Chickens as a Desirability Measure

I saw an acquaintance last night who is pro-chicken. She's so pro-chicken, in fact, that she has offered to speak before City Commission when the time comes. We visited a bit about her views and she confirmed something suggested by research data*.

She said one of the reasons she is supporting a chicken ordinance is that this is something that people (she didn't say who, exactly; my guess would be her cohort which would be the younger demographic) are increasingly expecting from a community. There is an expectation that a community will have a farmer's market (check), an active transportation culture (in progress, so check) and a chicken ordinance (fingers crossed).

If you look at the research of the Millennial Generation, the next new consumer co-hort after the Baby Boomers and Gen Y's, you will see that they are socially and environmentally minded. (Cone Inc, 2006).  Couple this with the research released in April by the USDA (2013) that urban chickens are strongly supported by young people, you can connect the dots to see that a reasonable, responsible chicken ordinance would be an attractive thing to a young workforce.

Chickens are a workforce development issue.

Keep in mind that in that same USDA study, less than 2% of households actually had chickens. Chicken ownership however was supported by over 60% of the younger demographic.

Consider this scenario: a Millenial aged, educated woman is offered a job in St. Paul and a job in Pierre. Which is she going to choose? Money will probably be the first consideration. But after the money, then what? Most likely the quality of life will figure strongly into her decision. A chicken ordinance is part of that package of attributes that signals that Pierre is an open, forward thinking community that offers something for the Millennial Generation.






*We've all had the experience of hearing what the research says about a topic and having our personal experience be opposite. The reason for that is that research talks about populations and not individuals.

 The Cone 2006 Millennial Cause Study. The Millennial Generation: Prosocial and Empowered to Change the World. Cone Inc and AMP Agency.  http://www.centerforgiving.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=9cKyEls7NXg%3D&tabid=102&mid=477 Last accessed 11/24/2013.

Urban Chicken Ownership in Four U.S. Cities. April 2013. USDA. #661.0413 http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/nahms/poultry/downloads/poultry10/Poultry10_dr_Urban_Chicken_Four.pdf Last accessed June 21, 2013