Millennials Moving To The Burbs?

McMansion. Photo by Paul Sableman.

Every day at The Direct Transfer we sort through over 1,500 news items about cities and share the best ones with our email list. At the end of the week we take some of the most popular stories and share them with Urban Milwaukee readers. They are national links, sometimes entertaining and sometimes absurd, but hopefully useful.

Perhaps reluctant millennials: Growth in the suburbs is being driven by millennials, the generation everyone loves to give a hard time. But there’s a question about whether this is a reluctant movement due to a lack of good options or a particular choice made in earnest. Bloomberg’s Justin Fox, Conor Sen, and Noah Smith sit down to talk about the possible reasons Millennials might be making these decisions. (Bloomberg View)

Famous intersections mapped: Local Seattle artist Peter Gorman has designed a series of images by simplifying the layout of some of the city’s most notorious intersections. He says they are uniquely wacky, and I’m likely to agree. (Curbed Seattle)

The technology trap: The belief that technology will solve all of our urban problems is rampant in the recent movements of tech companies. But humans are complex as is the development of cities which has happened incrementally over generations. Will a technology focused development paradigm mimic our previous mistakes of urban renewal and try to organize complexity? (Real Life Magazine)

Community land trusts are coming: New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development recently launched a program to support the creation of community land trusts. With hyper inflated real estate markets, the hope is that the resident members of these trusts will develop property through their own organizations, giving more control and stability to residents.  (The Nation)

Holland’s innovative agriculture: The Netherlands is the second largest exporter of food in the world behind the United States even though the country itself is 270 times smaller. Innovations in agriculture have led this country to be a leader in crop yields even though much of the growing is done indoors and never far from a skyscraper. (National Geographic)

Quote of the Week

We were attempting to recreate some of the intimacy of our original camping circle, but on a much larger civic scale. We were engineering society but we weren’t basing it on some elaborate intellectual construct.

–Rod Garrett discussing the reasons for Burning Man’s circular layout. (Wired Magazine)