#mcon2015

Daniel Lubetzky at MCON 2015 // Watch the full video

Registration is now open for MCON 2016 in D.C.

Ellen-Blaire Chube at MCON last year. See the whole video here.

Stephen Kenn at MCON 2015 // Watch the full video here

Registration is now open for MCON 2016 in D.C.

@alexisbonnell at MCON 2015

Register for MCON 2016 in Washington, D.C. before early registration discounts expire on April 30. 

Fagan Harris at MCON 2015 in Chicago - Watch the full video

Registration is open for MCON 2016 in D.C. this June.

Q&A With Tyson Gersh From Michigan Urban Farming Initiative

Q: What can cities that aren’t ideal places do to start attracting Millennials to their cities?

One thing that Millennials are motivated by in terms of places is access to spaces that are controlled/owned by themselves or their peers. In an increasingly mobile world where our obligations are becoming less geographically relevant it might be counter intuitive to think that we care about physical space, but the reality is that having creative liberty to try progressive and innovative things (in an equitable way) holds enormous potential to drive our place-based decisions . 

Maybe it’s a shared disillusionment with cookie-cutter development in cities, or an exaggerated sense of self-importance and thinking our ideas matter (thank you social media), or even a relatively decreased pressure to grow up/get a job/make a family - I don’t know. What I do know is that I don’t want to settle for someone else’s idea of what my neighborhood should look like. I want to be an active agent in structuring my physical and social environment along with others sharing the space. That may not be a direct answer to your question, but I think it captures some of my generational angst towards living in just another city and my main reason for choosing Detroit, which afforded me the opportunity to do something that red tape and functional regulation denied elsewhere. I guess I’ll leave it with a quote from Ani DiFranco that feels relevant to the topic. I’m not sure why, but maybe it can provide some insight for those of you looking to make spaces more attractive to millennials: