Can Baby Boomers be part of the solution?
Monday, June 4, 2012 | Charles Marohn The Baby Boom generation -- that group born in the decades immediately following World War II -- grew up, started families and progressed through careers during the first two generations of the Suburban Experiment, a period of unequaled prosperity for America. Today, we are in the third generation of this great social and financial experiment and, as it unravels, the Baby Boomers hold most of the powerful positions in government and business. Is it reasonable to expect them to substantively reform the institutions, systems and programs they came of age championing?
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Every generation, especially in times of rapid change, feels a natural tension between their generation and the one prior. Often this is reflected in the music we listen to, the movies we enjoy, the clothes we wear, the political positions we take and many other healthy aspects of life. My post today is not to denigrate the "Baby Boom" generation -- those born in the two decades immediately following World War II -- which, as a GenX'r, are my predecessors. I hope those that comment will avoid gratuitous bashing or promoting, whichever the case may be.
I want to offer one question, to which I have many thoughts but no firm answer:
Are those in the Baby Boom generation capable of substantively reforming America's current set of institutions, systems and programs?
This year, members of the Baby Boom generation are somewhere between 48 and 66 years old. As a cohort, it is an understatement to say that they have redefined everything. When we are in a generous mood, those in subsequent generations think of things like civil rights, the environmental movement, feminism and an overall expansion of individual freedom as accomplishments of the Boomer generation. Just by their sheer size in numbers, there were few institutions or societal norms that could withstand their scrutiny for long.
This Ameriprise ad a few years ago was memorable to me because, while it did not appeal to me as a consumer, I could see how brilliant it was in appealing to all of the things Boomers see positive about themselves. Of course they would redefine retirement; they have redefined everything else.
That ad, however, perfectly captures the conundrum we currently face. Here's Dennis Hopper -- who, by age would have been the really cool older brother for a Boomer -- wearing sunglasses on the beach. He affirms that the Boomers will be better than his generation. "Your generation is definitely not headed for bingo night." Cut to the scene of the Boomer-aged gentlemen restoring a sailboat and then to a boat sailing off into the sunset. These are scenes that Boomers picture themselves in, experiences they feel are their just rewards after many decades of working really, really hard.
That ad came out in 2006, a time when it looked like every boomer would soon be able to sell their home in the suburbs at a huge premium, buy the condo unit downtown and the second home in a nice vacation destination, retire with their generous retirement savings or pension and spend the next two or three decades living out the dream. Sure, they would volunteer in their community -- that's what they do -- and there would be time with the grandkids, but there would also be plenty of time to just enjoy all those things they put off until retirement. This was the promise they felt society made to them in exchange for their hard work. If there is one thing we should all be able to agree on it is that Boomers, generally, have worked very hard for a very long time.
Fast forward to today. I myself know a great many Boomers who have put off retirement because their 401(k) has dropped significantly in value right along with their home. They see their kids losing their jobs or having their hours cut back and, among younger Boomers, some of those kids are moving back home. All this is bad enough, but the future looks scary as well now, with Europe on the verge of melting down, unemployment continuing to rise and their own savings -- now mostly protected in low risk securities -- growing at a third the rate of inflation. This is not how things were supposed to work out.
And the clock is ticking. Loudly.
On this blog we talk about infrastructure and how to build productive, valuable places. Our key contributions to the national debate over America's next move have been to explain how the Suburban Experiment has financially failed us, how it provides the illusion of wealth as nominal near term cash advantages are exchanged for significantly greater, long term financial obligations, and why there will not be a real, sustained economic recovery until we change our model of growth and development.
Last week at a Curbside Chat, I was introduced to a former council member from a suburb of Minneapolis/St. Paul. He told me that he had been invited to address a gathering of civil engineers and, at the end his talk, he played our Conversation with an Engineer video. According to him there were two reactions. The younger engineers laughed hysterically while the older engineers sat straight-faced with their arms crossed. That observation tracked with my experience as well.
