Investment in single family homes has done some serious cliff diving.

(Image via Calculated Risk).

Urban planner Scott Polikov says the old real estate development model is kaput, but developers, and banks, have been slow to realize just how dead it is:

The fundamentals of the “bedroom community” economy have collapsed. Banks have not figured out at what point they will hit the bottom of their financing crisis. The need for radically improved, sustainability-focused strategies has never been more compelling than in this time of looming home foreclosures, $4 a gallon gas, an economy in decline, and broad agreement that the earth’s fragility is not longer just the cry of the fringe.

The new development “secret” is simple but critical: not just to reject our old way of building housing units any place, but to focus early and hard on creating and strengthening whole communities.

Not so long ago, local economic development strategies revolved almost exclusively around recruiting businesses. “Quality of life” was just a buzzword used as the calling card of the local neighborhood activists. But not today! Economic development worth its salt has become firmly connected to place, and to the environment. The quality of life of our neighborhoods, our cities and our regions has now become a bottom-line factor for many business decisions.

More here (via Planetizen).

What will replace it? What is the new real estate model for the creative economy? And what will replace the single family home (a time-wasting machine) as the new form of housing?

Americans keep on moving. Roughly 40 million U.S. residents moved in 2006-2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau (h/t: Kevin Stolarick). Of these, more than 12 million moved to a new county or a new state. Young people in their twenties were the most likely to move – roughly a quarter of all Americans in their twenties moved during this period. And jobs are not the most common reason people move. Finding a better house or neighborhood and family reasons are the most common reasons; employment is third. Renters are far more mobile than homeowners.

Get this: almost one-third (29 percent) of renters moved in 2006-2008, compared to less than 10 percent of those who lived in owner-occupied homes. And this was before the mortgage crisis hit. Single family homes were part of the industrial economy’s “spatial fix.” Many workers had long-term secure employment and the suburban model fueled fordist consumption. But single family homes suck up resources and energy and act against the the mobility and flexibility demanded by the creative economy. What might replace them as the new spatial fix for the creative age?