13 ms·

The Persistent Economic Advantage of America’s Suburbs

63 points by jatsign 8y ago

cagenut 8y ago
"during the four-decade period spanning 1970 to 2010."
- jtbayly 8y ago
  “...a period that overlaps with notions of the resurgence of America’s urban centers and the decline of its suburbs.”
  - ghaff 8y ago
    That sentence seems odd. NYC was about to go bankrupt during that period. Boston was losing population and employers into the 1990s. The current new urbanism renewal is mostly overstated and applies to a thin slice of demographics and locations but it’s also very recent—less than 20 years old for the most part.
- jerf 8y ago
  Since that's the period of the study, I assume you're invoking a "god of the gaps"-type argument to invite people to assume that afterwards it went the way your predispositions say it should have?
- sct202 8y ago
  What an odd time period to pick, since this is peak Suburbia-McMansion sprawl.
  - thrden 8y ago
    its the 4 most recent decades covered by census data. Although you're right to point out that suburbia had its primacy in this time period, the researcher can't be faulted for looking for the highest quality, most recent data.
- mywittyname 8y ago
  It does seem rather daft to challenge claims from book written seven years ago about the next five to ten years by using data from between 50 and 9 years go.
- ocschwar 8y ago
  The gas price build up went from 2005 to 2008, and then came the housing crisis. For this study to mean much, they at least have to go as far as 2015
ab71e5 8y ago
I don't get it, doesn't this just say that more rich/educated people live in the suburbs than urban areas? How is that an economic advantage or 'outperforming' urban neighborhoods? I thought it has been shown that suburbs cost a lot more per capita in public services like roads but this is heavily subsidized by more the efficient urban areas.
- dougmany 8y ago
  >Richard Florida is a co-founder and editor at large of CityLab and a senior editor at The Atlantic. He is a university professor in the University of Toronto’s School of Cities and Rotman School of Management, and a distinguished fellow at New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate. The article is written from a Realtor's prospective.
  - kbenson 8y ago
    I think it's slightly more comprehensive than that. The school page seems to indicate it covers construction and development too.[1] That said, it definitely appears to be weighted on the seller side (which makes sense), so that may affect perspective somewhat. 1: http://www.scps.nyu.edu/content/scps/academics/departments/schack/about.html http://www.scps.nyu.edu/content/scps/academics/departments/s...
  - trgn 8y ago
    Richard Florida coined the term "creative class" and was one of the big boosters of the idea that the young cool people would not only move to the city when they're young and eager (same as always), but also would decide to stay there as they grow older (new in the late 90s), effectively transforming the urban environment. The wealth of this middle-aged creative worker with disposable income would then trickle down to the service class. He described a model for urban renaissance that was essentially reducing a city to factories of entertainment and opportunity for yuppies. He really shaped the conversation. But as reality is more nuanced than that, he's trying to find a new tack. Smart guy.
helen___keller 8y ago
>The once cut-and-dried distinctions between city and suburb have blurred and no longer explain the actual places we live I think this should be expanded on. If you live in a place where people commute to the urban center on a daily basis, then you are a part of that city's urban fabric, even if you are not "in the city". The distinction between "urban" and "suburban" is mostly superficial based on the forms of housing common in each location, the modes of transportation commonly used, and the culture of each location. This is even evident in day to day speech, if you are traveling and meet someone who asks where you are from, from my experience you say the name of the city you live near, not the name of the adjacent suburb or township you live in.
- gipp 8y ago
  How is that "superficial"? You listed some of the most economically and culturally impactful factors for a settlement.
  - helen___keller 8y ago
    Fair. Maybe a better description is that the differences between urban and suburban were manufactured by public policy. The forms of housing were manufactured by zoning law, home owners associations, and master plans for communities of houses with big lawns. The forms of transportation were manufactured more or less as a direct result of the housing forms above. Walking, biking, and transit aren't as viable in the land of suburban sprawl (and during the decades of expansion of the suburb, public transportation money mostly aimed at motorist-friendly projects like expressways) The cultural (and socio-economic) differences were manufactured by horrifying, now-illegal, 20th century policies, namely redlining and racial covenants. The OP's description that suburban and urban are "blurring" is a result of several decades of recovery from these policies. By superficial what I meant is that without these forces manufacturing a false dichotomy of "urban" vs "suburban", we would likely have a much more blurred spectrum of housing & neighborhoods.
    - dahfizz 8y ago
      Everything you mention is a byproduct of one factor: density. Density of people determines housing and economics and transportation and everything else that makes a suburb different than a city. And while I agree that there is a continuous spectrum there, the dichotomy is anything but false. The noisy, dirty, cramped city might as well be on a different planet from the quiet, disperse suburbs 30 minutes away. The lifestyles and experiences of the two places are very different.
troyvit 8y ago
"Across the board, suburban neighborhoods have higher incomes, higher home values, higher shares of college grads, and higher shares of professionals than urban neighborhoods. And suburbs do better than urban areas even when we compare neighborhoods in the same quartile of status." I think though that part of the problem is that housing in the suburbs is more expensive to begin with, so only people with a lot of money can afford to live there. If you have more money you'r emore likely to be a college grad and a "professional" (whatever that means). It's not that suburbia makes you rich, it's that you have to be rich to live in surburbia. There isn't an economic advantage to living there, you just have to be richer to live there.
- api 8y ago
