Welcome to the slums of tomorrow

Last month's Atlantic Monthly had an interesting piece by Christopher Leinberger, who predicts that the most recently built up suburban developments (many of them suffering from fallout from the subprime crisis) are on there way to being tomorrow's slums.

He points to a development outside of Charlotte, North Carolina - which one resident, who had there from New York characterized as "Pleasantville" when she'd first moved in, and where now more than half of the new "starter homes" are in foreclosure. Many of these homes have been vandalized, and anything with any resale value stripped out. Drug dealers have moved in, homeless people are squatting, and bullets are occasionally flying.

Leinberger also describes a more upscale California development near Sacramento - a development where dream houses were a short while back going for over $500K - as plagued by graffiti, broken windows, and gang activity.

If this sounds like the making of urban slums in the 1950's and 1960's, when people fled their crowded central-city neighborhoods for greener and leafier quarter-acres in the suburbs, it does to Leinberger, too.

And while acknowledging the role that the foreclosure crisis plays in the slumming of the suburbs, he also points to:

A structural change is under way in the housing market—a major shift in the way many Americans want to live and work. It has shaped the current downturn, steering some of the worst problems away from the cities and toward the suburban fringes. And its effects will be felt more strongly, and more broadly, as the years pass. Its ultimate impact on the suburbs, and the cities, will be profound.

After the steady march to the suburbs, which has continued pretty much unchecked since the end of World War II, more and more people are expressing a preference for city living - or for living in older, more densely populated near 'burbs where they can take public transportation into the city, and where there's some sort of downtown area with shops and restaurants that they can walk to.

Leinberger cites a study by Arthur C. Nelson of Virginia Tech's Metropolitan Institute, which:

...forecasts a likely surplus of 22 million large-lot homes (houses built on a sixth of an acre or more) by 2025—that’s roughly 40 percent of the large-lot homes in existence today.

That's a lot of (often shoddily built) housing stock sitting around idle - and a lot of disappointed folks hoping to sell their little bit of paradise and put the money towards retirement. Not a very pleasantville kind of prospect.

Now, I am not now more ever have I been a big fan of the suburban way of life. I have never lived in one, and I'm not likely to ever have the experience at this point in time - although it's entirely within the realm of possibility that I would one day live in one of the close-in, older Boston suburbs that ring the city. I like these towns, which were always had more "community" than "bedroom." Some of them, in fact, were "stand-alone" towns or cities at some point. Arlington. Belmont. Brookline. Newton. Quincy. Salem. Waltham. Watertown. There are plenty of other places like these around here where I could live quite happily.

But the car-dependent, big-box, sprawl-o-rama suburbs? Never say never, but I am willing to say "not in a million years."

Still, I find it disheartening to think of suburban communities - bought into with such optimism and enthusiasm by those who equally bought into the myth that the only place to raise kids is one in which there are no sidewalks, no corner stores, and no way to get in and out other than behind the wheel of a mini-van - rotting away.

But it seems that,

... today, American metropolitan residential patterns and cultural preferences are mirror opposites of those in the 1940s. Most Americans now live in single-family suburban houses that are segregated from work, shopping, and entertainment; but it is urban life, almost exclusively, that is culturally associated with excitement, freedom, and diverse daily life. And as in the 1940s, the real-estate market has begun to react.

Some developers are creating "walkable" suburban enclaves, where they cluster homes around some sort of commercial core. These places, he notes, sell at a premium over comparable homes in more sprawl-ish suburbs. (Amusingly, he notes that one such development, in Colorado, has been "built on the site of a razed mall." (These sorts of developments, by the way, are called "lifestyle centers." I guess I'm living in what can be described as an organic and natural "lifestyle center:" I can - and do - walk to the supermarket, the doctor, the dentist, the shoe repair guy, the bookstore, the hardware store, clothing stores, the movies, restaurants, etc. I can also walk to "big box" stores - which in cities are as likely to be in older buildings - like Bed, Bath and Beyond, and Best Buy. I can even get to a Home Depot on public transportation, although - if I had to go there for some reason, it would likely involve hauling enough stuff that I'd need to have a car.)

This is, apparently, a "lifestyle" that people increasingly want. Leinberger cites a study in which 1/3 of the suburbanites studies would be willing to trade off suburban amenities (more space) vs. urban amenities (walking distance to something you'd want to walk to); 1/3 expressed a preference for staying in the 'burbs; and 1/3 had mixed feelings.But more than 10 million new single-family homes have already been built since 2000, most of them in the suburbs.

As energy costs heat up, it will become more and more costly to live in the farther-out suburbs (especially those not on public transportation). Those who can afford to will move into or closer to the city. Schooling and safety - two of the key perceived suburban benefits - will improve in the city, and likely deteriorate in the suburbs.

Leinberger predicts that suburban housing prices will decrease to the point where they're available to lower-income buyers, and that they're likely to be converted into apartments. He points out that, when this happened in inner-city neighborhoods in the 1950's, the houses that were being broken up were solidly built, and could withstand being split in multi-family dwellings.

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.

This all makes me quite happy to be living in a building that was constructed the mid-1800's, with a new-fangled addition that was tacked on in 1919. (Our condo is in the "new" part, but those are hardwood floors and real wooden doors, thank you.).

I'll be happy to see more and more walkable communities develop. This is good for the environment, good for the culture, and good for the soul. And, of course, I don't mind seeing my "lifestyle center" lifestyle being vindicated.

But the idea of all those suburbs - however much I don't want to live in one of them - turn into "magnets for poverty, crime, and social dysfunction." I can't say I'm looking forward all that much to that.