Millennials demand a new urban

Urbanisation has been a major trend of the 21st century, with 55% of the world’s population already living in urban areas and numbers expected to increase to almost 70% by 2050. However, the course of urbanisation is likely to be significantly altered by several disruptive forces. “Over the past decade, we’ve already seen discernible changes in the workplace and in residential development spurred by millennials’ different lifestyle needs and work ethic,” says Yael Geffen, CEO, Lew Geffen Sotheby’s International Realty. “Add increased security concerns, growing traffic congestion and, most recently, a global pandemic, and it becomes clear that we have to rethink traditional ideas about urbanisation, planning and development.” As millennials settle down and start families, they’re exchanging their urban dwellings for family homes in suburbia to have additional space and be near good schools. “They have, however, different lifestyle requirements and conventional suburbs generally fall short of meeting their needs,” Geffen says. “Traditionally, suburbs were developed to optimise house and plot sizes, and, being car dependent, most have few amenities within walking distance, but millennial suburbanites expect the convenience, walkability and sociability of cosmopolitan urban life.” Regulations challenged Conventional zoning regulations will be increasingly challenged as the way in which we live and work continues to change. This is bound to affect suburb layout, believes Matthew Gray, Cape Town-based urban designer and architect. He points out that the current planning in most South African cities already falls far short of meeting basic needs such as accessibility and security, largely due to the implementation of short-term planning solutions. “One of the main issues of car dependent suburban sprawl is that it makes travelling greater distances necessary. It also makes public transport less viable because of the lower population density. And with most suburbs having few amenities, people have no choice but to drive when they need something, with cul de sacs making the route even more convoluted than necessary. As a result, traffic is channelled to main roads which become even more congested,” she says. The way in which the current suburban development typology deals with security is also problematic. People have been led to believe the only way to secure their properties is with high walls. These not only obscure criminal activity from the outside, but also make public spaces such as parks more dangerous as they cannot be seen from the surrounding homes.

Changing workplace.

Geffen says Covid-19 has also raised a number of questions for planners and policymakers, especially as many efforts to control the spread of the virus have included “de-densification” and social distancing, which contribute to the changing nature of the workplace. “Although we know that remote working will become more prevalent, the team culture created by shared workspaces remains an invaluable psychological motivator, so there will be a continued demand for commercial spaces. “For instance, older commercial buildings ripe for refurbishment are ideal for creating new office environments that place a premium on natural light and more open and spacious floor plans to provide workers with more privacy and personal space,” she concludes.