Category Archives: Sociology

Are peripheral suburbs really “the most boring places in the world”?

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Looking at data on where millennials are moving includes an evaluation of those places:

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To Lee and his colleagues’ surprise, millennials aren’t moving to nearby dense, walkable exurbs. They’re getting way out to peripheral suburbs.

“It turned out that millennials are moving to the most boring places in the world,” says Lee, who’s now a professor at Seoul National University. “They’re moving to really single-family-dominated areas with very few urban amenities.”

What might make these places less boring?

It’s expensive to live in the places millennials prefer: walkable communities with lots of shops, restaurants, and public space. An analysis published last year found that homebuyers in the 35 biggest American metropolitan areas paid 34% more to live in walkable neighborhoods, while renters paid 41% more. Paul Stout, a millennial landscape-architecture student with a popular urbanist TikTok account called Talking Cities, says he constantly hears from followers who wish they could afford a home within walking distance of places like coffee shops…

But while millennials wallow over the choice between a tiny apartment in a dense city and a lonely, sidewalk-less subdivision, urbanists insist any place can be dense and walkable as long as land-use laws allow it and people want to live there.

“There’s a lot of places in the suburbs that could be really lovely to live if you could only put a grocery store or a coffee shop on the corner,” Stout says. “I’m optimistic that you could actually make living walkable almost anywhere in the US, given the right package of zoning reform.”

America is not known for its walkability (see the dangers to pedestrians) or its third places. Instead, Americans often promote and move to suburbs built around single-family homes and driving.

Does this mean suburbs further out from the city are really “the most boring places in the world”? Or are millennials and many others pushed into binary choices where they prioritize cheaper and larger housing and thus give up other community features? In many American communities, they cannot have both cosmopolitan street life and ample affordable housing they can own.

And I would venture to guess that at least a few of American suburbanites do not find them to be boring places. (One could argue they were pushed into this option rather than chose it but that is a different argument.) Millennials and Gen Z may find them more boring than older adults and this would be interesting data to compare.

“Bleep it, I’ll move to Peoria”

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I recently heard a radio ad touting the good features of Peoria, Illinois. And it included the line (as I remember it) in the headline of this post.

2017 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge (NHQ201708260021) by NASA HQ PHOTO is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0

This is not exactly how I imagined more Americans might move to Rust Belt cities. Zillow predicted Buffalo would be the hottest housing market in 2024. Such interest could be driven by jobs and affordable housing.

How many people would move to Peoria? Apparently, others have had this thought. Including this TikToker. And this YouTuber. Or, perhaps people might remember the longstanding question, “Will it play in Peoria,” and want to find out for themselves.

My guess at how Peoria or a similar city could truly boom is that a major, well-known company moves its operations to the city. While the opposite might seem to be happening in cities like Peoria – such as Caterpillar moving out – imagine a Silicon Valley company making Peoria home. Such a move could be good for its employees and help improve the fortunes of a different area.

A $100k welcome sign within a $600+ million suburban budget

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Naperville spent $100,000 for a unique sign welcoming people to the community along its border with Bolingbrook. Amid some concerns from residents about the price, here is information about the sign and the overall budget of the city for 2023. First, the sign:

A freshly-completed “Welcome to Naperville” sign sits along the entry route, just next to the trails among DuPage River Park and just across from DuPage River Sports Complex.

The design stems from the city of Naperville’s official logo of 50 years, which depicts a tree with water running underneath. Surrounding the sign are limestone slabs.  The city plans to add fresh vegetation to the area in the spring.

The new greeting, which costs $100,000, is just one of a number of beautification projects that have been planned for since 2021 and officially budget-approved for since the fall of 2022.  At that time, the city council approved of $250,000 for the Department of Public Works to make multiple improvements throughout the city…

Second, the 2023 budget:

Keeping the current economic climate, our mission, and strategic priorities in mind, the 2023 City of Naperville budget is recommended at $603.46 million, an overall increase of 11.6% from the $540.58 million 2022 budget. Additional capital expenses are the primary driver behind this increased investment in our organization and community. It is worth noting that the 2023 budget leverages existing revenue streams and fiscal policies. No new taxes, fees, or other revenues are recommended to support the 2023 budget proposal.

From my math, this means the sign cost less than one-tenth of one percent of the city’s budget. Even building one of these on each other side of the city – north, east, west – would not take much money.

