Cities covet young urban single professionals

National headlines teem with debates about old people (Medicare) and married people (will gay marriage change the institution?). But locally, officials are eyeing a very different demographic.

By Laura Vanderkam USA Today

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2003-12-16-vanderkam_x.htm

Tampa spent years turning Ybor City, an old cigar-making district, into a nightlife hub. Baltimore advertises its low living costs on the Washington subway. Memphis residents spearheaded a "Memphis Manifesto" — a statement on attracting creative individuals. In Louisville, the alumni club Bulldogs in the Bluegrass woos young Yalies to a home in the South.

All of these towns are competing for a breed of yuppie, the "Yuspie" — Young Urban Single Professional. These college-educated, never-married 25- to 39-year-olds are "the dream demographic for any human resources person," says Carol Coletta, Memphis-based host of the radio program Smart City. "That’s why cities are beginning to think about these workers and how to attract them."

In today’s economy, companies want to locate where they can attract their ideal workforces. Yuspies work long hours and demand few benefits. Governments like them because they pay high taxes and don’t demand many services. So cities have gotten smart. Instead of just pushing development with stadiums or office parks, innovative towns lure Yuspies and bet the jobs will come.

Yuspies are highly recruitable. A November Census report found that 75% of college-educated young singles moved between 1995 and 2000. Wooing them is cheap, and Yuspies make cities hip. "The relative influence of this small population is far greater than its size would suggest," the report said. Cities on the rise (think Seattle and Minneapolis) have lured this demographic. Stagnating cities (Detroit and Cleveland) have not.

Given this influence, one could imagine Yuspies demanding perks and subsidies the way relocating businesses do. But despite rumblings of restructured benefits and a "singles’ rights" movement, most Yuspies take corporate and governmental leaching in stride. Hip as Yuspiedom may be, most Yuspies just hope these years of overwork and bad dates won’t last long. They’re wrong: Since 1970, the average marriage age for women has risen 4.3 years to 25.1; for men, 3.6 years to 26.8. For the third of women and men ages 25-34 with bachelors’ degrees the Yuspie years can last a decade or more.

But the naïve belief that their Yuspie years are temporary keeps Yuspies from looking out for their best interests. That makes Yuspies the perfect demographic for governments and businesses looking to cash in.

The rise of Yuspiedom has had positive side effects. "As the country shifts toward unmarried households, that may give cities an opportunity to compete again," says Bruce Katz, a demographer at The Brookings Institution.

Many Yuspies grew up in suburbs, tantalized by big-city excitement. Cities can reinforce that distinction with arts neighborhoods, areas zoned for nightlife and transit systems that create downtowns where people will party and live. Soccer fields can morph into connected green spaces for runners.

But there’s a cynical lure as well. 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.

As for companies, Coleman says, the young single employee "takes less in benefits, has less use of leave time and a greater ability to work overtime or on holidays or to travel." For such reasons, he told Business Week for a recent cover story on "Unmarried America," the value of singles’ earnings and benefits is 25% less than that of married people.

That Business Week article hinted at a coming revolution as people spend bigger chunks of their lives unmarried and childless. Some companies, such as Xerox, now offer new employees flexible benefits, including cash to be spent on programs they choose. In this model, single employees could choose gym memberships; parents, day care.

If Yuspies thought about their interests, they’d demand such packages and compensated overtime in the banking, consulting and tech industries they toil in. They’d lobby for user-fee government services instead of today’s tax structure, and for individual retirement accounts instead of Social Security, which passes benefits just to spouses and children.

But while there’s some movement, "they’re not organized in the way other constituencies have been," Coleman says. Yuspiedom "is often viewed as a temporary discomfort until you can get into the preferred status."

Hip as it may seem, Yuspiedom has a dark side. The white-collar sweatshops many Yuspies inhabit have them working until the wee hours. Layoffs have forced many Yuspies to move — not to explore new cities, but to find jobs. Such an unsettled life doesn’t bode well for meeting a mate. The explosion of "speed-dating" (10 minutes apiece with a cattle call of partners) and online personals speaks to people’s grasping for escape. Even the Business Week story on the coming revolution began with an anecdote of thirtysomething women wading into bars again and again, hoping to meet Mr. Right.

So even if the Yuspie years last a decade, few accept that they might. Yuspies don’t change the system because, aside from 80-hour workweeks, it’s hard to make a civil rights movement when most of its members want to leave.

That’s why smart cities woo Yuspies. By the time they reach a stage of life that involves complaining to government officials, they’ll have fled to the suburbs to bother someone else.

New York-based writer Laura Vanderkam is a member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors.