Demographic trends and societal changes

[michaelskis]

For the entirety of the United States, we built our future on growth. Growth of population, growth of economy, growth of industry.

But what happens when that growth changes or stops? This is no longer hypothetical, but is looking more and more like it will be reality. The Warton School at the University of Pennsylvania posted projections in 2024, and right at the top is a powerful statement:

Summary: U.S. population growth is projected to decline, and the population will become much older over time. Preventing these outcomes will require faster immigration by several multiples of its current rate.

Many demographers are now saying that our birthrates have dipped below the replacement rate of 2.1 and in some cases are declining at extreme levels. Dr. Johnson from UNC Chapel Hill recently stated that vasectomies' in prime childbearing years for those who have never fathered children is up more than 30%. If it wasn't for in migration from other countries, we would already have a negative population growth rate. Births are expected to be surpassed by deaths in the next 6 years.

As Planners, we need to work with our communities to change and adapt in an attempt to get ahead of these trends. Some of these would include:

• Welcoming multicultural communities and businesses mixes
• Focusing on elder care and child care
• Enhancing ADA accessibility to all sites
• Embracing technology, such as AI and robotics to support workforce needs

But these changes are not unique to the United States. On a global scale population are shrinking and it is changing the way we work and live. So while we started as a nation of immigrants, with less people on the planet, we need to rethink our models because we can not just continue to rely on births and immigration to sustain our communities.

What about you? What are things that your community, region, or state is doing to address this pending change? Do you think it is part of a cycle and things will uptick again or do you think this is the start of something much more significant?

 

[MD Planner]

This is a great discussion and very much an economic issue. I've been saying that for years; without immigration our economy will be in big trouble. The crackdown now is already having an impact here in certain sectors. Anyone who can't see this is an ostrich with their head in the sand. It would not be nearly the issue it is if our leaders had not kicked this can down the road for several decades. The process is broken and I see zero effort on either side to truly try and and fix it. Which on a tangential note related to a different thread, this is something that Harris could have and should have done as VP was to lead a bipartisan team to come up with some answers. Which I believe she was originally supposed to do instead of being MIA for 3 years.

 

[MacheteJames]

This tracks with everything I'm also hearing. We're throwing everything we can at solving the housing crisis, but all of the data is showing that as household formation rates drop and deaths exceed births, this problem is going to sort itself out to some degree over the 10-15 year time horizon. We will still be left with a spatial mismatch between jobs and residences without a lot more missing middle and multifamily, but the days of $650,000 single family homes in tertiary markets are going to come to an end. Hopefully we can get there without a repeat of 2009.

 

[mendelman]

I recently read Generations an accessible demographics book outlining the needs/wants of each extant generation and our socio-economic futures as we cycle through the current generations that are in adulthood - Silent, Boomer, Xer, Millennials, Gen-Z.

I see a high possibility of an existing housing supply glut fully develop in the next 15 years as the remaining Silents and first half of the Boomers pretty much all die.

But...I don't see alot of downward cost shift especially in nice/desirable metros/parts of metros (aka where people 'want' to live). There will just be small households in housing units that are designed for 2x+ sized households and there may not be much demand for substantive market level new housing supply construction.

As for what us planners can do, I guess the best place is making multi-generational households always allowed. Allow more and more ADUs and more universal interior design mods very easy to build and permit.