The Declining Demographics of Suburbanism
One thing that often comes up when I discuss policy shifts aimed at moving to a less car-dependent society is that someone will say that walkable urbanism may work for the callow and childless (like me!) but parents with children need their cars and suburbs. Since I was born and raised in Manhattan, that’s not a point I would completely concede*, but obviously there’s something to it. Only I think the force of the point militates in favor of a more urbanist policy dynamic. After all, the proportion of the population composed of families with children at home is on the decline:
Given that in 1950 there were very few existing communities oriented around the goal of drivable suburbanism, and most families had young children at home, and the proportion of families with children at home was on the rise, you can see the logic of the built environment shifting in a suburbanist direction. Now, though, our existing environment has been shaped by decades of suburbanist development and the number of people who fit the suburbanist core demographic is a minority and on the decline. That suggests the need for some rebalancing.
One should also recall that a large proportion of these families with children are quite poor, and auto-dependent lifestyles are very bad for poor people given that cars are expensive.
* In particular, I think walkable urbanism becomes a clearly superior choice for teenagers and their parents.
74 Responses to “The Declining Demographics of Suburbanism”
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April 20th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Matthew
Good point. Me & my wife — who are childless — like living in Manhattan and frequently spar with our suburban friends and co-workers about this very topic.
This is slightly off-topic, but I knocked together a graphic yesterday to illustrate the proposed scale of the Obama High Speed Rail plan that I think you might find informative:
http://broadwaycarl.blogspot.com/2009/04/supertrains-graphic.html
- Armadillo Joe
April 20th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
I’d assume families with children are being replaced by retirement aged couples with adult children. I don’t know if you can teach an old dog new tricks, but I suspect you’d have a hard time getting older people with suburban tastes and habits to adapt to walkable urbanism.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
There’s a tidal wave of the undrivable old out there, living in suburbs, where the monthly doctor’s visit, the trip to the library, even the weekly trip to church, is impossible, or will be shortly.
Tastes mean nothing when you can’t act on them.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Here in Atlanta it’s the immigrants who are moving to the suburbs. No one else wants to. It’s very odd seeing these suburban subdivisions turn into the New Ghettos.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Maybe a shift to walkable urbanism would exacerbate the decline relative the whole population of families with children, either because of a perceived reality about urban upbringings not being suited for children or because that actually is the case. I am willing to say that exacerbating that decline would be a bad thing, but this is speculative on my part.
The point about poverty and children isn’t that cleary-argued. Current urban planning doesn’t actually force poor families to move to the suburbs and spend their money buying cars. They can make that choice and spend some money or they can sace money by staying in what we will call the cities and lose the perceived benefits of the suburban life. In LiberalLand, as described in this post, poor families will face the same choice, except it will be more expensive to become suburban because of urban planning decisions etc.. Now you could argue that a walkable urbanism agenda can include making cities more family-friendly, especially for poor people, but you don’t actually make that argument in this post.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
I suspect you’d have a hard time getting older people with suburban tastes and habits to adapt to walkable urbanism.
‘Walkable urbanism’ can extend to ‘walkable suburbanism’ too: if you can walk to a decent small grocery shop, or to the nearest bus stop with a regular service, that counts.
And that reminds me of something Atrios posted not long ago about transit and mobility: older people with suburban tastes and habits may not be safe on the road, Voldemort’s sparkle-eyed predictions of hands-free flying cars notwithstanding.
(And really, Matt: trollbait much?)
April 20th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Current urban planning doesn’t actually force poor families to move to the suburbs and spend their money buying cars.
This depends on what “city” you live in. Most American cities do not have a walkable urban core. So I suppose you could say that all poor families do have a choice in the matter in that they could move to New York. But if you want to remain where your family, friends, and job are, you really don’t have any choice at all.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Redwood Shores -IBM
Unerwartete Wendung im Übernahmekampf um den US-Computerkonzern Sun Microsystems: Nach dem Rückzug von IBM will der Softwarehersteller Oracle den Konzern für 7,4 Milliarden Dollar inklusive Schulden kaufen.
Das Sun-Management habe bereits eingewilligt, teilten die Unternehmen am Montag in Redwood Shores (US-Staat Kalifornien) mit. Je Aktie bietet Oracle den Angaben zufolge 9,50 Dollar (etwa 7,33 Euro) und damit 42 Prozent mehr als das Papier am Freitag kostete.
