Being Citybroke is about perspective. It’s about seeing glitter in the gutter and a sense of humor when life is giving you everything you don’t exactly want and you’re hanging on for a dream that you sometimes can’t remember.
It’s not sales or survival - it’s an electronic letter from the trenches. It’s what suits who make $60K in at age 24 can’t even imagine. It’s Freedom. It’s Poverty. It’s Broken. It’s Beautiful.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Cities aggressively court yuspies. "Young Urban Single Professionals"

Because young-single-wage-donkeys are good for business.
- Yuspies happily work too much for too little.
- no Mat leave, minimal health care expenses, don't go to public schools, spend most of their earnings and pay taxes with the rest.
"These college-educated, never-married 25- to 39-year-olds are the dream demographic for any human resources person...For governments, Yuspies are an open wallet. Smaller households mean fewer municipal needs. "No kids means no use of public schools, but singles pay the same homeowner taxes," says Thomas Coleman, head of the advocacy group Unmarried America. "Fewer cars mean less use of roads." Young singles claim few tax breaks, and "there's less use of the emergency services at hospitals," continues Coleman, ticking down his list. No divorce or child-support proceedings mean less use of the courts." Check out this USA today article that talks about how other cities are desperate to get us in their city limits.
I am looking forward to any initiaitives that NYC might have to "woo yuspies." City sponsored happy hours, gym memberships, age-based museum passes and subsidized air travel would be a start.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

And when they grow up, they move to the burbs. "Cool Cities" is a bunch of baloney, if you're interested in long-term economic health. See Joel Kotkin's editorial in the WSJ recently of family friendly cities.