Research shows that interest in community gardening has been increasing in recent years.
This article on the World Economic Forum* website suggests that community gardens add to habitat and biodiversity, which may simply mean that they offer more opportunities for raccoons and woodchucks to steal your produce.
*there’s got to be a sinister motive for the WEF to be promoting community gardens, or at least the crankosphere would think so. Can’t figure out what it is - unless it’s part of the drive for 15-minute cities.
Most forms of sport aviation are declining worldwide. (Exceptions seems to be sport parachuting and paragliding.) My favorite - soaring (flying these things) - is definitely included.
Cost is frequently cited as an important reason, but flying has always been expensive and it’s not clear that the relative cost has changed much.
I think one of the reasons fewer young people are showing up is the increasing quality of “virtual competition”: At age 15, you could solo a glider by hanging around a glider club all summer - or you could be flying an F-16 through the Grand Canyon tomorrow afternoon using Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Plastic modeler and off-and-on model railroader here. Part of the problem with the former is that kit prices are through the roof. Current price on a TOS Enterprise is about 40$. I think that maybe it cost two when I was a youngster. There’s no way someone will build a decent model first time out so 40$ is a lot more expensive a lesson than two was. Like the comedian lamenting the loss of the circuit said “There’s no place to be bad anymore.”
With trains, I think Lionel stuck with ‘40s technology through the ‘80 so repairs were something either cheap or DIY. Now all the bells and whistles take circuit boards and getting parts for something even a few years old is becoming problematic.
I still have my basic Captains Edition and downloaded the Silver Anniversary rulebook from their website, and have an active interest in re-learning how to play . . . it’s just finding anyone near here that does! I’ve been getting on with the computer version of Starfleet Command, but it just isn’t the same. I do drive by ADB’s headquarters in a nostalgic tribute when I’m in Texas though
Oh, I am all over the current BattleTech scene, again, with the desktop-baed versions. Between Hare Brained Scheme’s 2018 release, and the open-source MegaMek, I’ve got plenty of sci-fi to keep me going.
But this is all at the expense of table-top, pencil & paper games though, with the custom painted minis I’d collected over the years. Long ago were the days when I could sit down on a saturday afternoon with a bowl of pretzels at the neighbor’s house, while he & his nine-year-old son would routinely roll a 2d6 and land head shots on me with ER PPCs to my face.
I still swear those dice were loaded. . .
People at work keep trying to drag me into 40k & Sigmar, but they tip the scales a little too far into the ‘fantasy’ side of sci-fi for me. ‘Clanners’ don’t get a +4 modifier to their “charm” critical hit roll.
And after typing this out, I think I see your point . . . The old “historical” AH-published games may be dying out due to the customer base aging, but the tabletop mini games are holding their own by appealing to a younger crowd. I guess I either need to update my gaming repertoire, or find older players.
This also reminds me that board games are still alive and well, especially through good websites like BGG.
Tripler
Old-school table-top game nerd, and proud of it.
My parents didn’t play bridge and I only know one guy in his 70s who still does, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to kids not playing cards. When I was in university, the preferred group games being played all day were either Asshole or Euchre, with the players cycling through around their classes. I remember a triple-deck game of asshole that had 15+ players at one point.
My kid says his age group still plays Go Fish, but also games called Spit (2 player), Pablo (4 player), Popcorn (4-6 players). I’ve never heard of them.
In terms of gardening there are two basic reasons people do it: as a hobby they enjoy and as a way to cut food expenditures. I think there has been a major decline in the number of people gardening to cut food expenditures.
That’s the whole point of the OP. A demographic crunch is when a hobby is dominated by an aging population and there are not enough young people to replace them when they’re gone. Going out of fashion is certainly a reason a hobby might experience a demographic crunch. In fact, maybe once you distill all the answers, it all goes back to going out of fashion.
I play only online these days. COVID killed the two places we played at in person in this area.
There are younger players in other countries it seems, India & China in particular. But the American, Canadians, British and European folks seem to be almost exclusively elderly. So much so that in social online games people were confused by my having a young child, thinking that I meant young grandchild.
It was a very popular game among my contemporaries at university in Pakistan in the 1980s, but none of my classmates still play that I know of. At the time I would guess at least 90% could play, even if they played occasionally and socially. Dinner parties would often end with a few rubbers.
The only people playing at the universities in the US where I was a graduate student in the late 80s and early 90s were foreign students, but it was very popular among that community. My daughter’s university does not have a bridge club and her contemporaries seem to have no idea such a game exists.
That seems reasonable. I tend to stick with the miniature war gaming side, but over the years I’ve certainly had some anxiety over the cost of figures versus my skill level. When I was younger, I certainly couldn’t afford to buy many models let alone the paint and other tools required of the hobby.
Unless painting miniatures is your primary hobby, I’d steer clear of Games Workshop. I got back into it in a big way during COVID, but I haven’t played a game since 2023. It’s less of a game and more of a pageant to show off your painted miniatures. I find playing the game just isn’t very fun and I’m getting ready to divest myself of a lot of Warhammer models.
@3AxisCtrl wrote: “flying has always been expensive and it’s not clear that the relative cost has changed much.“
I replied with my anecdote. To do the math (perhaps poorly), the cost of a PPL has gone up 500% but general inflation has gone up 138%. So from my anecdote of my cost and my guess as to the current cost, it would seem the relative cost has changed a good deal.
I didn’t know that Logees has a greenhouse to visit! They have a wonderful online selection and I’ve ordered stuff from them, as a gift, since I love plants myself but can’t keep them alive. I’ll have to plan a trip for the next time I’m in the area, thanks @Jackmannii for mentioning it.
My neighbor is very into gardening, her mom is always visiting gardening with her, and they’ve gotten her little kid into the hobby as well.
And one dying hobby is shortwave radio, (not ham radio) killed by satellite and internet technology. It was big in the 60s and 70s among hobbyists trying to pick up faraway signals, but most of the flagship stations don’t broadcast any more, like Radio Canada International which took down its transmitters in New Brunswick.
To my surprise I see that Wikipedia says shortwave listening is still alive?
Yipes. Googling suggest that a C-150 wet typically goes for $100 - $150 per hour. I have a friend in a flying club (Houston area, I believe) who says the rate is $90 / hr. And this site says the inflation factor from 1987 to today is around 2.9.
FYI my club charges $88/hour wet for our 172, and $117/hour wet for our 182. Though there are also monthly dues and quarterly assessments (and a joining fee)
When I started (1996) our 150 was $20/hour (we sold that when we didn’t have enough members to justify 3 planes). We were down to 12? at one point but back up to ~30 members. I’d say they skew older, though we have had some college age members.
Brian
wet in this case means rental includes fuel and oil
Another ham radio operator here. I’m not particular active these days in terms of transmitting but haven’t completely given it up. These last few weekends I’ve resurrected my interest a little by making sure my wire antenna between some trees is still in working condition.
Rather than ham radio specifically I’ve been having fun listening around on a wide range of frequencies with a little software defined radio ( Airspy HF+ Discovery - AIRSPY ). With that it’s obvious that shortwave listening is nothing like it used to be but there’s still interesting stuff including some pirate stations I heard last night.
I’m generalizing of course but ham demographics definitely skew towards older white men. In the coming years it is going to become more difficult to justify the frequency allocations that hams have.
shows that interest in community gardening has been increasing in recent years.
