CNN reports:
Recent market research indicates that up to 40 percent of
households surveyed in selected metropolitan areas want to live in
walkable urban areas, said Leinberger. The desire is also substantiated
by real estate prices for urban residential space, which are 40 to 200
percent higher than in traditional suburban neighborhoods — this price
variation can be found both in cities and small communities equipped
with walkable infrastructure, he said. The result is an
oversupply of depreciating suburban housing and a pent-up demand for
walkable urban space, which is unlikely to be met for a number of
years.
We are at the inflection point of a significant change in urban structure both within regions (that is city to suburb) and between them (the globalization of the city-system).
Your thoughts?
June 19th, 2008 at 11:28 am
That’s a heck of a sample set there, very representative…
Regardless, it’s more interesting to watch actual sales trends vice what people say they *may* do. Well known that people tend answer surveys with what they think the questioner wants to hear.
I’m more intrigued by what happens when (if?) people start moving to more urban areas, and the prices then actually rise. Won’t we hit an equilibrium where it becomes more feasible to live in the suburbs due to prices? Will we return to the Industrial periods living set up, where the rich live in the suburbs and the poor and huddled masses live in the cities?
Denser populations are also going to have horrible effects on already underperforming urban infrastructure (though maybe a major US city will get a Wal-Mart). If the move to the cities does play out, we’re probably 3-5 years too late to start major upgrade programs.
This theorized living shift also has major implications for safety/security.
June 19th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
How long will it take for developers to pick up on this? Especially developers who own a lot of farmland. Our local developers are pushing to build a new high school on the edge of town. Some people who can’t afford ‘walkable’ might settle for ‘walk-to-school’. It might allow the developers to do business as usual, at least for a little while longer.
June 19th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
The environmental group SustainLane published a book called “How Green Is Your City?” last year. In a remarkable introduction, Paul Hawken wrote about cities and resources. Here’s a long quote:
“Urban migration represents a kind of collective wisdom, and how we configure our cities will be critical to our survival. Regardless of the myths about living close to the land, cities are where human beings have the lowest ecological footprint. It takes less energy, wood, material, and food to provide a good life for a person in a city than in the country. Rather than perceive the city as an ecological sink sucking up the resources of the countryside, which cities can be, cities can also be a kind of ecological ark, places where humanity gathers while we peak in population and develop ecological intelligence for a new civilization. There is a wisdom in this that is rather extraordinary. It was not predicted that cities might be the best strategy for our long-term survival and well-being. Yet that is exactly what is happening.”
Of course by cities he’s talking about metro areas, not city limits. We’re going to have to figure out how to use those already built suburbs well. But the key point is that HOW we build and use our cities is vital to our long-term survival — not only in North America and Europe, but maybe even more in developing counties where people are flocking to urban areas. Benefits include the economies of scale of mass transit and infrastructure like utilities; the saved farmland that’s not built over; the health and social benefits of people walking rather than driving. Not to mention the creativity that comes from people working in close proximity.
June 19th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Many U.S. city centers are composed of commercial development and low income residential, what happens to these people with the new densification ? Also as the cost of inner city living rises, the amount of personal space that any individual or family can afford decreases, might that lead to a search for more personal space at lower cost ? If lifestyle is placed as the goal rather than work, the emphasis is different. Living in the dense inner city is fine for singles and couples, but I have always thought that the American way of suburban and exurban living offers families the best quality of life in the world dollar for dollar. Our problem is basing this way of living on oil as a primary source of energy. The real project is to restructure how energy is obtained and used within our existing metro areas.
June 19th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Low income people are being forced out of cities by gentrification in most creative class cities, and they’re ending up in suburbs with much more expensive transportation and other costs. One major source of the problem has been the federal disinvestment in low income housing that started in the 1980’s, which has been a factor in both the housing bubble and homelessness. This is also part of the solution, government re-investment in housing. If it doesn’t happen, we’re headed for major disruption.
One of Jane Jacobs many insights was that overcrowding is not measured by the number of people per square mile, but the number of people per room. Density is a problem if people lack personal space, otherwise generally not.
We differ on family quality of life, but part of America’s promise is people can choose. I’d rather (and did) raise children in a city where they can take a bus to the library or museum and walk to a park.
June 19th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
In Chicago, many empty-nesters traded in their suburban homes for condos and lofts in the city. Some of them even wound up near the west side neighborhoods where they grew up.
As Michael Wells noted, those lower on the economic scale are being pushed out and forced to deal with long commutes and rising fuel prices. It would be interesting if economic profiles of Chicagoland or metro Portland, Oregon start to look like Paris, with the lower classes pushed out to the “bainlieues”.
