Author Archives: legallysociable

Finances, ideal lifestyles, and the push and pull away from cities experienced by young adults

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Looking back at residential patterns after the late 2000s economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, what motivated younger adults to leave cities and move to suburban or rural communities?

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Later waves that arrived just after the Great Recession, however, had a different type of migrant identity. As luxury housing continued to be built in New York City and affordable areas disappeared, some residents found the big city “inhospitable to their desired urban lifestyle and identity”: “Many of today’s newcomers to Newburgh use the term ‘priced out’…though few actually left in direct response to their rents rising or their landlord pressuring them to move out,” Ocejo writes. “But cost still played an important role in their decision to relocate…. They felt displaced from their own potential and opportunities to thrive as middle-class urbanites living a specific city lifestyle in the metropolis.”

Herein lies the tension between getting “pushed” from a city versus “pulled.” Some contemporary migrants are pushed from a particular lifestyle and pulled by a promise that it can be built elsewhere. Unlike midcentury white flight—which was highly dependent on the construction of suburban housing, racism, and statecraft—middle-class millennials (especially those facing mounting city prices and remote work) find that smaller cities and towns cater to a broader vision for life, one that provides opportunities to buy a house, build a business, or comfortably raise a family…

“When people move from one community to another…they leave behind their old job, connections, identity, and seek out new ones. They force themselves to go meet their neighbors, or to show up at a new church on Sunday, despite the awkwardness,” Appelbaum writes. What this might mean for rural or metro areas is yet to be seen. But for people moving out of large cities, it’s redefining what upward mobility might look like. Building wealth through housing may be unattainable, but it’s being replaced by a search for a new American dream: self-actualization.

What I read in this description is an intertwining of financial matters and what lifestyle people see themselves having. Costs and resources matter; housing is a sizable portion of many budgets. Housing has become more expensive in many American metropolitan areas. But cultural narratives and individual aspirations also matter; what life does someone want to live? What do they see as a good life?

On this first factor, it helps to have more financial resources. The stories told in this article seem to involve people who had enough resources that they had options of where to live. They could make a major move, perhaps by selling a residence in one place to go to another. Or they had careers and job skills that enabled them to live in multiple places.

On this second factor, Americans have developed a lot of narratives over time about desirable lives. They want a single-family home in the suburbs. They want to be individuals who pursue their own path (the self-actualization suggested above). They want to engage community life. And so on.

Perhaps then it would be helpful to think about a two-pole line that demonstrates how people make decisions about where to live and what to pursue. On one side of the line is finances and what is possible in terms of money and resources. On the other side of the line is an image of the life they want to live and what that entails on a day-to-day and long-term basis. Depending on the current situation personally and in society, they might slide a marker more toward one pole than the other.

(Does this describe how young adults make these decisions or is this limited to a certain subset with particular resources and goals?)

The rise of youth and rock music

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A look back at one influential rock album highlights the connection between age and rock music:

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In the mid-1950s, the idea that the cutting edge of pop would come to be dominated by relatively young people writing songs for and about people even younger was a revolutionary notion, one that in the next decade would come to be taken for granted.

How much did the music help encourage youth culture or the youth culture encourage the music? This was a period with a growing number of children and teenagers and a different sense of what youths could do and contribute to society.

It would be interesting to compare that time period to today regarding music. Some of those original influential youths from the 1950s and 1960s music scene are still alive. They continue to make new music as well as play their old hits. They are no longer young; but do they continue to carry on a youthful spark or the youth culture of that time? Or do they not matter much as younger people continue to make, remake, and innovate music.

It is hard to imagine otherwise but imagine the purveyors of rock music in the 1950s and 1960s were not young – not Elvis, Chuck Berry, the Beatles, etc. – but rather musicians in their 30s and 40s. What might be different – the sound? The lyrics? The scene? Would rock music be different today based on those changes back then?

Chicago as the epicenter for the creation of American time zones

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When Americans decided on time zones in the late 1800s, where did they gather to formalize the boundaries and clocks? Chicago, a railroad center:

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Until 1883, a Chicagoan asked to tell what time it was could give more than one answer and still be correct.

