Ah the delightful season of autumn. The sunshine turns golden, and young single people hurry off every morning to spend their days learning a profession and completing assignments, then fill their evenings with bars, concerts and shows. It’s a lively, stimulating scene, and it’s hard to imagine that it will ever end.

Yes, downtown Des Moines is doing everything it can to extend adolescence as long as possible.

Our offices are in the old Rock Island Railroad depot, and our neighborhood has changed from a collection of parking lots and worn-out buildings into a hangout for young adults. Warehouses have turned into residences, nightspots have opened; even the Science Center of Iowa resembles something you would see at college, but with mostly shorter students.

I’ll never know, but it’s likely that the apartment-dwellers around here are creating a cool late-night vibe that reminds them of the good old days on campus. One step out the door and it’s a world full of people to meet and drinking to be done.

With a few more backpacks, even in the daylight it would feel like the campus of a major university. Tattoos are still required, but you get to skip Physics 101.

So maybe that was the master plan. City leaders have been saying for years that they want to lure more people downtown to live. People like me have always said, “Why would you want to live downtown, when trees and lawns are just minutes away?”

Finally, the light came on. They weren’t looking for people like me. Dutiful people who sharpen lawn mower blades. Dull people who check the rain gauge.

They were looking for people who like to have fun. And by “have fun,” I mean “spend money.”

Our crop of young workers may not actually have much cash on hand; the Ames Tribune recently reported that three-quarters of college students in Iowa who graduated in 2008 were in debt, and the average amount was about $28,000. And yet they have financial clout, because nothing in their upbringing ever suggested that being broke should lead to sacrifice.

Maybe these young debtors are growing their own potatoes, but I doubt it.

Most of the young adults I’ve known have no fear of buying new or near-new cars, lots of electronic gear and plenty of alcohol and food at retail establishments. And that is exactly what we’re looking for, especially that last part, to create an interesting downtown.

I hope it works out for the youngsters. Enjoying life instead of worrying about the future makes sense only if we forget that the 20th century ever happened, but I think they can do that.

So if you want to keep your college years going, please do move downtown. We need money to pay off all of these big ideas, and we’re hoping to see those bars and restaurants full every night. We want you to put off the day when you start to think, “Eight bucks for lunch and 12 for dinner? Wait, if you multiply that times 250 workdays …”

Seriously, have a good time. Responsibility is just something you end up with, like jury duty or bad eyesight.

These new apartments look better than dormitories, especially compared with some of the places we older folks have occupied. The new office buildings where you work are better than the classroom buildings we remember. With their cafeterias and other amenities, the corporate campuses are almost as nice as what you had at college.

So pretend the Polk County Courthouse is the administration building, and the Civic Center is the auditorium, and at night, after the migration from cubicle to dance floor, just imagine anyone over 30 is a professor.

The Sunday New York Times recently weighed in on “extended adolescence.” Hey, by the time the East Coast noticed the problem, we were already cashing in on it.