Oracle ist vor allem an der Programmierplattform Java und dem offenen Betriebssystem Solaris interessiert. Das Unternehmen nutzt bereits beide Technologien für seine Produkte. Künftig könne man Firmenkunden als einziger Anbieter ein komplettes System von der Hardware bis zur Software liefern, sagte Oracle-Chef Larry Ellison. Dies senke die Kosten und steigere Zuverlässigkeit, Sicherheit und Leistung. «Die Übernahme von Sun verwandelt die gesamte IT-Branche», sagte Ellison.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
I never understood why people think schlepping kids from errand to errand and guiding them through parking lots is such a desirable lifestyle. I live in an urban neighborhood in Minneapolis, a city that’s mostly car-dependent but with some reasonable walking and public-transit options. For my money, any task I can accomplish without having to wrestle my toddler into a carseat is incredibly valuable.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Walkable neighborhoods are far superior for families with children. Stroller them until they’re 2-3, then let them walk. Young kids hate transitions, and the in-to/out-of the car is one of the worst.
April 20th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I just think a lot of them, especially when they’re still mobile, want flower beds and golf courses. They’re not all 80. I’m trying to think of whether my mom and dad would like to live somewhere more urban.
And when they get less mobile, they need housing without stairs.
The cost of housing is another issue. Ideally, by the time they’re on Social Security they’d need to be able to own their housing, outright, without a mortgage or rent. And, hopefully, with more space than a studio apartment.
April 20th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
MR. Yglesias I ride public transportation in Baltimore. One thing that i find interesting is when people say”Americans don’t ride public transportation”. I can never get a seat on the bus and i don’t think it’s because a bunch of Frenchman are taking all of the seats.in Baltimore the lightrail is rarely full, even during rush hour and metro [our subway] is damn near empty.The buses are full though.Most bus riders are blue collar, and are generally black or hispanic.I am white myself but i find it funny when uppermiddle class whites complain about “no one” taking public transport. I ask them when was the last time that they did and they will then tell me about how they took the paris subway once.these are the same type of people that will complain about how big American cars and houses are and then get in their S.U.V s and go home to their mcmansions. The metro in baltimore is bad because it does not go anywhere and when you get off the train in the suburbs ,not only are you in the middle of nowhere, but there are no buses[unlike D.C. metro where suburban stops have a lot of buses].Lightrail was built on the old B&A railroad tracks and therefore does not go through the neighborhoods, but goes through the abandoned industrial parks and wooded areas that HEAVY rail is supposed to go through.Bottom line is that at best no one lives within a 15 minute walk of either. MR. Yglesias you should look at the fact that light rail projects generally are built for subebanites to drive their cars to and not for working class people and adress that issue.I am a strong supporter of public transport but it is like resteraunts ,some suceed[good location, good food] and some fail[bad location ,bad service]. a public transport project should not be supported by you,or anyone else, and should not be built, unless it is thought out well ,and will work.I have no doubt the people who plan these projects mean well. But none of them use public transport ,and so their routes and plans are simply unpracticle .In Philadelphia and New York where their transport system is good , people use it.It is not Americans fault that in some citys the transport is bad. I mean no disrespect MR. yglesias but you should look at these issues and practicle concerns instead of lamenting about why Aericans can’t be more like Europeans. I say that as a bus rider, a fan of your writing and an Europhile.we can learn things from Europe [and vise versa] but us worshipping them [or them worshipping us]does us no good. thank you for writing about public transport
April 20th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
It’s very odd seeing these suburban subdivisions turn into the New Ghettos.
That’s the European model. Witness the Parisian riots of a couple of years ago.
April 20th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Chicago is perfectly fine for parents/kids without a car. The biggest problem is the occasional trip to the suburbs IF you need a carseat at the end of the line.
April 20th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Don’t forget either that even suburban environments can be improved by making them somewhat more like small towns of yore: denser, built on a grid system (with sidewalks!), and mixed zoning. I come from such a small town and it was not family unfriendly. Also, I live on Capitol Hill in DC at the moment and find everything about it to be family friendly (grocery stores and eastern market within walking distance, parks, sidewalks, supportive family community) except the public schools.
