What Gen Z Wants Anna to Build Next

Every conversation about Anna’s future happens in rooms my generation is not in. The planning meetings, the council sessions, the developer pitches — they are mostly attended by people who will not be here in 2060, deciding the shape of a town those of us who are teenagers now will actually live in. So consider this the wish list from the group that has the most at stake and the least say. Unfiltered, and more reasonable than you might expect.

Number one, by a mile: third places. Not home, not school, but somewhere to just be. Older generations had malls and diners; we have parking lots and each other’s living rooms until someone’s parents get tired of us. A growing town keeps building rooftops and roads, but a place with nowhere for young people to gather is a place young people leave the second they can. Give us a coffee shop that does not mind us staying, a walkable little district, a rec space, a skate spot, a public square with actual life in it. We are not asking for a theme park. We are asking for somewhere to exist.

Make it possible to get around without a car

The second thing sounds boring and is actually everything: getting around. Right now, being sixteen in a spread-out suburb means total dependence on an adult with a car for every single thing you want to do. Sidewalks that connect to somewhere, bike lanes that are not terrifying, trails that link neighborhoods to the places worth going — this is freedom for the people too young to drive and independence for the ones too old to. A town you can move through on your own power is a town young people can have a life in.

Third: reasons to build a future here, not just visit on holidays. My generation is being quietly sorted into two groups — the ones who will leave for opportunity and treat Anna as the place their parents live, and the ones who could actually build careers and families here. Which group grows depends on what the town builds now: real jobs beyond entry-level retail, support for young entrepreneurs and creators, maybe eventually reasons for employers to plant offices here instead of assuming everyone commutes out. We want to be able to choose Anna. Right now, for a lot of us, it does not feel like a real choice.

Let us actually participate

And fourth, the meta-ask: let us in the room. Not as a photo op, but for real. A youth council with actual input. Internships inside local government and businesses. Ways for a seventeen-year-old to weigh in on the parks, the events, the digital tools that are supposedly being built for our generation. We are the most connected, most informed generation of teenagers in history, and we are ready to contribute a lot more than the adults assume — if anyone bothers to ask.

I want to be fair, because cynicism is easy and I am trying not to be lazy about this. A lot of what we want is already pointed in the right direction. The trails are multiplying. The mixed-use developments promise exactly the walkable gathering spaces we are begging for. A platform like this one is, weirdly, one of the more real attempts to give young residents a voice and a stake. The trajectory is not the problem. The pace, and who gets consulted about it, is.

So here is the deal from Gen Z to the town we are going to inherit. Build the third places, make it possible to get around without begging for a ride, create reasons to build a future here, and put a few of us in the rooms where the decisions happen. Do that, and you will not have to worry about young people leaving Anna. We will be too busy building it. We are not asking for a different town. We are asking to be a real part of this one.