Allow me a little schadenfreude, huh?
Given that I spend so much time paying attention to the ill effects on the residents of cities who have been left behind over the decades when (mostly white) people with choices headed off for the suburban fringe, I have trouble not being grimly satisfied to hear that all of us who said it wouldn't last weren't blowing smoke. In the Altantic...
In the Franklin Reserve neighborhood of Elk Grove, California, south of Sacramento, the houses are nicer than those at Windy Ridge-many once sold for well over $500,000-but the phenomenon is the same. At the height of the boom, 10,000 new homes were built there in just four years. Now many are empty; renters of dubious character [ed. note: as an editor I wouldn't have let that phrase stand] occupy others. Graffiti, broken windows, and other markers of decay have multiplied. Susan McDonald, president of the local residents’ association and an executive at a local bank, told the Associated Press, “There’s been gang activity. Things have really been changing, the last few years.”
Only because they're crappy houses, the decline may be more rapid than the cities' were:
"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. [emphasis mine. drywall? I mean, I knew it was bad, but...]
As the residents of inner-city neighborhoods did before them, suburban homeowners will surely try to prevent the division of neighborhood houses into rental units, which would herald the arrival of the poor. And many will likely succeed, for a time. But eventually, the owners of these fringe houses will have to sell to someone, and they’re not likely to find many buyers; offers from would-be landlords will start to look better, and neighborhood restrictions will relax."
We can only hope they can't sell to anyone except farmers and the houses just come down. Because concentrating poor folk out there away from public transit and services is not the way to get over being "Two Americas." And we need more farms.
The rest of the article is all about the pent-up demand for walkable, urban (by which they mean anywhere with a downtown of any size) housing. That's not news per se, though we're still waiting for it to reach the hardest hit cities. It's mostly interesting to hear someone actually noting that suburban housing developments are not immune to the same forces.
In the Franklin Reserve neighborhood of Elk Grove, California, south of Sacramento, the houses are nicer than those at Windy Ridge-many once sold for well over $500,000-but the phenomenon is the same. At the height of the boom, 10,000 new homes were built there in just four years. Now many are empty; renters of dubious character [ed. note: as an editor I wouldn't have let that phrase stand] occupy others. Graffiti, broken windows, and other markers of decay have multiplied. Susan McDonald, president of the local residents’ association and an executive at a local bank, told the Associated Press, “There’s been gang activity. Things have really been changing, the last few years.”
Only because they're crappy houses, the decline may be more rapid than the cities' were:
"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. [emphasis mine. drywall? I mean, I knew it was bad, but...]
As the residents of inner-city neighborhoods did before them, suburban homeowners will surely try to prevent the division of neighborhood houses into rental units, which would herald the arrival of the poor. And many will likely succeed, for a time. But eventually, the owners of these fringe houses will have to sell to someone, and they’re not likely to find many buyers; offers from would-be landlords will start to look better, and neighborhood restrictions will relax."
We can only hope they can't sell to anyone except farmers and the houses just come down. Because concentrating poor folk out there away from public transit and services is not the way to get over being "Two Americas." And we need more farms.
The rest of the article is all about the pent-up demand for walkable, urban (by which they mean anywhere with a downtown of any size) housing. That's not news per se, though we're still waiting for it to reach the hardest hit cities. It's mostly interesting to hear someone actually noting that suburban housing developments are not immune to the same forces.