Came across two separate articles today about people bailing on the big cities and moving out. The usual subjects were at play: lack of good, affordable housing, lack of good schools available in the housing area they can afford, high crime, pollution, traffic, overcrowding. Also cited was the internet making work from home available to millions. Runs contrary to the meme of people being bored in the 'burbs and moving back to the cities for the "excitement".
Carrera
Apr 20, 15 7:02 pm
Volunteer, suppose it depends on the city....for me I'm sick of it (living in the city)..…the sophomoric politics, endless school levy’s (not the money, but all the constant discord), cops (or should I say tax collectors) lurking everywhere looking for broken tail lights, massive healthcare conglomerates (monopolies)..….you get feeling harassed, stuff raises the misery index….think the young are poised to rebuild our cities but those running things are ruining the prospect.
Miles Jaffe
Apr 20, 15 7:09 pm
^ Those conditions are not confined to cities. The new economy has public servants (oxymoron) leveraging citizens as a revenue stream just like corporations. Meanwhile trillions can go to corporate welfare, endless war, bank execs, insurance companies, etc.
Carrera
Apr 20, 15 7:24 pm
^"Those conditions are not confined to cities".....not where I'm going, leastwise I worn't have to listen to it.
JLC-1
Apr 20, 15 7:36 pm
I left a 7 million ppl city 15 yrs ago because my kids were in the hospital every month in winter, and I hope I never have to go back. Some don't have a choice.
JLC-1
Apr 20, 15 7:54 pm
But I didn't leave for the suburbs, I came to the Rockies. I worked 12 years in new community design with 2 prominent New Urbanism firms, more on the arch image and character of things, but had to hear so much BS of bending principles to please the developers, very sickening. "Another 50000 people in the desert? , no problem!"
x-jla
Apr 20, 15 8:54 pm
leaving the city (NY especially) is not an option for most. The city is miserably expensive and tiring if you have kids.
toasteroven
Apr 20, 15 9:56 pm
volunteer - those articles are highly anecdotal - yes - people are still moving out to the exurbs - but nowhere near the same rate as they used to.
x-jla
Apr 20, 15 10:26 pm
poor and working people are moving to the suburbs...rich moving to cities... Its the opposite of the mid 20th century version of suburbinization..
Non Sequitur
Apr 21, 15 7:41 am
I need to be able to hail a cab from my front door. That's as suburban as I'm comfortable with.
null pointer
Apr 21, 15 8:44 am
I refuse to leave new york. It takes a lot of selfish and a ton of stupid to live outside a city.
chigurh
Apr 21, 15 8:53 am
cities are fun, but as jla-x says, they are playgrounds for the wealthy and anybody that is middle class is just part of the service industry to serve top 1%. No doubt you can make it by in a city with a decent job and its even better if you have a partner with a decent income, but you will never be able to afford a house, if you have kids, daycare and schools will become a huge priority, which are super expensive and shitty in most cities. Plus everything is just harder in cities, going to the supermarket blows.
geezertect
Apr 21, 15 9:12 am
Architects are supposedly so in love with cities, but this thread seems to have struck a surprisingly negative nerve. Not that I disagree with what is being said, but merely observing that even archies have to deal with the same daily realities as everyone else.
curtkram
Apr 21, 15 9:30 am
It takes a lot of selfish and a ton of stupid to live outside a city.
i'm not sure what this means, but a lot of the food you eat comes from places like farms that are far removed from cities. those farms need things like grain elevators, seed sales people, tractor dealerships, restaurants, churches, bars, and any other number of ancillary service industries to support them. residential areas grow to house the various people trying to work for a living in those communities. power stations and water towers and water treatment stations and post offices and all that infrastructure is developed to support those communities.
sometimes it's stupid to move out to an acreage, but your statement seems to be so broad that you sound really sheltered, like you're unaware of how the world actually works.
Volunteer
Apr 21, 15 9:32 am
Article in the Washington Post points out that two of the powerhouse DC beltway counties, Fairfax and Alexandria, actually lost people in 2013 while Arlington County had a slight net increase. DC itself has priced itself out of the middle-class market long ago with insane taxes and horrible public schools. I would guess that a family with kids in northern Virginia would need to make about $150,000 to live a marginally middle-class lifestyle. If one spouse loses a job or has to quit for family reasons they are in serious trouble.
Peter Normand
Apr 21, 15 9:47 am
Suburban versus Urban life is all about where you want to spend your time
In the suburbs you are alone in your car a lot, in the city you often are traveling with a bunch of folks or at least one stranger if you cab it, Not always ideal as not everyone will behave according to your idea of socially acceptable behavior, but interesting if you like seeing and possibly meeting other people. Rush hour on the suburban expressway you will only interact with service providers at a few businesses
In the city you have more opportunities to see and talk to your neighbors, on a sidewalk in the elevator or stairs, in the burbs you have less opportunities for random unplanned interactions with your neighbors
In the city you don't absolutely need a car, in the suburbs you do and one for each driving age member of the family
In the city housing and yards tend to be smaller in the suburbs they are bigger. Grass grows about the same rate in the city as in the suburbs how much time do you want to spend mowing, or how often do you want to see or hear your adjacent neighbors. Trade off of time for privacy (space)
There are many more this or that comparisons between suburbs and cities it all comes down to personal choices about priorities some people have their fling with Urban diversity and all that is going on and then want to settle down into a comfortable predictable routine, others don't understand why folks would ever want to leave a city for the burbs.
Over and OUT
Peter N
PS I love Chicago and all of the interesting weird things people are up to.
Go Hawks!
