New Urbanist Silverback Andres Duany and the Young Locusts

There’s this generation who grew up in the suburbs, for whom thesuburbs have no magic. The mall has no magic. They’re the ones thathave discovered the city. Problem is, they’re also destroying the city.The teenagers and young people in Miami come in from the suburbs to thefew town centers we have, and they come in like locusts. They maketraffic congestion all night; they come in and take up the parking.They ruin the retail and they ruin the restaurants, because they havedifferent habits than older folks. I have seen it. They’re basicallyeating up the first-rate urbanism. They have this techno music, and thefood cheapens, and they run in packs, great social packs, and they takeover a place and ruin it and go somewhere else. 

Dear Mr. Duany,

At 22 years old, I qualify as a Millennial. I enjoy loud music andcheap, greasy food, among other things. I also love cities, includingWashington, D.C., the one I was born in. I can’t afford to live there,so I live at home with my parents. Yet, according to what you recently told the Atlantic, I’m ruining the place.…

But you know what really kills a city? Keeping people out. Making itprohibitively expensive by demanding it look or feel a certain way. Acity cannot be planned all at once or dropped from the sky. A city isthe accumulation of years and years of small changes made by many, manypeople of all kinds, creating a unique, irreplaceable product.