16 June 13 - 19, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents tions are requested at the door, with the pro- ceeds going to fund a LGBTQIA+ community center in Denton. This event is 18+. June 28 Pride of Frankenstein 2024 8 p.m. – 2 a.m., 314 E. Hickory St., No. 121, Denton If you’re looking to celebrate Pride off the beaten path and The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of your favorite movies, then there is a Pride event for you — per- fectly dark and spooky. Pride of Franken- stein presents dark dubstep, goth, industrial and dark wave music all night long. There is also a full bar, and local artists will be selling paintings, posters and jewelry. Tickets are $7, a relative bargain for the Halloween-ob- sessed gays, theys and everyone in between. Stonewall Pride June 28, 2720 Elm St. This 18+ event at Club Dada in Deep Ellum features drag queens we know and love from around town, including MayMay Graves, Salem Moon and Barbie Davenport DuPree. It will also have live music all night by Dezi 5, Smothered, Victoria XO and Zeke Forever. Celebrate your pride in Deep Ellum, and never forget the first Pride was a riot. Tick- ets start at $20. ▼ GENERATIONS STREET SMARTS DALLAS GEN-ZERS AND YOUNG MILLENNIALS DON’T WANT TO DRIVE. BY CHARLES FARMER L uxury goods. Chain restaurants. De- partment stores. The list of industries killed by millennials and Gen-Zers is popular clickbait for legacy media, with pun- dits often blaming young people for the death of the economy. While most of the data is spurious at best (no, avocado toast is not the reason you can’t afford a house), one industry looks to be facing a true downward shift. A small but growing and vocal percent- age of the 30-and-under crowd is eschewing driving in exchange for other ways of getting around, whether it be public transportation, Uber or simply walking. But this trend isn’t just anecdotal: The number of 16-year-olds with a driver’s license has decreased by nearly 27% since the year 2000, according to data from the Department of Transportation compiled by USA Today. While the trend is most prominent for the teenage zoomers, it should be noted that teen- age millennials went through the same thing. In the 2010s, economists and journalists described almost the same phenomenon for millennials. A heavily-referenced article from the Journal of the American Planning Association dubbed millennials the “Go-No- where” generation in 2017. Erin Terry, a 30-year-old who lives in downtown Dallas, takes the train to and from work, a 12-mile journey each way. It comes out to about $6 a day. She quit driving in her early 20s after a bad car accident. “I even get anxiety in the passenger seat,” Terry says. “It’s not even the car I’m in, you can’t predict the other cars on the road.” Because of this anxiety, she’s chosen to go car-free. Terry’s anxiety isn’t unfounded in the least. Dallas is the most dangerous city in Texas for drivers, ranking sixth in the list of cities with the worst drivers in the U.S. due to the high number of fatal accidents and third- worst drivers overall, according to Forbes us- ing data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. If that wasn’t bad enough, Dallas has the third-highest number of fatal crashes involving drunk drivers. It’s not just a Dallas problem, either; Fort Worth ranks ninth on the list, with the fifth- highest number of fatal car accidents involv- ing a drunk driver. Factors like that contribute to the rise of auto insurance rates in Texas. Younger driv- ers, especially teenagers, can also cause an insurance premium to rise. Cost is the prohibitive factor for Justin Garcia, 23, of Arlington. He says the cost to save up for a car and the price of maintain- ing it have kept him from buying a vehicle. He’s not opposed to owning one in the fu- ture, but for now the cost has prevented him from owning and driving a car. Garcia primarily uses Uber, walks or rides with friends because, despite being the home of the Dallas Cowboys and the Texas Rangers, Arlington is the largest city in the U.S. without a mass transit system (meaning, no bus or rail). “There are days where I’ll walk 12–15 miles,” Garcia says, describing his walk to work and around downtown Arlington. “You don’t even really notice it after a while.” Fear of driving, or amaxophobia, is a common phobia in the U.S., with 66% of drivers experiencing anxiety behind the wheel, and an estimated 8–12% reporting a deep fear of driving. These fears are not helped by The Atlantic’s assertion that we should all be afraid of driving; we are risking our lives every day just to go to Target. Other TikTokers report they are staying away from cars to protect the environment. Regardless of the reason, lifestyles for young people are changing, and having a car isn’t the necessity or status symbol it was for boomers and Gen-X. With increases in urban living, re- mote work and the ability to run (most of) your errands from your phone, cars just aren’t as necessary as they once were. “It’s not even necessary to have a car at this time in my life,” Terry says. Hopefully, fewer drivers will translate to fewer accidents on Dallas roads. Then again, someone has to drive the Amazon trucks to make those deliveries to perpetually at- home shoppers. Koushik Pal/Unsplash Don’t be surprised to see fewer young people driving in Dallas these days. Culture from p14 SUMMER GUIDE ON STANDS JUNE 20 D SCAN HERE FOR MORE INFO