There was local time, determined by the position of the sun at high noon at a centrally located spot in town, usually City Hall. There was also railroad time, which put Columbus, Ohio, six minutes faster than Cincinnati and 19 minutes faster than Chicago. Scattered across the country were 100 different local time zones, and the railroads had some 53 zones of their own.

To do away with the inevitable confusion, the railroads took the matter into their own hands, holding a General Time Convention in the fall of 1883 at the Grand Pacific Hotel at LaSalle Street and Jackson Boulevard. (Today, a plaque at the location — which is just north of the Chicago Board of Trade Building — notes its significance).

Its purpose: to develop a better and more uniform system of railroad scheduling. The Standard Time System — based on the mean solar time at the central meridian of each time zone — was formally inaugurated on Nov. 18, 1883, a day that came to be known as the “Day of Two Noons.”

Another summary of the same story ended this way:

But it was an astonishingly rapid and successful shift, syncing up almost the entire country in the space of a week, with all roads leading back to Chicago.

Three interrelated features of Chicago stand out to me as contributing to being the place where time zones were agreed upon:

  1. A railroad center with numerous major railways running in and through the city and region.
  2. Business leaders, specifically railroad leaders, pushing for standard time zones in order to help their commercial activity. Chicago was a center for commerce and industry.
  3. The ease of getting in and out of Chicago – lots of railroads, central location in the United States – helped facilitate a meeting there.

These features of Chicago still hold today. The city continues to be a railroad center with lots of traffic throughout the region. It is still a business center, a leading global city. And it still serves as a transportation hub. Just as the railroad executives found it a good place to gather, see the number of important meetings that take place near O’Hare Airport, in the city, and throughout the region.

Might such a meeting in 1883 taken place elsewhere? Perhaps. If something as consequential as time zones were to be decided in 2025, which American city might we expect to host the discussion: the political center of Washington, D.C.? The leading global city of New York? The tech capital in San Francisco?

Draw a five mile circle around Chicago area shopping malls and do you find the ingredients for a successful mall?

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In an era when many shopping malls are struggling, what distinguishes mall properties from each other? One suburban community with a failed mall and stalled redevelopment efforts, Charlestowne in St. Charles, examines what you find if you look what is around a mall:

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Commercial businesses such as retail stores, restaurants, and entertainment venues depend on a strong local population to generate steady sales and foot traffic. The more households that surround a shopping center, the greater the built-in customer base to support those businesses and the more attractive the redevelopment is for a developer. For Charlestowne Mall, the surrounding area has relatively low population density compared to other successful shopping corridors in the region. With fewer nearby residents, there is less day-to-day demand to sustain large-scale retail, making it harder to attract and retain major tenants. The graphic below provides the basic demographic and market data within a five-mile radius of the Charlestowne Mall site. Developers and businesses rely on this data to evaluate the market feasibility of proposed commercial uses and to understand the strength of the local customer base.

From this analysis (which continues for about 10 more malls in addition to the chart above), several features of Charlestowne stand out: the nearby population is relatively small and the mall has no interstate access. It does have a higher median household income than some malls, including the two others on the list that were demolished (but had more residents nearby with one having interstate access and another not).

So is the real story about this property about mall overdevelopment? As the number of shopping malls expanded in the growing suburbs of the end of the twentieth century, how many were doomed from the beginning? Or perhaps developers and communities were too optimistic about how many people malls might draw or projected more nearby residents than ended up living nearby. Did anyone foresee the rise of online shopping or the shifts in consumption habits?

The trend in recent years is to try to save malls with new features that will continue to pull people to the property. But the malls that are already closed – such as Charlestowne – can struggle to replace them with something local residents and leaders want. This property still has fewer people nearby and no interstate. Even if the mall building is closed, it is hard to lose the dream of the mall and all that went with it including local revenue and a local gathering spot.

Where “forgotten Americans” might live

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In a discussion of what to do with the new ballroom under construction at the White House, one politician said the new part of the White House should represent “forgotten Americans”:

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“We need a White House that is not for the tech billionaires, but for forgotten Americans,” he said.