April 20th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
What kind of suburban bus offers anything remotely like regular service? Suburban bus systems inherently suck: because suburbs are super-spread-out and a bus line can only go a few places, the only people who take the bus are those who can’t: the poor, the disabled, and teenagers without cars. That’s not enough ridership to support anything better than infrequent service to any given residence, typically by one bus line. If that weren’t bad enough, the demographics served by suburban bus systems are politically weak and nothing is ever going to change that, making suburban bus systems suck even more than they would anyway. Hence late buses, breakdowns, no night service.
The result: Miss the bus you were planning to catch? You’re in for a long wait. Want to go out at night? I hope you can afford a cab!
The only way to improve buses is to push people towards density and thereby increase ridership.
April 20th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
As usual, I will note the “streetcar suburb” model is actually very family-friendly: you can have small yards and garages, and also walkable parks, restaurants, and other amenities.
April 20th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
What kind of suburban bus offers anything remotely like regular service? Suburban bus systems inherently suck: because suburbs are super-spread-out and a bus line can only go a few places . . . .
But suburbs don’t have to be super-spread-out.
April 20th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
I raised my kids in the city.
I don’t know how parents who live in the suburbs do it — do they have to drive their kids everywhere? Even when they’re in their teens? Life is so much easier when your kids can get themselves to museum classes and music lessons. Admittedly, toward the evening hours, we picked them up when they were younger (and still do from late evening classes), but having them able to get themselves to (or from) those classes and lessons is wonderful.
Bikes help a lot, too, if a community (and the climate) is reasonably bikable.
April 20th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Surely schools have more impact on family urban/suburban choices than transportation options and comfy sidewalks. Sometimes I walk in my inner ring suburb, sometimes I drive. Sometimes I mass transit into Center City PHL, sometimes I drive, and when I get there I walk all over the place.
April 20th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
I agree with this. I think there’s a whole continuum from Manhatten to the burbs. I grew up in Philadelphia. There was always a lot of open space for kids to play in. I’m pretty sure it was quite walkable too, since we couldn’t afford a car. In the burbs where I live now, there is less area for kids and you can’t walk to anything. Developers seemed to go out of their way to make the worst of both worlds.
I think one thing the car did was make us incredibly lazy in our development practices. Just slap a bunch of identical houses down, within 10 miles of a school and a mall and you’re done.
April 20th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
If the suburbs go empty or change, how will you people know who to hate?
April 20th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
pete from baltimore:
You might want to learn how to use paragraph breaks. I might be lazy, but I find it hard to read giant blocks of text and thus am likely to ignore them.
April 20th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
I would have to respectfully disagree with the gentleman who calls himself “no comment” . montgomery county m.d. outside D.C. have a very good bus service serving the county and complimenting the regular metro buses. They are called Ride On Buses.This maybe because montgomery is fairly prosperous and somewhat densely populated.But most suburbs are becoming more densely populated ,so maybe the Ride On buses[small but efficent] are the future for other suberbes.
April 20th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
As another guy in my mid-20s who also grew up in Manhattan, I feel very fortunate to have had an urban upbringing. There’s plenty to like about the suburbs and rural America, but New York is a really special place. I’m also particularly glad I went to a public high school (Stuyvesant, not exactly a representative public school but a public school nonetheless). Attending Stuy gave me an opportunity to become friends with lots of amazingly smart people who would have been priced out of the private school I attended for middle school. I had no reference for comparison so it all seemed normal at the time, but in college I realized, for example, that it’s pretty unusual for the majority of your high school friends to speak such a wide variety of languages natively (among them: Mandarin, Russian, Cantonese, Bengali, Korean, Japanese).
April 20th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
I just think a lot of them, especially when they’re still mobile, want flower beds and golf courses… And when they get less mobile, they need housing without stairs.
My paternal grandparents spent their last years in a bungalow with a little garden and warden service, in a relatively modern walkable suburb, five minutes from the shops, and a couple of minutes from the bus stop, where there’d be a bus every ten minutes. Oh, and it was public housing, with peppercorn rents, designed for older people.
I’ll concede that they weren’t within buggy-ride distance of a golf course.
What kind of suburban bus offers anything remotely like regular service?
The kind where the suburbs are denser, better planned-out, and more walkable.
