A wild card that may effect housing type and size is the impending retirement of the Baby Boom generation. The US population age 55 and over will increase from 21% of the population in 1995 to over 29% in 2020. These "empty nesters" may choose to downsize their housing and opt for more locational convenience. Fannie Mae explored the future housing preferences of Baby Boomers in its 1998 Survey. A majority, 53%, said they will remain in their current house, either as is or with renovations, while 35 % indicated that they would sell, and either buy or rent a new house. The survey did not probe whether the size of the new house had been considered in retirement plans.
Self-Selection in Residential Choice
A factor related to travel behavior and housing type preference is the propensity for self-selection in choice of residence location, i.e., people who are the most likely to use transit choose to live near transit stations. Self selection, to the extent it occurs, will mask the magnitude of transit’s true impact on travel behavior. Crane (1998) points out that empirical studies that compare the travel behavior of people who live in one kind of neighborhood with people who live in another ignore this data bias. To analyze the self-selection problem, Boarnet and Sarmiento (1998), using econometric analysis, modeLED both the choice of where people live and how they choose to travel to nonwork activities. They could find no influence of land use on travel in their Southern California sample when controlling for self selection. Dueker (1999) points to the possible importance of self-selection in assessing the ridership numbers for a new light rail system in Portland, but suggests that more data are required to isolate the strength of this factor.
Government Policies
Several metro areas have actively worke
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