Category Archives: Places

Austerity in the suburbs: turning off and ripping out the lights in Highland Park, Michigan

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As many suburbs face budget shortfalls, some have instituted new measures. While California communities drew attention last year for contracting out services previously provided by the city, the Detroit suburb of Highland Park is trying another option: turning off and ripping out the street lights.

But when the debt-ridden community could no longer afford its monthly electric bill, elected officials not only turned off 1,000 streetlights. They had them ripped out — bulbs, poles and all. Now nightfall cloaks most neighborhoods in inky darkness…

Highland Park’s decision is one of the nation’s most extreme austerity measures, even among the scores of communities that can no longer afford to provide basic services.

Other towns have postponed roadwork, cut back on trash collection and closed libraries, for example. But to people left in the dark night after night, removing streetlights seems more drastic. And unlike many other cutbacks that can easily be reversed, this one appears to be permanent…

The city’s monthly electric bill has been cut by 80 percent. The amount owed DTE Energy goes back about a decade, but utility executives hesitated to turn off the juice…

Most of the 500 streetlights still shining in Highland Park are along major streets and on corners in residential areas. DTE Energy has listed the city’s overdue bill as an uncollectable expense.

It would be interesting to hear what else the community has had to do or has considered in order to lessen the $58 million budget deficit.

While it is certainly a shock to have street lights torn out, I wonder how much of an effect this will actually have. It sounds like lights have been retained at certain places for traffic safety. I vaguely recall reading a piece at The Infrastructurist that suggested street lights on residential streets are there more for nervous residents than actually for reducing crime or improving traffic safety.

The description of Highland Park, losing more than half of its population between 1980 and 2010 plus a 42% poverty rate, suggests that this is an inner-ring suburb. While Detroit is notorious for struggling, many inner-ring suburbs are facing similar issues: once prosperous, the issues facing big cities have moved beyond their boundaries. These suburbs often have limited tax revenues and increasingly poor residents. How can they compete with the big city (if it happens to be at least somewhat thriving) or suburbs further out that have more modern amenities and wealthier populations? This is why people like Myron Orfield suggest that we need more metropolitan revenue sharing in order to help these communities survive and have hope for turning their fortunes around.

Of the suburbs that have had to turn to more drastic measures to close budget shortfalls, how many of them are inner-ring suburbs? Do these places share other characteristics? I would assume many wealthier suburban communities haven’t had to consider such options yet.

Claim: 2012 election will be decided by “Walmart Moms”

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Each new election cycle seems to bring about claims about a previously underappreciated demographic group that candidates need to pay attention to. Several pollsters argue that “Walmart Moms” will help decide the 2012 elections:

From the Hill: “Republican pollster Neil Newhouse and Democratic pollster Margie Omero are going shopping at Walmart. For voters. The pair told attendees at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast this morning that a key demographic in 2012 will be a group of voters they call Walmart Moms. The successors to Soccer Moms and Hockey Moms, Walmart Moms are female voters with children 18 or younger who shop at the discount retailer at least once a month. According to Newhouse and Omero, these women make up 14% of the electorate.”

Laugh at their clothes. Laugh at their fashion faux pas. They’ll see you on Election Day.

I wonder how much these “Walmart Moms” line up with the suburban independent demographic that Joel Kotkin argued has determined the outcome of the last few national elections.

More on what “Walmart Moms” care about when voting:

Walmart Moms are more interested in microeconomic issues such as college affordability than macroeconomic concerns such as the debt ceiling. The literature the pollsters distributed at the breakfast said, “It will be important for candidates to clearly communicate how their policies or ideas will personally impact these women and their households for the better.”

So it is about household economics and basic middle-class consumer items (groceries + college educations). Is there a politician that could effectively link these micro and macroeconomic concerns so that the American public understands the relationship between the two?

h/t Instapundit

Emanuel floats $2 congestion tax, parking lots fight back

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Chicago’s Mayor Emanuel this week floated the idea of imposing a $2 congestion fee for commuter parking and parking lot operators are not happy:

Parking industry executives said the mayor’s strategy, which City Hall officials said is intended to reduce traffic gridlock in the central business district and River North and encourage increased public transit ridership and investment, fails to address congestion issues across the Chicago region. They said Emanuel’s plan would create more problems than it would solve.

“We think highlighting parking taxes as a fix to a regional problem is missing the point,” said Marshall Peck, chief executive officer of InterPark, a major owner-operator of parking properties downtown. “The congestion of Chicago is primarily on the highways. Once you get off the highways in the morning, traffic is really not problematic.”

Many commuters and numerous traffic studies, however, would challenge the suggestion that downtown traffic flows well.