Donna Sink
Apr 21, 15 10:27 am
What jla-x said: the reverse migration of money is a reality right now. Cities are becoming very wealthy, suburbs are becoming affordable and low income. So mobility via shared infrastructure, which is already a huge issue in most cities, is going to continue to be a challenge. And jobs - especially in the service sector - remain incredibly diffuse; you can work at a Home Depot in a far north suburb and be transferred to a Home Depot in a southern inner ring suburb and realistically without a car the commute would be impossible.
Volunteer, I do think this movement is all about money: the money is moving inwards and far out; what's in between will be poor and middle income.
b3tadine[sutures]
Apr 21, 15 10:33 am
This is not true in Minneapolis, in fact, it's just the opposite.
Carrera
Apr 21, 15 10:44 am
Some of us "archie’s" dream too far thinking that everything needs to shift back to urban, but people in this country are wildly diverse and demand choices, no two cars alike, 100,000 square foot grocery stores filled with 50 different kinds of everything…..so there will always be both, it’s just that most urban attempts fall flat, cities just can’t get the formula right….it’s easier for a developer to create a New Urbanist community in the countryside….need a fascist regime to get it right.
Been studying this grocery store thing, some are eyeballing the idea of getting small and entering urban areas, which is a good sign….not having one downtown IS a huge pain in the ass.
Donna Sink
Apr 23, 15 9:13 am
Commutes are getting longer, and getting to a job is becoming more and more difficult for those who don't own a car. This is why public transit and urban planning are civil rights and public health issues!
Peter Normand
Apr 23, 15 10:27 am
Donna you are spot on regarding the plight of the working poor, unfortunately the housing adjacent to rapid transit, reliable bus service, or within walking distance of major service sector jobs has gone up in value and thus taxes and rents have gone up as these now desirable communities gentrify.
One solution available would be for housing authorities to start building again but have a moratorium on public housing and section 8 vouchers for areas not within 6 blocks of rapid transit stations or within an area served by buses that is not more than 8-15 miles from major employment centers.
In Chicago one area that should be redeveloped for affordable housing and housing for the working poor is Cabrini Green just 6 blocks from the magnificent mile and a lot of entry level jobs, what has to happen this go around is a humane design that is not a warehouse for poor folks but a home with the elements for a thriving community.
Housing the working poor is a critical design problem facing most cities and options for integrated housing or New Urbanist approaches have a lot of potential to correct or avoid past mistakes.
Over and OUT
Peter N
Carrera
Apr 23, 15 10:28 am
^”Getting longer” includes increased construction & quantity of traffic, not just distance….but still, people don’t get it. Been studying high speed rail in the Midwest (or lack thereof)….Ohio Governor Kasich sent back $400 million in federal money for some high speed rail citing that he didn’t want the public to pay for rail, while the state spends $5 billion a year on roads. Currently it cost $1.00 per mile to drive a car (all cost including pollution) and 67 cents per mile for rail….with the cost of supporting cars going up and rail going down….is the problem that these people can’t read?
curtkram
Apr 23, 15 10:49 am
another partial solution would be to pay people fair wages, so 'working' and 'poor' don't fit together so well.
pale shelter
Apr 23, 15 11:00 am
OP must be talking 'big cities' like NYC, LA and maybe Chicago... and any California city due to cost of living...
People aren't bailing on cities... the highest growth is being seen Austin, Denver, Portland, Seattle. INclude MSP and you have the lowest vacant cities in the nation. These are more 'mid-market' cities... they are more affordable and offer decent urban environments... and they are growing quickly.
Up here in the Twin Cities, we're seeing huge growth in downtown and first-tier neighbhorhoods/suburbs. We are at 2.8% vacancy even after adding thousands of apartments.
So you're really seeing the 'millennials' and even empty-nesters and retired folk move closer to downtown into mixed-use development. My belief is we're at the near beginning of a 40 year urban migration away from the exoburbs ... Grandparents flocked to the burbs for their piece of freedom; the drive wasn't bad; then our parents followed suite ... now we rebel (in addition to other factors) and want urban lifestyles ... and so I think we have 2 generations coming to the urban cores. (Then driverless cars will flock us back out to "nature" I bet). These cycles are interesting...
Got to read all the sources. Adding to my disbelief of your assessment, is that there are no suburban homes being built for under $300k anymore. (Nothing affordable). Just not feasible; outter burb cities are understanding (finally) the cost to do business out there. In other words; permits for new house starts have risen by 2x to 3x. 1400 SF homes that used to cost $200k are now $320k mainly due to increased land costs/fees. Ready land lots were once 20k and now 100k ...even for lots 20 miles from downtown.
So only the upper middle class and rich will continue to buy fresh land and build new in the suburbs... while the majority of people flock to the urban core. And I think that's fine.
Carrera
Apr 23, 15 11:26 am
Pale shelter...good assessment, however, to Donna’s point, those affluent people who will continue to live in the suburbs are the decision makers on where their businesses go, so those that can’t afford are moving in while the boss is moving out….every office I’ve rented in the last 30 years is rented by the owner, and in every case I’m told “I want to be close to home”, and “home” isn’t “Downtown”.
x-jla
Apr 23, 15 12:33 pm
Pale shelter, good points. Smaller cities, and rust belt cities are generally still affordable. They are still in the early phases of "revitilization" or conception...Over time I would suspect that city centers will also become inaccessible to most...This is basically an effect of the commodification of urban living. Since the functional neccessity/ecology between cities and industry has become disconnected, cities only have one way to gain value- by making the city itself an amenity and creating lifestyle based industries to support it. This inevitably leads to high costs and gentrification. Cities are selling the romanticized sterilized image of urbanity in a way similar to how suburbs sold a romanticised sterilized image of rural living...The farm without the cows.
