

The Fall of Suburbia - rms
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/subprime

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airhadoken
Suburbia these days draws a strong parallel to the NHL in the '90s. The major
expansion binge which created hockey teams where they, to be frank, had _no
business being_ , watered down the product by spreading talent thinly and damn
near killed the sport in the US (it will probably never die in Canada no
matter what happens).

In the same vein, most of the country never had a housing crunch like the Bay
Area and metro Boston, but home building has been consistently outstripping
the economy. Population grows at 0.9% annually, or about 2.7 million people
per year; From 2000-2006, the net increase in housing units was 9.0% over the
whole span, or 1.4% per year. In 2006 alone there were 1.8 million family
units created, and over 2 million in 2005. With 2.3 or 2.4 people per
household on average, there _should_ only be 1.2 million new homes per year.

Unless household size is rapidly shrinking, there just aren't enough families
to fill the houses being produced.

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byteCoder
The article is a lot of wishful thinking on behalf of its author. The news of
the death of the suburbs has been greatly exaggerated.

No doubt, basic bedroom communities with a lack of transportation options for
commuting will suffer with increased energy costs. However, the suburbs that
provide a balanced business, commercial, and housing ecosystem and have
diverse transportation options to the main destinations outside will actually
thrive and prosper.

The simple fact is that not everyone likes nor wants to live in more densely
populated areas. Believe it or not, walkability can be nice, but not everyone
cares about that.

Signed, A Happy Suburban Dweller

/ I actually do love visiting downtowns like Boston and San Fran and walking
to places.

// Fortunately, my home suburb in the Twin Cities (Eden Prairie) has hundreds
of miles of dedicated bike paths to get around...

// ...and my commute to work is within the suburb itself.

/// Economically, it would take a tremendous shock to get me to move away.
Perhaps, I'm just lucky to live in the RIGHT suburb! ;-)

~~~
brlittle
"However, the suburbs that provide a balanced business, commercial, and
housing ecosystem and have diverse transportation options to the main
destinations outside will actually thrive and prosper."

Technically, then, it's not a suburb. Depending on population, it's closer to
an edge city. The fact is that suburban sprawl like one of the examples
specifically decried in the article (Windy Ridge is less that 45 minutes from
where I live) consists of acre upon acre of packed chipboard-and-vinyl houses
that aren't designed to last without extraordinary upkeep. It's predicated
upon the notion of cheap, readily available energy, never-ending road
construction, and a continual stream of both upwardly-mobile homebuyers
looking to move up to something nicer, and first-time homebuyers looking for
something cheap they can sell at a profit in a few years.

It's simply not a sustainable model. Sooner or later the market will bust, and
in the interim, there's a good chances these cheap-and-cheery neighborhoods
will come apart at the seams. They aren't built worth a damn, and they're
miles from critical services and commerce. It's already starting to happen
here. I hate to think what'll happen if gas spikes and sticks.

(In the interest of full disclosure: I skipped right over "suburban" to
"exurban" living. I have over an acre on the outskirts of a small town about
25 miles from the nearest big city. So I'm happy out here, too. But gas bills
are already putting a crimp in my lifestyle, so that might well change.)

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jimbokun
"Many of the inner-city neighborhoods that began their decline in the 1960s
consisted of sturdily built, turn-of-the-century row houses, tough enough to
withstand being broken up into apartments, and requiring relatively little
upkeep. By comparison, modern suburban houses, even high-end McMansions, are
cheaply built. Hollow doors and wallboard are less durable than solid-oak
doors and lath-and-plaster walls. The plywood floors that lurk under wood
veneers or carpeting tend to break up and warp as the glue that holds the wood
together dries out; asphalt-shingle roofs typically need replacing after 10
years. Many recently built houses take what structural integrity they have
from drywall—their thin wooden frames are too flimsy to hold the houses up."

That's progress for you.

~~~
airhadoken
Thank you parent poster. This was the other part I wanted to cover in my post
above but didn't think I could find hard data for. It seems like the
contracting business has attracted large amounts of ethically-challenged scum,
who are building houses that aren't likely to last as long as the mortgages
paying for them. It kind of explains why new-home starts have seemed to be
recession-proof in the last decade -- Say's Law lives in a very real sense
here -- but at the same time it's hard to build stable neighborhoods around
disposable homes.