InterPark and other members of the Parking Industry Labor Management Committee have posted placards in their facilities showing the current taxes and how the top tax would increase 67 percent, from $3 to $5, under Emanuel’s plan. The companies are also distributing fliers to their customers encouraging city residents to tell their aldermen to vote against the proposed new fee.

There are some interesting ideas floating around here:

1. While a number of cities have looked into congestion taxes, they are still not widespread. In an American context, I presume this is due to their unpopularity.

2. This is just one possible idea among many others the City of Chicago is looking at in order to increase revenue.

3. Having parking lot operators suggest we need more regional solutions to traffic is laughable. The whole system as it is currently set up in most American regions privileges automobile traffic. So they want more people not to drive, potentially reducing their business? Additionally, many regions, such as Chicago, don’t really have metropolitan bodies that can enforce metropolitan solutions to congestion. To solve the problem in the Chicago region, the RTA, CTA, Metra, City of Chicago, State of Illinois, and dozens of municipalities would have to be involved and agreeable.

4. A number of people have argued that parking is way too cheap and this encourages driving. Congestion taxes then do two things: (1) raise revenue (2) reduce traffic by discouraging driving.

5. The parking industry is an interesting one as the long-term prospects for many surface lots is to make money while the company waits for a company to come along and make an expensive offer for the land.

6. Just how much are motorists willing to support the parking lot operators? Would companies and businesspeople really leave the city over a $2 charge?

Comparing where Occupy Wall Streets protests are versus where the super wealthy live

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In looking at which metropolitan areas have bigger shares of the top 1% of income earners in the United States, Howard Wial hints at an interesting relationship: are the Occupy Wall Street protests taking place in the same places as where the wealthiest live?

These very high-income households are disproportionately metropolitan. While about 85 percent of all income tax filers have metropolitan addresses, about 93 percent of the very rich live in metropolitan areas. The top 3 percent are highly concentrated in a relatively small number of large metropolitan areas.

Only twenty metropolitan areas — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, San Francisco, Boston, Houston, Philadelphia, Dallas, Miami, Atlanta, San Jose, Seattle, Minneapolis, San Diego, Detroit, Phoenix, Baltimore, Bridgeport (Fairfield County, Connecticut, is the center of the hedge fund industry and home to many corporate headquarters), and Denver — have at least 1 percent of all the nation’s very high-income households. Collectively those areas account for 56 percent of the highest-income households but for only 37 percent of all households…

There are Occupy movements in nearly all the metropolitan areas where the top 3 percent are concentrated. All of the 20 metropolitan areas with the most top-income households have groups listed in the directory on the Occupy Together Web site. So do all but six of the 54 metropolitan areas where the very rich are disproportionately located.  (The missing six are Bridgeport, Connecticut; Naples, Florida; Sebastian, Florida; Lafayette, Louisiana; Midland, Texas; and Tyler, Texas.)

Yet movements in support of Occupy Wall Street also exist in many places other than those where the very rich are concentrated, including such seemingly unlikely locales as Anderson, Indiana, and Texarkana, Texas.  Geographically, their reach is greater than that of the very rich.

This would be interesting to follow up on: how much of the protest activity is being driven by places where the richest and everyone else live relatively near each other? And for those protesting outside of these wealthier areas, is the process of setting up a protest much different in order to face a more anonymous opponent?

David Brooks: blue inequality versus red inequality (exemplified by places like Naperville)

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David Brooks approaches inequality in America a little differently than the 1% vs. 99% of Occupy Wall Street. He suggests that there are two big kinds of inequality and the suburban/smaller city kind is more important:

In the first place, there is what you might call Blue Inequality. This is the kind experienced in New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas, Houston and the District of Columbia. In these places, you see the top 1 percent of earners zooming upward, amassing more income and wealth…

Then there is what you might call Red Inequality. This is the kind experienced in Scranton, Des Moines, Naperville, Macon, Fresno, and almost everywhere else. In these places, the crucial inequality is not between the top 1 percent and the bottom 99 percent. It’s between those with a college degree and those without. Over the past several decades, the economic benefits of education have steadily risen. In 1979, the average college graduate made 38 percent more than the average high school graduate, according to the Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke. Now the average college graduate makes more than 75 percent more.

Moreover, college graduates have become good at passing down advantages to their children. If you are born with parents who are college graduates, your odds of getting through college are excellent. If you are born to high school grads, your odds are terrible…

[Compared to the attention paid to the wealthiest 1%], the fact is that Red Inequality is much more important. The zooming wealth of the top 1 percent is a problem, but it’s not nearly as big a problem as the tens of millions of Americans who have dropped out of high school or college. It’s not nearly as big a problem as the 40 percent of children who are born out of wedlock. It’s not nearly as big a problem as the nation’s stagnant human capital, its stagnant social mobility and the disorganized social fabric for the bottom 50 percent.