Donna Sink
Apr 23, 15 12:53 pm
Cities are selling the romanticized sterilized image of urbanity in a way similar to how suburbs sold a romanticised sterilized image of rural living
This is a fantastic comment! I had not thought of it this way, but you're absolutely right. Dammit, Friends.
pale shelter
Apr 23, 15 1:30 pm
jla-x .. I agree; I think cities like mine (msp) are just decades or a generation behind the urban gentrification of "top tier" cities like NYC, San Fran... Why would it be any different? Cities evolve much the same more or less I'd assume - all similar macro economic factors. So while it's currently somewhat affordable ($2/sf) around downtown, it's been great, and promising... and we pro-urban architects, developers are excited. But rent is expensive relative to the typ midwest cost of living. So give it 20 years and yes, only the upper upper class will afford the $3-$5/sf cost of living in the best urban/downtown areas. And the tides shift again.
Fun to talk about; because I wonder if we'll shift again outwards with future transit, self driving cars (ease of transit), tech / traffic logistics (see the tv commercial on the art exhibit of "the last traffic jam" ??) more housing options in the burbs again, businesses wanting to save property taxes and moving to the burbs... the next 1950s suburban movement happening again in 2050. ... hmm; maybe our grandkids will go thru a huge hippy craze and want expansive natural prairie home lots with free range chickens, fresh air, room for solar arrays... live off the land.. work from home (everyone will).... checking/competing for lowest carbon footprint hourly on their smart devices... never traveling anywhere because they don't need to... hehe
Carrera
Apr 23, 15 1:50 pm
Pale, Fun to talk about it, wonder where the self-driving car will lead. Seems they are reaching for a non-rail solution that coupled with telecommuting will pull people back out as you suggest….ahhhh, the ebb & flow of urban development.
null pointer
Apr 23, 15 2:31 pm
Even with all this retarded doom and gloom shit people are posting here, New York is growing and will continue to.
Architects like to empathize with the lower middle class, but the fact is, if you pull two architect incomes together in NYC and you're not mentally retarded, you can afford to live here quite comfortably while still saving a good bit of money.
You also don't get to be bothered down by totally inane shit like spending time doing your own laundry, driving, or often times even cooking. I probably sound like a prima donna, but that's how cities work - they efficiently shuffle your time so that instead of spending time doing shit you hate to do or should hate to do: Driving. Cutting the fucking lawn. Repairing leaky bathrooms and just plane boring house-upkeep crap... you spend time doing shit you should do: Sharing your commute with 2,000 other souls (lol @ suburban car pooling) Reading on your commute, working a bit later because someone's doing your laundry, or working a bit on the side because the delivery guy is bringing you some amazing thai that people in backwoodsfuckingidaho could only dream of.
Anyways.
Whatever.
rantoff.
curtkram
Apr 23, 15 3:04 pm
whether you're moving into, or out of, the city isn't really 'doom and gloom' null. it's just a somewhat interesting thought exercise to consider what the causes of urban migration could be, and the technological factors that contribute such as public transportation or self-driving cars.
mowing your lawn isn't such a bad thing for a lot of us. my neighbors can't do it for some reason, but then i'm sure there are a lot of things they can't do. cooking for yourself can also be a hobby, and it can open up more healthy options. also, turns out i can have food delivered out in the sticks as well, if i wanted to. i can also go to costco and buy 8,000 rolls of toilet paper and 5 gallon jar of peanut butter and have somewhere in my suburban house to keep them; maybe that's not a good thing though. (fwiw, i don't have a costco membership anymore, but i do have a table saw and a chop saw to help with the home maintenance you mention above - hard to find a place to put them as it is, it would be harder in an 800 sf apartment on the 12th floor).
fixing a leaky roof is a good thing for an architect who spends a considerable amount of time thinking about how to prevent roof leaks. if i want to learn about how toilets or furnaces work, i have one that i can fuck up all i want and no superintended or neighbor will ever complain.
i've never lived in new york so i can't really speculate, but your assertion that architects make enough money to pay others to do their cooking and their laundry and whatever other menial task there is to do is not consistent with some of the other threads here. case in point would be anna klingmann who has popped up a couple times here for expecting people to work without any pay. 0 is not enough for thai take-out, though you did say you would need a couple incomes.
(fwiw, i don't have a costco membership anymore, but i do have a table saw and a chop saw to help with the home maintenance you mention above - hard to find a place to put them as it is, it would be harder in an 800 sf apartment on the 12th floor).
Troy Brown
Apr 23, 15 4:44 pm
Isn't the point more about where the delivery guy and the laundry worker live, and not the dual income professional household?
null pointer
Apr 23, 15 5:07 pm
The delivery guy lives in the projects, paid with the taxes of the 1%. As it should be?
davvid
Apr 23, 15 5:33 pm
Right on null pointer.
Carrera
Apr 23, 15 5:47 pm
Null, hard to argue NYC….8 million people and growing, it’s the other 50-100 small-fry cities that ebb & flow and can’t figure out the combination…said before it isn’t an either-or thing, there will always be both….but by putting on pressure to move inward will help sprawl, which sooner or later people are going to figure out is unsustainable, maybe.
davvid
Apr 23, 15 6:10 pm
Carrera, you're also right. The suburbs will continue to exists. Architects need to address American urbanism in all of its forms. New Urbanism is so incredibly inadequate and yet its become a kind of default doctrine in planning schools and architecture circles, especially around mid-sized cities.
Carrera
Apr 23, 15 6:57 pm
Davvid, I don’t know, my last big project was a New Urbanism community (never built), became strong on it, if there is going to be sprawl it needs to be walkable pods…..of course it would take leadership to do that, good luck finding that.
davvid
Apr 23, 15 7:19 pm
There will be sprawl in the future. We just have to figure out how to make it better.