Is this an unnecessary expenditure? That is a different question. Signs are not necessarily cheap and they can be bland or strange. For example, see this recent one in Naperville for a new subdivision. This new one welcoming people to the suburb is unique with its 3D form and landscaping. Naperville has a history of spending money for parks and beautification: just look at the Riverwalk over time (and I would guess many would say this was a good investment). Additionally, Naperville is a unique suburb that sees itself as having a particular status.

If the goal is to continue to brand the community in a particular way, this sign stands out and is a small fraction of the budget.

The return of Rust Belt housing markets, Buffalo edition

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Many Americans will not move to the cheapest metro areas just because housing prices are attractive. But, what if Rust Belt areas became popular again? Zillow thinks this will happen with Buffalo, New York:

Shark Girl is a fiberglass sculpture in the Canalside area of Buffalo, New York. by Michelle Frechette is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

Buffalo, New York is projected to be the hottest housing market of 2024, according to an analysis from real estate company Zillow.

Zillow called affordability the “most powerful force driving real estate,” bringing lower-cost markets in the Great Lakes, Midwest and South regions to the top of the company’s 2024 rankings.

“Housing markets are healthiest where affordable home prices and strong employment are giving young hopefuls a real shot at buying and starting to build equity,” said Anushna Prakash, data scientist for Zillow Economic Research…

According to Zillow’s analysis, Buffalo has the highest number of new jobs per home permitted – a measure of expected demand, as new jobs often mean new residents.

The key seems to be the expected job growth in Buffalo. Yes, there is cheaper housing in the region but a growth in jobs means more people which means more demand for housing. How many people would choose a job in Buffalo because of the cheaper housing instead of going elsewhere where housing would be more expensive?

On the list of the predicted top ten housing markets are 6 regions in the Midwest or Northeast – the Rust Belt. This includes Buffalo, Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis, Providence, and Cleveland. If this prediction comes true, would this help create more momentum in these places for a brighter future?

For example, Buffalo’s population peaked in 1950 with over 580,000 residents. In the 2020 Census, Buffalo had over 278,000 residents. The metropolitan region peaked in population in 1970. Similarly, Cincinnati (#2 on the predicted list) peaked in population in 1950 and has lost nearly 200,000 residents since (even as the metro area has grown slowly since then).

Assuming the starter home is just the beginning of a journey of bigger and bigger homes

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Starter homes are in short supply. Does this mean the idea that Americans should be able to purchase bigger homes as they age will change? One recent story looks at these expectations:

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When Vickie Franzen and her husband, Jon Crenshaw, bought their first house in Roseville, Calif., in 2018, they never expected they would still be there in 2024, weighing whether to squeeze a desk into the nursery along with the crib, so the space could double as an office…

Suddenly, the house’s 1,600 square feet feel like a way tighter squeeze. But there’s another number they can’t get out of their minds, either: 3.5 percent, their current mortgage rate, which they scored by refinancing in 2020 and aren’t eager to give up.

Their quandary isn’t unique, of course. Today’s high interest rates and low housing affordability mean that all across the country, homeowners just like them – people who thought they were buying good-enough-for-now houses that they would leverage into dream homes soon enough – are having to reevaluate. Not that Franzen and others in her situation aren’t grateful to own a home, given the current market conditions. But turning a starter home into something closer to a forever home requires compromise, from sacrificing space to putting off having children…

Logically, as homeowners stay put, they consider whether to renovate. But acquiring a loan to fund a remodel can be costly. Renovation loans functionally refinance a mortgage at the current interest rate. And home equity lines of credit typically come with either adjustable rates or rates fixed at a high number.

The assumption is that there is a starter home – described as a “good-enough-for-now” home – which will soon be followed by a larger house – described above as “something closer to a forever home.” Americans have expected this for decades, particularly in the suburban era where single-family homes are a sign of status, private family life, and an important investment.

Built in to this expectation is larger and larger houses over time. Americans have the largest new homes in the world. The one example of square footage in the story involves a 1,600 square foot home. When the families interviewed for the story talk about their homes, they need more room for growing households. The American Dream is a dream of more and more square footage.

Do Americans need more space? They like more space, whether for more bedrooms or activity rooms or storage space. They expect more space.

