Coming Soon: Suburban Blight

In the 60’s and 70’s a vast number of cities across the US were plagued by a phenomenon called Urban Blight. A few weeks ago I read in 2 stories from separate news sources about Youngstown Ohio, which is a former steel mill town just southeast of Cleveland that has been hit hard by the closing of mills and the current foreclosure crisis.”…Youngstown wants to close entire streets and bulldoze abandoned properties so it can shut down city services like street lighting, police patrols and garbage pick-ups that it can no longer afford to maintain.

To do this on a large scale, the city needs to get about 100 residents to relocate. Each is eligible for $50,000 in incentives - plenty, in this town, to buy a new home and move.”

What they plan to do with the cleared land is convert it into green spaces and parks. Meanwhile the people who previously occupied those suburban neighborhoods will likely move closer to the center city or leave Youngstown altogether.

To an outsider looking in, this makes complete sense and is not a surprising turn of events considering all of the talk these days about rising gas prices and new urbanism. I can, however see the point of those neighborhood residents who are attached to their homes and the memories that they have of raising familes and the more prosperous times in their lives when steel mill jobs offered a way of life for many people who otherwise would have had limited opportunities for employment and job growth, much like what high school graduates who choose to pass on higher education are facing today.

As far as what I term to be “suburban blight” is concerned, it would be difficult for me to say that I believe we will see the kind of widespread migration from the suburbs, back into the cities over night. I do, however, anticipate that suburban expansion, or the addition of new subdivisions further from city centers will practically stop over the next 5 years as aging baby boomers being to downsize, credit situations continue to become worse and young professionals opt away from the 2 hr work day commute, which is not only a waste of their valuable time, but a burdening expense as gas prices surpass $3.50 $3.75 $4.00 per gallon across the nation. As such, when the economics of it all makes sense, the movement will accelerate.

Several weeks ago, my family and I gave up our suburban McMansion in WI for an urban townhome in FL. I am fortunate in that I don’t need to drive into an office to make a decent living. Even if I did, there are plenty of employers within walking distance of my current home. This is starting to make our second vehicle seem like an unnecessary expense, not to mention the fact that it is occupying nearly 60% of the space available in our 2 car garage.

While deciding on where we were going to live when selling our WI home, we had very little doubt in our minds that we wanted to be within walking distance of things like restaurants and entertainment centers. At the same time, the apprehension of giving up the privacy and space that we all became so used to would still swirl around in my mind. Ultimately, lifestyle options outweighed square footage and we decided to go with the urban townhome. It has been nearly 2 months now and we are certain that we have finally found our dream home.

Of course, it will take awhile for many modern families to adopt the notion of giving up a thousand square feet (or more) for the conveniences of city living.  Home economics, real estate valuation, gas prices, quality of public schools and lifestyle preferences will all play a big part in their decision process.

My prediction is that when real estate markets begin to rebound, new homes inside of urban centers will carry a premium, which will help to drive improvements to urban school systems.  Older homes close to city centers will be prime targets for “house flippers” to buy, renovate and sell to families that can’t swing the prices of newer homes downtown. The ultimate losers will unfortunately be those who are unable to sell their suburban McMansions whose value plateaued back in 2006.  This, of course, will signal the sad decay of what was once defined for us as “our American Dream” and what will eventually come to be known as suburban blight as the new American Dream continues to evolve.