Sunset magazine editor and New York Times blogger Allison Arieff asks, “what are we going to do with all the homes and communities we are left with” when everyone moves out of the suburbs and back to the cities? (Click here for part 2.)
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All the Antiplanner can say is that being an editor of Sunset doesn’t qualify someone to understand the housing crisis.
Rarely has one seen such a definitive takedown – ho-lee cr*p her assertion was, like, soooo refuted by Randal.
[/snark]
Personally, I don’t think the suburbs will completely depopulate. Surely there will be a good fraction of homes that won’t stay occupied and these will be scavenged for material, and the remaining people will come together (OMG!!! community! socialism!! communitarians!) to make it work. The empty lots can have solar/wind, gardens, playgrounds, emergent businesses. Folk’ll figger hit out.
DS
Ah yes, because a house is merely a commodity that can only be appreciated by means of a balance sheet.
Randal is operating under boom market assumptions: not merely that land is a private, individual concern, but that the individual who owns it is willing to maintain that ownership. When developers are going bankrupt and banks are folding, square miles of partially developed land are being neglected (legally, physically, financially). Now neglect may not mean much to Randal, but to the law it is an opportunity to exercise squatters’ rights. Whether the local government steps in or the neighbors, legal precedent provides standards for such an act.
It seems these are difficult times for libertarians too: when nothing has value, what’s the invisible hand to do?
when nothing has value, what’s the invisible hand to do?
Oh, silly! Turn the pages of Atlas Shrugged for more instruction!
DS
Prices got too high in housing. In many of the areas being talked about, prices are still too high. Everyone won’t leave all those places; prices will simply decrease. “Everyone” won’t move back to cities unless prices fall (and more supply gets built) there as well. If it does, the good will by far outweigh the ills.
Too many people are acting as those it’s an absolute necessity to sustain house prices at historically unsustainable supply-restricted levels (also unaffordable compared to income.)
Not as dumb as the liberals who apparently hate sprawl until it’s failing, when it’s suddenly time to subsidize it.
“If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it.” was said by President Reagan as a joke, but it really is the way many politicians act.
Who are you John Thacker and why didn’t Bill Gates sell you a dictionary with that OS?
who apparently hate sprawl until it’s failing, when it’s suddenly time to subsidize it.
Not happening on the ground. No programs for sprawl in the package (nor are there soshulist programs to put everyone in Soviet block housing either). Sorry to throw a wet blanket on the wishy-wish.
DS
The urbanophiles just love to pounce on the suburbs whenever they get the chance.
But the NYT article forgets that buildings in the city often become abandoned for years, even decades, before they are re-used. For every story of an abandoned building being turned into a pocket park in a city, there are fifty other abandoned buildings just sitting there.
I also don’t think there is any evidence that suburbanites are moving back to the inner city.
Borealis:For every story of an abandoned building being turned into a pocket park in a city, there are fifty other abandoned buildings just sitting there.
ws:I think the difference is that a building in a city can be turned into something new is much greater than turning an abandoned home on the outskirts of town into something new. There’s only so many ways you can get inventive with tract style houses. The sprawl typology is not conducive to adaptive re-use, which limits its ability if/when things change.
Comparing building re-use between Urban and Suburban misses several factors, the greatest of which may be structural life expectancy. With the new construction techniques of suburban tract homes, it is far more likely when the day of reckoning does come, it will be cheaper to bulldoze these homes than to convert them.
Re WS on Comment #9: You raise a good point that abandon buildings in tract housing is harder to re-use. That probably also applies to box stores in suburbs vs. urban buildings.
I have a comment and a question. The comment is that everyone should read the comments on the NYT article. Those NYC dwellers clearly have a visceral hatred for suburbs.
The question is: How many of these ideas/observations apply if the urban area we are talking about is Detroit instead of NYC? It seems like a lot of these ideas about re-use depends on how much money you want to throw at redeveloping a site. After all, the driving force between urban vs. suburban property could be the astronomical difference in cost per acre.
t g Says:
Comparing building re-use between Urban and Suburban misses several factors, the greatest of which may be structural life expectancy. With the new construction techniques of suburban tract homes, it is far more likely when the day of reckoning does come, it will be cheaper to bulldoze these homes than to convert them.
THWM: You make the exurbs sound like they’re planned obsolesence.
THWM says: You make the exurbs sound like they’re planned obsolesence.
tg: like a good marriage?
A good marriage is always a work in progress.
I am puzzled. A one or two storey timber framed dwelling on a lot with generous yards is just about the most adaptable structure there is.
I have been adapting them for years. I turned a former shed which had housed hydroponic marijuana plant into three offices and a sleepout. I have extended the main dwelling with decks and pergolas and have built a two car garage with carport and also a large storage shed in the back yard.
