Daily Press
Hampton will need to push for more walkable, centralized “activity centers” if it wants to attract a younger workforce and garner much needed economic and population growth in the coming decades.
That was the message to the Hampton City Council from a consultant at a work session Wednesday. The council heard a nearly two-hour presentation focused on how cities develop and grow by attracting young people — the generation known as millennials.
John Martin with the Richmond-based market research firm Southern Institute of Research, Inc., told the council that the old model of capturing big businesses and then bringing in people who want jobs doesn’t work anymore because of different values between generations.
Now, Martin said, cities which focus on developing areas where young people can work, live and play all within walking distance are the ones who will win out in the long term, as demographics shift and the workforce changes.
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