It also illuminates something important: the Baby Boom generation associates America's Suburban Experiment with wealth creation and prosperity. Now, to be fair, a great many reject the negative impacts of environmental degradation, social isolation and obesity/poor health that have accompanied it, but the responses they embrace have been things like hybrid cars, community centers and new, walkable communities (yes, New Urbanism, I'm talking about our cute, suburban towns). These are all things that fit nicely into the commoditized, suburban financial model.
It is not an irrational association by the Boomers, either. Tom Friedman -- a Baby Boomer who I genuinely respect -- put out a book last year called That used to be us which argues that America's recipe for success included building more infrastructure to promote growth. It is easy to understand why he makes this argument; he saw it happen himself. In the 1950's and 1960's, America invested in infrastructure and we experienced growth. In the 1980's and 1990's, we repeated that (only this time with borrowed money). It is a simple, Pavlov's dog, type of response -- build infrastructure, get prosperity -- but it is understandable how he arrived at that conclusion. From a NY Times article about the book:
A long tradition of American thinkers and statesmen — George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, to name a few — have argued that a strong and forward-looking federal government should promote a healthy domestic economy and a strong international presence.
This tradition is often called Hamiltonian because of Alexander Hamilton’s role in formulating its basic outlines while serving as Washington’s Treasury secretary. Mr. Friedman and Mr. Mandelbaum’s blueprint for the next stage in American prosperity is essentially a revival of this Hamiltonian vision of a strong, pro-market national government that creates the most favorable possible conditions (and provides funds for the infrastructure) to promote private enterprise.
And in case you want to argue that Friedman wants "better" infrastructure spending, check out this video where, at the 3:13 mark, he clearly says we need "more" infrastructure. The last thing this country needs is more infrastructure.
Now put yourself in the shoes of a Baby Boomer in a position of authority, maybe high elected office. You are presented with two options. The first -- double down on the current approach, spend a lot more money on the Suburban Experiment, try to revive the housing market, bail out the banks that are funding it, build a lot of new highways, throw in some big rail projects -- makes you uncomfortable because of the magnitude, but you feel confident that at least you are investing in an approach you have seen be successful in your lifetime. And if we can get the economy going again, maybe in a few years we can get back to the position you were in during 2006. Then you can retire, having met this last great challenge, and enjoy your remaining years as planned. This option fits within the world view you have created over the prior decades.
The second option is far more radical. It starts with acknowledging that the Suburban Experiment is a Ponzi Scheme that has put the country in a very tenuous financial position. To start to rationally respond to this insight, not only do we abandon the systems and programs that you put in place or expanded, we actually go about downsizing the infrastructure systems you spent so much money to build. There will be many winners and losers here, with you and a great many of your peers likely being among the latter. A large economic adjustment will be necessary, meaning a period of savings-robbing inflation or stock-killing deflation; neither seems appealing to someone a blink away from retirement. Following the adjustment, there will be growth, but it will be much different than the easy money gains of your lifetime and, even then, it will likely come too late to matter for you. This option is an enormous challenge to your world view.
Is it even reasonable to expect a Baby Boomer to choose the second option? Is substantive reform possible from a generation that is this vested in the current approach and this close to the finish line?
If your answer is no, then where do we go from here?
I don't have any answers here, just questions. Although I suspect we will learn the answers soon enough.
People try to put us d-down (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Just because we get around (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Things they do look awful c-c-cold (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I hope I die before I get old (Talkin' 'bout my generation)- My Generation by The Who (1965)
What you got, what you got in your hand?
a father said to son.
I got the whole world here Daddy
between my fingers and my thumb.
Well you take care of it
please -- it's the only one.
Well it would take me a life time old man
to undo what you've done.- Raven by The Dave Matthews Band (2002)
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Reader Comments (11)
Good for you Chuck... you totally get the baby boomers mind set. Of course we always have to be careful with generalizations, as I know some GenXs who are plenty pleased with their lifestyle presently, as well as Boomers who understand that things need to change.