Nam Henderson
Apr 27, 15 8:47 pm
re: the effects of the Internets and digitization on the need for/future of urban living, those of you who have listened to Episodes #24 and #25 of Archinect Sessions (which i just caught up with) will have heard Kevin Roche's thoughts on the subject.
He argues that cities may/will vanish. Personally, i can't imagine the complete virtualization of life/work but who knows...
geezertect
Apr 28, 15 11:07 am
Work and life will never be completely "virtualized". Human beings will always need a certain amount of personal contact in business to get a "feel" for the other person they are dealing with. Cities will never go away, anymore than suburbs will ever completely go away.
won and done williams
Apr 28, 15 12:24 pm
Interesting discussion. I'm guessing from the tone of many of these responses that few posters have kids. Cities sadly are still not kid-friendly. There is very little urban policy or development that is pro-childen these days. I find it totally mind boggling that developers/policy-makers are virtually eliminating a huge market segment largely because they have been fed this "young professional/empty-nester" market line so many times.
I've lived in a city for 10 years and now have a 5 year old and a 3 year old. I would love to stay in the city (and may still), but the city and its development community have done virtually nothing to keep me here (crappy public/charter schools, unsafe neighborhoods, in adequate public services, housing stock not conducive to families, few child-oriented businesses, etc.). Despite all that, I will likely stay in the city (private schools, reverse commute to child activities/friends, remodeling my house to add more space, etc.)
Why is this? From my experience, most policymakers/developers are people with children who by in large live in the suburbs. They create policy/development decisions based on their own experience. It won't be until policymakers/developers live in the city's where they work (through all stages of their lives) that we will begin to see significant change in how city's serve children and families.
Peter Normand
May 1, 15 10:09 am
I think, and I don't have kids, that much of the decisions on urban versus suburban in terms of child rearing has a lot to do with perception and marketing than facts.
Over and OUT
Peter N
Volunteer
May 1, 15 11:07 am
The public schools in many urban areas are horrible. The District of Columbia and Baltimore being prime examples. Baltimore spends $17,500 dollars per year per pupil with atrocious results.
Carrera
May 1, 15 12:20 pm
Interesting – yesterday right out the blue I meet up with an old friend/client/developer…bullshitting ensues, gets around to downtown redevelopment, started handing out my ideas, then he said “wait”, went to his car then came back with some SD’s of a warehouse he’s thinking of turning into loft apartments…started with my critique and ideas, now he wants to get me involved (not sure I want to, mainly because I don’t need to)…anyway, one of my ideas came right from this thread….”What about children?”…..he told me he wanted to add private garages to the plan (next to the warehouse), then I said, “good idea, but here’s a better one – put a green roof on the garage to give kids a safe place to play…where mom can let them go out unsupervised like in suburban backyards”…..looked at me like I was crazy.
shellarchitect
May 1, 15 10:08 pm
Agree on the kid stuff, used to live in Detroit with at the other hipsters but no way would I put up with the schools there. Especially considering they pay far more in taxes than any one else. in Mich.
Carrera
May 1, 15 10:28 pm
Shu, think there is a "kid" market..."toddlers" in a rental market…if provisions were made, young professional couples might consider it in short term…there is a 5+ year (considering pre-kid) window of opportunity, but you’re right, once little Johnny hits 5, they’re headed for the suburbs for the schools….in most cities.
won and done williams
May 1, 15 10:35 pm
Peter, don't get me wrong there are great things about raising your kids in the city - access to cultural institutions/events, walkability (if you are in the right neighborhood), diversity of people, food options (ethnic grocery stores, farm markets, restaurant options, etc.). Aside from the school issues and in many neighborhoods safety, it's more the little things that city planners and developers miss basically because they don't consider children. There are many urban parks without play equipment. I find it next to impossible to buy my daughter decent shoes. While there are plenty of bars and restaurants, there only a handful that you could bring a 5-year old to. I would not want cities to be designed like suburbs with garages and backyards and all that, but I do think cities can be better designed with kids in mind. Not only that there is a market for families/children that is really overlooked by developers, especially in the second-tier developing urban core cities.
won and done williams
May 1, 15 10:45 pm
Carrera, once you've committed 5 years to a city with a kid, it's pretty hard to leave. Personally I'd rather pay for private school than go to the suburbs which I find boring and soulless. Unfortunately, given the challenges of the city, you have to pay a lot to make it work with kids. Not everyone has that luxury, and I firmly believe we as designers, planners, developers, etc. need to do more to address those challenges.
Carrera
May 1, 15 11:16 pm
Won, you are right, there is a combination of elements that are needed and most cities can't get the combo right.... we got it just right 30 years ago, finally, then a Fortune 500 company left the CBD, the recession hit and now it's a ghost town....doesn't happen like that in the suburbs, to that degree... took us 70 years to get there and now we are starting over, almost from scratch.... add to that the fact that the city is strapped, the grass in the parks isn't getting mowed, fountains are shut off, it's a mess. Problem is we're not "to big to fail".
Peter Normand
May 4, 15 10:45 am
I can not compare with other cities but every major park in Chicago has playgrounds, Chicago just opened the largest free playground in the nation, we have playgrounds for kids with disabilities, kids with allergies, even indoor playgrounds in gyms and armories, winter is hard but we even have tons of activities just for kids in the dead of winter.
Where things sometimes don't work out is with strollers especially the often annoying giant strollers and Chicago like many cities is a long way off from having all of the ADD curb cuts in sidewalks done.
As for unsavory not family friendly things going on in the city, they are, in most cases avoidable, street festivals are posted well in advance. Plenty of housing exists outside of the gayborhood if you can not or will not tolerate the gay pride parade. Most bars are restricted by zoning and licenses as to where they can be located and the hours they are open. The unavoidable run ins with less than savory situations and people can lead to frustration but in most cases even these situations (drunk, insane, belligerent, or deprived behaviors) can be spotted and avoided if one is paying attention.
