The Millennial Mindset: Getting Involved In Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- The Millennial generation is increasingly setting its sights on Boston.
Read: 'The Millennial Mindset' Series
Right now, one-third of city residents are between 20 and 34 years old. As a result, there is a campaign underway to get this age group to interact more with their community.
Erin Santhouse heads up that effort as the director of SPARK Boston, an initiative that began in 2004. At that time, it was called the Mayor's ONEin3 Initative, but the Walsh administration re-branded the campaign last month.
"When we host neighborhood meetings and all of those strategic planning processes that we have going on around the city that have a public component, we're looking for feedback on Imagine Boston 2030 and the housing plan and all kinds of things, and we don't tend to see a lot of representation from that 20-to-34 year old crowd," she told WBZ NewsRadio 1030.
Santhouse added that it is in their best interest to get involved.
"In twenty years, these are going to be the people who will see the effects of these plans sort of go into play, so it's important to get people involved now," she said.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh agrees.
"I'm finding them very entrepreneurial, much like the immigrants who came to this country years ago, so we want to be able to get them engaged and keep them in our city," he said on WBZ's Nightside with Dan Rea.
Nick Vance is already involved. He is 25, grew up in Mattapan, and represents Dorchester on the SPARK Boston Council. He's also a Senior Recruiter for the AmeriCorps program "City Year", and talks to Millennials daily about the obstacles they face.
"There's many organizations that still view Millennials as, you know, they are just those young kids. They just don't get it. It's okay, eventually they'll be older and they'll understand, and we're saying no," Vance told WBZ.
The high cost of living doesn't help.
"Everything that you want to buy costs so much money, and I think sometimes it can be depressing as a Millennial, because you're saying Okay, I'm trying to get out of my parents' basement, or I'm trying to get out of this apartment where there's four other people living there, and they're saying, oh well, there's really nowhere for you to go," he explained.
In part 3, we'll take a look at how Millennials are making ends meet.
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Mary Blake reports