High Gas Prices Chase Teens To Malls

KYW 1060 has a report today about how high gas prices have forced teenagers to cut down on cruising, a time-honored tradition where kids ride around in their cars for hours and hours and hours without any real point. (Frankly, I still find it kind of awesome as an adult.)

It’s a warm, sultry Thursday night and a portion of a shopping center in Richboro, Bucks County in Pa. is filled with parked cars belonging to teenagers who ordinarily would be out cruising the streets. But not this summer. Eighteen-year-old Greg Borden says times have changed: “We usually come here to make plans and we used to all take our separate cars to where we were going, but now that gas is so high we just take one car and we usually try to not go to far either.” [...]

It’s the same story all across America. Parking lots, shopping malls, and movie theaters are now the favorite gathering spots for teens.

It’s neat to know teenagers are now gathering in malls, parking lots and movie theaters. As opposed to my day, when we gathered in basements, malls, movie theat–hmm, wait a second.

Also: Kudos to Larry Gatti, quoted in the piece, for getting the word “sucks” (which actually offends some people) onto the radio. And also for having a rhyming name.

Gas Costs Force More Teens to Cut Down on Cruising [KYW 1060]
Photo via CGoulao, Creative Commons license

Leftovers: We Learn Good

• A study says Philadelphia graduates 55.5 percent of its incoming freshman, on average. The national average is 70 percent. Pennsylvania, on the whole, was a more respectable 79.1 percent. But — surprise! — the state may inflate its numbers, according to Paul Vallas. Film at 11. [Inquirer]

• A story in the New York Observer says that flab is in for men. And what do you do with that?

• That’s right: Hide marijuana in your fat rolls. Where else would you store it? [AP/NBC 10]

• Uh oh: Philly is now only about 1700 people larger than Phoenix. It looks like we’re going to fall to sixth-largest city soon. Get ready for the hang-wringing about how the city is on the downswing now. [Inquirer]

Philadelphia is the New Lancaster

Last Wednesday in USA Today there was an article about how hip, young urban twentysomethings are leaving the city for rural areas.

It’s a trend story, which means it has to be taken with a grain of salt. They usually make big assumptions and use a small number of people to represent the whole. There’s nothing wrong with that — it’s journalism, after all, not science — but you just have to approach it knowing what you’re getting. (As a writer, I’ve always tried to avoid expanding my small interviews into taking on a larger issue, with varied success.) I came upon this story from Slate’s Jack Shafer, who wrote about it in his “Bogus Trendspotting” feature.

The weird thing was, the bogus trendspotting in this one wasn’t just the usual making-large-claims-out-of-small-data fallacy. No, those rural areas people are moving into? They’re cities like Philadelphia:

Young, single people usually love the excitement of big cities, from the vibrant nightlife to the noisiness and frenzied pace of urban existence. They love it so much they’re willing to pay a stiff price for cramped quarters and communal living.

For some, the price is getting too steep. The draw of the bright lights and big cities is dimming now that housing costs have hit exorbitant heights. Some who grew up fantasizing about life in the “big city” are settling in less glamorous cities and even suburbs. [...]

Philadelphia, sometimes the butt of jokes for its lack of cachet compared with nearby New York, is being marketed by some former residents of the Big Apple as the “next borough.” It is attracting small numbers of artsy young people from expensive neighborhoods in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

They also mention the movetophilly.com people, making it, essentially, a rehash of the Jessica Pressler article from over the summer. But this one’s quite fantastic: People are moving out of cities and into Philadelphia! Whoo! Start milking the cows, people, them city slickers are comin’ into town!

More of the young and hip fight urban urge [USA Today]
Driving a Stake Into Bogus Trends [Slate]