I think parenting will be hard in any location but in a city it will require some vigilance, flexibility and a lot of creativity.
As for schools the cost per pupil is not a good measure of success or failure, large cities are more expensive and so base salaries and pensions have to be higher, in Chicago we have the corruption tax thanks to decades of Daley and Rham. Look to graduation rates and test scores (except Atlanta where they cheat) as a baseline for educational success. Also parents have a huge impact on educational success, no amount of money can substitute for engaged and supportive parents unfortunately the working poor, addicted and people caught up in the criminal justice system don't have the means to be engaged parents like they should and I would wager many would like to be.
Over and OUT
Peter N
Volunteer
May 4, 15 1:41 pm
If cost per pupil is not a good metric then throwing more money at the schools isn't the answer. The fact is the inner-city kids can't find the Middle East on a map, for example, because their teachers can't find the Middle East on a map. The teachers can't find the Middle East on a map because they are un-educated products of the teacher higher-education system in this country. The inner city teachers are very good at Al Sharpton-speak (it's required to get hired in the first place) and demanding more money and making excuses. Responsibility for the kids entrusted to them? Not so much.
Came across two separate articles today about people bailing on the big cities and moving out. The usual subjects were at play: lack of good, affordable housing, lack of good schools available in the housing area they can afford, high crime, pollution, traffic, overcrowding. Also cited was the internet making work from home available to millions. Runs contrary to the meme of people being bored in the 'burbs and moving back to the cities for the "excitement".
Volunteer, suppose it depends on the city....for me I'm sick of it (living in the city)..…the sophomoric politics, endless school levy’s (not the money, but all the constant discord), cops (or should I say tax collectors) lurking everywhere looking for broken tail lights, massive healthcare conglomerates (monopolies)..….you get feeling harassed, stuff raises the misery index….think the young are poised to rebuild our cities but those running things are ruining the prospect.
^ Those conditions are not confined to cities. The new economy has public servants (oxymoron) leveraging citizens as a revenue stream just like corporations. Meanwhile trillions can go to corporate welfare, endless war, bank execs, insurance companies, etc.
^"Those conditions are not confined to cities".....not where I'm going, leastwise I worn't have to listen to it.
I left a 7 million ppl city 15 yrs ago because my kids were in the hospital every month in winter, and I hope I never have to go back. Some don't have a choice.
But I didn't leave for the suburbs, I came to the Rockies. I worked 12 years in new community design with 2 prominent New Urbanism firms, more on the arch image and character of things, but had to hear so much BS of bending principles to please the developers, very sickening. "Another 50000 people in the desert? , no problem!"
leaving the city (NY especially) is not an option for most. The city is miserably expensive and tiring if you have kids.
volunteer - those articles are highly anecdotal - yes - people are still moving out to the exurbs - but nowhere near the same rate as they used to.
poor and working people are moving to the suburbs...rich moving to cities... Its the opposite of the mid 20th century version of suburbinization..
I need to be able to hail a cab from my front door. That's as suburban as I'm comfortable with.
I refuse to leave new york. It takes a lot of selfish and a ton of stupid to live outside a city.
cities are fun, but as jla-x says, they are playgrounds for the wealthy and anybody that is middle class is just part of the service industry to serve top 1%. No doubt you can make it by in a city with a decent job and its even better if you have a partner with a decent income, but you will never be able to afford a house, if you have kids, daycare and schools will become a huge priority, which are super expensive and shitty in most cities. Plus everything is just harder in cities, going to the supermarket blows.
Architects are supposedly so in love with cities, but this thread seems to have struck a surprisingly negative nerve. Not that I disagree with what is being said, but merely observing that even archies have to deal with the same daily realities as everyone else.
It takes a lot of selfish and a ton of stupid to live outside a city.
i'm not sure what this means, but a lot of the food you eat comes from places like farms that are far removed from cities. those farms need things like grain elevators, seed sales people, tractor dealerships, restaurants, churches, bars, and any other number of ancillary service industries to support them. residential areas grow to house the various people trying to work for a living in those communities. power stations and water towers and water treatment stations and post offices and all that infrastructure is developed to support those communities.
sometimes it's stupid to move out to an acreage, but your statement seems to be so broad that you sound really sheltered, like you're unaware of how the world actually works.
Article in the Washington Post points out that two of the powerhouse DC beltway counties, Fairfax and Alexandria, actually lost people in 2013 while Arlington County had a slight net increase. DC itself has priced itself out of the middle-class market long ago with insane taxes and horrible public schools. I would guess that a family with kids in northern Virginia would need to make about $150,000 to live a marginally middle-class lifestyle. If one spouse loses a job or has to quit for family reasons they are in serious trouble.
Suburban versus Urban life is all about where you want to spend your time
In the suburbs you are alone in your car a lot, in the city you often are traveling with a bunch of folks or at least one stranger if you cab it, Not always ideal as not everyone will behave according to your idea of socially acceptable behavior, but interesting if you like seeing and possibly meeting other people. Rush hour on the suburban expressway you will only interact with service providers at a few businesses
In the city you have more opportunities to see and talk to your neighbors, on a sidewalk in the elevator or stairs, in the burbs you have less opportunities for random unplanned interactions with your neighbors
In the city you don't absolutely need a car, in the suburbs you do and one for each driving age member of the family
In the city housing and yards tend to be smaller in the suburbs they are bigger. Grass grows about the same rate in the city as in the suburbs how much time do you want to spend mowing, or how often do you want to see or hear your adjacent neighbors. Trade off of time for privacy (space)
There are many more this or that comparisons between suburbs and cities it all comes down to personal choices about priorities some people have their fling with Urban diversity and all that is going on and then want to settle down into a comfortable predictable routine, others don't understand why folks would ever want to leave a city for the burbs.
