Forum demographics

How old are you?

  • Under 18

    Votes: 1 1.6%

  • 18-29

    Votes: 22 36.1%

  • 30-39

    Votes: 23 37.7%

  • 40-49

    Votes: 9 14.8%

  • 50-59

    Votes: 3 4.9%

  • 60-69

    Votes: 1 1.6%

  • 70 plus

    Votes: 2 3.3%
  • Total voters
    61
Jouhou

Jouhou

Active Member
Joined
Nov 3, 2015
Messages
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I've been curious about the backgrounds of the people on this forum. Age/generations has come up occasionally in here and I sometimes wonder how many of us are just hobbyists in here and how many actually work in industries related to the subjects of this forum (construction/transportation etc)

Would you guys mind sharing a little info about yourselves such as age and industry you work in?

I'm 32, female, work in government/defense and I've always had an interest in Architecture, studied it and dropped out of college a second time (first time I studied international affairs). I became more interested in general urbanism as time progressed. I ended up registering here because my Google searches kept bringing me here and I think I initially came in here from a link on airliners.net.
 
I'm 27, male, work in finance with an economic background and looking towards more of a urban policy career (hopefully) with a focus on research, data analyst, and data scientist role. Was on track to be an architect but found out you don't get paid enough for the amount of effort you put in day in and day out. I came from the skyscraperguy forum way back when I was 13.
 
I'm 22, male, I am going to school for social work. Initially I had been a city planning major but I found it wasn't what I wanted to do for a job when I looked into it more. I joined here in 2012 after about a year of checking out the site occasionally.
 
I'm 21, male, going to school for accounting (nothing to do with urban planning but I do find this stuff interesting).
 
I'm 38 years old with a Master's in Diplomacy. I work as an English lecturer at a college in a suburb of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and I live in a nearby suburb as well. I'm originally from Billerica, MA and I started going to the online forum city-data.com around 2009 or so. From there, I somehow found archboston because I wanted to find out about development in and around Boston. By no stretch of the imagination am I an expert in development and architecture, but I can honestly say I've learned so much since I started coming to this site. Aside from learning about architecture and development, this site provides me with a way to connect to my "homeland" like no other site can. If I visit home once a year, I always set aside one or two days where I run around town looking at the progress of the different buildings under construction. In a way, archboston helps keep my homesickness at bay.
 
I'm 43, male, a city postal carrier in Sanford, Maine and a retired U.S. Army combat veteran. I have always had a strong interest in buildings, especially in our local area. I may be considered a Portland forumer, but I still browse and comment daily in the Boston and Cambridge forums. I contribute building info to Emporis, CTBUH and Wikipedia on my free time.
 
I'm 34, male, and I have a PhD in electrical engineering. I grew up in Florida and then fell in love with New York in my 20's, but I never got a job there and ended up in Boston. Been here 8 years now and I'm happy to call this place home. My fascination with urbanism started with me wondering why some of the things I liked so much about New York didn't work the same in Boston. I'm a big advocate for car-light or car-free living and that generally leads me to support mixed-use development, higher population density, and transit of all kinds. I try to engage somewhat in Cambridge municipal government (public hearings, etc), but it can be hard to squeeze in with the rest of life. I write more emails these days than attending meetings.

I'm also an avid homebrewer, hiker, and a lousy, but dedicated skier.
 
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25-year-old male with a BS in both Economics and Government (with Political Science focus). I work as a Train Dispatcher for the MBTA commuter rail and have had jobs in transportation since before I even finished college. I have always -- since I was a kid -- been fascinated by maps, transportation, and urban planning type fields. Sim City 4 is what really got me into the whole urban planning side of things, plus my already discovered interest in infrastructure/transportation. I grew up just a few minutes north of downtown -- in Malden, Everett, Melrose, Saugus, and now Revere -- and always enjoyed coming into the city and the whole transportation network. Somewhere around senior year of high school and freshmen year of college I found this site (probably searching for MBTA and highway topics originally). This site has helped me to become both informed and directly involved in local and state politics and discourse relating to zoning, planning, and transportation. I've found urban development/economic development and transportation to be more fulfilling facets of life than politics, which I was fully repulsed by when I finally attained my degrees and had already found myself in the transportation sector.
 
31/m/ma

I have B.S. in Business Administration from U of Southern Maine. I currently work in PR/Comms. in state government and absolutely love it. For a long time (and i mean that- I took the circuitous route to my degree) I was sure I wanted to get into architecture or urban planning. I didn't fall in love with Business Administration, but it was the quickest route to a degree come decision time, and that's the path I took.

I'm still a big fan of urbanism, transit, and planning and not ruling out eventually getting into that field.
 
35yrs, male, work as a management consultant. Used to live in Eastie (and like 6 other places in Boston / Cambridge before that, and I spent a few years in my 20s as a bit of a 'global nomad' if you'll pardon the precious phrase) moved to Essex MA over the summer. Have always had a passion for architecture and urbanism.
 
35/male, BS/MS mechanical engineering, spent 10+ years in aerospace eng., the later portion of which was in aircraft support systems, aircraft capital projects / hangars/ground test systems...and now, 3+ years teaching engineering project management to senior undergrad engineering majors @ eng. school. I live in Brighton...previously Somerville.
 
I'm a 33 year old male with a master's degree in wetland, watershed and ecosystem science. I'm a wetland ecologist and work for the government, where I'm focused on restoration of aquatic ecosystems.

