Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Suburbs Try to Prevent an Exodus as Young Adults Move to Cities and Stay

Close to the Action Jennifer Levi Ross grew up in Jericho on Long Island and moved to New York City. Ms. Ross, 32, is staying in the city for now.Credit...James Estrin/The New York Times

It is a well-trod trail: Suburban youngsters enter their early 20s, leave their parents’ comfortable Tudors or colonials for the pizazz of the city, dawdle a few years until they find mates and begin having children and then, seeking more space and good public schools, move back to the suburbs and into their own Tudors or colonials.

But that pattern is changing, or at least shifting. A recent report on the suburb-dotted New York counties of Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk, based on United States census data, found that those young people seem to be lingering longer in New York City, sometimes forsaking suburban life entirely.

Demographers and politicians are scratching their heads over the change and have come up with conflicting theories. And some suburban towns are trying to make themselves more alluring to young residents, building apartment complexes, concert venues, bicycle lanes and more exotic restaurants.

Since 2000, Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk have experienced a drop in the number of 25- to 44-year-olds, with the declines particularly sharp in more affluent communities. Between 2000 and 2011, Rye, for example, had a 63 percent decrease in 25- to 34-year-old residents and a 16 percent decrease in 35- to 44-year-olds.

Image
 Jennifer Levi Ross at age 7.

New York suburbs are not the only ones getting somewhat grayer. In three Maryland suburbs outside Washington, Chevy Chase lost 34 percent of its 25- to 34-year-olds, Bethesda 19.2 percent and Potomac 27 percent. The declines were comparable for Kenilworth, Winnetka and Glencoe outside Chicago, and Nantucket, Barnstable and Norfolk Counties outside Boston.

Alexander Roberts, executive director of Community Housing Innovations, an advocacy group for affordable housing that released the report about the New York counties, attributed the declines in Westchester and on Long Island to the increasing cost of houses and the resistance by localities to building apartment buildings with modest rentals. The greatest population losses, he said, were in “the least diverse communities with the most expensive housing, which happen also to be those that have almost no affordable multifamily housing.”

Others who accept the data dispute Mr. Roberts’s explanations, pointing out that prices in some Manhattan and Brooklyn neighborhoods are even higher than those in the more expensive suburbs. But, he continued, the city is safer and more energized than it was a generation ago, and its allure has grown. Cities like Baltimore, Washington and Boston have also revitalized rundown or desolate neighborhoods.

Some suburbs are working diligently to find ways to hold onto their young. In the past decade, Westbury, N.Y., has built a total of 850 apartments — condos, co-ops and rentals — near the train station, a hefty amount for a village of 15,000 people. Late last year it unveiled a new concert venue, the Space at Westbury, that books performers like Steve Earle, Tracy Morgan and Patti Smith.

Long Beach, N.Y., with a year-round population of 33,000, has also been refreshing its downtown near the train station over the last couple of decades. The city has provided incentives to spruce up signage and facades, remodeled pavements and crosswalks, and provided more parking. A smorgasbord of ethnic restaurants flowered on Park Avenue, the main street.

Image
Spreading Out on Long Island Autumn Raubuck, 35, and her children left their cramped Manhattan apartment for a bungalow in Long Beach, N.Y.Credit...Yana Paskova for The New York Times

Thomas R. Suozzi, in his unsuccessful campaign to reclaim his former position as Nassau County executive last year, held up Long Beach, Westbury and Rockville Centre as examples of municipalities that had succeeded in drawing young people with apartments, job-rich office buildings, restaurants and attractions, like Long Beach’s refurbished boardwalk. Unless downtowns become livelier, he said, the island’s “long-term sustainability” will be hurt because new businesses will not locate in places where they cannot attract young professionals.

The suburban towns face increasingly tough competition from the city. Jennifer Levi Ross grew up in Jericho on Long Island and moved into the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan a few years after graduating from college. She liked living in the city so much — the easy commuting to work, the night life, the cornucopia of things to do — that when she married another Long Islander, Michael Ross, a Syosset boy, in 2012, they decided to stay put. They say they may eventually end up in the suburbs, but they are not in a hurry.

“It’s something in the distant future,” said Ms. Ross, a 32-year-old advertising copywriter. “We want to hold out as long as possible.”

Meghan Bernhardt, a 29-year-old child psychotherapist, grew up in Roslyn on Long Island and now lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. She did not like living in Roslyn because “everyone was Jewish and upper-middle class like me.” She not only savors Crown Heights’ polyglot character but also likes her ability to do so much without ever leaving the neighborhood, citing performing arts spaces like LaunchPad and restaurants like Mayfield.

Christopher Niedt, academic director of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, said it was difficult to tell what was driving the decline. One reason, he theorized, is that 20- and 30-somethings are having a harder time finding the full-time jobs they need to afford their homes and real estate taxes. Nationwide, he said, the proportion of 25- to 34-year-olds who own homes has declined sharply.

Image
The ocean view from the balcony of Ms. Raubuck’s 2,400-square-foot home. She has an hourlong train ride into Manhattan, but she says a decent restaurant is only a short walk away.Credit...Yana Paskova for The New York Times

But he said there is also survey data that seems to show “that younger adults are becoming more drawn to denser, more compact urban environments that offer a number of amenities within walking distance of where they live.” And, he said, more ethnically mixed communities — with more rental housing and immigrants — are gaining population.

Not everyone agrees that the suburbs are losing their appeal, especially to young families. Edwin J. McCormack, communications director for the Westchester County executive, Rob Astorino, who has studied the problem for his boss, said he believes the numbers in the Community Housing Innovations report are misleading. He noted that actual once-in-a-decade census data, as opposed to survey data taken yearly by the Census Bureau, shows the declines in affluent towns to be somewhat smaller. The county’s own enrollment data shows that more children are attending its schools, a telling sign of young families.

His theory is that young people are marrying later and moving to the suburbs later. Others say that young people seem to be taking more time finding themselves, and are willing to flounder at home for a time, pushing the traditional arc of adult life into the future.

“Parents used to be 35ish, now they’re 45ish,” Mr. McCormack said. “What we’re seeing is not so much an exodus as a later arrival.”

Jack Schnirman, the 36-year-old city manager of Long Beach, on Long Island, is among those arrivals. He returned there two years ago because he found he could rent a house for the same price as the two-bedroom apartment he had in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, yet live in “walkable downtown” with a beachfront.

Autumn Raubuck, 35, a mother of four and native of Terre Haute, Ind., was living in a cramped 500-square-foot Upper East Side railroad apartment whose rent the landlord wanted to raise to $2,500. After moving to Long Beach in 2007, she now pays $3,500 in rent, but she has a four-bedroom, 2,400-square-foot bungalow with its own laundry and a balcony overlooking the beach. If she wants to take her children to a museum in Manhattan, she faces an hourlong train ride, but a decent restaurant is only a short walk away.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 17 of the New York edition with the headline: Suburbs Try to Prevent an Exodus as Young Adults Move to Cities and Stay. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT