Beyond Red & Blue

What the heck IS a suburb, anyway?

From the West Coast, there's more evidence that the definition of "suburbia" has been stretched so much that it's practically useless. The blog at the California Planning and Development Report summarizes a fight between the Brookings Institute's Christopher Leinberger, an advocate of what he calls "walkable urban places," or WUPs (you can get the idea from his piece in the Atlantic), and self-styled suburban champion Joel Kotkin (interviewed in CommonWealth magazine in 2006). In fact, both Leinberger and Kotkin seem to favor the same kind of development, which is most common in older, inner-ring suburbs. As the CPDR's Bill Fulton explains:

Leinberger, like practically every other advocate of urbanism in America, agrees with [Kotkin]. In a Brookings paper last year – admittedly qualitative in its approach – Leinberger took a stab at identifying WUPs in the nation’s 30 largest metropolitan areas. He came up with 15 existing or emerging WUPs in the Los Angeles area, including … Burbank, Glendale, Century City, Westwood, Culver City, and Beverly Hills. In other words, he included all the “suburbs” that Kotkin is always defending against the “city”.

The trouble is that the strict definition of suburb -- which is any community outside a major city -- is obsolete and useless. It encompasses both densely populated, mass-transit-heavy communities and sprawling towns that prohibit homes on less than an acre of land. Leinberger argues that many places in the latter category will become the "new slums," as people abandon them for places with more affordable housing and shorter commutes. Kotkin argues that Americans don't like the "urban core" and won't move back there, but urbanists such as Leinberger have never taken a "high-rise or nothing" attitude, instead saying that many older suburbs are fit perfectly into the New Urbanism model. (Check out the two-panel illustration with Kotkin's piece in the Los Angeles Times. Metropolitan Boston is full of places that have the greenery and single-family homes of the second image, but in orderly rows like the skyscrapers of the first image.)

So are we all going to agree that "suburbs" and "exurbs" are completely different animals? Or do we still need another word to describe city-like communities that happen to fall just outside the boundaries of Boston, Los Angeles, etc.?

(See my recent Boston Globe column for an example of how the word "suburban" has lost its meaning in politics as well.)

Worcester gets impatient on foreclosure law

The city of Worcester, tired of waiting for the Legislature to do something about the home foreclosure crisis, is asking for permission to act on its own, reports Shaun Sutner of the Worcester Telegram. If a home-rule petition passes on Beacon Hill, the city would "halt sub-prime foreclosures for six months, protect tenants in foreclosed buildings and force judicial review of foreclosures."

Colleges get a pass on zoning

The Dover Amendment, which exempts religious and educational institutions from local zoning laws in Massachusetts, has become a big issue in Framingham, according to Dan McDonald of the MetroWest Daily News:

During the debate, incumbent state Rep. Pam Richardson, D-Framingham, said a collegiate football stadium and a group home both fell under the Dover umbrella.

"It's so broad in language it almost creates a loophole in which agencies can use in order to bypass community input," said Richardson later that week.

One of her Democratic opponents in this year's state rep race, Town Meeting member Chris Walsh, called Dover "one of the vaguest laws imaginable."

Dover also got a bad rep in Weston when Regis College used the law to cover a 362-unit retirement village, as Ray Hainer reported in CommonWealth last year.

Another hidden cost of the foreclosure crisis

The Eagle-Tribune's Edward Mason reports on the collapse of a program in Lawrence that would have purchased homes on the verge of foreclosure and then lease back them back to their original owners until they could buy them all over again (at a discount price). The problem for the nonprofit Lawrence CommunityWorks is that the many of the homes are falling apart:

Jessica Andors, the agency's deputy director, said the nonprofit organization determined the plan, aimed at slowing the city's foreclosure crisis, turned out to be too expensive...

Andors said the homes rescued by the agency would need extensive restoration. Homeowners at risk of foreclosure, Andors said, often are in such a tight financial squeeze that they also fail to keep up their homes, often putting off repairs so they can pay their mortgage and other bills.

Robert Preer reported on Lawrence CommunityWorks, and some of their more successful programs, in the Summer 2005 issue of CommmonWealth.

Montana left standing in housing collapse

The number of new housing units built in the US was down by one quarter from the year before, according to recent data from the Census Bureau, depicted on the map below. Estimates for 2007 (final data for previous years here) show that fewer homes were built in every state except Montana and New York, with especially deep plunges in Florida (down 49 percent), Michigan (down 36 percent), and California (down 35 percent). Massachusetts was down by 24 percent, or about the national average.