I've always had a love of architecture and urban planning. In high school, I worked with my older cousin (who has a small firm in East Boston) on the weekends, and had intended to pursue architecture in college. However, my pursuits changed when we had career night at my high school. The speaker at the architecture session (who was in his late 20's at the time) came in completely stoned. He walked in, put his bag down, turned to the students and said something along the lines of "if you want to stay up all night making miniature models, and spend your days kissing the asses of your clients while your boss sucks the life out of you, then architecture is for you" (no joke). We then sat in silence for the remaining 20 minutes of the session. Well being the super-impressionable and clearly naive teenager that I was, I decided that wasn't what I wanted, and went to school for environmental science instead. It ended up being a great decision, but I still wonder if I would have enjoyed architecture had I pursued it. Thankfully, I still get to enjoy it.
 
Money said:
I'm a 33 year old male with a master's degree in wetland, watershed and ecosystem science. I'm a wetland ecologist and work for the government, where I'm focused on restoration of aquatic ecosystems.

I've always had a love of architecture and urban planning. In high school, I worked with my older cousin (who has a small firm in East Boston) on the weekends, and had intended to pursue architecture in college. However, my pursuits changed when we had career night at my high school. The speaker at the architecture session (who was in his late 20's at the time) came in completely stoned. He walked in, put his bag down, turned to the students and said something along the lines of "if you want to stay up all night making miniature models, and spend your days kissing the asses of your clients while your boss sucks the life out of you, then architecture is for you" (no joke). We then sat in silence for the remaining 20 minutes of the session. Well being the super-impressionable and clearly naive teenager that I was, I decided that wasn't what I wanted, and went to school for environmental science instead. It ended up being a great decision, but I still wonder if I would have enjoyed architecture had I pursued it. Thankfully, I still get to enjoy it.
Click to expand...

Several years ago I took an environmental science class through work for freebie college credit, it ended up further solidifying my pro-urban position.

My final project was on how the automobile industry and oil industry hijacked the idea of the "American dream" to change it from an idea of social and economic mobility to one of owning a house in the suburbs with two vehicles parked in your garage and a house full of useless junk you don't need. I interviewed a PhD who had passionately researched this subject and learned a lot about it myself ( I had previously interviewed her for my final project in an architecture class on LEED design which worked out well... the teacher wanted to use the presentation I made for future classes he taught)

So in a whole lot of words, I'm saying I can see a strong relationship between environmental science and a passionate interest in urbanism.

Also thanks for sharing guys, I like that we are so diverse... and that I'm not the only one who is stuck working in a field that I'm not particularly passionate about but gets the bills paid.
 
Middle-aged, freelance repairman by night, specializing in plumbing and HVAC systems. I was originally employed by Central Services, but I couldn't stand all the paperwork. My departure and subsequent entrepreneurial ventures have been somewhat controversial, to say the least.
 
I'm somewhat surprised at how young these numbers skew! Anyway, at 46 I don't usually feel old, but looks like I am for this group. By profession, I am a corporate controller, I believe I found Archboston by following a link from Universalhub.

I lurked for many years, then registered, but still mostly lurk. I am a tremendous fan of all things urban and thoroughly embrace urban life. This extends beyond the built environment to civic institutions, informal networks of people (made possible by density). urban transportation, etc. I came to Boston for school, fell in love, and have now been here for almost 30 years. I am a proud parent of three BPS kids, and am thoroughly excited to see them grow in to thoughtful citizens likewise enamored with the city.

[Now back to lurking mode]
 
^ I'm with you, Harry. I'm on cruise-control toward the half-century mark. Educated as a writer and filmmaker. Dropped out of grad school to enter the workforce when my interest and faith in my own creativity flagged. The rest is a lot less interesting than anything I'd have ever written. And yet I've found a kind of serenity in the way I face the wider world.

My deep interest in architecture and urbanism walks back to Legos and this book (which I still love). I discovered Wright and Organic Architecture in my teens, Jane Jacobs and Hard Modernism in my twenties, and started traveling and really experiencing new built environments in my thirties. My favorite vacation spot is a city I've never visited.

Other interests include hearing live music, distilled spirits, and a good argument.
 
Archibald "Harry" Tuttle said:
Middle-aged, freelance repairman by night, specializing in plumbing and HVAC systems. I was originally employed by Central Services, but I couldn't stand all the paperwork. My departure and subsequent entrepreneurial ventures have been somewhat controversial, to say the least.
Click to expand...

Hahhahahhahaha

Dude, I love that movie so much, first time I saw it I actually teared up because it reminded me so much of my job.
 
Another middle age member here, I'm 46, moved to Boston from Nebraska in 1993. Over the years I've lived in Beacon Hill, North End, Charlestown, Roslindale and now with the family in the suburbs. Although I'm a lawyer, my undergrad degree was Geography and I took as many urban planning classes as possible during college.

Big shout out to Briv who I think started archboston.org. This site is a great resource. In the "olden days" I used to regularly drop in at the Kirstein Business Library near Pi alley to pour over the Banker and Tradesmen newspapers to get my fill of development news etc.
 
25, male, did my BS in Mechanical Engineering and have been employed as such for the past 2 1/2 years. Longtime train geek; but over the past several years have become much more interested in broader transportation issues along with urbanism and city planning, much to the credit of this board. While I was still in undergrad I followed rail and transit developments as more of a hobby, but recently I've come around to see transportation as where I want to put my professional energy going forward. With that in mind, I'm working on going back to school for a combination of Transportation Engineering & City Planning - which I guess means I might need a new username.
 
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