  Housing in the suburbs was more expensive in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, but that is no longer true in many cities. Excluding the most affluent suburbs higher quality urban real estate is often more expensive. Suburbs closer to city centers are also generally more expensive unless they are in poor condition. I've wondered if the suburbs might not have been a major driver of American middle class growth in the late 20th century for a really simple reason: expansion fueled by automotive transit allowed people to escape the law of rent and the tyranny of landlords and the property market. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent Eventually this expansion reached practical limits due to commute times and energy costs, so now we are back to the way it was before.
  - magduf 8y ago
    >Excluding the most affluent suburbs higher quality urban real estate is often more expensive. This isn't really true in my experience. What is true is that housing is more expensive in terms of $/square foot in the middle of the city. However, this doesn't mean you'll find a cheaper place in the suburbs: if all the housing in a suburb is giant McMansions, they're still going to be more expensive than a small condo or efficiency in town. This is what I've found when I moved to my current city (DC); it just didn't save any money to live farther out because I don't want 2-5 bedrooms, as I'm a single guy. So it makes more sense for me to live closer to town in a small condo where I can enjoy the benefits of living closer, and my total rent is cheaper, and I don't have a giant house that I don't make use of, nor do I have to pay to heat/cool that giant house that I don't use.
jellicle 8y ago
The article seems to want to say "suburbs cause wealth" but only provides data for "rich people live in suburbs".
obelos 8y ago
It would be interesting to see how age factors into this spread. During this study's timeframe at least, older people have had more opportunity to accrue wealth and have children (who have also had more time to go to college). In my anecdotal experience, most of the urban influx has been from younger people.
- ghaff 8y ago
  The most detailed data I’ve run across in recent years suggests the urbanization trend is mostly about college educated 18-35 year olds moving to a relative handful of dense urban cores. (Though anecdotally the same thing is happening on a smaller scale in many cities that have small gentrified cores.)
Maximus9000 8y ago
This article is all about money. What about life? Suburbs are depressing. I find myself both happier and healthier in walkable communities near city center.
- mtberatwork 8y ago
  I agree with what you are saying and it's unfortunate that many of the modern suburbs in America were never created around the concept of a village but were strewn about by various developers looking to put up quick, cheap buildings to sell at a premium. It's often boring, drab and desolate in a sense. Depressing at times for sure. On the other hand, living in a cramped condo or apartment with kids isn't my cup of tea either and US cities aren't always the most walkable or even have quality public transit. Unless you are wealthy, which affords you more options, it's all a trade-off in the final end.
- turc1656 8y ago
  It depends on the person. I personally dislike cities in the general sense and would probably never live in one. I don't like such a high population density and lack of greenery. I'd much rather drive around a suburb or country area than around a city. I don't find suburbs depressing unless they are impoverished like some of the small, dying towns in the US that were once strong manufacturing areas but now are falling apart both economically and literally.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  If you have 4 kids, it might be different. All of my siblings have kids ands live in the burbs, and it's jus easier: they have larger, boring homes, but easy access to schools and the grocery store. Parkland: they all play sports and there are actual places to play them. The couldn't care less about not being near the museum. I think they would like maybe to be able to 'walk places' but that's one thing they give up. It's also very green and closer to the countryside. It's a little more banal but I really do think when you have kids, it's all about that, and so a lot of other things have less priority.
  - thousandautumns 8y ago
crowdpleaser 8y ago
Is it any surprise? I don't want to be accused of being a racist so I can't move into affordable urban neighborhoods with too many 'underrepresented minorities'. I like peace and quiet, you don't find that in the city. I like driving more than walking/bicycling/taking the bus so I live in a place that makes it less of a hassle to own the cars. And I care for my safety and my property, I'd be an idiot to move to the cities near me that care more about being nice to criminals than protecting property owned by the working class. And yeah, the suburbs are advantaged. I saved money to live there, I want my kids to have the most advantages possible, I've instilled enough discipline in them that they're able to learn and grow at school. I've been in city schools, they're full of kids pissing away the opportunity to learn and interfering with the learning of other students, how can someone succeed when their classmates are cranking that soulja boy?
- helen___keller 8y ago
  >I don't want to be accused of being a racist so I can't move into affordable urban neighborhoods with too many 'underrepresented minorities' ???
  - crowdpleaser 8y ago
    https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/erika-d-smith/article219312260.html https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/erika-d-smi... Improving a blighted neighborhood is racism. If I were to displace a minority from “their” neighborhood, I would have done a racist act.
    - Poer12321 8y ago
      Maybe you are just racist.
  - golemiprague 8y ago
    I think he meant "but I can't" rather than "so I can't" and let's face it, this is true for everyone, nobody wants to live in a shitty area with shitty people. It is much cheaper to find a decent community in the suburbs than in the city and if you don't want your kids to go to a school full of black/hispanic criminals and can't afford the affluent areas in the city you must end up in a suburb. The days of bad white neighbourhoods in the city are long gone and even then they were not that bad as the black neighbourhoods.
stcredzero 8y ago
"Subdivisions" -- Rush, 1982, Signals Sprawling on the fringes of the city In geometric order An insulated border In-between the bright lights And the far, unlit unknown Growing up, it all seems so one-sided Opinions all provided The future pre-decided Detached and subdivided In the mass-production zone Nowhere is the dreamer Or the misfit so alone ... Any escape might help to smooth The unattractive truth But the suburbs have no charms to soothe The restless dreams of youth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subdivisions_(song) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subdivisions_(song)
- cpursley 8y ago
  Ahead of their time :)
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    Growing up, it all seems so one-sided Opinions all provided The future pre-decided Detached and subdivided