Last weekend in Washington, DC Police erected Baghdad-style checkpoints around a high crime urban neighborhood. “So much for the city!”, some would say. But in suburban Chicago, a similar incident happened in Rolling Meadows. (see link to CBS 2/WBBM piece in my by-line)
June 19th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
The caption for the picture in the CNN.com article says: “Suburban neighborhoods are becoming refuges for those outpriced in gentrifying inner-cities.” If that’s the case, why does the picture show for sale signs in front of two suburban homes in that particular neighborhood? In other words, why are there so many suburban homes up for sale if people are being gentrified out of cities? Where are these people going?
There’s a tremendous amount of data and passionate discussion that says people now prefer urban to other modes of living and that suburbs are excluded from this trend. I agree that living in an urban area is preferable, but don’t think suburbs will be excluded. So far, cities with large urban cores don’t seem to have anticipated population growth. San Francisco’s population declined 30,000 from 2000 – 2006. San Francisco is just one instance, other cities have grown. But as I’ve mentioned before, the population of the United States is getting bigger. If suburbs aren’t going to play a role in this trend, cities should be preparing for rapid urbanization and population growth, but where’s the report that says “now, more people prefer to live in cities, AND recent trends show cities are preparing for more urbanization and population growth?” I’m not saying a report like that doesn’t exist, I just haven’t seen it yet.
Also, I would like to point this out. Arthur C. Nelson, director of Virginia Tech’s Metropolitan Institute, is quoted in the story as saying, “”What is going to happen is lower and lower-middle income families squeezed out of downtown and glamorous suburban locations are going to be pushed economically into these McMansions at the suburban fringe. There will probably be 10 people living in one house.”
Having 10 people live in one house, in most cases, is against city code. There are exceptions if everyone living in the house is family, but new city codes could be passed to prevent this from happening.
June 19th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Actually, my aunt in Salinas complains about “immigrant” families buying those big houses and 2-3 families living in them. People from cultures where extended families often live together are doing this in Oregon, and I expect other places. All of them aren’t low income, they just are comfortable with lots of family in one house. I think some builders are catching on and building houses with separate living areas at the ends and common space and kitchens in the middle. But some of the existing McMansions will probably be adapted.
And while Whitney’s right, city codes could also be passed to encourage large groups living together in the suburbs. It depends on what the cities want to encourage or discourage.
June 20th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Cities and neighborhoods go through cycles reflecting the economy and demographics. Northwest Portland where I live originally had many big large family houses built before 1930. Then during the Depression and WWII many of them were divided into boarding houses, with a sink in every bedroom. During the 50’s it became working class families and stayed that way until the mid 1980’s, when it started becoming creative class (Yuppies in the term of the day). By the late ’90’s the transformation was complete and NW 23rd, formerly a neighborhood street had become a boutique shopping destination. This too will pass, we just don’t know when.
The little hillside neighborhood I live in, Willamette Heights, was built for upper class business owners (with its own streetcar line) in the 1920’s. Then in the 1960’s because a freeway was expected to be built adjacent, the prices dropped and lots of artists and academics bought in. When I moved here for the first time in 1972, over half of the houses on my street were communes. They’re now all single family, although many of the artists have remained which sets the flavor of the neighborhood. But prices are going high enough that we’re seeing the upper end of the creative class (NIKE vice presidents) moving in and we joke about worrying that there will be Republicans. During the two times I’ve lived in the neighborhood, I’ve seen four generations of young children and there’s always a good age spread. Only one Black family but several Asians, and several Gay couples (one that’s been here for probably 40 years).
The neighborhood is probably less then 2 miles from downtown and is now definitely in the city, but when it was built it was a suburb.
June 20th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
OVERSUPPLY = …start your hybrid bulldozer engines!!!
June 21st, 2008 at 4:00 pm
What an interesting community development concept. If suburban abandonment does turn out to be a wide-spread problem like CNN.com and others suggest, cities could change zoning codes to allow more people to live in suburban houses, while maintaining strict upkeep guidelines. With more population density, this would provide incentive for public transport and more retail diversity. This idea could be a valueable addition to start-up companies like the one pasted below:
http://www.gobignetwork.com/profiles/Hayden-Fisher.aspx
June 23rd, 2008 at 2:01 am
Are people really abandoning the suburbs? This article on new urban demographics suggests that people are moving to the suburbs because they are compelled to. It has over six hundred followup comments !
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/22/MNJJ10NPSK.DTL