In the burbs where I live now, there is less area for kids and you can’t walk to anything.
That’s the paradox of exurbanism: subdivisioning means bigger lots, fewer sidewalks (every square foot needs to be saleable!), less shared space, and the need to load the kids into the car (or minivan, if you have more than two pre-teens) if they want to play with their friends.
April 20th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
I hate to be a stickler, but since I spend a significant amount of my time looking at data and trying to decide if it means anything, I find the use of a graph with a y-axis from 40 to 60 to be a bit of a trick. Sure it gives you a great slope, but the overall decline has been from a high of ~56% in 1962 to 46% today which is considerable, but it’s not like the number of households with children has dropped in half.
April 20th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
These were / the remaining ones are wonderful places, and it’s just infuriating how many of them were shortsightedly pissed away by dismantling the streetcars. I think of Cleveland Heights and Lakewood in the Cleveland area where I live- both are struggling to hang on (Cleveland Heights is already in a fairly advanced state of decay), both would be well-equipped to flourish in present-day conditions if only they still had their old streetcar lines.
April 20th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
These were / the remaining ones are wonderful places, and it’s just infuriating how many of them were shortsightedly pissed away by dismantling the streetcars.
The good news is that in many cases, you can use some form of Bus Rapid Transit to more or less replicate the former network of streetcars.
April 20th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
If that demographic Matt enjoys at the top of the post continues, it should be interesting to see how any social services – transit, welfare, what have you – get funded.
Aside from that, there’s a simple baseline problem with many urban areas: compared to the suburbs, the schools are quite bad. The primary reason that parents with young children live in the suburbs is the schools. Walkability doesn’t enter into the equation, because you never get that far in the conversation.
I have a friend who tells me I should live in a city and work to improve the schools there, but seriously – very few parents are going to sacrifice their children’s education to try that.
You want to get people back into cities, then you need to deal with the schools. It’s a complex problem though, and not one amenable to quick fixes. You have the underclass culture which looks down on education and “acting smart” (that’s not a racial comment btw – I taught in a small city many years ago, and underclass culture was a non-racial thing), you have broken families (more common in most urban areas than in the suburbs), you can’t fire incompetent teachers because of tenure and the unions.
It’s not really about funding – Washington DC has a lavishly funded system where the money never seems to find its way to the schools, for instance.
You can go on and on about walkability, and transit, and how people should give cities a chance. Until the school problems are addressed seriously, there won’t be any kind of movement out of the suburbs.
April 20th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
They justspent wads of Federal money building one of those between the Cleveland Clinic and downtown along Euclid Avenue. The results are pretty underwhelming. Lots of people just don’t like buses even when they have their own fancy bus lanes, whereas tourists make a point of riding streetcars just for he hell of it in cities like SF and New Orleans. I’m not defending that prejudice, but it observably exists.
Of course, in any case RTA (as in many other cities) is currently all about cutting service and raising fares, not adding new express services. Sigh. No wonder foreigners just shake their heads at the way this country is run.
April 20th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
The Ride-on buses are actually much more reliable. They run on schedule, unlike the Metro buses which do not run on any of their many, contradictory schedules.
April 20th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Only I think the force of the point militates in favor of a more urbanist policy dynamic.
A more urbanist policy dynamic will arise if enough people want it. If it hasn’t arisen after 47 years of steady decline in the “percent of family households with own children under 18,” that’s probably a sign that that statistic has little to do with urban form.
April 20th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
As usual, I will note the “streetcar suburb” model is actually very family-friendly: you can have small yards and garages, and also walkable parks, restaurants, and other amenities.
As usual, I will note that the “streetcar suburb” model is actually very family-hostile. Families don’t care much about “walkable” amenities. They want spacious, inexpensive housing, a car for each adult member of the household, and amenities that are conveniently accessible by car. That’s why there are so few “streetcar suburbs.”
April 20th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Lots of people just don’t like buses even when they have their own fancy bus lanes, whereas tourists make a point of riding streetcars just for he hell of it in cities like SF and New Orleans. I’m not defending that prejudice, but it observably exists.
I’m reasonably hopeful this can change. My former streetcar suburb (and a bunch of other nearby) is served by a well-established BRT system, and it operates at a pretty high capacity.
