
Suburbs Try to Prevent an Exodus as Young Adults Move to Cities and Stay - luu
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/nyregion/suburbs-try-to-hold-onto-young-adults-as-exodus-to-cities-appears-to-grow.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
======
Zigurd
> _New York suburbs are not the only ones getting somewhat grayer. In three
> Maryland suburbs outside Washington, Chevy Chase lost 34 percent of its 25-
> to 34-year-olds, Bethesda 19.2 percent and Potomac 27 percent. The declines
> were comparable for Kenilworth, Winnetka and Glencoe outside Chicago..._

These are all very expensive suburbs. They are "graying" because it takes more
time to accumulate the money to live there. The same is happening to my town.
A better comparison would be suburbs that younger people can afford vs.
cities. I'd bet you find the same trend, but these examples are not
informative.

~~~
apendleton
Bethesda's not cheap, but most of DC proper is more expensive, and anecdotally
(as a DC resident), most DC-resident friends of mine could afford to live in
the nicer DC suburbs if they wanted to, but choose to live in the city
instead. The population that's the focus of this article isn't deciding
between downtown and some Hagerstown or whatnot.

~~~
JPKab
I think DC is actually a bad example of this, in the sense that people whose
kids reach school age leave very quickly. A quick look at the demographic data
of the public school population shows that the newcomers aren't adding to the
public school population.

Either they don't have school age kids, or they are putting their kids in
private school.

Other cities won't have this issue though.

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Homunculiheaded
I've personally found a great alternative to living in major cities is not the
suburbs but smaller cities. I grew up in the Northeast and now live in a
smaller city in the West (pop ~250,000). I can get to SF in a few hours, but
locally I still have most of the things I'd want from a city: great
restaurants, art, fun tech community, music, easy to access airport etc. I
also have many of the perks of living in a smaller community: very little
traffic, incredibly affordable cost of living, get to know the owners of most
restaurants/businesses I frequent etc.

The crazy thing is that living in a house 10 minutes from the center of
downtown I pay a fraction of what my friends and relatives back East do to
live in a suburb so far away from the metro area they live near that they
visit it only once or twice a year.

Especially with more and more remote work becoming available, if you're
getting sick of living in a major metro area I highly recommend checking the
diverse range of smaller cities across the US, imho it is a vastly superior
experience to living in an expensive suburb.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Des Moines.

Here me out! I live in the Chicago suburbs; I commute to the West Loop every
day. Traffic! High costs! And so forth.

This weekend, I was in Des Moines for a wedding. I met people in their
historic East Village. Great bar scene, great craft brew scene. Everyone was
friendly! Everyone bicycles around! I would actually consider picking up from
Chicago and living in Des Moines, as it seems to be the midwest version of
AshvilleNC or perhaps Ann Arbor, but before Ann Arbor blew up and got
expensive.

I would have never thought I'd say, "Des Moines is pretty fucking awesome, and
I could live here."

~~~
acjohnson55
You should check out Lexington, KY as well, if you like Des Moines. It's a
similar sized city and a similar distance from Chicago. It's got a lot of
culture and history. It's also quite close to other cities, so you kind of get
to collect on the benefits of living in a larger metro. Not sure it's quite as
cheap as Des Moines though.

------
Tiktaalik
To stay relevant to young people suburbs need to transform themselves from
sprawling, car oriented strip malls to compact, walkable, transit oriented,
complete small cities and towns.

~~~
jarrett
I believe that's the major reason. (Based solely on my anecdotal evidence.)
Most young folks I know don't want to be car-dependent.

They often cite gas prices as the primary reason. Gas is already expensive,
and the young people I know expect prices to go much, much higher.

Some of them also mention exercise as a reason.

~~~
ufmace
For me, I'd say the core reason is that driving is inherently stressful. The
whole time you're on the road, you're one mistake - yours or somebody else's -
away from potentially huge property damage and massive injuries. Then you have
worries about parking, getting broken into, driving drunk, servicing, etc.
Seems easier to just walk.

~~~
eqdw
+1 on that. I bought a car last year, and my car (at $22k) is costing _way_
more than the expected cost of gas over a 10 year lifetime (~$12k). Gas prices
aren't actually the blocker, when you take the long view.

