The Younger Crowd Wants Transit. Hidden in Plain Sight: Transit-Oriented Development’s Role in Enhancing Affordability

The housing market in America is changing dramatically as American households get older, smaller, and more ethnically diverse, and these shifting demographics are fundamentally re-scripting the American dream. While the single-family home with a two-car garage in the suburbs was ideal for the family with a breadwinner dad, stay-at-home mom and several kids, it doesn’t work nearly so well for families with two working parents and one child, or for “empty-nesters” or other households with no children.

Single adults will soon be the new majority in this country. Married couples with kids–a demographic group that made up the vast majority of households a century ago–now total just 25 percent, a number expected to drop to 20 percent by 2010. At the same time, the nation’s population is becoming increasingly diverse, with almost half the population expected to be non-white by 2050, and almost a third of that growth due to immigration.

These age groups and household types are flooding the housing market with buyers and renters who are interested in smaller homes and a lifestyle that’s more convenient–with entertainment, culture, sidewalk cafes, parks, and shopping all within walking distance. People want transportation options and more housing choices, including lofts, live-work spaces, townhomes, row houses, courtyard housing, and other housing types suitable for walkable, higher-density urban neighborhoods.

By Mariia V. Zimmerman

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