The Persistent Economic Advantage of America’s Suburbs | Hacker News Reader

The Persistent Economic Advantage of America’s Suburbs

citylab.com

63 pointsjatsign48 comments

I don't get it, doesn't this just say that more rich/educated people live in the suburbs than urban areas? How is that an economic advantage or 'outperforming' urban neighborhoods?

I thought it has been shown that suburbs cost a lot more per capita in public services like roads but this is heavily subsidized by more the efficient urban areas.

>Richard Florida is a co-founder and editor at large of CityLab and a senior editor at The Atlantic. He is a university professor in the University of Toronto’s School of Cities and Rotman School of Management, and a distinguished fellow at New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate.

The article is written from a Realtor's prospective.

I think it's slightly more comprehensive than that. The school page seems to indicate it covers construction and development too.[1] That said, it definitely appears to be weighted on the seller side (which makes sense), so that may affect perspective somewhat.

1: http://www.scps.nyu.edu/content/scps/academics/departments/s...

Richard Florida coined the term "creative class" and was one of the big boosters of the idea that the young cool people would not only move to the city when they're young and eager (same as always), but also would decide to stay there as they grow older (new in the late 90s), effectively transforming the urban environment. The wealth of this middle-aged creative worker with disposable income would then trickle down to the service class. He described a model for urban renaissance that was essentially reducing a city to factories of entertainment and opportunity for yuppies. He really shaped the conversation. But as reality is more nuanced than that, he's trying to find a new tack. Smart guy.

>The once cut-and-dried distinctions between city and suburb have blurred and no longer explain the actual places we live

I think this should be expanded on. If you live in a place where people commute to the urban center on a daily basis, then you are a part of that city's urban fabric, even if you are not "in the city".

The distinction between "urban" and "suburban" is mostly superficial based on the forms of housing common in each location, the modes of transportation commonly used, and the culture of each location. This is even evident in day to day speech, if you are traveling and meet someone who asks where you are from, from my experience you say the name of the city you live near, not the name of the adjacent suburb or township you live in.

How is that "superficial"? You listed some of the most economically and culturally impactful factors for a settlement.

Fair. Maybe a better description is that the differences between urban and suburban were manufactured by public policy.

The forms of housing were manufactured by zoning law, home owners associations, and master plans for communities of houses with big lawns.

The forms of transportation were manufactured more or less as a direct result of the housing forms above. Walking, biking, and transit aren't as viable in the land of suburban sprawl (and during the decades of expansion of the suburb, public transportation money mostly aimed at motorist-friendly projects like expressways)

The cultural (and socio-economic) differences were manufactured by horrifying, now-illegal, 20th century policies, namely redlining and racial covenants. The OP's description that suburban and urban are "blurring" is a result of several decades of recovery from these policies.

By superficial what I meant is that without these forces manufacturing a false dichotomy of "urban" vs "suburban", we would likely have a much more blurred spectrum of housing & neighborhoods.

Everything you mention is a byproduct of one factor: density. Density of people determines housing and economics and transportation and everything else that makes a suburb different than a city. And while I agree that there is a continuous spectrum there, the dichotomy is anything but false. The noisy, dirty, cramped city might as well be on a different planet from the quiet, disperse suburbs 30 minutes away. The lifestyles and experiences of the two places are very different.

Of course there's a difference between city center and city boundary. Of course some places are loud and some are quiet.

But the point I'm trying to make is that "noisy, dirty, cramped" isn't a singular fact of urban life - in fact, there are plenty of places relatively high density that are none of those. Even in the USA, there are neighborhoods like Brookline in the Boston area. Brookline is relatively dense (the streets near the light rail system anyways), but also quiet, clean, safe, and residential. The main problem is that it's expensive, very expensive -- which is understandable because there are so few neighborhoods built like it, so it's a very desirable place to live.

You mention "worlds apart from the quiet, disperse suburbs 30 minutes away", but this is also a product of urban planning. Here's what a neighborhood 30 minutes away from Osaka city hall by train looks like:

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.6176119,135.520036,3a,75y,14...

Quiet, dense, Residential. A mix between single family homes, tightly packed, and mid-rise apartment complexes. High standard of living, but affordable to the middle class (330~ usd per sqft from my understanding)

"Across the board, suburban neighborhoods have higher incomes, higher home values, higher shares of college grads, and higher shares of professionals than urban neighborhoods. And suburbs do better than urban areas even when we compare neighborhoods in the same quartile of status."

I think though that part of the problem is that housing in the suburbs is more expensive to begin with, so only people with a lot of money can afford to live there. If you have more money you'r emore likely to be a college grad and a "professional" (whatever that means). It's not that suburbia makes you rich, it's that you have to be rich to live in surburbia. There isn't an economic advantage to living there, you just have to be richer to live there.