Try doing that sort of thing in a five storey apartment block made of concrete.
Owen, try turning a McHouse into, say, a warehouse. Or an IT server farm. Or a honey retail store. Or a bowling alley.
Now, adaptively reuse a bigbox with a 15-year obsolescence. You can have soccer, roller skating, multilple retail, housing, another warehouse.
But you knew this already.
DS
Dan, Try turning a row house or apartment building into, say, a warehouse. Or an IT server farm. Or a honey retail store. Or a bowling alley.
Now, adaptively reuse a bigbox with a 15-year obsolescence. You can have soccer, roller skating, multilple retail, housing, another warehouse.
But you knew this already.
[snide psuedoargument ends here]
Dan said: and the remaining people will come together (OMG!!! community! socialism!! communitarians!)
Come on, Dan. Appeal to ridicule?
Certainly you understand that libertarians differentiate between a voluntary association of individuals (people coming together) and collective ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods through state imposed coercion and force (socialism).
“Certainly you understand that libertarians differentiate between a voluntary association of individuals (people coming together) and collective ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods through state imposed coercion and force (socialism).”
We are getting into semantics here. I guess socialism is a dirty word now because it is associated with state imposition. But the forefathers of the idea didn’t see it that way. The exact same can be said for capitalism these days. And what is government but “a voluntary association of individuals.”
So, the road in front of your home is a form “socialism”.
When everyone moves out of the burbs, to the city. It will be a cold day in hell.
I don’t see it happening, unless the planners make it illegal and mandate it.
Too many people like to have a the choice of living in a compact city or rural America and most like somewhere in between.
But choice is bad when it comes to where you prefer to live and how you like to get around, by many of the posters on this blog.
“So, the road in front of your home is a form “socialismâ€Â.”
In some respects I suppose so. Would it be possible for the neighborhood to engage in “a voluntary association of individuals ” and remove the street if they don’t want it?
bennett said:
We are getting into semantics here.
Of course we are, and it’s necessary, because Dan has flippantly portrayed libertarians as knee-jerk reactionaries who are ignorant of the difference between socialism and voluntary associations. There is a world of difference between the terms and phrases he uses.
I guess socialism is a dirty word now because it is associated with state imposition. But the forefathers of the idea didn’t see it that way. The exact same can be said for capitalism these days.
Except capitalism doesn’t exist these days.
And what is government but “a voluntary association of individuals.â€Â
Well, gosh, since government is voluntary, I won’t send Uncle Sam and my state $4000 of income taxes I’ll owe on April 15.
Kevyn, of course you know that larger square foot envelopes are more flexible than small envelopes. When you come over here and visit Seattle, you’ll likely go to the Ballard locks and watch the salmon. You’ll also note all the different uses made from the old warehouses on the Ballard waterfront.
But choice is bad when it comes to where you prefer to live and how you like to get around, by many of the posters on this blog.
Exactly! Many of us here insist on more choices. More than a choice between auto centric development and autocentric development, more than a choice between a single-use McSuburb and a single-use McSuburb, etc.
DS
“Well, gosh, since government is voluntary, I won’t send Uncle Sam and my state $4000 of income taxes I’ll owe on April 15.”
You wouldn’t be the first to take that stand. Maybe you could leave out the % that goes to services you don’t use.
DS
Yawn! no one is telling you to drive a car or live in the burbs. No one really cares that you don’t like the burbs.
I happen to love living away from downtown.
I have lived the bikeing and transit live style and prefer to never do that again.
Maybe someday I will live in a Mc-Mansion in or near a McSuburb having my own weekend farm on a acre or 20.
Dreams do come true
craig Says:
Yawn! no one is telling you to drive a car or live in the burbs. No one really cares that you don’t like the burbs.
I happen to love living away from downtown.
I have lived the bikeing and transit live style and prefer to never do that again.
Maybe someday I will live in a Mc-Mansion in or near a McSuburb having my own weekend farm on a acre or 20.
Dreams do come true
THWM: That’s great Craig, I live in the burbs too, though I’m not trying to shaft other people out of their freedom.
Dan Says:
Kevyn, of course you know that larger square foot envelopes are more flexible than small envelopes. When you come over here and visit Seattle, you’ll likely go to the Ballard locks and watch the salmon. You’ll also note all the different uses made from the old warehouses on the Ballard waterfront.
But choice is bad when it comes to where you prefer to live and how you like to get around, by many of the posters on this blog.
Exactly! Many of us here insist on more choices. More than a choice between auto centric development and autocentric development, more than a choice between a single-use McSuburb and a single-use McSuburb, etc.
THWM: Dan, if some one wants to live an auto centric life style, that should be by their own free choice and not forced by government regulation.