Driving, on the other hand. I grew up (and learned to drive in a city the
(geographic) size of San Jose, with 700k people in the entire metro area.
Living in the bay area now, I don't understand why people have cars. I can't
drive to work in SF ($30/day parking is almost half what my rent is). I can't
even drive, well, anywhere. Bay Bridge and 101 are both stop-and-go every time
I get on them. People drive like maniacs, tailgate me, cut me off. Routinely
break traffic law, creating dangerous situations I can't deal with. And then,
at least in SF, the pedestrians and cyclists are ballsy motherfuckers, and
it's too hard for me to track them all. Every time I go driving, I have a
panic attack over either someone on the road who is going to kill me, or a
pedestrian I'm going to accidentally kill.

Or, I can hop on BART and walk the rest of the way. Just go in, sit (or stand,
whatever), wait 20 minutes, and BAM HOLYSHIT LOOK THERE I AM.

I can understand the convenience of driving, but I sure as shit can't figure
out why so many people enjoy driving in a major city.

~~~
cbhl
Maybe they live far away from a BART or Caltrain station?

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brodney
How is this a problem that needs preventing? Alternate title: "People like
living in the city more these days"

~~~
anon1385
Well my own personal perspective is that I'd like to live somewhere that I can
do gardening, grow veg[1] and sometimes go for a walk and see some wildlife.
I'd also like to live in a place where the average age isn't 40 years older
than I am so that I could have some kind of social life without driving for
miles (ideally I don't want to drive at all). Which is all very unrealistic,
and I'll probably end up living in the middle of nowhere with no social life
if I ever have enough money to afford a house.

I don't think it's good for the social makeup of small towns and villages.
Healthy communities need people of all ages, not just retirees.

[1] this is kinda possible in a city, but usually costs a fortune. I used to
live near allotments in Edinburgh but they were super expensive to rent.

~~~
pnathan
That's essentially my situation as well (I live in the US). I'd like a few
acres, live near a national forest, _and_ work a tech job that isn't at the
only company within the nearest 500 miles. :-S

~~~
josephhardin
Check out northern Colorado. Between Denver, Fort Collins, and Boulder there
is a fair bit of tech, cost of living is decently low(outside of Boulder), and
you can live right next to a national forest.

------
yypark
If we look at the actual population growth trends, the suburbs are
experiencing plenty of growth, not a decline, even if cities are doing well
too (especially compared to the 70s/80s). In the New York City metro area, 29%
of the population growth took place in NYC proper, as opposed to the rest in
the suburban counties. One demographic of 20-somethings and a few interviewed
people does not offset the rest of the population.

There are plenty of people moving into suburbs today and they make up most of
the fastest-growing areas of the US. The pattern of growth barely seems to
have shifted, and doesn't match the rhetoric of suburbs in decline.
[http://www.joelkotkin.com/content/00406-cities-and-census-
ci...](http://www.joelkotkin.com/content/00406-cities-and-census-cities-
neither-booming-nor-withering)

~~~
specialp
I think this is a change in the New York area mostly. Back in the 70s-mid 80s
NYC was a much more dangerous place and living in the suburbs was cheap. Young
people in the city then moved to the suburbs to escape rents and high crime.
However now the suburbs like Westchester, Long Island have become very
expensive with very high taxes.

Since these suburbs are comparatively wealthy the citizens fight against high
density development. So if you are a young person that grew up on Long Island
you have the choice of paying $1400 to live in someone's illegal basement
apartment, living in one of the few decent complexes for $2000+ or move to
NYC. It is easy to see why moving to NYC is very attractive then. When you are
single or a couple it is good to live in the city as there are plentiful jobs
and entertainment options.

So I think that there is not a massive landslide of people leaving the suburbs
I think it is just that people are having children much later, the city is now
safe, and there are no cheap options for singles/childless couples in the
suburbs in the NYC metro area. People still move from NYC to the suburbs. And
in cheaper metro areas the suburbs are growing very fast because they are much
like the situation that existed in NYC in the 70s-mid 80s

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bigdubs
I'd love to own a house in the country eventually.

The problem with moving to a city for the excitement and the job opportunities
is that it's very hard to save the money for the down payment when you're
spending > 30% of your take home income on rent.

~~~
pmorici
Move to Baltimore it is cheaper to live in the city than the suburbs.

~~~
rayiner
The wife and I are moving to Baltimore this fall. The 45 minute Amtrak ride to
work will be more convenient than commuting in from Great Falls, Vienna, or
Reston, which can easily take an hour+ each way, despite being only ~10 miles
from the city.

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EC1
Maybe because renting forever is ultimately cheaper than buying a house,
especially if you aren't able to save at a rate that you can buy a house at a
reasonable time.