Interesting analysis. Some quick thoughts:

1. Though I didn’t quote it above, Brooks argues further that getting mad at the 1% is easier than dealing with issues like family and education that affect so many people. Brooks is probably right here. This doesn’t necessarily mean that people shouldn’t be upset about the top 1%  but Brooks is suggesting they could do much more good focusing on the bigger, yet more difficult to deal with, issues.

2. Is Brooks dealing with the same kind of concerns expressed in the Moynihan Report that was vilified for years?

3. If Brooks thinks that college is the answer, I’d be interested to see his plan of action in order to pay for all of this and provide the educations necessary to getting to a college experience. Brooks is not alone in suggesting college is the answer but this is not an easy plan to accomplish either.

4. It is interesting that Naperville is mentioned among other Red State cities. Naperville is located in a clearly Republican county (though the Republican lead isn’t what it used to be) but is also in a state that consistently has gone Democratic in recent years. Additionally, Naperville is wealthier than the other cities Brooks lumps it in with: the median household income is just over $100,00o in a city of over 140,000 people . Within these red states, Naperville would be a good example of a place that has thrived with college educated residents with many of them working in professional or high-tech positions either in Naperville or nearby suburbs.

Contrasting styles: Emanuel vs. Daley in with whom they meet and consult

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The Chicago Reader has an interesting piece looking at who Mayor Rahm Emanuel meets with – and how this differs from Mayor Richard M. Daley’s approach:

In many ways, Emanuel’s schedule strikingly contrasts with his predecessor’s. Richard M. Daley is a Chicago guy, born and raised. Except for his college years in Providence, Rhode Island, he’s stayed here all of his life. And it shows in the people who had his ear: in addition to pols and big-shot business leaders, his meeting schedule was packed with the ministers of small churches, local school leaders, and owners of neighborhood businesses like the local sausage shop (see “Daley’s A-List”).

Emanuel, on the other hand, grew up in the north suburbs, went to college in New York, and spent the better part of the last two decades in Washington, first as an aide in the Clinton White House, then as a congressman, and finally, for almost two years, as Obama’s chief of staff.

Much of his mayoral schedule is taken up by meetings and calls with wealthy out-of-towners, many of whom have donated to his campaign. Indeed, it seems Emanuel has learned from his mentor, President Clinton. Under Clinton, the White House was open to big donors who got to spend the night in the Lincoln bedroom. In Emanuel’s case, he either invites them into his City Hall office or makes time to hang out at one of his favorite haunts…

Some days, Emanuel meets with more multimillionaires within an afternoon than most of us will cross paths with during our entire lives. On June 30, for example, after the mayor spent 30 minutes in his City Hall office with U.S. Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner, he took 15 minutes to meet with Marc Lasry, the billionaire CEO of Avenue Capital Group, a hedge fund operation. That was followed by 45 minutes with Stephen Ross, a New York-based real estate mogul and owner of the Miami Dolphins.

There could be two ways to view this:

1. This is good for Chicago. Due to Emanuel’s connections outside of Chicago, the city will benefit. The new mayor may spend a lot of time with out of town millionaires but these people could bring money and jobs into Chicago through this connection.

2. This is bad for Chicago. Emanuel is less involved with the “little people” of Chicago that are important for getting things done and working the patronage machine. Emanuel is more of a corporate mayor (having less time for local leaders) while Daley at least mingled with the commoners and neighborhood leaders knew they could meet with him at certain points.

I wonder how much of this should be chalked up to different styles of leadership, personal history, or simply a shift in what it means to be a politician today where Daley was following the example of his father while Emanuel is operating under the idea that politicians and businesses need to work together (perhaps the Bill Clinton model?).

Is the American Sun Belt boom over?

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One of the biggest changes in the American population in the last sixty years has been the migration to the Sun Belt. But new data suggests that this boom may have come to an end:

Between 2007 and 2010, Florida lost more people to internal migration than it gained, for the first time since the 1940s. Nevada, too, which had been growing for decades, had a net migration loss of 30,000 in 2009. And Arizona had a net gain of just 5000, way down from 90,000 five years before.

Meanwhile, New York and California both saw their net losses shrink in 2009 by more than half since 2005.

The analysis, based on Census Bureau and IRS data, was conducted by the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire.

What explains the shift? The Sun Belt states, of course, were hit hard by the housing bust that helped trigger the recession and its aftermath. The early aughts housing boom was responsible for much of the growth in places like Clark County, Nev., and Maricopa County, Ariz. in the first place.