“In that spirit, we should ask Americans — in rural communities, urban centers and hollowed-out factory towns — for their ideas of what to do with the space,” Khanna said.

This is an interesting comment as it contrasts that who have a lot versus those who are forgotten. Rather than note what these forgotten Americans do or do not have, they are instead linked to geographic areas. Three in particular: rural areas, the centers of big cities, and factory towns.

The primary residential and business space left out of this list is the suburbs. These areas are often assumed to be wealthy, full of people who have made it in American life. They have at least some major control of their own destiny. They may not be tech billionaires but they are not forgotten.

There are communities in the suburbs not doing well. There are suburbs that are more rural than urban, suburbs that experience similar issues facing urban centers, and suburbs that have lost important jobs ad have limited business activity. These struggling suburbs can sometimes be near wealthy suburbs.

And it could be interesting to see how such designations line up with survey responses from Americans regarding whether they feel forgotten and where they live.

Zillow, realtors, and who can be a “neighborhood savant”

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A Zillow commercial refers to their agents as a “neighborhood savant.” Are Zillow agents or realtors the best people to claim this title?

A real estate agent might know a lot about neighborhoods or communities. Looking at the local marketing realtors do, I see that they claim to know about different suburbs. In particular, they have knowledge about the local housing market through what has sold and what has not. They can also talk about other aspects of the community, such as schools and nearby amenities.

If I go to websites like Zillow or Realtors.com, they offer neighborhood information with each property listing. This includes a map, walkability scores, ratings of local schools, other nearby listings and recent sales, and more.

But what does it take to know about a neighborhood? Who can accurately describe what it is like to live there or how the character of a place plays out? Does anyone offer insights from local residents? Do real estate agents live in the communities they sell in or have secondhand information from local residents and organizations?

This reminds me of two posts I put together years ago on how to learn about a suburb. There are lots of sources of information about communities and some of it is available online. But some of it is not. Talking to people or walking through a community or reading local histories can provide some insights that are harder to intuit online.

Who else might be a “neighborhood savant”? A local journalist, where they are still available. A local political official or a longstanding member of a community institution. A local historian. Residents who take an interest in and actively participate in their neighborhood.

Filming in a real place but not calling it that place in the movie

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A new streaming romantic comedy features a Chicago suburb:

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“Libertyville will be featured quite a bit,” he said. All the business names were kept as is and some of the shopkeepers appear in the film, he added.

The village was to have been one of the locations for another of his holiday films, Charles said. That was delayed but filming for “Christmas at the Zoo” has been approved by the village and is planned for December.

“Libertyville has been on our radar for some time,” he said. “Having had a great experience shooting ‘Exes’ there, we’re happy to be coming back.”…

Local actors will be used in the film and Libertyville will be listed as an official filming location on the IMDb website.

With all these real shots of Libertyville, it appears the film does not say it takes place in Libertyville. From one Facebook post and a brief shot in the movie trailer, it appears the community in the film is named “Mill Creek.” According to Wikipedia, there are at least a few communities in the United States named “Mill Creek.”

I have wondered about whether filming in real locations matters for those watching a film or TV show. Couldn’t they just have found some establishing shots or used a studio to film? This is commonly done so how much does it matter that this was set in a real place that the film’s creators were familiar with? Perhaps the residents of Libertyville can watch and discuss and then compare what people who watch from elsewhere think.

Many don’t seem to like a 50 year mortgage; some lenders already offer a 40 year mortgage

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As people reacted – mostly negatively, from what I saw – to the possibilities of 50 year mortgages in the United States, one article noted that 40 year mortgages has a history and can be obtained now:

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I remember a time when a 40-year mortgage — and a 50-year adjustable rate mortgage — built some buzz back around 2006 and 2007 for people who were struggling to buy a home. It didn’t work out well if you had to sell when home prices collapsed.

The 40-year mortgage has a history going back to the early 1980s, according to an earlier report in the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network, when 18% fixed-interest rates were squeezing consumers out of buying homes. It never proved to be the most popular product…

If you shop around, some lenders are offering 40-year mortgages now.

Rocket Mortgage notes online that the Detroit-based giant offers a 40-year mortgage with the first 10 years being interest-only payments. These mortgages can be available for loan amounts between $125,000 to $2 million.