Dan, I’m familiar with the type of developments you are talking about and I’ve visited a few in Edinburgh and Manchester. Unfortunately in New Zealand they aren’t very common because of the cost of seismic upgrades.
Manchester’s Salford Keys and London’s Docklands redevelopments are a better indication of how the bland utilitarian structures of the 20th century get redeveloped. Bowl ’em over and start again from the ground up. Done well it can dramaticly reduce the amount of impermeable ground cover. It also helps that these sights are frequently adjacent to CBDs so they help to reverse urban sprawl and fit within existing PT networks.
I’m not sure why Ms. Arieff finds the conversion of those old homes into apartments so sexy. Many times those homes were for their time either extremely large (mcMansions if you like) or even mansions. The reason they ended being converted into apartments was not some desire for increased density but because they were no longer in demand for a long period of time. Ms. Arieff offers nothing concrete that shows that has been happening let alone is a long term trend.
With their share of the overall number of jobs in the metro decreasing, if the trend were to be for people to live closer place of employment one would think that in the long run there would be more demand for the empty housing she’s taking about now. And if that’s the case it would seem that this is temporary.
“ws:I think the difference is that a building in a city can be turned into something new is much greater than turning an abandoned home on the outskirts of town into something new. There’s only so many ways you can get inventive with tract style houses. The sprawl typology is not conducive to adaptive re-use, which limits its ability if/when things change.”
What spurred the re-use of those abandoned warehouses was not the ability to work with the existing structure. That’s a huge expense and the buildings were pulling down the value of the land itself. There were several factors that spurred the creativity to re-use of them, some of which including various forms of subsidies. 100 years ago most folks wouldn’t have been enable visioning someone wanting to have offices or lofts in some textile warehouse. There’s no reason a 2100 sq foot house couldn’t be turned into a duplex or offices if the demand was there. Sure, things like zoning would get in the way but that was in the way for decades in the city (and even today).
Timber frame houses are easily relocated leaving the land bare for whatever anyone wants to do with it.
I am not sure what we are comparing here when we compare the adaptability of lofts and warehouses with the adaptability of low rise dwellings.
Of course large multi purposed buildings are adaptable but they are also expensive and are too much for the average entrepreneur to deal with.
Given the boom in home offices and telecommuting etc I wonder if the square footage of dwellings taking place at any time is greater than the square footage of large shells.
IN the end for conversions to take place the end use has to justify the costs of the change and someone has to front up with the capital required. I see dwellings being turned into professional offices, into home offices, into shops (look at Houston’s art district), art galleries, day care centres, motels, bed and breakfast places, garden centres and so on.
And of course many are simply removed.
We seem to be keen to fall into the dichotomy trap “most people want to live in cities” or “Mot people want to live in cities”
A recent survey by Pew Research finds that nearly half of Americans (46%) “would rather live in a different type of community from the one they’re living in now,” with those living in cities expressing the highest desire to live elsewhere.
Even though many Americans say they are interested in giving somewhere new a try, most of us seem to think that our current communities aren’t so bad. According to Pew, over 80% of respondents rated their current community as excellent, very good, or good. The survey also reports that “ideal community type” was not dominated by any one class of place, with 30% preferring small towns, 25% suburbs, 23% cities, and 21% rural areas.
So we seem to like living somewhere but somewhere could be a small town, a suburb, a city or a rural area – and the spits are about even. So why don’t we just let people where they want to live and recognise that as people’s livestyle changes, and as they get older, their preferences may well change. So let them move to where they want to be. There is no sign in this survey that everyone wants to rush into one kind of location.
Owen,
Again you are misrepresenting the findings of a study (but this time you don’t link to it). If the survey is the one I think it is, the majority also found they wanted to live closer to amenities and shopping, and wanted more walkability in their neighborhoods. And, IIRC, more than your 45% wanted more access to transit.
But let’s have folk see for themselves, and act like the scholar you pretend to be and cite that properly, will you lad?
DS
More from the Pew study:
“Wanting to live outside cities doesn’t necessarily mean people reject urban lifestyles, however. The appeal of developments with an urban flair  ones that combine housing, stores and offices in a neighborhood setting  is growing.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2009-01-29-where-we-live_N.htm
For all those US people who cannot access something I was freely able to access from NZ here is the URL
Read the full report at
pewsocialtrends.org.
Owen, if you want to pretend for the gullible that you are a scientist (cough), at least try to pretend you are a part of the community. That means linking, citing, referencing. Try it sometime.
As to your takeaway from the report, you’ll find hard company here, as the ideological commenters here think it is an ideological mandate to have only one sort of housing and neighborhood.
You boys lay off Owen, now.
DS
as the ideological commenters here think it is an ideological mandate to have only one sort of housing and neighborhood.