As many articles in the last decade or so have noted, perhaps this simply means the starter home will go away and people will jump into bigger homes from the start. Why bother going through the trouble of a starter home if big homes are an option? And all those large homes owned by Baby Boomers might be available soon.

Writing the best suburban stories and acknowledging real suburban life

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What makes for a good suburban story? A review of one suburban memoir makes an argument of what needs to be present:

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The best suburban stories, on the page or on-screen, are deceptively complex, affixing irony or self-knowledge to what may initially appear to be mere scathing social criticism. Take Revolutionary Road, the searing 1961 Richard Yates novel adapted to the big screen by Sam Mendes in 2008. This is the tragedy of Frank and April Wheeler (played in the film by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet), average New Yorkers in the ’50s who move to a tree-lined Connecticut suburb to start a family and watch their dreams die. Frank commutes to the city for a sales job he loathes. April whiles away her days with the kids, forgoing whatever ambitions she might otherwise have had.

Here’s the catch: As April and Frank plan a move to Paris—where Frank will do an unspecified creative something—then retreat back into a domestic existence both tortured and predictable, it becomes clear that they would live quotidian lives no matter where they laid their heads. Paris. Connecticut. New York. The suburbs just happen to be the perfect venue for their smallness, the place where their silent scream can disappear between the hedges. In this sense, Yates’s suburban critique carries a strong whiff of irony. After all, it’s hard to blame the perfect lawns and fake smiles when you carry your misery the way a turtle carries its shell.

The only truly honest person in these suburbs is John, the adult son of the community’s busybody real estate agent. John is a mathematician who has undergone extensive shock treatment for his mental illness, a spirit stifled by his family’s shame and hyperconformity. (Michael Shannon plays him in the film and walks away with the whole thing.) John might actually be happier in Waldie’s Lakewood, where strange behavior, including obsessive hoarding, arguably becomes part of the town’s beautiful fabric, the answer to any easy assumptions of conformity…

The naked reality Waldie depicts subverts any impulse to indulge dystopian visions or Twilight Zone–like allegories. (The suburbs, incidentally, provided a feast for The Twilight Zone. Take 1960’s “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” in which a bland collection of suburban neighbors, walled off from the rest of the world, become a self-immolating mob when they suspect an alien invasion.) Waldie doesn’t need such devices to conjure his uncanny suburbia. He accentuates minute details of housing and neighborhood construction—drywall, crape myrtle, layers of stucco—with philosophical musings and remembrances that sometimes cross over into the macabre. “In the suburbs,” he writes, “a manageable life depends on a compact among neighbors. The unspoken agreement is an honest hypocrisy.”

Is the suggestion here that the problems people face in the suburbs are the same sorts of problems they would face in other settings? Or that people in the suburbs are idiosyncratic just as they are elsewhere?

I wonder if the difference is that the American Dream placed a large burden on suburbs: life had to be good, not just normal. The sparkle of the new home and suburban lifestyle were not just to be settled into and lived in; it had to be the apex of American, and perhaps global, life.

On the whole, the standard of living in American suburbs is pretty high compared to historic and global settings. But, could any place easily be the promised land? It is probably not a coincidence that this book is titled Holy Land.

What will nearby suburban residents accept for redeveloped office parks?

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Suburban residents often do not like the idea that a nearby office park will soon be a warehouse or logistics center. But, what will they accept?

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If I had to guess, I would go with open space or park space. Suburbanites would like this for multiple reasons: little noise and traffic, increased recreational opportunities, this limits future development on the location, and improved property values. Suburban homeowners do not want properties next to them to have more intensive land uses; they would prefer less activity.

At the same time, this puts communities and these suburbanites in a predicament. These office parks served particular purposes. They brought in tax revenues. They provided jobs. They provided status (particular if a big name company occupied the offices). Empty buildings are an eyesore and wasted opportunity. Warehouse and logistic parks would bring in money and jobs. Parks and open space do not generate their own revenues.

Before resisting everything that could replace suburban office parks, the suburban neighbors might want to consider what they would be willing to accept. Are there land uses that could aid the community and preserve some semblance of residential suburban life? Is there any room for compromise?

Studying both individual communities and patterns across communities

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In considering places in the United States, is it better to study a community in-depth and get at its uniqueness? Or, is it better to look for patterns across places, focusing more on what joins types of communities compared to other types?