April 20th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Your capacity to parrot the same old bullshit assertions for years has yet to make them true, “charles”.
But we’re sure that you’ve got the next eight hours penciled in for trolling, since you don’t have much to do.
April 20th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
You’re not fooling anyone, ‘Mixnerspotter’.
April 20th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
“You want to get people back into cities, then you need to deal with the schools. It’s a complex problem though, and not one amenable to quick fixes.”
Actually, it’s a reasonably quick fix (though a partial and temporary one): You just have a magnet school or two (add more as needed).
April 20th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
MR. NJORL, this time i think we agree on something.It shouldn’t be about public transport vs no public transport. it sould be about creating a system that works well . a wastful defence program makes all defence spending look bad ,and a wastful public transport system makes all public transport systems look bad. the supporters of public transport have a vested interest in making sure that, not just local bus systems work well ,but that the 8 billion dollar high speed rail program does not waste our tax money ,but instead gives us a rail system that all of us can be proud of.
April 20th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
For what it is worth, I am not Mixnerspotter (I wouldn’t want to take credit for someone else’s work).
April 20th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Actually, it’s a reasonably quick fix (though a partial and temporary one): You just have a magnet school or two (add more as needed).
Charter schools can also provide a way for urban parents seeking to improve the quality of their local schools to take more control of that process and speed it along.
April 20th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
“As usual, I will note that the “streetcar suburb” model is actually very family-hostile. Families don’t care much about “walkable” amenities. They want spacious, inexpensive housing, a car for each adult member of the household, and amenities that are conveniently accessible by car. That’s why there are so few “streetcar suburbs.””
The “streetcar suburb” model was precisely developed by the Victorians and Edwardians to be family-friendly (and it works). Not only are there NOT few “streetcar suburbs”, there are (or were) literally hundreds of them: my native San Francisco (one of America’s smaller cities) has at least three of them (the Marina District, West Portal, and St. Francis Woods).
April 20th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
* In particular, I think walkable urbanism becomes a clearly superior choice for teenagers and their parents.
You are absolutely right on this point Matt.
I live in a small city and have two teens. Our city is very walkable and bikeable and the bus system is decent. I love it. My kids don’t have their drivers licenses, they really don’t need them, they walk or bike everywhere. If they absolutely need a ride we’ll drive to pick them up, but that is pretty rare.
I can’t imagine living with teens in the kind of suburbia where I grew up in the 60s-70s. Being able to walk and bike everywhere is absolutely a superior choice for this family with teens, and the teens themselves agree.
April 20th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
DTM – the unions hate charter schools, and try to shut them down or co-opt them at every opportunity. This is why I said there’s no quick fix; a whole tons of sacred cows have to die before anyone will do something serious in this area:
– parents have to be told that “yes, it is your fault” when their kids create problems in the schools
– unions have to be told that the job isn’t about them
– liberals have to realize that the system is awash in money, and shoveling more isn’t going to help any
– conservatives have to realize that prayer in schools isn’t the answer to any question that anyone is asking
April 20th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
The “streetcar suburb” model was precisely developed by the Victorians and Edwardians to be family-friendly (and it works).
Thank goodness nothing’s happened since the Victorian and Edwardian eras to change that. Like, say, the mass adoption of automobiles.
Not only are there NOT few “streetcar suburbs”, there are (or were) literally hundreds of them: my native San Francisco (one of America’s smaller cities) has at least three of them (the Marina District, West Portal, and St. Francis Woods).
Average house price listing in San Francisco Marina District: $1.7 million. Clearly, this is a very family-friendly area.
What share of the total suburban population lives in “streetcar suburbs?”
April 20th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
DTM – the unions hate charter schools, and try to shut them down or co-opt them at every opportunity.
Assuming for the sake of argument that is accurate, this is a political battle they are losing with every-greater frequency, to the point that the current Democratic President is a major proponent of charter schools. In that sense, I think this particular sacred cow is now hamburger meat, and heading for the grill.
April 20th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Suburbanites live in the suburbs because living in the city is prohibitively expensive.
April 20th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
i think many suburbanites live in the suburbes simply because they want to. i live in the city because i want to ,but maybe in the future i wll want to move to the suburbs or to the countryside , it’s doubtful but it would be my choice . i don’t care where someone else lives, it’s their choice and does not make them better, or worse than me.