Over and OUT
Peter N
PS I love Chicago and all of the interesting weird things people are up to.
Go Hawks!
What jla-x said: the reverse migration of money is a reality right now. Cities are becoming very wealthy, suburbs are becoming affordable and low income. So mobility via shared infrastructure, which is already a huge issue in most cities, is going to continue to be a challenge. And jobs - especially in the service sector - remain incredibly diffuse; you can work at a Home Depot in a far north suburb and be transferred to a Home Depot in a southern inner ring suburb and realistically without a car the commute would be impossible.
Volunteer, I do think this movement is all about money: the money is moving inwards and far out; what's in between will be poor and middle income.
This is not true in Minneapolis, in fact, it's just the opposite.
Some of us "archie’s" dream too far thinking that everything needs to shift back to urban, but people in this country are wildly diverse and demand choices, no two cars alike, 100,000 square foot grocery stores filled with 50 different kinds of everything…..so there will always be both, it’s just that most urban attempts fall flat, cities just can’t get the formula right….it’s easier for a developer to create a New Urbanist community in the countryside….need a fascist regime to get it right.
Been studying this grocery store thing, some are eyeballing the idea of getting small and entering urban areas, which is a good sign….not having one downtown IS a huge pain in the ass.
Commutes are getting longer, and getting to a job is becoming more and more difficult for those who don't own a car. This is why public transit and urban planning are civil rights and public health issues!
Donna you are spot on regarding the plight of the working poor, unfortunately the housing adjacent to rapid transit, reliable bus service, or within walking distance of major service sector jobs has gone up in value and thus taxes and rents have gone up as these now desirable communities gentrify.
One solution available would be for housing authorities to start building again but have a moratorium on public housing and section 8 vouchers for areas not within 6 blocks of rapid transit stations or within an area served by buses that is not more than 8-15 miles from major employment centers.
In Chicago one area that should be redeveloped for affordable housing and housing for the working poor is Cabrini Green just 6 blocks from the magnificent mile and a lot of entry level jobs, what has to happen this go around is a humane design that is not a warehouse for poor folks but a home with the elements for a thriving community.
Housing the working poor is a critical design problem facing most cities and options for integrated housing or New Urbanist approaches have a lot of potential to correct or avoid past mistakes.
Over and OUT
Peter N
^”Getting longer” includes increased construction & quantity of traffic, not just distance….but still, people don’t get it. Been studying high speed rail in the Midwest (or lack thereof)….Ohio Governor Kasich sent back $400 million in federal money for some high speed rail citing that he didn’t want the public to pay for rail, while the state spends $5 billion a year on roads. Currently it cost $1.00 per mile to drive a car (all cost including pollution) and 67 cents per mile for rail….with the cost of supporting cars going up and rail going down….is the problem that these people can’t read?
another partial solution would be to pay people fair wages, so 'working' and 'poor' don't fit together so well.
OP must be talking 'big cities' like NYC, LA and maybe Chicago... and any California city due to cost of living...
People aren't bailing on cities... the highest growth is being seen Austin, Denver, Portland, Seattle. INclude MSP and you have the lowest vacant cities in the nation. These are more 'mid-market' cities... they are more affordable and offer decent urban environments... and they are growing quickly.
Up here in the Twin Cities, we're seeing huge growth in downtown and first-tier neighbhorhoods/suburbs. We are at 2.8% vacancy even after adding thousands of apartments.
So you're really seeing the 'millennials' and even empty-nesters and retired folk move closer to downtown into mixed-use development. My belief is we're at the near beginning of a 40 year urban migration away from the exoburbs ... Grandparents flocked to the burbs for their piece of freedom; the drive wasn't bad; then our parents followed suite ... now we rebel (in addition to other factors) and want urban lifestyles ... and so I think we have 2 generations coming to the urban cores. (Then driverless cars will flock us back out to "nature" I bet). These cycles are interesting...
Got to read all the sources. Adding to my disbelief of your assessment, is that there are no suburban homes being built for under $300k anymore. (Nothing affordable). Just not feasible; outter burb cities are understanding (finally) the cost to do business out there. In other words; permits for new house starts have risen by 2x to 3x. 1400 SF homes that used to cost $200k are now $320k mainly due to increased land costs/fees. Ready land lots were once 20k and now 100k ...even for lots 20 miles from downtown.
So only the upper middle class and rich will continue to buy fresh land and build new in the suburbs... while the majority of people flock to the urban core. And I think that's fine.
Pale shelter...good assessment, however, to Donna’s point, those affluent people who will continue to live in the suburbs are the decision makers on where their businesses go, so those that can’t afford are moving in while the boss is moving out….every office I’ve rented in the last 30 years is rented by the owner, and in every case I’m told “I want to be close to home”, and “home” isn’t “Downtown”.
Pale shelter, good points. Smaller cities, and rust belt cities are generally still affordable. They are still in the early phases of "revitilization" or conception...Over time I would suspect that city centers will also become inaccessible to most...This is basically an effect of the commodification of urban living. Since the functional neccessity/ecology between cities and industry has become disconnected, cities only have one way to gain value- by making the city itself an amenity and creating lifestyle based industries to support it. This inevitably leads to high costs and gentrification. Cities are selling the romanticized sterilized image of urbanity in a way similar to how suburbs sold a romanticised sterilized image of rural living...The farm without the cows.