63 points by jatsign 8y ago

cagenut 8y ago

"during the four-decade period spanning 1970 to 2010."

jtbayly 8y ago
“...a period that overlaps with notions of the resurgence of America’s urban centers and the decline of its suburbs.”
- ghaff 8y ago
  That sentence seems odd. NYC was about to go bankrupt during that period. Boston was losing population and employers into the 1990s. The current new urbanism renewal is mostly overstated and applies to a thin slice of demographics and locations but it’s also very recent—less than 20 years old for the most part.
jerf 8y ago
Since that's the period of the study, I assume you're invoking a "god of the gaps"-type argument to invite people to assume that afterwards it went the way your predispositions say it should have?
sct202 8y ago
What an odd time period to pick, since this is peak Suburbia-McMansion sprawl.
- thrden 8y ago
  its the 4 most recent decades covered by census data. Although you're right to point out that suburbia had its primacy in this time period, the researcher can't be faulted for looking for the highest quality, most recent data.
mywittyname 8y ago
It does seem rather daft to challenge claims from book written seven years ago about the next five to ten years by using data from between 50 and 9 years go.
ocschwar 8y ago
The gas price build up went from 2005 to 2008, and then came the housing crisis. For this study to mean much, they at least have to go as far as 2015

ab71e5 8y ago

I don't get it, doesn't this just say that more rich/educated people live in the suburbs than urban areas? How is that an economic advantage or 'outperforming' urban neighborhoods? I thought it has been shown that suburbs cost a lot more per capita in public services like roads but this is heavily subsidized by more the efficient urban areas.