Housing in the suburbs was more expensive in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, but that is no longer true in many cities. Excluding the most affluent suburbs higher quality urban real estate is often more expensive. Suburbs closer to city centers are also generally more expensive unless they are in poor condition.

I've wondered if the suburbs might not have been a major driver of American middle class growth in the late 20th century for a really simple reason: expansion fueled by automotive transit allowed people to escape the law of rent and the tyranny of landlords and the property market.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent

Eventually this expansion reached practical limits due to commute times and energy costs, so now we are back to the way it was before.

>Excluding the most affluent suburbs higher quality urban real estate is often more expensive.

This isn't really true in my experience. What is true is that housing is more expensive in terms of $/square foot in the middle of the city. However, this doesn't mean you'll find a cheaper place in the suburbs: if all the housing in a suburb is giant McMansions, they're still going to be more expensive than a small condo or efficiency in town. This is what I've found when I moved to my current city (DC); it just didn't save any money to live farther out because I don't want 2-5 bedrooms, as I'm a single guy. So it makes more sense for me to live closer to town in a small condo where I can enjoy the benefits of living closer, and my total rent is cheaper, and I don't have a giant house that I don't make use of, nor do I have to pay to heat/cool that giant house that I don't use.

> I've wondered if the suburbs might not have been a major driver of American middle class growth in the late 20th century for a really simple reason: expansion fueled by automotive transit allowed people to escape the law of rent and the tyranny of landlords and the property market.

Nice insight. I know in Silicon Valley, people are not nearly as wealthy as the could be given their salaries because maybe 1/2 their monthly income goes to housing.

The Bay Area is the most absurd large scale property market in America, but it's really just the most extreme case of a disease found almost everywhere.

> Housing in the suburbs was more expensive in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, but that is no longer true in many cities.

I think it's still true. If I go far enough out of the city center, I could afford a 3000+ sq ft house. Close to downtown, it's an order of magnitude more money for that much space.

It seams to me that the closer you are to the city the more expensive the living becomes (at least on the East coast) unless you are willing to live in or close to the undesirable pockets of the metro area. It's not until you move quite far out before home prices begin to drop. Suburbs have expanded so much that people give themselves massive commutes just to barely afford a single family home.

This is true in all west coast cities I've been to, as well. It gets dramatically more expensive the closer you get to downtown. Having a condo down there would cost me twice as much as I paid for my large house in the 'burbs.

The suburbs are much cheaper than Seattle proper. Granted, there are a few small communities that are very expensive.

Mostly suburbs (the Rentons, Tacomas, and Monroes of Puget Sound) are very inexpensive compared to Seattle proper.

Are the suburbs much cheaper only in comparable housing? What if a family that would have lived in a house in the suburbs lived in an apartment in the city? Isn't there cheaper housing options in the city?

You should look into Seattle’s housing problems, as there are many.

Apartments are very expensive and most are not sized for families. The city is still zoned for single family homes, driving up the cost of the homes to near San Francisco levels.

Some people are sleeping in parks, which is a cheaper option, granted.

When I was house hunting, 4 bedroom condos in a city basically didn't exist. Most of the ones I saw were 5-10x the price of a suburban 4 bedroom home - and that's ignoring the HOA fee, which many single family residences don't have.

Cities discourage or outright prohibit anything beyond 2 bedroom MDUs being constructed. Its a great way to keep families from putting down roots in an area, or expanding much beyond 2 to 3 members.

Seattle isn't quite as bad as other cities in pushing this policy, but there isn't any extra push to incentivize construction of 3+ bedroom apartments & condos (eg: additional building height/width allowances).

IIRC our auditor wrote a report that came to the conclusion that we had way too few 3+ bedroom units in the city. If we want affordable housing (not "Affordable" housing, with heavy subsidies), set back & step back requirements need to be loosened for construction that includes valuable 3 & 4 bedroom condos and apartments.

Note: HOAs in Seattle proper are very rare outside of condos. Ditto outside the city limits, though some small single family home enclaves choose to kneecap themselves with a HOA.

Even in Portland, suburbs are definitely cheaper. For what my house cost, I could get an itty-bitty condo downtown. And it would have a $700/month HOA fee. Only rich people, or young people who are okay blowing over half their income on housing, live downtown.

Portland is a mild-climate city with a famously good transit system and a walkable downtown. If I had to guess, cities where it is comfortable to be outside (Mediterranean/subtropical/oceanic climates) tend to be more expensive in the inner districts, whereas cities where it is uncomfortable to be outside (continental/desert/alpine climates) tend to be more expensive in the car-based districts.