April 20th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
I see several factors coming into play for this kind of topic and the either/or discussions tend to distract from flexible policies that can be obtainable. The city, traditional suburb and the walkable suburb models each have their own merit in many respects. Cities have a rich and vibrant culture and a lot of great energy, but the logistics of such a dense area causes a significant number of logistical problems of their own. For instance the DC Metro capacity today as compared to what was expected when it was designed. There’s the suburban model of drive everywhere. There’s also the walkable suburban model of patches of high density buffered by single family homes. Columbia, MD is a good example of the patterns from originally being designed to be a walkable suburb, even having it’s own trolly for a brief period. It was, in some respects, ahead of it’s time and those functions got scaled back as the Rouse Company was acquired and lost focus. There are newer groups forming to correct some of the past mistakes with the town center development and advocating certain positions, but at least we’re able to do it on our own terms and without the momentum of a massive city 5 times as big as we are. We also have periodic Blog Tale parties and you’re certainly invited if you’re so interested.
April 20th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
According to Mixner, the invention of the automobile proves that suburbs that predate its wide adoption were horrific crap holes. Presumably he also thinks that the fact that GM and Standard Oil went out of their way to illegally destroy the streetcar industry proves that the car is inherently superior and has nothing to fear from competition with streetcars.
Got it.
April 20th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
There’s a middle of the road position here: live somewhere that you can walk or bike many places, but still keep a car for bad weather, heavy cargo, passengers and pets, long road trips etc. After living in drive-everywhere Florida Baltimore is a relief. Everywhere I regularly go is within 3 miles of home, so even though I still drive a lot of places, I spend very little time in the car and my CO2 footprint is much less.
April 20th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
What share of the total suburban population lives in “streetcar suburbs?”
Assuming the definition here is a suburb with walkable access to mass transit, and does not imply actual retro streetcars, then *I* live in a streetcar suburb, and so do a great many other people in the DC Metro area. Most of my neighbors are families with children. Hardly a hipster to be found.
A healthy percentage of Long Island would also fall into this category. I have no numbers, but I’m sure the overall percentage is very low due to the poor state of mass transit in this country.
A far greater number of people live in neighborhoods on the fringes of big cities that were originally built as streetcar suburbs but currently have no access to mass transit. I lived in such a neighborhood in Indianapolis as a kid, and it’s still a decent part of town with an essentially suburban lifestyle (single family homes with yards and garages). The neighborhood is still walkable and the old rail line is now a pedestrian trail. You could ride the bus downtown, but the system was underfunded and the service was sketchy.
A city that took the time to nurture neighborhoods like that might not lose its entire tax base to the suburbs.
April 20th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
JonF, I agree with you,Baltimores public transport system may be bad, but this is defintly one of the more walkable American cities . Too bad about the crime ,since this defentily affects where you can walk and, or ,ride a bus.Or even work[i work construction so i work all over Baltimore].Having said that ,it is still great to take a nice quiet walk among the row houses or through patterson park. I often walk, and carry my tools over my shoulder, even if i could take the bus, because a walk is far more pleasant than a bus in baltimore no matter what the weather is like.
April 20th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
“Thank goodness nothing’s happened since the Victorian and Edwardian eras to change that. Like, say, the mass adoption of automobiles.”
The automobiles don’t make the streetcar suburb less family-friendly. And many of the streetcar suburbs were built after the advent of cars, actually (West Portal, St. Francis Woods and the Marina were all built after WWI and before 1929 – for a housebuying public that owned cars).
April 20th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
[...] Yglesias highlights one trend, aging, to posit another trend, a return to urbanism. From what he says, I doubt if he has ever been to Frisco, McKinney, or Southlake. He certainly [...]
April 20th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
“Average house price listing in San Francisco Marina District: $1.7 million. Clearly, this is a very family-friendly area.”
The high prices indicate what, Mixner(……errrr, that’s right, “charles”)? That people like the streetcar suburb idea a lot (even in the Marina, which had it’s streetcars yanked out). Which means they’re popular and family friendly.
$1.7 million in the Bay Area is high, but not very astonishing for us residents, who are used to bizarre prices.
April 20th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Average house price listing in San Francisco Marina District: $1.7 million. Clearly, this is a very family-friendly area.