It's very important though to acknowledge where the Boomers are coming from, and why they look at us with blank faces when we talk about walkable neighborhoods, or a desire to get rid of a car. It's almost an entirely foreign concept to them, and they will find any excuse to discount anything but the current norms to hold on to the world they grew up in.
Some good advice that I learned last year is to "start where they are"....in other words, seek first to understand. Chuck, this is EXCELLENT work to open up new insights into the mentality that would want to preserve the status quo in this country's suburban development patterns. Without making judgment, you have helped us start where they are and better understand the human dynamics involved. Progress forward will only happen when we sit down and listen better to each other...when we understand that there will be losses...and when we understand how to help each other through those losses. I believe there is a common purpose that binds us together, and by reconnecting with it, we can reach for the future we want.
Good point Lawrence. I think that it's all so important to point out that good things will come out of this as well. better relations with our neighbors and our community as well as a whole sustainability issues we all talk about.
Seems to me that the Boomers will have a tough time downsizing their way into retirement. For who will purchase all of those oversized homes in the suburbs? Bill
I liked your anecdote about the younger engineers in this article most of all, Chuck. For if they have the courage to laugh at themselves, then they have the courage needed to go about reforming their profession (going back to what you talked about last week).
Overall, it was an excellent article and an excellent read. My own parents are Boomers who had children late (which is why I'm a Millennial), and I too have noticed their blank stares, if not outright hostility, when I talk about what the city means to me personally, and me as a conduit for the expression of my generation's zeitgeist. It's like I'm talking in a foreign language because, well, I am. The narrative they're familiar with and the one I am are polar opposites--the narrative I see, day by day, sounds to them like it belongs in Europe, and the one they came of age experiencing sounds to me like nostalgia.
Which leads to the intractable nature of the problem Chuck lays out for us. For Boomers' whole lives, the suburban growth paradigms were the Way Things Are, the way this country moved and ticked. They had the physical wealth to challenge conventional social paradigms based on, or based on the illusion, of this paradigm.* They have always been the ones shifting paradigms--but now the paradigm is shifting, and they're finding themselves in their parents' place when they were kids. Is it not surprising they cling to the conventional paradigm--THEIR paradigm--as if it were dogma?
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* By which I mean that, if the suburban growth paradigm never produced any real growth at all (the strongest form of Chuck's contention), the real wealth would be the stored wealth built up by the emergent middle class during the Industrial Age and slowly spent by the Boomers in an effort to maintain the illusion of growth.
I'm a Boomer, but I guess I've always been a rebel. I think that we need to move away from fossil fuels, I started out with an American car,but by the time the 60's arrived I was driving my Volkswagen. In the 70's I embraced the bicycle, still have a few that I use. As for suburbia, I grew up there, never liked it, but when you are in school and living with your parents, you are stuck with it.
Later in life I got into civil engineering, working to make the city I worked for better. I worked to bring the agency I worked for into managing the infrastructure because as the years went by it became evident that we had to invest in what we had. worked with others to innovate, to use recycling in street reconstruction, I worked to make the city I worked for livable. Sometimes I felt like I was that lone voice cryng in the wilderness, but as I retired a few years ago, my ideas became accepted, and the city was operating in a more sustainable fashion. We recycled, everything, we took over the trash collection and got people to recycle. Other agencies got people to install low flow toilets, we started using hybrid cars in our fleet. We worked to bring life back to the inner city. We lerned how to rehabilitate pavement using only 25% of th asphalt conventional methods used. We learned that there are right and wrong choices for species of street trees. We started using recycled water for irrigation.
No, I can still see things need change so don't discount all Boomers, a lot of us were not in the iivory towers but on the streets making change. Hopefully we helped the next generation as we left our lessons with the Gen X'ers that are now running the show.