Cities are selling the romanticized sterilized image of urbanity in a way similar to how suburbs sold a romanticised sterilized image of rural living
This is a fantastic comment! I had not thought of it this way, but you're absolutely right. Dammit, Friends.
jla-x .. I agree; I think cities like mine (msp) are just decades or a generation behind the urban gentrification of "top tier" cities like NYC, San Fran... Why would it be any different? Cities evolve much the same more or less I'd assume - all similar macro economic factors. So while it's currently somewhat affordable ($2/sf) around downtown, it's been great, and promising... and we pro-urban architects, developers are excited. But rent is expensive relative to the typ midwest cost of living. So give it 20 years and yes, only the upper upper class will afford the $3-$5/sf cost of living in the best urban/downtown areas. And the tides shift again.
Fun to talk about; because I wonder if we'll shift again outwards with future transit, self driving cars (ease of transit), tech / traffic logistics (see the tv commercial on the art exhibit of "the last traffic jam" ??) more housing options in the burbs again, businesses wanting to save property taxes and moving to the burbs... the next 1950s suburban movement happening again in 2050. ... hmm; maybe our grandkids will go thru a huge hippy craze and want expansive natural prairie home lots with free range chickens, fresh air, room for solar arrays... live off the land.. work from home (everyone will).... checking/competing for lowest carbon footprint hourly on their smart devices... never traveling anywhere because they don't need to... hehe
Pale, Fun to talk about it, wonder where the self-driving car will lead. Seems they are reaching for a non-rail solution that coupled with telecommuting will pull people back out as you suggest….ahhhh, the ebb & flow of urban development.
Even with all this retarded doom and gloom shit people are posting here, New York is growing and will continue to.
Architects like to empathize with the lower middle class, but the fact is, if you pull two architect incomes together in NYC and you're not mentally retarded, you can afford to live here quite comfortably while still saving a good bit of money.
You also don't get to be bothered down by totally inane shit like spending time doing your own laundry, driving, or often times even cooking. I probably sound like a prima donna, but that's how cities work - they efficiently shuffle your time so that instead of spending time doing shit you hate to do or should hate to do: Driving. Cutting the fucking lawn. Repairing leaky bathrooms and just plane boring house-upkeep crap... you spend time doing shit you should do: Sharing your commute with 2,000 other souls (lol @ suburban car pooling) Reading on your commute, working a bit later because someone's doing your laundry, or working a bit on the side because the delivery guy is bringing you some amazing thai that people in backwoodsfuckingidaho could only dream of.
Anyways.
Whatever.
rantoff.
whether you're moving into, or out of, the city isn't really 'doom and gloom' null. it's just a somewhat interesting thought exercise to consider what the causes of urban migration could be, and the technological factors that contribute such as public transportation or self-driving cars.
mowing your lawn isn't such a bad thing for a lot of us. my neighbors can't do it for some reason, but then i'm sure there are a lot of things they can't do. cooking for yourself can also be a hobby, and it can open up more healthy options. also, turns out i can have food delivered out in the sticks as well, if i wanted to. i can also go to costco and buy 8,000 rolls of toilet paper and 5 gallon jar of peanut butter and have somewhere in my suburban house to keep them; maybe that's not a good thing though. (fwiw, i don't have a costco membership anymore, but i do have a table saw and a chop saw to help with the home maintenance you mention above - hard to find a place to put them as it is, it would be harder in an 800 sf apartment on the 12th floor).
fixing a leaky roof is a good thing for an architect who spends a considerable amount of time thinking about how to prevent roof leaks. if i want to learn about how toilets or furnaces work, i have one that i can fuck up all i want and no superintended or neighbor will ever complain.
i've never lived in new york so i can't really speculate, but your assertion that architects make enough money to pay others to do their cooking and their laundry and whatever other menial task there is to do is not consistent with some of the other threads here. case in point would be anna klingmann who has popped up a couple times here for expecting people to work without any pay. 0 is not enough for thai take-out, though you did say you would need a couple incomes.
(fwiw, i don't have a costco membership anymore, but i do have a table saw and a chop saw to help with the home maintenance you mention above - hard to find a place to put them as it is, it would be harder in an 800 sf apartment on the 12th floor).
Isn't the point more about where the delivery guy and the laundry worker live, and not the dual income professional household?
The delivery guy lives in the projects, paid with the taxes of the 1%. As it should be?
Right on null pointer.
Null, hard to argue NYC….8 million people and growing, it’s the other 50-100 small-fry cities that ebb & flow and can’t figure out the combination…said before it isn’t an either-or thing, there will always be both….but by putting on pressure to move inward will help sprawl, which sooner or later people are going to figure out is unsustainable, maybe.
Carrera, you're also right. The suburbs will continue to exists. Architects need to address American urbanism in all of its forms. New Urbanism is so incredibly inadequate and yet its become a kind of default doctrine in planning schools and architecture circles, especially around mid-sized cities.
Davvid, I don’t know, my last big project was a New Urbanism community (never built), became strong on it, if there is going to be sprawl it needs to be walkable pods…..of course it would take leadership to do that, good luck finding that.
There will be sprawl in the future. We just have to figure out how to make it better.
re: the effects of the Internets and digitization on the need for/future of urban living, those of you who have listened to Episodes #24 and #25 of Archinect Sessions (which i just caught up with) will have heard Kevin Roche's thoughts on the subject.
He argues that cities may/will vanish. Personally, i can't imagine the complete virtualization of life/work but who knows...
Work and life will never be completely "virtualized". Human beings will always need a certain amount of personal contact in business to get a "feel" for the other person they are dealing with. Cities will never go away, anymore than suburbs will ever completely go away.
Interesting discussion. I'm guessing from the tone of many of these responses that few posters have kids. Cities sadly are still not kid-friendly. There is very little urban policy or development that is pro-childen these days. I find it totally mind boggling that developers/policy-makers are virtually eliminating a huge market segment largely because they have been fed this "young professional/empty-nester" market line so many times.