What share of the total suburban population lives in “streetcar suburbs?”
Shorter charles: The fact that existing streetcar suburbs are so expensive proves that no one wants to live in them.
April 20th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Or they can get a reverse mortgage.
Though the issue of mobility lends some credence to urban living, as most houses I’ve ever seen have stairs which can be a problem for seniors. Many apartments and many condos have elevators. I don’t think there is any easy answer, but I am pretty jealous of the senior living apartment down the street from me. Those old folgies have it made.
April 20th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
It’s not transportation that keeps baltimore and other cities from being family freindly .It is crime and the qaulity of public schools.Some cities are expensive , but in Baltimore you can find a nice rehabbed house in a fairly rich area ,like canton,fells point ,or federal hill for around $200,000 and possibly under, and one in a working class neighborhood like Highlandtown costing $1150 ,000 and under. there is one on my block that is livable going for $100,000. I work on houses in the area so i can assure you that these numbers are correct. There are houses going for $500,000 but those are in the minority .Even the real nice and fancy, high end rehabed houses are under $350,000
April 20th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
East Dallas/Lakewood, Texas is a an example of a streetcar suburb with good schools. That’s where I would put my money if I were investing in real estate.
April 20th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
The automobiles don’t make the streetcar suburb less family-friendly. And many of the streetcar suburbs were built after the advent of cars, actually . . .
Indeed. My former streetcar suburb is in fact an automobile-era development, and one of the things I really like about it is that the garages are on alleys running between the main streets. What that allows is uninterrupted sidewalks and nice front porches, while at the same time the alleys are using a lower percentage of available land than driveways would.
April 20th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
I think it’s important to remember that there are more options than trying to move to zero car households.
With a decently designed city you can avoid moving to a two or three car household in favour of one car + public transit + walking + car pooling.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
What about walkable suburbanism?
We don’t need to built our child-friendly, lawn-boasting suburbs as sprawlville. I live on the most child-friendly street imaginable here in the Lowell Highlands – a block single family homes on 4500 square feet, each with a two-care driveway. We have cookouts and whiffle ball and little kids riding their bikes in the street, who have no trouble getting out of the way of the slow-moving cars.
We’re a block from a playground, two blocks from a middle school, three blocks from an elementary school, four blocks from another elementary school, five blocks from a high school, four blocks from ball fields, five blocks from church, four blocks from a corner store and an office building.
We’re also quite close to a very large number of jobs, as well as a highway and a rail station.
The streetcar suburb neighborhood patter provides everything that most suburban buyers want for their kids, and it’s much less carbon- and automobile-dependent.
The choices are not “walkable urbanism” vs. “suburbanism.” Check out Peter Calthorpe’s “The Next American Metropolis.”
April 20th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
You see this a lot among fake libertarians like charles:
As usual, I will note that the “streetcar suburb” model is actually very family-hostile. Families don’t care much about “walkable” amenities. They want spacious, inexpensive housing, a car for each adult member of the household, and amenities that are conveniently accessible by car. That’s why there are so few “streetcar suburbs.”
The pretense that the form of suburban development during the era of highly-restrictive snob zoning was created by choices in a free market. It’s funny, they way such people usually come up with – or invent – a government-induced cause for everything that happens, but they pretend that the development patterns of post-war suburbs was a consequence of buyer choice, despite knowing perfectly well that alternative development patterns were forbidden by law.
Thank goodness nothing’s happened since the Victorian and Edwardian eras to change that. Like, say, the mass adoption of automobiles. They can also never account for the fact that the first suburbs built after the mass adoption of the automobile (in the 1920s) were walkable neighborhoods built in the same pattern as the streetcar suburbs that preceded them. In point of fact, it was only after the adoption of the above-referenced zoning that this pattern changed.
A more urbanist policy dynamic will arise if enough people want it. Indeed, and just like clockwork, the first New Urbanist and Traditional Neighborhood Design styles of developments began to be built in the 1980s, and really took off in the 1990s – styles that consciously strive to reflect the pedestrian-friendly patterns of the pre-sprawl era. The homes there sell for more than sprawling suburbs, demonstrating that this pattern is not only commercially viable, but demands a premium.
Average house price listing in San Francisco Marina District: $1.7 million. Thus refuting your notion that this type of housing is unpopular. Shall I explain to you what a demand curve is?