~~~
w1ntermute
[https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-
fi...](https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-
finance/housing/renting-v-buying/v/renting-vs--buying-a-home)

~~~
this_user
What most people also don't take into consideration are the opportunity costs
of buying a house and paying a mortgage for the next twenty or thirty years.
If instead of buying you rent and invest the money you would otherwise pay for
the house there is a good chance you will be much better off in the long run.

~~~
WalterSear
~7 years in and my mortgage is cheaper than rent already.

~~~
graeme
That's great for you, but it doesn't tell us much about whether it's better to
own or rent on average. Your testimony is like someone saying they bought one
stock that's up 20%, so stocks must be better than bonds.

There are other homeowners who have lost money, and some others who are doing
even better than you. Individual stories don't tell us about aggregates.

------
chiph
I just don't want to cut grass any more. I did it in high school for spending
money, and just had enough of it afterwards.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Just bought a house, but in the city, not the suburbs. I was pleasantly
surprised to see that non-corded electric mowers exist. My mower weighs next
to nothing, is whisper quiet, and one charge lasts me several cuts. Granted,
its a small yard, but the hassle of moving heavy equipment, mixing gas and
oil, dealing with loud noise, dealing with exhaust, pull start pain, etc are
long gone.

Now I'm just waiting on the affordable electric car. Gas, even in the best of
circumstances, is just too much of a hassle and requires much more complex
machines than electric.

~~~
joshuacc
You can take it a step further with an old-fashioned reel mower. They work
quite well as long as your yard isn't ridiculously large or weedy.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
They just need to be sharpened too frequently and heaven forbid you put off
mowing for a while or have a few rainy days in a row. The resistance is pretty
strong if the grass is remotely tall.

Of course, this could all be a case of me getting old and lazy, which I
suspect it mostly is.

~~~
filoeleven
I've never used an old reel mower for comparison, but last year I bought a
Fiskars reel mower for my smallish townhouse yard and am quite pleased with
it. I haven't had to sharpen the blades yet, though I might at the end of this
year's mowing season. And it could be an interesting task, given their helical
structure.

You're definitely right about the tall grass; thankfully this mower's height
is easily adjustable so I can make two passes if need be.

The cut is much nicer than a regular lawn mower, I get a little extra exercise
a few times a week, and I find that it actually takes me less time to finish--
reel mowers work best at a faster pace than a gas-powered push mower. I have
only my very limited experience, but I think some of the reputation of reel
mowers being inconvenient may be undeserved when looking at the ones made in
the past decade.

~~~
mmagin
Generally you put a honing compound on the blades and turn the blades
backwards to sharpen it. It's some work, but it's pretty easy. e.g.
[http://www.amazon.com/American-Lawn-Mower-
SK-1-Sharpening/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/American-Lawn-Mower-
SK-1-Sharpening/dp/B00004R9UM/)

------
robgibbons
The problem with the city (for me, at least) is the people. Not the rent
prices, but the people. Guess I'm a suburbanite for life.

~~~
sp332
How about moving out into the countryside? Then people would bother you even
less :)

~~~
saraid216
Just do it properly. Build a fort, put a moat around it, only invite people
you like, make sure there's a throne room, and any time you leave, do it from
a horse-powered carriage carrying all of your essentials with you.

Castle doctrine that.﻿

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sq1020
In the suburbs, there's no sense of community or character, nothing unique
that distinguishes one suburb from another. It's truly a shame that the vast
majority of the American population have been and will be deprived of a
childhood that includes a chance to walk to school, take the train to a
museum, and play with other kids in the neighborhood.

Suburbs also play a central role in making car ownership absolutely necessary
in order to perform even the most basic daily tasks. This, if you think about,
amounts to discrimination against the elderly, children, and anyone who is not
able to drive or afford a car.

~~~
jk215
Ill never understand the "allure" of living in the burbs other than having
space. Cookie cutter houses in cookie cutter developments separated by long
stretches of mini-highways and strip malls. Everything is brand new and
completely sterile.

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marknutter
My wife and I moved out of a 3rd ring suburb into the City (a first ring
suburb) here in Minneapolis and have been very happy so far. Most of my
friends have either done the same or plan to in the near future. I lived my
whole life in a quintessential suburban city and had my fill. Suburbs have
everything you need and nothing you want. You can go months without ever
leaving. Now, enjoying stuff in the city is no longer a long trek. I expect
this trend to continue.

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chris_mahan
You mean paying $900,000 for a house in a suburbs isn't a great investment?

