Will The Next Depression Un-Build Suburbia?

[Liberal_in_LA]

Then came the Great Depression. What car? What gas money? What job?—unemployment reached 25% in the worst of the depression years. Suddenly being out where there were no factories and commercial zones was not such a great idea.

This time, if we have a new depression, we could see the same aversion to living too far from the city, but with a different effect.

In the Depression years, people who lived in cities stayed put. They forgot about moving out to the land of grassy yards and barbecue pits. This time, they are already in suburbia, but may find it convenient to leave and go back to urban areas. Especially if the housing/mortgage problem does not get a lot better.


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Another difference this time is size. The first flight from the cities left neighborhoods of mansions and goliath-sized Victorians to be split into rooming houses and apartments. This flight would leave acres of McMansions—to be what? There's little need for dense-housing solutions where there's no density of work.

In the original move to suburbia, middle class families were seeking modest homes. The Levittown home averaged 800 square feet. In the 1960s, home sizes had grown to an average 1,100 square feet. Today's new suburban developments boast homes averaging 2,300 square feet—such monsters are about the last thing a cash strapped family will be able to support in a depression. In the suburbs of Tampa, Florida, 22-29% of homes for sale are foreclosures or short sales, much of them larger, new homes.

There is a little stickiness to suburbia, though. Most of the people living in the suburbs today have never lived in cities or the country. People who lose homes often want to rent homes instead of moving to apartments, according to a VP of C.B. Richard Ellis in Phoenix. The glut of foreclosures and abandoned homes has made some of these rental houses cheaper than the homes people lost in the first place.
It's also hard to track rental trends as condos turn into apartments after the real estate bust. So the experts don't know for sure whether a flight from suburbia is shaping up or not. Though there is plentiful evidence that apartments are in greater demand in most Canadian cities and in the U.S. outside the Midwest and Southwest.

But what do the people know? Amid all the Obama-drama in this past historic election, something interesting happened. It was unplanned, unheralded and huge—almost as if perfectly coordinated. You would have to call such a thing a trend. Across the country, voters passed 70% of the referendums to fund mass transit projects.

Maybe the middle class isn't eager to leave suburbia yet, but a little help getting around looks better. Companies like Siemens and Bombardier certainly hope so, as they would be the two biggest winners in mass transit projects

http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewarticle+articleid_2819155.html

[Neshanic]

1. Silly, there is no such thing as a Depression. People here say so, so it has to be correct.

[nxylas]

2. We can but hope

More densely populated cities means less dependence on the infernal combustion engine.

[KittyWampus]

11. sorry, but densely populated cities are like leeches, they can't grow their own food or process

their own waste.

[AndyTiedye]

3. Most Couldn't Afford to Move into the City Anyway

The city is EXPENSIVE.

[Doctor Cynic]

7. Though the suburb is going to be even *more* expensive...

[XemaSab]

15. If you have a house you can grow food

Growing food in an apartment is tough.

[AndyTiedye]

22. People are Being Forced Out of the City into the Suburbs by High Rents

and (at least until recently) condo conversions. The cost of owning and operating an automobile does not make up the difference, at least around here.

[Marrah_G]

21. I couldn't afford to move from my town to Boston

Boston is far, far more expensive.

I'd be better of growing my own food and heating with wood from the backyard.

[Karenina]

4. Indubitably!

[dmallind]

5. Well a couple of things

Defining suburbia is a lot trickier than it used to be. Land prices have driven major employers - especially those in space intensive manufacturing - out of the inner core and into not just suburbia but exurbia. Even where I live in one of the cheapest land/industrial space cities out there (Buffalo - where losing 1/3 of the population in the last 25 years or so kinda made it a bit cheaper to buy porperty) most of the big factories are in the suburbs and beyond. Downtown has the usual banks and service industroes but where you need lots of space, suburbia rules. It's not just in the depressed rust belt though - I have worked in manufacturing my whole career and I gave never even interviewed let alone been hired in a downtown or inner city location, and that's over 7 states and more jobs than that. Note I'm not saying DT locations have NO manufacturing, but they certainly have less of it than during the Depression and less of it than the suburbs.

This of course does not necessarily help though, as commutes between suburbs, some of them going not to but through the city proper, are certainly the norm. I live 12 miles (further out) from where I work. Not a bad trip. But the quick scan of other employees addresses I just did shows that many commute from the other side of the city or from the city proper(which is itself about 12 miles from the workplace in the opposite direction (so I live 24 miles from DT if that helps it make sense). They come from east and south and north in about equal ratios. Given the precise location of the plant if you come from the west you have about 400 yrds and a river to choose from unless you are Canadian.