What share of the total suburban population lives in “streetcar suburbs?” Far fewer than would be the case if the streetcar suburb pattern of development hadn’t been banned for six decades.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
pete from baltimore,
That’s a fine sentiment. The logical implication of it is that you should support the “more urbanist policy dynamic” that also happens to reflect the opinion that people should be free to choose which type of neighborhood to live in – the elimination of the suburban snob/sprawl zoning that prevents developers and landowners who wish to build in a pedestrian- and transit-friendly manner from being allowed to do so.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
[...] Matt Yglesias pointed out a Census report on the declining ratio of children under 18 per household (read the full report here), the reasons for it and it’s implications down the road. While I differ with Matt on the “cities are better” point, I do tend to agree with him about the advantages of walkable cities. For this, the GGP is fairly good about, but then, they do have a decent base to work off of. However, the car still reigns supreme in their designs. Let’s bring the worst part of cities to the new one, eh? Let’s bring the traffic and congestion to town center like what happened with Bethesda. Let’s build a town center that you need to drive to like Reston Town Center. That would really improve our quality of life. [...]
April 20th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
$1 says Yglesias ends up in the suburbs with two cars, one dog and 2.3 children.
April 20th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
$10 says the suburb that he, his cars, his dog, and his children end up in is walkable, with good access to transit.
It’s about “suburbs or not.” It’s about “what kind of suburbs?”
April 20th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
$1 says Yglesias ends up in the suburbs with two cars, one dog and 2.3 children.
I’ll take the field against the 2.3 children.
April 20th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
There’s nothing odd about having two cars/family in a highly-walkable community. Most people will still drive cars; they’ll just drive them less.
The biggest Hummer in the world doesn’t emit any carbon sitting in the driveway while its owner walks his kids to school. And as long as the grocery store or office it’s driven to is close by, it emits very little carbon overall.
My family has two cars. I put so few miles on mine that I have to change the oil based on the calendar instead of the mileage.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:10 am
MR. JOE FROM LOWELL i do agree with you that zoning is an issue.Even though i mainly work on rehabbing city rowhouses , i know that suburban zoning discrimanates against townhouses. Also the way the permit and zoning systems works ,it’s not worth it to build small affordable homes,and the system makes it much more profitable to build mcmansions .Unfourtantly these rules and laws are supported by homeowners who feel that these laws raise property values.Unfourtantly some people feel that property values are the only thing that is important.I once express my sadness that some poor lady got hit by a stray bullet at a bus stop near my house ,and someone actually said to me ” oh, don’t worry ,it shouldn’t affect your propety values”. My origanal point in my earlier comment was that it is up to the cities to make themselves more livable and familly friendly in order to attract families.Right now they are following the advice of “experts” who say that the cities should forget about families ,and focus on the “creative class” .The only problem with that, is that even the creative class has children eventually.I think we should look at all of the issues schools ,crime,affordibility and public transport .They are all connected.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:47 am
I couldn’t agree more.
Making your city an attractive destination for information workers is important for long-term prosperity, and that should certainly guide the vision of downtown redevelopment efforts, but cities need middle class families, too. In my experience, most older cities have plenty of neighborhoods that are, or can be, family friendly.
And of course, none of these ideas are going to go anywhere without addressing crime and schools.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:13 am
I’ll third pete from baltimore’s sentiment. To be sure, I think there are some crucial insights involved in the “creative class” notion, but it shouldn’t be applied to the exclusion of thinking about families. The nice thing is that you can blend these lifestyles in walkable neighborhoods: the mountain bike path next to the Little League field, the bistro next to the place with great french fries, and so forth. Indeed, maybe sometimes the parents get a sitter, and head to the bistro themselves.
April 21st, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Schools and crime are the issues, but the “making cities attractive for knowledge workers” is a broad topic. What kind of knowledge worker? The unmarried 20 something with no kids has an entirely different set of notions about what’s good to have nearby (bars? museums? nightclubs?) than the 30 something one with kids (playgrounds? good schools? safe neighborhood?)
Sure, married guys with kids do want a drink after work, but not nearly as often as that 20 something will. You have to realize that a coffee shop that has free wifi – whether within walking distance or not – is a far more desirable “second” place for the family guy…