By Geoffrey GodbeyRecreation, Park and Tourism ManagementPenn State Universityg7g@psu.edu

NASBLA Stakeholders' Forum "Changing Face and Pace of Recreation & Recreational Boating"

These people will live, disproportionately, within 100 miles of the shoreline of the East and West coasts.

The US population will continue to increase, reaching 350million or more in the next 25 years

More People

That’s the Good News

More Diverse People

The population will be more diverse by ethnic status,living arrangements, political and religious beliefs,and economic status.

A higher percentage of non-white people will livewithin close proximity to the coastlines, Gulf of Mexicoand Great Lakes

White 76% 50%

Black 12% 15%

Hispanic 9% 21%

Asian/other 3% 14%

2000 2050

Distribution of Diversity Uneven

In 1995, 74 percent of the Nation's Hispanics resided in five States.California, with 9 million, had the largest share of the Nation's Hispanic population followed by Texas, New York, Florida, andIllinois.

California's Hispanic population will more than double over the projection period (21 million and represents 36 percent of the total Hispanic population in 2025).

More Diverse Households

The relationships of those living in the same householdwill become more diverse

More blended families

More unrelated people living in a household

More gay and lesbian families

More interracial households

Fewer married couples with children

Smaller Households

Average U.S. household has 2.6 people in it. Almost one-quarter of the households have only one person in them.

Average American lives in almost 700 sq. feet of space per person,the highest it has ever been

Prolonged adolescence

Deferred retirement

People are becoming “adults” at later ages--25--30 years old. They are financially independent later, marry later, and act like children longer

The move toward earlier retirement has been reversed. Many people lost their shirt in the recent market crash and scandals. Others now prefer to work, often retiring from one job but taking another

A Revolution in Women’s RolesThere is cultural lag in Americans’ perception of the educational attainment and achievements of girls and boys. While the feeling persists that girls are ignored in public school, remain passive, have low self esteem, etc., girls are far higher achievers in public schools than boys and they are more likely to go to college. According to the U.S. Department of Education, girls get better grades in public schools, are slightly more likely to enroll in higher level math and science courses and outnumber boys in student government, honor societies, school newspapers and debating teams (Sommers, 2000).

Girls read more books than boys, outperform them on tests for artistic and musical ability, and are morelikely to study abroad. Boys are more likely to be suspended from school, held back, drop out, or be involved in crime, alcohol or drugs. Boys are more than three times more likely to receive a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. While girls are more likely to attempt suicide, boys are more likely to succeed in killing themselves by a ratio of more than five to one.

In 1996 there were 8.4 million women but only 6.7 million men enrolled in college and the projections are that by 2007, women will outnumber men in college even more substantially—9.2 million women and 6.9 million men (Sommers, 2000, p. 29).

Nucleated cities emerged in the nineteenth century where industrialization occurred. They had a well defined commercial area, known as downtown, Industry was lined up along the railroad tracks and residential areas were arrayed around the edges and segregated along lines of income, ethnicity and race. (Lewis, 1995).

The Increase in Galactic Cities

These cities were replaced by emerging “galactic” cities, as the automobile became the primary means of transport. Rather than think of this as urban sprawl, Lewis (1995) contends this is a new kind of city.

CharacteristicsInternal transportation system made up of interstate and limited access highways.

A considerable degree of internal commercial clustering, usually at the intersections of main arterial highways.

An industrial clustering that is no longer based on manufacturing but more on high tech and services or clean industry. Industrial parks.

Residential areas that are highly consumptive of space. Single houses with lawns and garages.

Galactic cities help ensure that travel by automobile dominates.

Increasing Transportation Gridlock

There are now more cars and personal trucks than People in the U.S.

The automobile will continue to prevail as the dominant transportation form for many reasons. It allows the greatest customization of travel schedules, it is the most heavily subsidized form of travel by government, it provides privacy, it is more comfortable than mass transit, and it is the only means for negotiating the centerless galactic cities which have emerged as the dominant form of urbanism in the U.S. While light rail will make some gains, the investment costs to develop magnetic levitation or other high speed train systems is immense and start up time is more than a decade at best.

The poor are getting poorer and the rich much richer. The percentage of people in the middle class has dropped rapidly.

While one-quarter of the U.S. public now has a college degree,the “spread” of educational attainment is increasing.

Increasing Differentiation in Education, Income, Knowledge and Values

Changes in technology have revolutionized work in ways

that are revolutionizing the rest of life,

customizing every individual’s life in the process.

The mass customization

of work

When the factory system standardized work in Europe and

North America, which was done outside the home in big

ugly buildings, public education followed suit. The factory

approach to public education resulted in standardized buildings,

standardized curricula, standardized textbooks, teacher

qualifications, and standardized notions of the truth.

Leisure became more standardized too, from bowling alleys to shopping malls to TV shows, which were watched by over half the households in a country.

Work is going through a revolution, changing the rest of life.

The notion that a “job” is a fixed bundle of tasks is disappearing

(Bridges, 1994). “Jobs” are moving targets, demanding

continuous learning and change on the part of the worker.

More people work part-time, work at home, have no

designated place to work, or combine work with college,

raising children, or retirement. Workers who work during

daylight hours on weekdays may become the minority.

The largest employer in the U.S. is Manpower Incorporated. Itis estimated almost 1/2 of U.S. workers may becomecontingent workers by 2005.

Small Parcels of Free Time

While Americans average 35-40 hours of free timea week, the majority of those hours come on weekdays in small chunks of time--an hour here, and hour and a half there.

The Experience Economy

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

While part of the new economy may be described asa “knowledge” economy, another increasingly important part of the new economy is the offering of memorable experiences.

When a person buys a service, he purchases a set of intangible activities carried out on his behalf. But when he buys an experience, he pays to spend time enjoying a series of memorable events that a company stages—as in a theatrical play—to engage him in a personal way.(Pine and Gilmore, 1999, p. 2)

Such experiences are as distinct from services asservices are from products.

Experiences are not synonymous with entertainment but rather with engaging the guest.

While many experiences are entertainment, experiences may also be educational,escapist or esthetic in nature.

As the experience economy grows, many managers of leisure and tourism sites will find that the issue will be less of managing people and natural resources than of managing “meaning.”

http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/trends

See this website for further information about boating and demographic change

Boating Trends & the Significance of Demographic Change by Gary T. Green, Ken Cordell, and Becky Stephens