dougmany 8y ago
>Richard Florida is a co-founder and editor at large of CityLab and a senior editor at The Atlantic. He is a university professor in the University of Toronto’s School of Cities and Rotman School of Management, and a distinguished fellow at New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate. The article is written from a Realtor's prospective.
- kbenson 8y ago
  I think it's slightly more comprehensive than that. The school page seems to indicate it covers construction and development too.[1] That said, it definitely appears to be weighted on the seller side (which makes sense), so that may affect perspective somewhat. 1: http://www.scps.nyu.edu/content/scps/academics/departments/schack/about.html http://www.scps.nyu.edu/content/scps/academics/departments/s...
- trgn 8y ago
  Richard Florida coined the term "creative class" and was one of the big boosters of the idea that the young cool people would not only move to the city when they're young and eager (same as always), but also would decide to stay there as they grow older (new in the late 90s), effectively transforming the urban environment. The wealth of this middle-aged creative worker with disposable income would then trickle down to the service class. He described a model for urban renaissance that was essentially reducing a city to factories of entertainment and opportunity for yuppies. He really shaped the conversation. But as reality is more nuanced than that, he's trying to find a new tack. Smart guy.

helen___keller 8y ago

>The once cut-and-dried distinctions between city and suburb have blurred and no longer explain the actual places we live I think this should be expanded on. If you live in a place where people commute to the urban center on a daily basis, then you are a part of that city's urban fabric, even if you are not "in the city". The distinction between "urban" and "suburban" is mostly superficial based on the forms of housing common in each location, the modes of transportation commonly used, and the culture of each location. This is even evident in day to day speech, if you are traveling and meet someone who asks where you are from, from my experience you say the name of the city you live near, not the name of the adjacent suburb or township you live in.

gipp 8y ago
How is that "superficial"? You listed some of the most economically and culturally impactful factors for a settlement.
- helen___keller 8y ago
  Fair. Maybe a better description is that the differences between urban and suburban were manufactured by public policy. The forms of housing were manufactured by zoning law, home owners associations, and master plans for communities of houses with big lawns. The forms of transportation were manufactured more or less as a direct result of the housing forms above. Walking, biking, and transit aren't as viable in the land of suburban sprawl (and during the decades of expansion of the suburb, public transportation money mostly aimed at motorist-friendly projects like expressways) The cultural (and socio-economic) differences were manufactured by horrifying, now-illegal, 20th century policies, namely redlining and racial covenants. The OP's description that suburban and urban are "blurring" is a result of several decades of recovery from these policies. By superficial what I meant is that without these forces manufacturing a false dichotomy of "urban" vs "suburban", we would likely have a much more blurred spectrum of housing & neighborhoods.
  - dahfizz 8y ago
    Everything you mention is a byproduct of one factor: density. Density of people determines housing and economics and transportation and everything else that makes a suburb different than a city. And while I agree that there is a continuous spectrum there, the dichotomy is anything but false. The noisy, dirty, cramped city might as well be on a different planet from the quiet, disperse suburbs 30 minutes away. The lifestyles and experiences of the two places are very different.

troyvit 8y ago

"Across the board, suburban neighborhoods have higher incomes, higher home values, higher shares of college grads, and higher shares of professionals than urban neighborhoods. And suburbs do better than urban areas even when we compare neighborhoods in the same quartile of status." I think though that part of the problem is that housing in the suburbs is more expensive to begin with, so only people with a lot of money can afford to live there. If you have more money you'r emore likely to be a college grad and a "professional" (whatever that means). It's not that suburbia makes you rich, it's that you have to be rich to live in surburbia. There isn't an economic advantage to living there, you just have to be richer to live there.

api 8y ago
Housing in the suburbs was more expensive in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, but that is no longer true in many cities. Excluding the most affluent suburbs higher quality urban real estate is often more expensive. Suburbs closer to city centers are also generally more expensive unless they are in poor condition. I've wondered if the suburbs might not have been a major driver of American middle class growth in the late 20th century for a really simple reason: expansion fueled by automotive transit allowed people to escape the law of rent and the tyranny of landlords and the property market. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent Eventually this expansion reached practical limits due to commute times and energy costs, so now we are back to the way it was before.
- magduf 8y ago
  >Excluding the most affluent suburbs higher quality urban real estate is often more expensive. This isn't really true in my experience. What is true is that housing is more expensive in terms of $/square foot in the middle of the city. However, this doesn't mean you'll find a cheaper place in the suburbs: if all the housing in a suburb is giant McMansions, they're still going to be more expensive than a small condo or efficiency in town. This is what I've found when I moved to my current city (DC); it just didn't save any money to live farther out because I don't want 2-5 bedrooms, as I'm a single guy. So it makes more sense for me to live closer to town in a small condo where I can enjoy the benefits of living closer, and my total rent is cheaper, and I don't have a giant house that I don't make use of, nor do I have to pay to heat/cool that giant house that I don't use.

jellicle 8y ago

The article seems to want to say "suburbs cause wealth" but only provides data for "rich people live in suburbs".

obelos 8y ago

It would be interesting to see how age factors into this spread. During this study's timeframe at least, older people have had more opportunity to accrue wealth and have children (who have also had more time to go to college). In my anecdotal experience, most of the urban influx has been from younger people.

ghaff 8y ago
The most detailed data I’ve run across in recent years suggests the urbanization trend is mostly about college educated 18-35 year olds moving to a relative handful of dense urban cores. (Though anecdotally the same thing is happening on a smaller scale in many cities that have small gentrified cores.)

