Where have the young people gone?

<p>Pete Golis is editorial director for The Press Democrat. E-mail him at pete.golis@pressdemocrat.com.</p><p>I talked last week to a young professional woman who is moving from Santa Rosa to Oregon. Up north, she said, the housing is more affordable, the jobs pay as well and she, her husband and family can find time to be a family.</p><p>"We love living here," she told me, "we just don't see any way of doing that without both of us working full-time."</p><p>Then I talked to a young professional man who is moving with his wife from Windsor to Sacramento.</p><p>"When we looked at our long-term future," he said, "there was no way we could afford to raise a family on the salaries we're on, which are still good. . . We love Sonoma County, but the financial outlook wasn't there for us."</p><p>In Sonoma County, these are becoming familiar stories that testify to the population shock that no one wants to talk about.</p><p>And it is happening now -- a rapid increase in the number of retirees in combination with a declining number of people in their prime working years.</p><p>This disparity is more than a statistical curiosity. It raises questions about the county's commitment to economic opportunity for the next generation, and it's a warning sign to aging baby boomers who imagine idyllic retirements in the sunny glow of Wine Country.</p><p>Question: 15 years from now, who's going to take care of you when you're sick, respond when there's an emergency, manage your favorite nonprofit and perform all the other jobs that combine to create a healthy community?</p><p>Answer: We will see. The available evidence suggests every kind of organization will find itself scrambling to find employees.</p><p>Here are the projections from the state Department of Finance: Between the year 2000 and the year 2020, the number of people over 60 years of age in Sonoma County will have increased by more than 52,000. (The number of people between 60 and 75 will more than double.) And the number of people between 30 and 60 will have declined by more than 16,000.</p><p>In part, this is a national phenomenon. Baby boomers, the biggest generation, outnumber the next generation. In similar counties, Solano and Placer, the number of people between 30 and 60 will increase, but at a slower rate then the number of people over 60.</p><p>But the change will be more dramatic in Sonoma County because of an uncomfortable truth: When it comes to young adults, this county is not a very welcoming place.</p><p>Among young people dealing with the challenges of living in Sonoma County, everyone starts with the cost of housing. Then they talk about the burdens associated with keeping up with these financial obligations -- the lack of time for personal and family life, the stresses of juggling multiple jobs, the lack of time for vacations.</p><p>Denny Rosatti, 30, and his wife, Kellie Noe, 29, moved here from western Pennsylvania, and they are determined to stay.</p><p>But he told me they are under no illusions about the sacrifices required. "It was a place that appealed to my wife and me," Rosatti said, "but we made a big choice. . . Because the cost of living is so high, I think a person is forced to work harder, to work longer, to make ends meet, especially if you want to own a house."</p><p>The couple was able to purchase a small house in Camp Meeker that cost "twice as much as we would pay for two houses" in the Pennsylvania town where they grew up.</p><p>"Don't get me wrong," Rosatti said, "we love it here, but it's definitely hard."</p><p>It's also true that baby boomers tend to dominate the political, social and culture life of Sonoma County without recognizing that they may be shutting off the opportunities available to young people.</p><p>Ask young adults involved in business or civic life if they find themselves in meetings in which they are the only person under 50, and the answer is usually the same. They laugh and say that it happens more often than not.</p><p>Most longtime residents know young adults who grew up in Sonoma County and now, for a variety of reasons, choose to live somewhere else. We miss them as family and friends, but the time is coming when baby boomers will wish they were here for other reasons as well.</p>