01698145

Component

The millennial generation, the cohort born from 1981 to 1996, lives in large cities or denser parts of metropolitan areas more than preceding generations did at the same age. To explain their residential choice, the literature points to temporary economic hardship, long-term societal changes, and changing preferences and attitudes. This study examines a less-explored but critical aspect: heterogeneous residential preferences across and within generations. In doing so, this study employs a latent-class choice model on a commuter subsample of millennials and members of Generation X (n=729) of the California Millennials Dataset, which collected a rich set of variables on various dimensions in fall 2015. Using randomly-generated unlabeled choice sets at the US Census block group level, this study finds three latent classes. The younger, pro-urban class (53%) behaves as the stereotypical millennials in popular media, preferring urban amenities; the affluent, highly-educated class (32%) appears to pursue lifestyles and high socioeconomic status over homeownership or good school districts; and the middle-class homeowner class (15%) accepts traditional family-oriented suburban lifestyles. After the examination of changing shares of the three classes by age and neighborhood type, the authors provide suggestions for future research and effective planning responses.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADD20 Standing Committee on Social and Economic Factors of Transportation.

19-04302

English

0000-0002-1980-1225

19p

2019

Transportation Research Board 98th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Data analysis; Residential location; Revealed preferences

California Millennials Dataset

Generation X; Latent class models; Millennials

California

Society; Transportation (General)

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2019 Paper #19-04302

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 7 2018 9:47AM