Housing in the burbs is definitely cheaper per square foot and there are always places to rent.

I think the issue with the study is that urban areas are often made up of rich/poor and a thinner middle class.

The burbs are solidly middle class.

I think the larger numbers of poor neighbourhoods in the city drag down the cities averages.

This is absolutely not the case in the metro areas I've lived in. Suburbs are generally much more affordable than the neighboring urban centers.

"Subdivisions" -- Rush, 1982, Signals

    Sprawling on the fringes of the city
    In geometric order
    An insulated border
    In-between the bright lights
    And the far, unlit unknown

    Growing up, it all seems so one-sided
    Opinions all provided
    The future pre-decided
    Detached and subdivided
    In the mass-production zone

    Nowhere is the dreamer
    Or the misfit so alone

    ...

    Any escape might help to smooth
    The unattractive truth
    But the suburbs have no charms to soothe
    The restless dreams of youth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subdivisions_(song)

Ahead of their time :)

    Growing up, it all seems so one-sided
    Opinions all provided
    The future pre-decided
    Detached and subdivided

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

This article is all about money. What about life?

Suburbs are depressing. I find myself both happier and healthier in walkable communities near city center.

I agree with what you are saying and it's unfortunate that many of the modern suburbs in America were never created around the concept of a village but were strewn about by various developers looking to put up quick, cheap buildings to sell at a premium. It's often boring, drab and desolate in a sense. Depressing at times for sure. On the other hand, living in a cramped condo or apartment with kids isn't my cup of tea either and US cities aren't always the most walkable or even have quality public transit. Unless you are wealthy, which affords you more options, it's all a trade-off in the final end.

It depends on the person. I personally dislike cities in the general sense and would probably never live in one. I don't like such a high population density and lack of greenery. I'd much rather drive around a suburb or country area than around a city.

I don't find suburbs depressing unless they are impoverished like some of the small, dying towns in the US that were once strong manufacturing areas but now are falling apart both economically and literally.

If you have 4 kids, it might be different.

All of my siblings have kids ands live in the burbs, and it's jus easier: they have larger, boring homes, but easy access to schools and the grocery store.

Parkland: they all play sports and there are actual places to play them.

The couldn't care less about not being near the museum.

I think they would like maybe to be able to 'walk places' but that's one thing they give up.

It's also very green and closer to the countryside.

It's a little more banal but I really do think when you have kids, it's all about that, and so a lot of other things have less priority.

I agree, and I think the discussion of suburban vs urban doesn't focus on it enough. As a single (or at least, childless) person, the city absolutely is much more appealing to me. The moment I had children the city became much less desirable than the suburbs.

Unfortunately, cities, particularly American cities, are not ideal for families.

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

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

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

“...a period that overlaps with notions of the resurgence of America’s urban centers and the decline of its suburbs.”

That sentence seems odd. NYC was about to go bankrupt during that period. Boston was losing population and employers into the 1990s. The current new urbanism renewal is mostly overstated and applies to a thin slice of demographics and locations but it’s also very recent—less than 20 years old for the most part.

Since that's the period of the study, I assume you're invoking a "god of the gaps"-type argument to invite people to assume that afterwards it went the way your predispositions say it should have?

What an odd time period to pick, since this is peak Suburbia-McMansion sprawl.

its the 4 most recent decades covered by census data. Although you're right to point out that suburbia had its primacy in this time period, the researcher can't be faulted for looking for the highest quality, most recent data.

It does seem rather daft to challenge claims from book written seven years ago about the next five to ten years by using data from between 50 and 9 years go.

The gas price build up went from 2005 to 2008, and then came the housing crisis.

For this study to mean much, they at least have to go as far as 2015

Is it any surprise?

I don't want to be accused of being a racist so I can't move into affordable urban neighborhoods with too many 'underrepresented minorities'. I like peace and quiet, you don't find that in the city. I like driving more than walking/bicycling/taking the bus so I live in a place that makes it less of a hassle to own the cars. And I care for my safety and my property, I'd be an idiot to move to the cities near me that care more about being nice to criminals than protecting property owned by the working class.

And yeah, the suburbs are advantaged. I saved money to live there, I want my kids to have the most advantages possible, I've instilled enough discipline in them that they're able to learn and grow at school. I've been in city schools, they're full of kids pissing away the opportunity to learn and interfering with the learning of other students, how can someone succeed when their classmates are cranking that soulja boy?

>I don't want to be accused of being a racist so I can't move into affordable urban neighborhoods with too many 'underrepresented minorities'

???

https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/erika-d-smi...

Improving a blighted neighborhood is racism. If I were to displace a minority from “their” neighborhood, I would have done a racist act.

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