But just as important, migration as a whole, which has been on the wane for three decades, has really tailed off since the downturn began.

The economic crisis has limited mobility across the United States, particularly for the less wealthy who are then more tied to existing jobs and homes.

It will be interesting to see whether this trend continues or (1) the Sun Belt will grow again in the future or, in a longer shot, (2) older cities in the Midwest and Northeast (“Rust Belt”) regain some of the population that shifted south and west. In other words, once people have some more freedom to move, what will they choose to do and what social forces will push or pull them in certain directions?

More on increasing poor population in the suburbs: 53% increase between 2000 and 2010

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The New York Times reports on the growing population of the poor in the American suburbs:

The increase in the suburbs was 53 percent, compared with 26 percent in cities. The recession accelerated the pace: two-thirds of the new suburban poor were added from 2007 to 2010…

“The whole political class is just getting the memo that Ozzie and Harriet don’t live here anymore,” said Edward Hill, dean of the Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University.

This shift has helped redefine the image of the suburbs. “The suburbs were always a place of opportunity — a better school, a bigger house, a better job,” said Scott Allard, an associate professor at the University of Chicago who focuses on social welfare policy and poverty. “Today, that’s not as true as the popular mythology would have us believe.”

Since 2000, the poverty roll has increased by five million in the suburbs, with large rises in metropolitan areas as different as Colorado Springs and Greensboro, N.C.

While these are interesting figures (and I’ve noted them before here and here – the original report from September is a month ahead of this Times piece), arguably the suburbs have never completely fit the Ozzie and Harriet image. While many suburban places were retreats for wealthy and middle-class whites, there have also been working-class suburbs and some non-white suburbs. There is indeed a “popular mythology” – but I wonder if suburban critics have also been interested in pushing this image.

A few other thoughts:

1. Do most Americans today even know the show Ozzie and Harriet? In its time, the show had a long run: 402 radio episodes (1944-1954), 435 television episodes (1952-1966). Even with a lot of episodes, this show seems to have been syndicated less than some other shows.

2. If a greater percentage of the poor in metropolitan areas are now in suburbs, is this considered a positive thing for big cities?

3. Do we have any data on what happens to the poor in suburbs – do they have higher levels of social mobility than the poor in the city or rural areas? Additionally, the article suggests jobs and housing have helped increase the suburban poor population but what is the exact data on this?

“Occupying Naperville 24/7 on Facebook” and “Saturday[s] at 10 AM”

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The Chicago Sun-Times has another report on the Occupy Naperville efforts of this past Saturday. While there are more quotes from the participants than the Chicago Tribune report, the last quote in particular intrigues me:

“We’re going to be occupying Naperville 24/7 on Facebook,” Alesch said. “And we’ll be here Saturday at 10 a.m.”

Several thoughts:

1. Is Occupy Naperville on Facebook really the same kind of protest? See the Facebook page here. Apparently, no one is protesting around-the-clock but there is a sign-making operation in conservative downtown Wheaton.

2. Is the reason this group is only gathering on Saturdays at 10 AM versus an around the clock protest like in New York City because: (1) there are not enough protestors to go around-the-clock (2) they are suburbanites who can’t be there all the time (3) Naperville wouldn’t allow this or there isn’t space for it (imagine if the Riverwalk became the site – what might the city do?)?

Occupy Wall Street in Naperville

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National coverage of the Occupy Wall Street groups has emphasized the city gatherings. But Occupy Wall Street has even made it to conservative Naperville:

About 50 people joined the event, forming a group just slightly larger than the one gathered outside a nearby Apple Store, for demonstrations modeled after the Occupy Wall Street encampment that began last month in lower Manhattan.

Organizers said they will return each Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon until their demands are met. It’s a list that includes increased regulation of banks, rollbacks on the rights of corporations and forgiveness for student loans…

“Well, there’s at least a couple dozen people over there, and there’s what? Maybe (140,000) people here in town? I’d say that’s probably an accurate representation” of support for the demonstrators’ agenda, said Eloe, grinning.

Alesch began planning the event last week with a few friends at a Wheaton coffee shop after hearing about an Occupy Aurora demonstration.

This reminds me of research I’ve seen regarding the diffusion of riots in the 1960s. How widespread are the Occupy Wall Street protests? Is it unusual to find one in a suburb like Naperville that has over 140,000 residents? Are suburbanites more or less likely to support the movement?

If this group continues to protest in Naperville, it will be interesting to see how onlookers and the community responds. An Occupy Aurora protest might make more sense since Aurora is more diverse and less wealthy. But would a continuing protest in Naperville draw more attention?