Still wondering about why it’s so hard to have a civil conversation about planning for the future in so many places? Or why everyone seems so pissed about everything all the time?
Could it have something to do with the telltale bulge in the waistline of American demography?
Click for larger view.
Currently, the most populated age ranges in America are those that represent folks in their 40s and 50s. Which, coincidently, are the ages at which mid-life crises typically undercut hope and optimism. Is the Age of the Bummed Out all about the ages of the bummed?
I like the sound of this argument for a couple reasons. First off, it doesn’t make my head hurt trying to understand all the complicated forces at work. It’s simple: It’s a phase. And there are charts.
If we need some social science to prop up the speculation, Jonathan Rauch obliges in his November 17 piece in the Atlantic. In one bit of evidence, Rauch references an international survey that “asked people in 149 countries to rate their lives on a zero-to-10 scale where 10 ‘represents the best possible life for you’ and zero the worst. They found a relationship between age and happiness in 80 countries, and in all but nine of those, satisfaction bottomed out between the ages of 39 and 57 (the average nadir was at about age 50).’
“In other words, if all else is equal, it may be more difficult to feel satisfied with your life in middle age than at other times.”
What Rauch and the researchers suggest is something like this: When we’re in our 20s and early 30s, we’re busy building careers and families. We have aspirations, some of them connecting to materialistic and egoistic benchmarks — money, stuff, professional recognition. Then, as we approach middle age, we either hit the benchmarks, only to discover we’re not experiencing the happiness we expected, or we don’t, and we can’t fight off feelings of disappointment in ourselves. “In other words,” says Rauch, “middle-aged people tend to feel both disappointed and pessimistic, a recipe for misery.”
So now back to the charts:
Click for larger view.
Thanks to the aging of the Baby Boomers, America’s median age has climbed from just under 30 a half-century ago to just over 37 in 2010. The 45-plus population is the only age group to grow its percentage of the population since 1960. And within that 45-plus age group, it’s the 45-64-year-olds that represent the biggest population segment.
As a nation, we’re at peak mid-life crisis.
Now, I don’t want to implicate Jonathan Rauch in my argument for linking a grumpy life stage in individuals with a grumpy stage in American politics and culture. He sticks to the research-driven, life stage discussion. But here we are with all these middle-aged people at a time in their lives where they’re statistically vulnerable to the existential blahs. And here we are as a nation, stuck in the existential blahs.
Just sayin’.
There’s another good reason for my attraction to this framing of the issue. And there’s another chart, thanks to Rauch and the researchers he quotes:
Click for larger view. Credit here.
They call it a “U curve.” I think of it as a smile curve. Kind of a Cheshire Cat smile. It suggests life dissatisfaction bottoms out and starts heading in the other direction when folks get a few more years on them.
It’s not that the after-50 crowd suddenly reclaims the optimism of their 20s. Rather, says Rauch, “midlife is, for many people, a time of recalibration, when they begin to evaluate their lives less in terms of social competition and more in terms of social connectedness.”
You know, like social connectedness in community. Less “me,” more “we” — as I tried to suggest here. And that’s got to be good news for those of us in the business of addressing the desire for connectedness in the design of the built environment.
It would be swell to imagine that all we have to do is wait out the smile curve.
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Life stage sociology does not explain the basis of today’s ill-feeling nor the roots of its ever more conspicuous optimism. That explanation has to do with the ill-effects of global sprawl and its oil-based economy. Add in the zeitgeist of the construction industry and yes the premises of most architects, planners and designers. All these forces compose a barrier to the emerging future which more and more are facing with optimism. The optimism is due to the fact that they/we know that things have to get better. And that the way this will happen is by taking control of life at the individual level and understanding that we build from the bottom, we create from our own lights and we do not accept what we are being given in the way of decisions, policies and premises. This is a deeply political moment and the level of hypocrisy that dominates the output of those beholden to the dying economy of the present is turning into the humorous display of the emperor’s clothes. Beyond it lies a world that we have yet to conceive and build. It will be a tad more democratic, tolerant and helpful than today’s world. And its signature will be a substantial undercurrent of iconoclasm regarding what we are told and how we must be.
Very interesting arguments Ben! It is interesting to me that so much great planning in America was done beginning with the Columbia Exposition in Chicago. We were a younger aged nation, largely immigrant based within a generation or two and seemingly we could accomplish plans that benefitted the masses. Good planning was good for everyone….poor, wealthy, commerce, jobs, etc. Interesting too that many plans weren’t “public or government” undertakings. The Burnham Plan for Chicago driven by civic leadership, women’s club and the powerful people of that city. Here in home city of Louisville the Olmsted Parks plan was driven by the Salmagundi Club and the Women’s Club. Today, as a sitting Planning Commissioner I watch us go through years of public process and trying to “hear every voice” and words put into “plans” that are so generalized as to be very useful. the Burnham Plan was a Comprehensive Plan that has lasted for generations and included not just words but beautiful drawings and visions for the future.
As someone who grew up in a lower income family in the Chicago area I benefitted greatly from the Burnham Plan. In the past great plans were accomplished outside “the public process” and in control of the rich and powerful. Were they more socially responsible then than now or was there a better understanding of the concept of all ships rise in a rising tide?