This is true of 55% of Long Islanders between 20-34 according to a new study.
Still living with your parents at 30? According to a recent New York Times article, you aren’t alone. Apparently, 55 percent of all 20-34 year olds on Long Island still live with theirs. Steve Murphy, a 27 year old who runs his own financial planning business talks about how he feels the pressure to move out and live on his own. According to the Regional Plan Association, the 55 percent of people still living with their parents is an 11 percent jump just in the last decade.
Further Investigation into why so many people are living with their parents has uncovered multiple factors. The first major cause can be attributed to the housing crisis on Long Island. With limited available options for lower income consumers, Long Island makes it difficult for younger people to live on their own. This has a multi-tier effect; with few affordable rental options for early income earners, less people are able to work and therefore the available job market is decreasing as a result. Data also shows that few of the residents in long island live in apartments, with only 21 percent of residents in comparison to the average 37 percent in Northern Jersey.
Suggestions for improving this predicament include adding rental housing in the downtown business district. The resulting situation would be additional business for the struggling stores, without compromising the higher quality housing in the surrounding neighborhoods. Christopher Jones, the VP of research for the Regional Plan Association says that “The character doesn’t have to change. You will still have the same single-family neighborhoods that people think of when they think of Long Island. There will just be choices.” Opponents to Jones say that there is extrinsic motivation for the push for apartment housing. They argue that there are banks and building trade organizations that stand to gain from the building of new and cheaper housing.