New York's net gain came entirely from multifamily housing; the number of new single-family homes still dropped there, as it did everywhere except the District of Columbia and Montana. In fact, the number of new units in buildings with more than five residences went up in 19 states, suggesting a turn toward cheaper homes in a bad economy.

The National Association of Home Builders predicts a further decline in new housing units in 2008, followed by a slight recovery next year.

The second map compares 2007 housing start figures with those of 2000. Even with last year's plunge, 22 states approved permits for more housing units than they did at the beginning of the decade.

Housing slump brings together Detroit and Las Vegas

USA Today has charts on the slump in housing sales and prices. We think we have it bad in Massachusetts, but the number of home sales fell by a relatively modest 10.3 percent here from the last quarter of 2006 to the last quarter of 2007. At least 32 states had sharper drops, with Nevada at the front (or rear) with a 44 percent decline.

Median home prices for the same period are reported for metro areas rather than states; they dropped by 1.9 percent in the Boston area and by 5.7 percent in the Worcester area, but rose by 3.5 percent in the Springfield area. Fifteen metro areas reported double-digit slides, and they included both Sun Belt cities with high population growth (Las Vegas, Orlando, Tampa) and Rust Belt metro areas long past their peak (Detroit, Dayton, Fort Wayne).

A subprime gazetteer

Forbes.com reports on "America's Hardest-Hit Foreclosure Spots." Detroit's Wayne County tops the list, followed by Las Vegas's Clark County. No county from New England places in the worst 50, though parts of New York are there.

The subprime virus

Writing for the Atlantic, Matthew Yglesias points out that the subprime mortgage crisis is beginning to affect people who have the misfortune to live near people who made unfortunate decisions:

...the crisis is harming the neighbors of people in foreclosure, even those who aren’t having trouble making loan payments. According to one academic study, every foreclosure reduces the value of all other houses within an eighth of a mile by about 1 percent, as the sight of vacant property scares off potential buyers. Combine that with a market already in decline, and neighborhoods that begin to have troubles can go off the cliff. On the street pictured [see link], three houses not in foreclosure have been languishing on the market for 72, 97, and 149 days; asking prices along the cul-de-sac vary widely, but average about $40,000 less than the comparable prices in the first two quarters of the year.

This phenomenon seems to be strongest in fast-growing, middle-class areas with new housing, such as parts of Florida and Nevada. Yglesias includes a map of the hotspots, along with a map of one hard-hit street in Three Lakes, Florida.

Wonder condos in Natick

Last week the New York Times reported on the 215 luxury condos going up next to a Natick mall, on the site of an old Wonder Bread factory:

Applying the lifestyle-center model, where upscale retailers, sit-down restaurants, and condos are built around what looks like a city street, General Growth Properties has embarked on a $370 million Natick Mall expansion and makeover.

CommonWealth magazine first reported on the project in 2006, when correspondent Noah Schaeffer noted that the fear of the state's Chapter 40B "anti-snob" law helped get the General Growth project approved. For the complete back story (we don't expect the Times to get into the details of Chapter 40B), read "Playing It Smart."

More heads need more roofs

   

Housing has become scarcer in the dark-colored states on the above map, with new residents moving in (or being born) faster than contractors can put up houses. (Click the map for a larger image, and download this file for complete data: Download housing_estimates_by_state_2006.xls ) The most extreme case is Alaska, which has grown by 42,520 people since 2000 but has only 15,182 more houses and apartments to accommodate them. Things are getting almost as tight in California, which has 2.4 million more people but only 900,000 new houses. And Connecticut has had slow population growth (only 92,270, or 2.7 percent more people since 2000), but it still hasn't added half as many units to its housing supply. Will a shortage lead to higher home prices there?

In 11 states with sluggish population growth -- including Massachusetts, Michigan, and Pennsylvania -- the creation of new housing units has outstripped the creation of new residents. (North Dakota created 18,000 new homes even though it suffered a net loss of 5,000 people, and Louisiana is the only state to lose both homes and people.) Will there be a housing glut, and lower prices, in these states? Maybe, but if they can attract new employers who need new workers, those "extra" houses could suddenly become essential.

An environmentally conscious person might wonder why one new home for every two people isn't good enough for economic development. But the average household size in America is getting smaller and smaller (down to 2.7 people at last count), thanks to our habits of marrying earlier, having fewer children, and refusing to die at the same time as our spouses.