Maximus9000 8y ago

This article is all about money. What about life? Suburbs are depressing. I find myself both happier and healthier in walkable communities near city center.

mtberatwork 8y ago
I agree with what you are saying and it's unfortunate that many of the modern suburbs in America were never created around the concept of a village but were strewn about by various developers looking to put up quick, cheap buildings to sell at a premium. It's often boring, drab and desolate in a sense. Depressing at times for sure. On the other hand, living in a cramped condo or apartment with kids isn't my cup of tea either and US cities aren't always the most walkable or even have quality public transit. Unless you are wealthy, which affords you more options, it's all a trade-off in the final end.
turc1656 8y ago
It depends on the person. I personally dislike cities in the general sense and would probably never live in one. I don't like such a high population density and lack of greenery. I'd much rather drive around a suburb or country area than around a city. I don't find suburbs depressing unless they are impoverished like some of the small, dying towns in the US that were once strong manufacturing areas but now are falling apart both economically and literally.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
If you have 4 kids, it might be different. All of my siblings have kids ands live in the burbs, and it's jus easier: they have larger, boring homes, but easy access to schools and the grocery store. Parkland: they all play sports and there are actual places to play them. The couldn't care less about not being near the museum. I think they would like maybe to be able to 'walk places' but that's one thing they give up. It's also very green and closer to the countryside. It's a little more banal but I really do think when you have kids, it's all about that, and so a lot of other things have less priority.
- thousandautumns 8y ago

crowdpleaser 8y ago

Is it any surprise? I don't want to be accused of being a racist so I can't move into affordable urban neighborhoods with too many 'underrepresented minorities'. I like peace and quiet, you don't find that in the city. I like driving more than walking/bicycling/taking the bus so I live in a place that makes it less of a hassle to own the cars. And I care for my safety and my property, I'd be an idiot to move to the cities near me that care more about being nice to criminals than protecting property owned by the working class. And yeah, the suburbs are advantaged. I saved money to live there, I want my kids to have the most advantages possible, I've instilled enough discipline in them that they're able to learn and grow at school. I've been in city schools, they're full of kids pissing away the opportunity to learn and interfering with the learning of other students, how can someone succeed when their classmates are cranking that soulja boy?

helen___keller 8y ago
>I don't want to be accused of being a racist so I can't move into affordable urban neighborhoods with too many 'underrepresented minorities' ???
- crowdpleaser 8y ago
  https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/erika-d-smith/article219312260.html https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/erika-d-smi... Improving a blighted neighborhood is racism. If I were to displace a minority from “their” neighborhood, I would have done a racist act.
  - Poer12321 8y ago
    Maybe you are just racist.
- golemiprague 8y ago
  I think he meant "but I can't" rather than "so I can't" and let's face it, this is true for everyone, nobody wants to live in a shitty area with shitty people. It is much cheaper to find a decent community in the suburbs than in the city and if you don't want your kids to go to a school full of black/hispanic criminals and can't afford the affluent areas in the city you must end up in a suburb. The days of bad white neighbourhoods in the city are long gone and even then they were not that bad as the black neighbourhoods.

stcredzero 8y ago

"Subdivisions" -- Rush, 1982, Signals Sprawling on the fringes of the city In geometric order An insulated border In-between the bright lights And the far, unlit unknown Growing up, it all seems so one-sided Opinions all provided The future pre-decided Detached and subdivided In the mass-production zone Nowhere is the dreamer Or the misfit so alone ... Any escape might help to smooth The unattractive truth But the suburbs have no charms to soothe The restless dreams of youth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subdivisions_(song) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subdivisions_(song)

cpursley 8y ago
Ahead of their time :)
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Growing up, it all seems so one-sided Opinions all provided The future pre-decided Detached and subdivided