~~~
cobrausn
I would argue that paying $900,000 for any house isn't really a great
investment.

~~~
seizethecheese
There are tons of houses where that would be a great investment.

~~~
saraid216
How is a house an investment at all?

~~~
ctdonath
You can usually sell a house for more than you put into it. Mortgage and rent
are usually comparable (I find rent is usually more). Rent is not an
investment at all, as you'll get absolutely nothing back when you leave. Even
for worst cases like buying at peak, paying for maintenance, selling low,
interest costs as much as the house, etc the result is you still get a big
check back; a lousy investment is one thing, knowing you won't get anything
out of it but momentary use is another.

And methinks the biggest "investment" value of all: when you own it outright
(may I recommend you suck it up, get humble, and pay cash up front), it's
yours and nobody can evict you. Knowing you'll have a safe place to sleep is
huge. Yeah, property taxes exist (far less than rent, which you're paying in
your rent anyway), and eminent domain may screw things up (unlikely if you
choose wisely), but it's far better than risking receipt of a notice saying
"sorry, but we've sold the building which will be demolished next month".

If nothing else, buy a $10,000 property somewhere (see zillow.com) and DIY
build a $20,000 small house on it (lots of options available, search "tiny
house"), cash as you go. If I'd have a do-over, I'd go that route no question.

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josephschmoe
Young adults don't spend time in their houses. I'd rather have a 2 bedroom
apartment within walking distance of several restaurants and bars than a house
in the suburbs, even if they were the same rent.

The suburbs are made for single families - a shrinking demographic, even among
homeowners.

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hawkharris
I'm surprised this article attributes the "exodus" to high housing costs in
the suburbs. This may be true in select areas, but as a whole, I think housing
is much more expensive near city centers.

As a wise man once said, "The rent is too damn high." I love living in the
city, but pouring tens of thousands into rent each year isn't a smart long-
term investment. To me and most of the people I know, urban housing costs are
a reason to leave the city, not to move there.

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rayiner
Yeah. I grew up in the DC suburbs, and even with a kid there's no way I'm
moving back. I'd rather live in a smaller, cheaper city than spend all day in
the car.

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the_watcher
For me personally, not having to use my car often is the single biggest appeal
of city life. I love walking to dinner, coffee, a friend's place, and bars.

------
tthomas48
There are a lot of us with kids in the cities, though. Many of us think the
schools are good enough and don't want the super-stressful "good" schools of
the suburbs for our kids. If my kid can read, write, and get into a good
college, plus have the varied experiences of living in a city that's the best
of all worlds.

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jobu
This seems like it's just a byproduct of people waiting longer to have kids
(or not having kids at all). I know if I didn't have kids I would prefer to
live in an urban area vs a suburb.

Am I wrong? Are people that live in dense cities having kids? (And if so, how
they make it work? The city seems terribly inconvenient for raising kids.)

~~~
BadassFractal
This rings true to me. If you're going to be actively dating all the way into
your 30s, living in the suburbs is going to make things much harder.

------
keithpeter
_"...she now pays $3,500 in rent, but she has a four-bedroom, 2,400-square-
foot bungalow with its own laundry and a balcony overlooking the beach."_

UK: That is less than half what I pay for a 2 bedroom house a couple of miles
out of the centre of a provincial city. This house is what people in the US
would call 'rent controlled'. Commercial rents twice to three times as much.
Housing cost is ridiculous in UK but no-one seems to want to acknowledge that.

Those 500 square feet railway apartments. What are they like? I wouldn't mind
one of those!

~~~
mgkimsal
I'll acknowledge it.

You pay > $7000/month for rent? 4200 pounds per month?

~~~
keithpeter
OK, I thought those where _annual_ rents. So still another fact of difference.

UK outer-inner city rent around £800 per month (£7200 per _year_ ) plus about
£1k property taxes for two bed apartment in new development.

~~~
mgkimsal
No, they're paying $3000+ per month in the US.

Whew - I didn't think the UK had gone up THAT much ;)

The £800/month isn't out of line with a lot of US rents either - that's around
$1300/month. You'd get a lot of room for that in some areas, but in others
like NYC, that's almost nothing.