DS
———
DS
Isn’t that your side?
Isn’t that your side?
For the thousandth time, no. As the planners have asserted here many times, the ideologues are afraid of more choice. Which is, of course, what the Pew is saying. And the NAR. And the NAHB. And, and , and.
DS
Dan said “If the survey is the one I think it is, the majority also found they wanted to live closer to amenities and shopping, and wanted more walkability in their neighborhoods. And, IIRC, more than your 45% wanted more access to transit.”
I’ve searched the PEW website but I couldn’t find any surveys that asked about any of the things you mentioned. Have you tracked down the survey you thought it was and can you provide a link?
PEW did provide a link to this study which is relevant to the current discussion.
PEW did provide a link to this study which is relevant to the current discussion:
http://www.cutr.usf.edu/pdf/The%20Case%20for%20Moderate%20Growth%20in%20VMT-%202006%20Final.pdf
DS
Your idea of choice seems to be to mandate existing areas to change to your values. Planners and politicians want to dictate zoning and planning to serve transit and their plans instead of serving what, the property owners ask for.
That is how Planning is done in Portland.
I’ve searched the PEW website but I couldn’t find any surveys that asked about any of the things you mentioned. Have you tracked down the survey you thought it was and can you provide a link?
Perhaps it wasn’t a PEW as I thought in 34. A quick search of my hard drive/bookmarks finds certain surveys that generally find the same thing, and this post is a good compendium of relevant surveys, most of which find what I commonly assert here, sort of like the ‘rule of thirds’, where 1/3 strongly prefer NU-type developments, a 1/3 more want some walkable amenities, and 1/3 generally don’t care. That is: there is a strong market demand for more nearby amenities.
DS
Your idea of choice seems to be to mandate existing areas to change to your values.
Wow. You are mischaracterizing what you believe I think. Is this what they teach as trenchant argument in school these days, or are you still a student awaiting instruction in logic, rhetoric, and cogent argumentation?
My record is clear here that I want Euclidean zoning eliminated and something similar to form-based code (eg as in HOU) enacted.
The market will respond and density will naturally come in areas that can support it. Those who wish to live in ‘burbs and McBurbs are free to do so, esp as their choices will be more expensive soon and their locational choice will be reinforced by their wallets. Those who, today, are unable to act on their preferences will be able to in the future as more choices will be available.
Those whose self-identity is reliant upon the entire population wanting one-acre, picket-fence surrounded McMansions with libraries full of signed copies of The Fountainhead will be disappointed in the outcome, but as their population is small, society will adapt to their raiment-rending angst and we’ll all go on.
DS
Dan, Thanks for that link. The only disagreement I have is with the writer’s conclusion “Ergo, a market failure is taking place, and a pretty massive one at that.”
One could equally state a regulatory failure is taking place, or a planning failure. Possibly equal amounts of each.
Market failure is not surprising considering the perceived risk of building something “different”. Planning failure stems from the slum clearance mentality of post WWII urban planning with it’s belief in the virtues of open spaces and fresh air and single use zoning. Regulatory failure is mainly the failure to remove regulations introduced to implement those planning ideals as well as minimum parking regulations.
That last point is the real subsidy that autos receive in urban areas from non auto users. While off-peak auto users are subsidising peak road capacity it is not a direct cost to anybody else. That’s not true for parking which is subsidised by all apartment buyers or all shoppers or business customers. Notably in the life-cycle analysis thesis that AP linked to in early January the energy/emissions difference between an average sedan and an average urban bus per passenger mile is due entirely to the provision of peak roadway capacity and parking facilities. Thus, abolishing out-of-date minimum parking codes is one of the most vital steps in unleashing market driven supply of alternatives to post-WWII suburbs.
Dan, at 69 I am hardly a lad and am fully able to take care of myself.
I posted the link you asked for. Read the full report at
pewsocialtrends.org.
But where do I “pretend to be a scientist”?
Here is my CV from my web page.
http://www.rmastudies.org.nz/index.php/issues/53-other/102-owen-mcshane
Unless you believe my martini recipe is a work of science!
http://www.rmastudies.org.nz/index.php/entertainments
Kevyn,
I’ve said for a long time we are overparked, and my presentations state such. As far as Laurence’s conclusions go, IMHO it is a combination of failures. The effluent of the 1920s is gone and we can do away with single-use zoning, but I also point to lazy practices in the building industry.
Owen:
I guess the places you run, then, are not scientific and the “facts” they represent are not represented from a scientific perspective. Or maybe there exists places representing themselves as scientific that don’t need men of science to run them.
DS
Huh?
Aren’t you the guy who runs the contrasciscience sites CFACT, NZCSC, and ICSC?
DS
NO.