Given all the recent talk and hubbub about the Occupy Vancouver/Portland/San Francisco/ New York (insert big city here) movement, I started thinking about the current state of our economy and the dismal state of our current generation. I know. I’m being a Debbie Downer.
I came across an interesting article in the local Vancouver magazine by Tyee Bridge, aptly named Going Going Gone. It is about whether generation Y is should be actually renamed generation F.
Generation F doesn’t stand for Generation Facebook, but Generation F stands for Generation F&#(d
Due to Vancouver’s rising real estate costs and general high cost of living, many young middle income earner families (whose household income is in the healthy $100,000 range) are being squeezed out of the housing market. Unfortunately, the salaries and wages in Vancouver are not increasing despite the exorbitant increase in real estate cost.
I know that in other cities with high real estate prices, like New York, or even San Francisco, the salaries and wages have kept up with the cost of real estate, but for an unknown reason, this doesn’t seem to be happening just yet in Vancouver. Many people are drawn to Vancouver’s beauty, charm, delicious food, and of course, developing hipster culture, however they are unable to afford living here.
Many families are raising their children in apartments or even basement suites due to the high cost of housing here. Either that, or they are moving to the suburbs and commuting in to Vancouver for work.
I personally believe I will never be as successful as my parents were (haha, how’s that for positive thinking?). I’m not complaining, I’m just being realistic. Inflation has gone up to extreme levels and income has not. My parents bought their home in the 70′s for $100,000 and now it is worth well over a million. I know that incomes weren’t as high then but I still think that the cost of real estate is very high relatively speaking. I am 110% sure that the home we bought recently will not be worth 10x our initial purchase price in 40 years. Personally, I absolutely love living here but I’m not sure what this place will be like in a 5 or 10 years with the rapidly changing city scene and real estate market. If we move though, we would probably end up renting out our home to keep some sort of stake in this popular city.
I know that we as generation Y are given a bad rap for not working hard like our parent’s baby boomer generation, but I do feel that it is harder to work hard and be successful in our current society.
That’s why I think it’s of even more importance for us as generation Y to be able to “think outside of the box” and generate passive income or different income streams, be frugal, and save for multiple rainy days…otherwise we would probably be even more screwed than we already are.
Readers, what do you think? Do you think we belong to Generation F or do you think there’s a glimmer of hope for us 20-somethings?
). Everyone was fearing something like this would happen, with 100,000 fans crowded into downtown Vancouver streets, coupled with booze and alcohol, and tension from a poorly lost game, made for some potential displaced anger.
