Economist Martin Cantor visited Riverhead Town Hall last week to sound an alarm about the future of Long Island.
An “overwhelming majority” of people between the ages of 20 and 34 are not happy with Long Island and are looking to leave, according to a survey Cantor published last month.
And who could blame them?
• Nearly half of adults in that age group earn between $20,000 and $29,999 per year, despite the fact that 20 percent of the group has advanced degrees.
• A large majority reported not being satisfied with their jobs or the salaries they earn and said they would be willing to leave Long Island to find better jobs.
• Nearly 60 percent said they live with their parents or relatives and 12 percent said they lived in an illegal apartment. Eighty-five percent want to own their own home or condo someday.
With the regional economy stagnant and household income eroding for most Long Islanders, job opportunities are limited — the region has replaced high-paying jobs with low-paying retail and service jobs or part-time employment with no benefits — and home ownership is seemingly out of reach, so Millennials are looking to pursue a better life elsewhere.
Long Island needs to keep young people here in order to bring back the once-vigorous economic growth it once enjoyed, Cantor said.
“These are the very individuals in which we have invested over a quarter-million dollars per student to educate in grades K-12,” Cantor wrote in his report, “Long Island’s Young People: Why They Will Continue to Leave Long Island,” published in June by Plainview-based nonprofit Destination LI. Read the full report here.
“We pay for educating the workforce that is benefitting other regions,” Cantor wrote.
“Be sure that Long Island’s young people are leaving,” Cantor said, “and the island’s ‘brain drain’ is only going to get worse.”
To keep Millennials here, Long Island must offer meaningful employment paying livable wages, housing opportunities including home ownership, and better public transportation options.
“They are not wedded to the idea of owning and driving their own cars the way the generations before them were,” Cantor said. “They want to be able to take public transportation.”
The survey data for Cantor’s research, funded by Destination LI, was collected by posting invitations to participate on the Facebook, Reddit and Linked In websites, Cantor said.
“You have to go where young people are,” Cantor said. Gone are the days of random sampling using phone directories. “Most young people don’t even have land lines,” he said.
Data was collected from 413 respondents who reported residences in 315 L.I. zip codes. The survey results, based on regression analysis performed using industry standard software, have a 1 percent margin of error, Cantor said.
Riverhead Supervisor Sean Walter said he heard Cantor make a presentation to the Nassau-Suffolk Regional Planning Council and thought he should speak to the Riverhead Town Board.
“It’s critical for the town board to hear this because we are developing the largest piece of property on Long Island, probably the largest piece of property that will ever again be developed here,” Walter said.
The supervisor said he is becoming convinced that development at EPCAL should include mixed-use developments, with a housing component — an idea that did not necessarily have majority support on the town board.
Mixed use planned unit developments at EPCAL was something recommended for consideration by the consultants hired by the town to do a market study for the site.
“The potentially developable acreage available at EPCAL is probably more than can be absorbed in a 20-30 year time period,” according to the December 2011 report prepared by consultants RKG Associates.
“Allowing a mix of uses would provide incentives for development on a speculative basis given the relatively low demand anticipated for office and industrial space over the next three to five years,” the report said. Mixed uses include residential uses, commercial services and retail uses, the consultants said. They “would provide a compatible business support structure for the freight village concept which typically includes such uses within the industrial complex [and] would also be beneficial for supporting existing businesses in the industrial core of the park,” the RKG report said.
RKG suggested limiting residential uses to nor more than one-third of any planned unit development project and adopting zoning that would support the construction of workforce housing there.
Walter said the potential for mixed-use development, identified as an option in the EPCAL development plan prepared by VHB, the consulting firm hired by the town to prepare a plan and subdivision map for the former Grumman site in Calverton, would be analyzed in the draft supplemental generic environmental impact study currently underway.
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