Future of the 'Burbs

[sarahiki]

Okay, perhaps we can discuss this without it devolving into a "people who move to the suburbs are stupid" debate. Here's an opinion piece from the New York Times. Consider reading it before posting your opinion.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008...mics-quorum/?hp

there are lots of extreme opinions to fire you up here. For example:

Jan Brueckner, professor of economics at the University of California, Irvine, and former editor of the Journal of Urban Economics:

“If [gentrification] continues in a significant way, large numbers of suburban households looking for urban stimulation may end up switching places with minority central-city dwellers, stirring the ethnic pot in both places.”

And if you can stick it out through some of the nuttier imaginings of what the suburbs will look like in 40 years, you will be rewarded with:

Alan Berube, research director and fellow at the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, which he joined in 2001:

“… in 40 years perhaps we’ll get beyond our fixation with “the suburbs” (love them or hate them) and develop a richer vocabulary for what lies beyond the city limits.” and he goes on to describe.

So have at it.

(edited to add more info)

[memebag]

That's just silly.

[crunchtastic]

That's a lot of wanking.

How can you have a 'roundtable' about future urban/suburban planning without a meaningful discussion of people who can't afford housing? One of the guys touched on it. In one ginormous mixed regional area, for average earners, all your paycheck goes to services, the rest is on credit . I can see that in my lifetime. He was the only nonwanker on the panel. And, as much as I think Kuntsler is the biggest tool at the table, he at least takes a pragmatic approach to things like providing your own food locally.

[livincinco]

From a report by the European Environment Agency published in 2006.

The growth of cities in Europe has historically been driven by increasing urban populations. However, today, even where there is little or no population pressure, a variety of factors are still driving urban sprawl. These are rooted in the desire to realise new lifestyles in suburban environments, outside the inner city. The mixture of forces behind these trends include both micro and macro socio-economic trends, which are resulting in sprawling cities all over Europe.

Higher gas prices seem to be driving all these re-evaluations of the viability of the suburbs, but in 2006, gas prices were averaging about $6.00/gallon in Europe. Under that logic, shouldn't a collapse of the suburbs have already occurred in Europe?

[ToryGattis]

Haven't read the link yet, but IMHO: Vehicle size and technology will change, and the local mall will be replaced with a mixed-use "town center", but the suburbs will definitely remain - and with relatively little change.

[RedScare]

Haven't read the link yet, but IMHO: Vehicle size and technology will change, and the local mall will be replaced with a mixed-use "town center", but the suburbs will definitely remain - and with relatively little change.

I find this statement to be as unbelievable as the cataclysmic change predicted by some of the anti-suburbanites. Energy costs in all forms is increasing at a rate faster than the rate of inflation. Real wages for the large majority of Americans is stagnant or falling. These issues have real consequences. The average house size increase has slowed dramatically, and may soon start declining. SUV and truck sales have plunged 40% to 50%. Overall vehicle miles in June plunged nearly 5%, an increase over May's 2%. In California, it is over 8%. This is causing a $3 billion shortage in highway infrastructure funding. Fewer miles driven also threatens toll roads.

When fuel and energy is cheap, other factors drive decision making. When it is expensive, it completely changes the decision making process. When the decision making process changes dramatically, dramatic changes tend to occur as a result. To say that the suburbs will undergo relatively little change is to suggest that fuel and energy costs will soon return to their historically insignificant levels. I disagree with this premise. I believe that gasoline and electricity costs will remain at elevated levels. It is only natural to believe that residents will alter their behavior to cope with these new realities.

It is not the wealthy, or even upper middle class that one should look at when predicting changes in the suburbs, or any area, for that matter. The wealthy and upper middle class represent only about 10% of the population. It is the other 90% that bear watching. And frankly, as one of the fastest growing cities, Houston may react quite differently than the rest of the country. I'm not sure that I can predict exactly what changes will occur, but I do know that far flung suburbs need cheap roads to thrive. Even a shift to smaller vehicles threatens those cheap roads. Lose the cheap roads and toll roads, and watch the suburban landscape change dramatically.

[TheNiche]

When fuel and energy is cheap, other factors drive decision making. When it is expensive, it completely changes the decision making process. When the decision making process changes dramatically, dramatic changes tend to occur as a result. To say that the suburbs will undergo relatively little change is to suggest that fuel and energy costs will soon return to their historically insignificant levels. I disagree with this premise. I believe that gasoline and electricity costs will remain at elevated levels. It is only natural to believe that residents will alter their behavior to cope with these new realities.

No. The decision making process is unchanged. Variable inputs change. The formula does not.

It is not the wealthy, or even upper middle class that one should look at when predicting changes in the suburbs, or any area, for that matter. The wealthy and upper middle class represent only about 10% of the population. It is the other 90% that bear watching. And frankly, as one of the fastest growing cities, Houston may react quite differently than the rest of the country. I'm not sure that I can predict exactly what changes will occur, but I do know that far flung suburbs need cheap roads to thrive. Even a shift to smaller vehicles threatens those cheap roads. Lose the cheap roads and toll roads, and watch the suburban landscape change dramatically.

With the exception of Section 8 and Tax Credit housing programs, poor people can't afford new homes. They occupy used homes. There was a brief period of time when new houses were built for poor people, but those times are over. So they don't actually bear watching.

Likewise, the top 10% can pretty much go wherever they like within a metropolitan area for a new home, which pretty much boils down to either a fashionable inner-city neighborhood, a quasi-urban enclave, a master-planned community, or an exurban ranchette. Fuel prices don't mean much to them to begin with, and the fact that fuel prices mean something to the folks that had formerly clogged the freeways rather than used P&R service actually is a factor that works more in favor of high-dollar suburbs and exurbs. So I'm predicting that this small but visible population is still going to be pretty much split in terms of where they end up. Their relatively lower propensity to rear children might give the urban areas some extra leverage, but I'm not sure that it would be meaningful in the bigger picture. I tend to think that the ranchette will be a very attractive option.

Where does the middle class go that they can afford new housing? The childbearing types will live in a single-family home in the suburbs; most of them work there too. The couples and singles will live in an apartment in the suburbs; most of them work there too. Wealthier folks will pretty much crowd them out of the fashionable urban neighborhoods and relatively few of these people will have any desire to live in unfashionable urban neighborhoods...and it's not that there aren't examples, just that those examples aren't actually very populous in the grand scheme of a metropolitan area.

Since the top 10% of the population is still getting dispersed and since they are the ones that determine where firms will office, you can bet that there will be a relatively even distribution of office development taking place in the urban core, in master-planned communities, and along suburban stretches of highway that are accessible from the exurbs. Most firms just don't really have a need to access an entire metro area's pool of talent for some specialty skill...and the middle class are numerous enough that their specialty skills aren't especially scarce anywhere that the middle class happens to reside.

And if telecommuting is as revolutionary (in the long term) as I know that it can be, we'll become a ranchette nation. I'm looking forward to that.

[Fringe]

I already see this change happening in Houston. Look at the heights, midtown, the museum district and other intercity areas that use to be 99% minority. White yuppies have taken these areas over and where have the minorities gone?

[musicman]

looks like harris has gained over 500k minorities in last 7 yrs.