turkeys, and other animals.
- Jesse Ptacek, a 27-year-old former firefighter for a U.S. Department of Defense contractor, sees owning 62 acres of land in Montana as an opportunity to live a self-reliant lifestyle (hunting, fishing, growing crops and living off the electric grid) in a tough job market.
It is easy for urban dwellers to see these opportunities when the urban economy has tanked. Losing one’s life savings and seeing the housing market crash have a funny way of doing that. But I think it goes deeper. Why is it specifically that Gen Y is recognizing opportunities in rural places? To answer that I think we have to look at what experts have to say about Gen Y.
Characteristics of Gen Y
There’s no shortage of social commentators who have created their own lists of Gen Y characteristics. I’ve written about them myself on several occasions. (See here and here as examples.) What I’ve attempted below is to connect these characteristics to why people of this generation might be moving to rural places.
- First, most experts agree Gen Y is very concerned about the planet. For that reason, Gen Y’ers undoubtedly look at living off the electrical grid and using their own renewable energy sources as a way of living a more sustainable lifestyle.
- Second, members of Gen Y expect to succeed at everything they do. Raising animals and crops is filled with responsibilities and complications. But that’s not a problem when you are filled with confidence.
- Third, young people today are very good at multi-tasking: hold down a job, raise a family, grow your own crops. Now that’s multitasking.
- And finally, Gen Yers are into self reliance and they crave a sense of accomplishment. Being able to live off the grid, raise crops, hunt animals, and live a different lifestyle than their parents helps them accomplish both.
Looking at the trend in this way suggests to me that the movement is about more than just a reaction to the economy. The economy may have encouraged young people to rethink their future, but the opportunities in rural places that are attractive to Gen Y have always been there. Perhaps they just weren’t looking.
Other Resources about Gen Y
- “Gen Y Characteristics” at ReImagine Rural
- “Gen Y: The Social Innovation Generation” at The Huffington Post
- “How to engage Gen Y in rural communities” at ReImagine Rural
- “Young Professional Groups - A People Attraction Strategy” at ReImagine Rural
- “What Gen Y Really Wants” at Time Magazine
- “Gen Y: They arrived at work with an attitude” at USA Today
Photo Credit: newagecrap - Flickr
Tags: Gen Y, Gwendolyn Bounds, hobby farm, millennials, people attraction, wall street journal
Posted in Community Development, Economic Development, Housing, In the News, Rural | Comments (
3 )
December 10th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Living in Montana for the last several years had really taught me a lot about the self-reliance that you mentioned. Many of my friend’s families will shoot an elk, or a few antelope (elk and antelope tags here are like deer and pheasant tags in South Dakota — almost everyone gets one) and will live off that meat for the majority of the year, or people will get friendly with their ranching neighbor and buy a whole cow straight from the producer.
My friend freshman year lived with her family so far up into the mountains of Western Montana that they couldn’t get electricity. She grew up her entire life with solar panels running their home’s electricity and hot water.
Bozeman has taken their “your home is where your food is grown” motto even further by recently allowed for chickens to be raised within the city limits. While this raises some animal ethics questions (is there a need for a How-To-Raise-Chickens 101 course before allowing someone to own them?), for the most part it is just another step towards self-reliance.
A friend of mine here is majoring in Sustainable Food Systems with an emphasis on Urban Ag, another in Environmental Science, and another in Environmental Biology, and I’m in Environmental Design.
I think GenY is a very independent group that wants to do for itself, but at the same time is very social. I think those two characteristics will be able to help us live the sustainability motto and an African proverb, we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow if from our children.
December 11th, 2009 at 6:12 am
So Morgan, do you think this trend of young people moving to rural to purchase acreages will grow? Or is it just a fad that will reverse itself once the economy settles down?
Also, I find it interesting that you bring up the idea of the need for a “How-to riase-chickens 101″ before allowing people to own chickens. I know you’re a farm girl, so you get how difficult it can be to raise animals. But if we need training courses for raising farm animals, so we also need it for raising pets?
December 11th, 2009 at 8:24 am
I’m not sure about whether this out-migration to rural will continue to be a trend or just a fad. A lot of people said that “going green” would be a fad, but I think it’s here to stay.
What brought up the controversy in Bozeman were several residents who had chickens outside in the winter (and we just had a -26* streak here the last week) without heat lamps and the chickens all froze to death. Another resident did the opposite and but in too many heat lamps and they all died of heat. I think an indoor dog or cat are more common household animals so people have a better general knowledge of how and what to feed them.