Beyond Blue 7: From Levittown to Superburb?

March 13, 2012

Walter Russell Mead

3/10/12

At Via Meadia, we have been reporting for some time on what we have call “the War on the Young.” The Blue Social Model that my generation expanded without thinking about that tiny little detail of how we were going to pay for it all has placed local and state governments in the position of funding Boomer retirements rather than Millennials educations. A loosely-regulated student loan complex combined with a generational obsession with credentialing encouraged many young Americans to take on crippling levels of educational debt for courses that were either academically dubious (history of surfing?) or that were more geared to a Blue America of lifetime employment, rather than the peripatetic, skills-centric 21st century economy.

Maligned[]/url] as indecisive, over-qualified, under-educated, burdened with debt: welcome to the life of many young Americans today. And as 94 million Millennials begin to think about one of life’s biggest financial investments – housing – on top of all of these challenges, it’s no wonder that many feel overwhelmed. That’s partly why so many depressed young people are inclined to drop out (of the workforce or school), tune out (from a constructive political conversation), and move in (back with Mom and Dad). What, they argue, do they have to look forward to?

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Via Meadia thinks that the future for the Millennials is much brighter than the doomsters would have us believe — and housing is an example. At the end of the day, the nation’s housing stock will have to be priced at a level the American people can afford (unless foreigners suddenly develop a massive hunger for residential property in the suburbs of Peoria), and if the only people aging Boomers can sell their homes to are debt-burdened, overtaxed and under-served Millennials, the geezers are going to have to mark down their selling price. It’s called arithmetic, and it works.

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Blue Social Model