I wonder how many people apply for and receive 40 year mortgages.

Reading the reactions to the idea of a 50 year mortgage, I was struck by how much of the conversation was dominated by financial details. How much equity would a homeowner have after 20 years? When would the interest parts of the payment taper off compared to paying down principal? How would interest rates be different for a 50 year loan? I should not be surprised given how much homeownership is now seen in the United States as a financial investment. It is a tool to build wealth, perhaps the biggest tool most people will have.

But homes are about more than that. Americans have ideas about the virtues of owning a home compared to being a renter. A homeowner might feel differently and act differently regarding their property if they have a mortgage. Numerous neighborhoods and communities are structured around homeownership (such as many suburbs). Having a stable and affordable residence can help contribute to numerous positive outcomes.

Are we at a stage when public discussions about housing then are exclusively or are primarily about the finances of owning a home – which are certainly important – and not any influential factors that might encourage or discourage people from owning homes in the United States?

Fatal car crashes on six Chicago area highways rank among the most in the country

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A report from a law firm looking at the highways with the most fatal accidents in the last three years puts six Chicago area roadways among the country’s top 100:

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Here are the highways numbered by their national rank and with the number of fatal accidents listed at the end:

4. I-94 in Cook County, 52

20. I-80 in Lake County, 33

41. I-57 in Cook County, 26

53. I-290 in Cook County, 24

89. I-294 in Cook County, 21

89. I-90 in Cook County, 21

Driving is one of the riskiest behaviors Americans regularly engage in given the number of accidents and deaths that occur each year. One estimate of 2024 fatal crashes from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suggested just under 40,000 people died last year.

But to get around metropolitan areas in the United States almost requires using highways. Driving is required in most places and people might be able to avoid faster roads for specific destinations or shorter trips. However, completing a lot of trips – whether suburb to suburb or in and out of major population centers – will involve highway travel.

There are already numerous efforts to make highway driving safer. Vehicle features. Signs. Public service announcements. Traffic enforcement. Are there other methods to try or is this more of a question of public will – are people willing to change driving habits and our public infrastructure in order to reduce the number of deaths?

Chicago, a city of (many suburban) neighborhoods

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Chicago grew in a way that many American cities have grown: they annexed land and communities just outside their borders. Famously, New York City annexed Brooklyn in 1898 when the separate community across the East River was one of the most populous communities in the United States. But Chicago also had its share of large annexations that helped it add neighborhoods and expand to the borders it has today. The Encyclopedia of Chicago summarizes this process:

The Encyclopedia of Chicago (The University of Chicago Press, 2004), 22

For Chicago, the period of extensive annexations extended from 1851 to 1920. The largest annexation occurred in 1889, when four of five incorporated townships surrounding Chicago (as well as a part of the fifth) were annexed to the city. Most annexations to Chicago during these years came because Chicago offered superior services, from better water connections in the nineteenth century to better high schools in the early twentieth. Later, prior incorporations and suburban resistance to the power and urban complexity of Chicago halted the process.

Chicago is often known now as a city of neighborhoods and starting with efforts by University of Chicago sociologists in the 1920s to define Chicago neighborhoods, it has 77 community areas. But many of these areas were once suburban. Historian Elaine Lewinnek in The Working Man’s Reward discusses what happened in Lake Township, bordered by Pershing, State, 87th, and Cicero, as it developed as an industrial suburb with working-class residents. It was added to the city in 1889, an important year for the city’s boundaries as several other large suburban areas were incorporated into the city including Hyde Park just east of Lake Township and Jefferson Township and Lake View Township on the north side of the Loop.

As these suburban areas became part of the city, they received city services and became part of the larger city’s fabric. They added residents and structures. But they also have hints of suburban life. Row upon row of single-family homes. Strip malls and big box stores. Residents might drive more.

Such neighborhoods can be found in many American cities. Big cities are not just the dense downtowns with skyscrapers, major corporate offices, and certain cultural institutions. They include numerous residential, commercial, and industrial neighborhoods on their edges where the borders of municipal boundaries can blur.