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The last two posts have introduced this question through an unusual place in western Pennsylvania and all the histories communities across the United States have. And this is a common issue in urban sociology and among others who study cities and places: should we seek to adopt model places that help us understand sets of places – think of the odd quote that “There are only three great cities in the US and everywhere else is just Cleveland” – or focus on all of the particularities of a particular place or region?

I have tried in my own work to do some of both when studying places and buildings. Two examples come to mind. In 2013, I published an article titled “Not All Suburbs are the Same: The Role of Character in in Shaping Growth and Development in Three Chicago Suburbs.” I built off in-depth research on three suburbs to compare how internal understandings of character affected how they responded differently to changes in the Chicago region and changes to suburbs more broadly. On one hand, these suburbs that shared important similarities have different character and on the other hand they still fit within the category of suburbs that sets them apart from different kinds of places.

As a second example, take the book Building Faith I co-authored with Robert Brenneman. We provide case studies of particular religious congregations as they navigate constructing and altering buildings as those physical structures shape their worship and community. These case studies among different religious traditions and in different locations highlight unique patterns in these congregations and places. Yet, we also look across places, considering patterns of religious buildings in suburbs, in Guatemala, and a few other places.

In both works, knowing the particulars and examining the broader patterns are helpful. Different researchers might go other routes; why not investigate even further in these particular cases? What else is there in archives, interviews, ethnographic observation, etc. that could reveal even more details? Or, go the other direction: look at patterns in hundreds or thousands of places to find commonalities and differences across more settings.

But, I find that the particularities of a certain place make more sense in light of broader patterns and those broader patterns make more sense knowing some local or micro patterns. Having a sufficient number of cases or a varied enough set of cases to make these links can be tricky. Yet, I enjoy approaching places this way: digging into both the histories of particular communities and seeking broader patterns that hold across communities.

How many communities in the United States have histories we should know?

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After seeing SNPJ, Pennsylvania on the map and recently reading Radical Suburbs by Amanda Kolson Hurley (recommended), I thought about this question: how many more histories of communities in the United States should we know? SNPJ appears to have a unique background and purpose and Hurley considers multiple suburbs with different visions of what a suburban community could be. But, there are thousands of communities in the United States – are they all unique enough to pay attention to?

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One way to consider this is to think about patterns in we might pay attention to some communities and not others. In the United States, population size and growth is often emphasized. Bigger places often receive more attention and their unique histories and features are more known. At the same time, it takes efforts by numerous actors for history to become known and narrated over time. Discrimination, a lack of power, and limited resources mean some histories are not as known.

There is certainly value for people living in a community to know their own local history. I have written about seven steps for knowing your suburb and how to take additional steps. This local knowledge can help longstanding members of a community, new residents, and visitors. It can take some digging to hear multiple voices, see what is told and not told, and think about how a community came to be.

In the next post, I will explain why I see value in both larger categories – such as examining suburbs as distinct places compared to cities and rural areas – and looking at specific histories and characters of communities. In my own work, I found linking these two levels can provide further insights into places and experiences within them.

Seeing the community SNPJ on a map

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On drives from the Midwest to locations further east, we often pass a community with an interesting name: SNPJ, Pennsylvania. This is an unusual name. No vowels. An acronym? A misprint? Wikipedia suggests this is an unusual place with just 15 residents:

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S.N.P.J. stands for “Slovenska Narodna Podporna Jednota” (Slovene National Benefit Society), a fraternal society and financial co-operative based in North Fayette, Pennsylvania. The society applied to have their 500-acre (200 ha) recreation center in western Pennsylvania designated as a separate municipality in 1977. The S.N.P.J. borough was created so that the society could, among other things, get its own liquor license. North Beaver Township, the municipality in which the center was originally located, restricted the sale of alcohol on Sundays (blue law)…

It is more of a recreation complex than a community, and has 60 rental cabins, 115 mobile home slots, and an artificial lake. It is open to the public as a summertime resort and facility for bingo, weddings, and dances. Members of the society get a discount on the events.

Wikipedia offers few additional details but there is enough here to hint at an interesting history: a fraternal group for a white ethnic group, efforts to bypass liquor laws, providing recreational opportunities, and very few permanent residents.

This leads to the post for tomorrow: how many communities across the United States have unique histories worth knowing? How many communities are like SNPJ and does it matter if there are just a few or a lot?