Now about those ivory towers, what needs to change is the people in charge. Politics got in my way more than a few times in my career. We need innovators at the top. We Boomers have been fighting for change a lot longer than some others have been alive. Now we pass the torch to the younger people to make those changes to make life beter for all and for our planet.
Chuck,I think the resistance to change is a age issue, and not a generational issue. I suspect that the GenX’rs will be just as resistant to change as they age, as the Boomers are starting to be, and as the generations before them were. Studies show that NIMBY’s are usually older.
When we talk about generational identity, I always think about the book, “Generations”, by William Strauss and Neil Howe. The book “describes a cyclical theory of history based on repeating generational archetypes.” (Wikipedia). Boomers are Idealists, Dreamers, Philosophers. The generation is filled with big thinkers and spiritual leaders like Andres Duany, Steve Jobs, Deepak Chopra, Bill Gates, and John Lennon. Of course, the dark side of Boomer idealism is culture wars, religious fundamentalism, and politics where ideology trumps common sense.
GenX’rs are the Doers. Sick of watching the previous generation talk big but do little, they get right to the point and get things done. You, Chuck, are a good example. However, my bet is on the next “Great Generation” - the Millennials. According to the book, this generation is a civic minded one. They are “vigorous and rational institution-builders ... aggressive advocates of technological progress, economic prosperity, social harmony, and public optimism.”
So The Boomers have laid the foundation and ideals. I suspect the GenX’rs will pick up the ball and get things rolling, while the Millennials will finish up the job, creating the new society that we all hope to have.
Then it will start all over again.
Quick comment here:
"The younger engineers laughed hysterically while the older engineers sat straight-faced with their arms crossed. That observation tracked with my experience as well."
I find this encouraging. -Nate
I agree with you on the generational divide. Unfortuantely, it may be the 2020's before we see significant changes at the federal policy level, due to the outlook of the baby boomer generation. Let's look at the birth years of past presidents:
Truman 1884
Eisenhower 1890
Kennedy 1917
Johnson 1908
Nixon 1913
Ford 1913
Carter 1924
Reagan 1911
Bush Sr 1924
Clinton 1946
Bush Jr 1946
Obama 1961
Romney?? 1947
Note how every president between JFK and Bush Sr. was born within a 16-year window, representing the WW2 Greatest Generation. No president has been born between 1925 and 1945, roughly the "Korean War" generation. Leadership passed straight from the Greatest Generation to the Baby Boomers in 1992, who have retained power to this day. The "Korean war" generation, in the shadow of the WW2 generation their entire lives, never developed the executive leadership skills to become president (McCain got close). In the same way, I expect that the presidencies, governorships and CEOs-ships will generally pass by my generation (X), raised in the shadow of the Baby Boomers. The Boomers will remain in most seats of power, until some young hot-shot Millenials start to fill them. By the 2020 presidential election, the youngest Millenials will be entering their 40's, so expect the policy changes to start coming hot-and-heavy then.
Chad, you illuminate an important trend on leadership transitions across generations. I agree that it is likely that boomers will be in charge in most facets of society for at least another decade. That reinforces the significance of Chuck's column. I sense Chuck is helping us span generations in our decision-making by helping us understand each other better. That will be important if we are to make any progress on the major challenges facing us today.
I posted the conversation with an engineer video to my facebook and promptly received this response from a chemical engineer we'll call Brenden.
Brenden: So you think you know more than the city engineers, give me a break! Last time I looked you never went to school for engineering.......
Tyrone: Thanks Brenden. The guy who made this video is an engineer.
Tyrone: In other words good engineers like good people, can disagree. Also, this post was meant to be somewhat light and humorous. Obviously the whole thing a bit silly in order to make a point while being funny.
Here's the post that I pulled it from if you want to learn more: http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/
And here is information about the engineer that heads this organization: http://www.strongtowns.org/staff/
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I thought about mentioning that he was a chemical engineer, not a civil, but I decided against it. Regardless he didn't respond.
Thanks Chuck - you make it easy to quiet the trolls :)