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brlittle
Reasonably astute summary of the situation. This is the gospel Jim Kunstler
and others have been preaching for years now (<http://www.kunstler.com/>). If
you accept the idea of peak oil, you can readily see where the intersection of
PO and the re-urbanization trend will spell disaster for the suburbs.

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patrickg-zill
There is a lot of wishful thinking and very little fact in this article.

For one, only now, after some 2 years of $3 a gallon gas, has fuel economy
begun to make itself felt in new car purchasers' decisions; where it is now in
_third_ place. It would take a lot more pain at the pump to get people to give
up their quarter acre.

~~~
Xichekolas
I think the whole sticker-shock issue with the price of gas is a chimera.
Everyone I know has complained about the price of gas since it passed $1 for
the last time in 1999. The price could be 60 cents a gallon and people would
complain if they could remember a time when it was only 50 cents. The reason
people complain about $3 gas is not because they can't afford it or are
unwilling to afford it, it's because they remember paying 79 cents a gallon
only 10 years ago. (Like I did with my first car!)

Our current lifestyle means 90% of the gas we buy is an unavoidable cost. If I
(living in Lawrence, KS) decided to stop buying gas, or for some financial
reason needed to buy less of it, I couldn't get to work, which would
definitely make things worse. I also couldn't go buy food, or do much of
anything else. People in Manhattan or any European city could probably cut
back by using public transport, but that isn't a (realistic) option for me,
and I suspect the vast majority of Americans are in a similar situation (if we
are anything in Kansas, we are average). I'd be more likely to cut back on
food and drop my cell phone than cut back on gas.

The only way to cut gas consumption is a more efficient car... or carpooling.
Both are pretty drastic for the average person. Spending $30k to save on gas
only makes sense sometimes, and setting up realistic carpooling is harder than
paying $3/gallon.

So I bet gas could be $8 a gallon and you wouldn't see (significantly) lower
consumption. Like you said, to think people will actually _move_ just to save
on gas is far fetched.

I'd move to an urban center just because I like being able to walk/ride
everywhere (after living in Madrid)... not because gas is too expensive.

~~~
davidw
This concept is called "elasticity of demand":

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_elasticity_of_demand>

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ChaitanyaSai
The last bout of irrational exuberance gave us a lot of dark fiber and that
obviously had positive effects. However, unsavory elements (porn) and
respectable ones (news.yc ? :)) can coexist in peace because of the
impermeable barriers of bit packets. Social dynamics are osmotic and will lead
to re-invention of the new and newly cheap neighborhoods. But will these
reinvented neighborhoods be slums? Changes (the more disturbing ones) observed
in the article might be temporary aberration, for slums seem to need a
combination of cheap housing and proximity to unskilled jobs that pay by the
hour; the daily opportunity cost of the commute is quite literal.

~~~
brlittle
"slums seem to need a combination of cheap housing and proximity to unskilled
jobs that pay by the hour"

Actually, they need cheap, undesirable housing, and not much else. Slum
neighborhoods are more often characterized by their _lack_ of job
opportunities, pay-by-the-hour or otherwise. This is one of the things that
makes escaping a slum so difficult -- the need to pay to get to any kind of
work that enables you to live.

~~~
cellis
broken windows. Thats all they need.

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edw519
Imagine when gas hits $5/gallon.

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sethg
ObHacker: Densely populated neighborhoods can be more cheaply wired for
broadband.

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wallflower
Book recommendation: Sprawl: A Compact History

Read it for a book club a long time ago. Need to find it again.

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ardit33
good post. As a hacker, i just hate the american suburbia. Boring, non-
inspiring, and soul drenching.

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menloparkbum
soul drenching?

~~~
rms
<http://www.google.com/search?q=soul+drenching>

~~~
cdr
#1 result is the parent comment.

Phrase may be a little obscure.

~~~
rms
that was my joke

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cellis
sell sell sell!

