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SIUSLAW NEWS ❚ SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2017
Millennials
from 1A
“I love clothes. I love antiques.
I love to dance. There are lots of
things I love and am passionate
about and would want to pursue,”
Sapp said.
It’s that wide array of passion
that partially holds her back from
leaving town. Living in a loft on
her parent’s property, she’s still
trying to figure which one of
those passions she’s going to fol-
low. What she does know is that
her whole heart is invested in
Florence.
Geraldine Lucio has been here
for three years as the proud owner
of the Old Town Barber Shop.
The 30-year-old tries to work a
full five days a week, but after a
number of years of burning the
candle at both ends to get her
business off the ground, she’s
skipping a few days here and
there to head out to sea.
“My new experience is tuna
and halibut fishing,” she said. “I
didn’t do that until this year, as I
did salmon before. It’s a blast.”
Lucio lives on a boat, attended
trade school to become a barber
and says she loves the area.
The three — Lokic, Sapp and
Lucio — have diverse back-
grounds,
living
situations,
employment status and hopes for
the future, but they do have one
thing in common: They’re all
millennials living in Florence.
Millennials are typically
defined as adults between the
ages of 18 to 35, with technolog-
ical advancements and poverty
from the Great Recession of 2009
defining their career choices.
Millennials aren’t the first
thing that come to mind when the
Siuslaw region is discussed. With
a median age of 57, Florence is
the Oregon coast’s “retirement
community.”
Because of that, the millennial
population in the region is often
ignored. While they own busi-
nesses, volunteer in the commu-
nity and form a major part of the
workforce, they’re somewhat
silent in community leadership
positions.
The area’s major leisure activ-
ities are often geared toward
older audiences while “retire-
ment” infrastructure can make it
difficult for millennials to con-
nect to each other beyond small
social networks.
In fact, millennials inter-
viewed for this article had no idea
how many were actually in the
city.
“I feel like I know 20 or 30
people who are around my age,”
Lucio said. “I have way more
friends above 50. Where are you,
millennials?”
While they may not be as
organized as other age cohorts in
the region, their numbers are sig-
nificant.
According to the 2016 U.S.
Census Bureau, there were
almost 600 millennials living
within Florence city limits. It
may seem like a small number,
particularly with a population of
8,348.
But the numbers are growing,
and many appear to be coming
from out of town.
In 2016, there were 103 18- to
21-year-olds living in Florence,
which may reflect youth that
have yet to move on to cities after
graduating high school.
But that number jumps in the
25- to 29-year age range, with
172 counted.
While reasons for that increase
are unclear, anecdotal evidence
suggests that millennials are
actively looking to move to com-
munities like Florence.
And they’re not just moving
into the city limits.
A report by Leland Consulting
Group, which was issued by the
Florence Urban Renewal Agency
(FURA) in November 2015,
looked at the immediate area out-
side of the city limits and found
that the total millennial popula-
tion was closer to 1,000.
The area that FURA examined,
called the Urban Growth
Boundary, only included the
Heceta Beach area. It didn’t
include areas farther north, like
Mercer Lake or Yachats, nor the
Upriver communities to the east
or the Dunes City area to the
south, suggesting that this strong
economic base is even larger than
previously imagined.
And more may be coming.
One of the major misconcep-
tions of millennials is that they’re
primarily city dwellers, hip
urbanites who prefer public trans-
portation and live their entire
existence online and in coffee
bars.
While there is some truth to
the lifestyle, it’s not what millen-
Florence, then you have Eugene
and then Lane County. That’s it.
There really isn’t another type of
government entity that offers
that.”
If given the opportunity, his
friends would like to move to
Florence. Two found jobs in other
coastal towns, one in Bandon, the
other in Newport.
As the economy strengthens
and millennials look to go
beyond city limits, areas like
Siuslaw are becoming increasing-
ly attractive.
“I’m a huge outdoorsman,”
Lokic said. “I love fishing, camp-
ing and hiking. There was a great
opportunity here with a great
position, and I really wanted to
live in a rural location. I lived in
Chicago for 22 years and decided
I wanted a change. I loved being
out on the coast and all these
great amenities.”
Lucio had similar reasons.
Moving here from Austin,
Texas, she said she looked up and
down the coast for a place to open
a barbershop because she “just
needed a change of pace from the
big city.”
“I feel like the beauty here in
Oregon is just massive,” she said.
“It’s like a deep beauty of ocean
and trees and lakes and rivers. I
love the outdoors.”
For Sapp, the power of the
Siuslaw is deeply felt on an
almost spiritual level.
“I fall in love with it more
every year, even though I know I
won’t be here forever,” she said.
“It’s a beautiful community. The
area itself and the land is phe-
nomenal. I love it so much. I feel
very tied to this place and the
land.”
But the beauty of the land-
scape is secondary to the style of
life Florence brings, particularly
in a world of constant technolog-
ical evolution.
“Things are accelerating at a
ridiculous speed,” Sapp said. “It’s
dizzying and distracting. People
now live very busy, full lives just
by default. There’s so much hap-
pening at all times. Even when
you go to the bathroom, you pull
out the phone and fill your head
with information.
“In the evenings, when you go
home, you turn on the TV. And if
you don’t have a TV, you have a
cell phone or a computer. There is
an information overload that is
robbing us of peace. And that
reality is so common that people
don’t know how to live without
the noise.”
Florence, Sapp believed, is a
way to quell the noise.
“You have the option of setting
the information aside,” she said.
“Setting the noise aside, and
being able to appreciate the beau-
ty around you. You always know
that the old guys are going to be
down at the coffee shop. That
your friends are going to be
around.
“I really appreciate being
around older generations for their
perspective and their peace and
guidance and wisdom, as it has
always been, but especially now.
We need that. We need that
roundedness. We need that slow-
ing down.”
For the next two weeks, the
Siuslaw News will be looking at
millennials in the Siuslaw region,
why they’re here, where they
live, how they work, what they do
for fun, and the sometimes
painful misconceptions that older
generations make about them.
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nials say they want.
In a 2015 survey by the
National
Association
of
Homebuilders, only 10 percent of
the cohort actually wanted to live
in the center of a city. 66 percent
wanted to live in the suburbs, and
24 percent wanted to live in rural
area, like the Siuslaw region.
And they may be coming
sooner than rather than later.
In 2015, The Wall Street
Journal (WSJ) reported that, from
2004 to 2007, an average of
50,000 adults aged 25 to 34 left
both New York and Los Angeles
annually to non-urban areas.
But between 2010 and 2013,
right in the throes of the Great
Recession, fewer than 23,000
young adults left New York annu-
ally, and only 12,000 left Los
Angeles. The theory went, mil-
lennials stayed because they
loved the city.
But mounting evidence sug-
gests they were forced to remain
in the cities because of debt.
In 2016, financial website The
College Investor estimated that
millennials had a positive net
worth of $20,236 in 2003. In
2016, it was negative $33,984.
One of the largest reasons for
this is education. In 2016, the
average student loan debt was
$37,172, according to the same
report. In 2003, it was only
$18,271.
With the mounting debt of col-
lege and the high unemployment
of the Great Recession, the cohort
couldn’t risk moving to a smaller
community and losing their jobs.
“I’m scared,” said one woman
in the WSJ article who wanted to
leave New York for Louisiana.
“There aren’t jobs (in my field) in
New Orleans. If there are, they’re
already taken.”
Lokic echoed that sentiment
when he talked about his own
niche profession.
“Even in a community like
Eugene, if you’re focused on city
planning like most of my friends
are, there’s just a limited amount
of organizations that are going to
provide that type of work,” he
said. “There’s the City of
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