I've lived in a city for 10 years and now have a 5 year old and a 3 year old. I would love to stay in the city (and may still), but the city and its development community have done virtually nothing to keep me here (crappy public/charter schools, unsafe neighborhoods, in adequate public services, housing stock not conducive to families, few child-oriented businesses, etc.). Despite all that, I will likely stay in the city (private schools, reverse commute to child activities/friends, remodeling my house to add more space, etc.)
Why is this? From my experience, most policymakers/developers are people with children who by in large live in the suburbs. They create policy/development decisions based on their own experience. It won't be until policymakers/developers live in the city's where they work (through all stages of their lives) that we will begin to see significant change in how city's serve children and families.
I think, and I don't have kids, that much of the decisions on urban versus suburban in terms of child rearing has a lot to do with perception and marketing than facts.
Over and OUT
Peter N
The public schools in many urban areas are horrible. The District of Columbia and Baltimore being prime examples. Baltimore spends $17,500 dollars per year per pupil with atrocious results.
Interesting – yesterday right out the blue I meet up with an old friend/client/developer…bullshitting ensues, gets around to downtown redevelopment, started handing out my ideas, then he said “wait”, went to his car then came back with some SD’s of a warehouse he’s thinking of turning into loft apartments…started with my critique and ideas, now he wants to get me involved (not sure I want to, mainly because I don’t need to)…anyway, one of my ideas came right from this thread….”What about children?”…..he told me he wanted to add private garages to the plan (next to the warehouse), then I said, “good idea, but here’s a better one – put a green roof on the garage to give kids a safe place to play…where mom can let them go out unsupervised like in suburban backyards”…..looked at me like I was crazy.
Agree on the kid stuff, used to live in Detroit with at the other hipsters but no way would I put up with the schools there. Especially considering they pay far more in taxes than any one else. in Mich.
Shu, think there is a "kid" market..."toddlers" in a rental market…if provisions were made, young professional couples might consider it in short term…there is a 5+ year (considering pre-kid) window of opportunity, but you’re right, once little Johnny hits 5, they’re headed for the suburbs for the schools….in most cities.
Peter, don't get me wrong there are great things about raising your kids in the city - access to cultural institutions/events, walkability (if you are in the right neighborhood), diversity of people, food options (ethnic grocery stores, farm markets, restaurant options, etc.). Aside from the school issues and in many neighborhoods safety, it's more the little things that city planners and developers miss basically because they don't consider children. There are many urban parks without play equipment. I find it next to impossible to buy my daughter decent shoes. While there are plenty of bars and restaurants, there only a handful that you could bring a 5-year old to. I would not want cities to be designed like suburbs with garages and backyards and all that, but I do think cities can be better designed with kids in mind. Not only that there is a market for families/children that is really overlooked by developers, especially in the second-tier developing urban core cities.
Carrera, once you've committed 5 years to a city with a kid, it's pretty hard to leave. Personally I'd rather pay for private school than go to the suburbs which I find boring and soulless. Unfortunately, given the challenges of the city, you have to pay a lot to make it work with kids. Not everyone has that luxury, and I firmly believe we as designers, planners, developers, etc. need to do more to address those challenges.
Won, you are right, there is a combination of elements that are needed and most cities can't get the combo right.... we got it just right 30 years ago, finally, then a Fortune 500 company left the CBD, the recession hit and now it's a ghost town....doesn't happen like that in the suburbs, to that degree... took us 70 years to get there and now we are starting over, almost from scratch.... add to that the fact that the city is strapped, the grass in the parks isn't getting mowed, fountains are shut off, it's a mess. Problem is we're not "to big to fail".
I can not compare with other cities but every major park in Chicago has playgrounds, Chicago just opened the largest free playground in the nation, we have playgrounds for kids with disabilities, kids with allergies, even indoor playgrounds in gyms and armories, winter is hard but we even have tons of activities just for kids in the dead of winter.
Where things sometimes don't work out is with strollers especially the often annoying giant strollers and Chicago like many cities is a long way off from having all of the ADD curb cuts in sidewalks done.
As for unsavory not family friendly things going on in the city, they are, in most cases avoidable, street festivals are posted well in advance. Plenty of housing exists outside of the gayborhood if you can not or will not tolerate the gay pride parade. Most bars are restricted by zoning and licenses as to where they can be located and the hours they are open. The unavoidable run ins with less than savory situations and people can lead to frustration but in most cases even these situations (drunk, insane, belligerent, or deprived behaviors) can be spotted and avoided if one is paying attention.
I think parenting will be hard in any location but in a city it will require some vigilance, flexibility and a lot of creativity.
As for schools the cost per pupil is not a good measure of success or failure, large cities are more expensive and so base salaries and pensions have to be higher, in Chicago we have the corruption tax thanks to decades of Daley and Rham. Look to graduation rates and test scores (except Atlanta where they cheat) as a baseline for educational success. Also parents have a huge impact on educational success, no amount of money can substitute for engaged and supportive parents unfortunately the working poor, addicted and people caught up in the criminal justice system don't have the means to be engaged parents like they should and I would wager many would like to be.
Over and OUT
Peter N
If cost per pupil is not a good metric then throwing more money at the schools isn't the answer. The fact is the inner-city kids can't find the Middle East on a map, for example, because their teachers can't find the Middle East on a map. The teachers can't find the Middle East on a map because they are un-educated products of the teacher higher-education system in this country. The inner city teachers are very good at Al Sharpton-speak (it's required to get hired in the first place) and demanding more money and making excuses. Responsibility for the kids entrusted to them? Not so much.