So the people who suffer based on transportation costs will be those in the WRONG suburb more than those who live in any suburbs, but as lonbg as that balances out you'll have selling at bargain prices in, say, East Aurora because they work in Amherst, and buying at bargain prices from somebody who needs to sell that house to buy another one where they work in Youngstown, when that house's previous owner buys the one down in East Aurora where THEY work. Essentially a big intertwined shuffle.

Suburbia does not perhaps have the density of jobs that the city does, but it has at least equal density ratio of jobs compared to its pospulation on the aggregate, so we are looking at an intrasuburban rather than suburb to city resolution.

[XemaSab]

16. Interesting commentary

We live TWO BLOCKS from "downtown," but there are no jobs there.

Retail jobs are miles away, manufacturing and mill jobs are further than that, and yes, my mom's job is on the outskirts of town.

[Warpy]

6. It might reorganize it a bit into small towns

ringing the cities, less given to franchises and more to small businesses. Mass transit into the nearby city will have to improve, though, or the small towns will struggle to stay alive.

Anybody with money will live in the city.

[ThomWV]

8. I don't think so.

There are a whole bunch of reasons to think that it will be different this time.

Coming out of the Great Depression much of the move to the cities was to fill new manufacturing jobs created by the war - both before it began officially for us and in the years preceding our entry when we were supplying Britain and the Soviet Union. Now the jobs are more disperse and of course because they don't involve fixed machinery but use communications instead it really isn't too important that they aren't in cities. Also, coming out of the Great Depression we really didn't have any coordinated road system, whereas after Eisenhower's Interstates project got rolling we did - and of course still do have a wonderful interconnecting web that gives our rural areas much more access to points of trade than was available before the 60's. So I'd say quite a bit is different today an those differences matter.

[Javaman]

9. Next year when the price of all fuels go back up...

there will be more defaults on homes. These homes in turn will be completely unsellable because they are either way out in the nether regions and are no longer cost effective to own (like they ever were?) and will be abandoned. Those empty homes will be stripped of anything of value. All that will be left will be shells. Then the truly desperate will dig up what iron piping that is in the ground. The remaining detris will then either rot away or be dismantled by the locals who will then reclaim the land for farming. The rock walls that once separated fields will now be made up from old foundations. Basements and built in pools will become cisterns or root cellars.

150 years from now, cows will be grazing once again on what was "you could be home right now" pop up overnight unsightly mcmansion neighborhoods.

[Liberal_in_LA]

10. I posted this months ago...The situation in Merced, CA

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-merced3-2008jun03,0,1834894.story?page=2

[Javaman]

12. Looks like prime grazing land to me. ;) nt

[XemaSab]

17. I worked out there building those houses

It used to be ag land, yes.

The area across from that development was grazing land, but a LOT of that area is used for crops like tomatoes, peppers, cotton, citrus, almonds, peaches, and so forth.

That is the nation's specialty crop land right there. :(

[Javaman]

19. what a sad statement on our society when we use wonderful fertile land for

building monstrosities. It's like using food for fuel.

[Odin2005]

13. Suburbs will be forced to become true urban centers independent from the inner city core. n/t

[Possumpoint]

14. I Don't Think This Economic Downturn Will Cause

That much damage. The upturn in oil prices will. The forecast is for a 9% decrease in crude production in 2009. We're on the wrong side of the Bell Curve.

[GliderGuider]

18. What do you think is causing this downturn?

Aside from the world's financial boffins having a severe attack of recto-cranial inversion, there's a good case to be made that Peak Oil is one of the underlying factors. If that's true, then recovery from our current troubles is not guaranteed.

[happyslug]

20. To understand how suburbs will disappear one must understand how they occurred.

Here I paper I wrote years ago on the Growth of Suburbia, it needs to be re-written and one of these years I will get around to it, but if you want to read it here it is:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=266x203

[AndyTiedye]

23. Be Careful What You Wish For

Everybody loves to hate the suburbs, and many predict their abandonment and a return to the righteous city.
Presumably, most who feel this way live in the city themselves.

Where do you think all these new city-dwellers are going to live?

If the economy is knackered and there's no credit, where is the new housing going to come from?
It isn't. Building new housing in the city is VERY expensive, and the city is pretty full already.

So where are all these former suburbanites going to live?

How about right where YOU are living now.?
They will be outbidding YOU for YOUR apartment.
Rent control is dead, almost everywhere, so there is nothing to stop them.

So where are YOU going to live?