A quick look at this map shows the biggest metro areas tend not to have a surplus while smaller regions have a higher likelihood of having a surplus. There is additional analysis showing at least a few metro areas that had a housing surplus in 2012 that did not in 2019.
While it is intriguing to see that some places have housing while others need it, the answer is not to have people in large numbers move from the housing shortage areas to those with a housing surplus. Both the rise of certain cities in recent years and the COVID-19 pandemic offered some hints of what this leads to: the effects of cities losing residents (if just temporarily) and rising housing prices in markets experiencing a lot more interested housing seekers. At the same time, as noted in the article, a national policy is difficult to imagine and/or enact.
Hopefully, by the time a similar time period passes and a new map is released, there are more metro areas with available housing.
Nearly 836,000 multifamily units are under construction, the most since 1973, according to Jay Parsons, chief economist at RealPage. But most new construction targets higher-income tenants and not the lower end, where supply shortages are most extreme, he said.
I have written about the dearth of starter homes and I would suspect a similar dynamic is at play here. Builders and developers can make more money on multifamily units with higher prices. If someone is going to go to all the effort for development and construction – and this can be quite a bit of effort in certain places – they would prefer to gain more financially in the end. The number of places that require the construction of affordable housing alongside market rate housing or seriously pursue cheaper housing are limited.
If these higher-income units come on line, it will add to a bifurcated housing market where those with enough resources have plenty of choices and those with fewer resources have limited and possibly unpleasant options.
With three movable LED signs atop the 10-foot pole, the panels display real-time messages pertinent to their surroundings, from how many tables are available at a nearby restaurant, to Metra train timetables. Any governmental emergency alerts, like weather and Amber Alerts, get precedence.
“The sign would orient itself and say, at Salsa 17 starting at 6 o’clock, there’s $7 margaritas or something. And then later it would spin around and say there’s a band playing at Peggy Kinnane’s. There’s a lot of different inputs on this,” said Arlington Heights Village Manager Randy Recklaus. “It’s a thing that people would be drawn to, and it would be yet another thing that would kind of set our downtown experience apart because it’s not something that anyone’s seen before.”
The village would have control of the sign and approve all messages — done through a secure portal on a tablet, PC or Mac as part of a cloud-based system. And the cost of the sign would be recouped by selling advertisements to local business who want their messages on the street panels, under a lease-to-own arrangement that’s part of the Points Sign’s business model.
Pedestrians also will be able to search for things like local events and shopping and dining locales by turning and pushing a streetside dial.
The sign is customizable; some municipalities in talks with Optimal Design want to put a camera atop the pole for public safety purposes. And while the sign has sensors to know how many people are at a given intersection at one time, it doesn’t have facial recognition technology, Patel and Ottoman said.
The two keys to this sign seem to be that it is interactive and it pushes out information rather than standing passively. It does not necessarily replace static street signs, but it can help point people to opportunities. People can approach it and find something new. Such a sign could work well in locations with plenty of foot traffic and lots of local activity.
This reminds me of what I saw on my most recent trip to a shopping mall. The mall appeared to have fewer directory signs and instead I saw multiple recommendations to download the app for the mall. When I did use the interactive directory sign, I could search within certain categories and then it offered directions to the selected retailer.
Are we any closer to a more immersive sign experience that can provide an overlay of information on a 3D view of a landscape? Imagine going up to an interactive sign, searching for something or selecting something presented to you, and then seeing a 3D image of the landscape with paths and information.
Or, are we close to a time when signs are not necessary as everyone with a smartphone or smart glasses or similar devices interacts through the world through that?
At least six states and the District of Colombia over the last six years have prohibited their employees from taking work trips to states with laws that, in their view, discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. California’s prohibition is by far the most sweeping, barring state-funded travel to nearly half the country: 22 states, including four additions – Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana, and Utah –last week.
California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia all have sought to financially pressure several other states in some form or another – creating a confusing patchwork of bans, with some states lifting previous travel bans on other states, such as Indiana, that revise laws applying to the LGBTQ community after a national or statewide uproar…
After witnessing the impact on Indianapolis, several mayors of liberal cities, including New York, the District of Columbia, San Francisco, Seattle, Minneapolis, and others sprang into action. They announced bans on city-funded travel to North Carolina amid a national backlash over House Bill 2, which prevented transgender people in the state from using bathrooms aligned with their gender identity. North Carolina lawmakers quickly devised a compromise that helped convince collegiate sporting events to return to the state. Still, several big-city mayors kept a ban on employees traveling there.
Add this to the actions of private actors and you have interesting geographic conflicts across the United States.
It will mean taking land long zoned for offices, and allowing townhomes to be built among them, or permitting apartments or industrial-scale warehouses for the first time. Amid a nationwide housing crisis, many obsolete office parks could be ideal sites for denser housing.
However, this is a very pertinent issue:
The problem for some suburban officials: “It’ll be, ‘Oh, what do you mean we can’t just zone for single-family homes and offices? That’s our thing. That’s why we exist,’” said Tracy Hadden Loh, a researcher at the Brookings Institution. “So now it’s like an existential crisis.”
This is an issue that comes up for numerous kinds of large suburban properties, whether they are shopping malls, golf courses, or grocery stores: how to convert a vacant property into a useful long-term use? The number one goal is probably to generate significant property tax and sales tax revenue. In other words, to keep it at its original as approved by the community years before.
However, single-family homes can bring more children to local schools and add to the loads of local services. They do not necessarily produce the revenues that offices and retail do. Denser housing is even less desirable because it adds even more residents, which can add to community services and traffic, and some suburbanites are concerned with apartment dwellers.
My guess is that mixed-use redevelopment will be a popular path a number of these communities will try to pursue. Replace that office park with a “metroburb.” But, it remains to be seen how many such developments are viable and how eager suburban leaders and residents are to pursue them.
Via Sports Business Journal, a Chicago mayoral committee will recommend that the city consider the feasibility of putting a dome over Soldier Field.
A dome, as reported by Crain’s Chicago Business, could cost between $400 million and $1.5 billion.
Other possibilities include upgrades to the stadium (including significant rebuilding of certain parts of it) and selling naming rights to generate revenue for improvements.
In the long run, it is not probably not worth it for the city and the others to spend hundreds of millions to keep the Bears. The team would benefit the most from new arrangements. The money spent on eight Bears home games a year will be spent elsewhere in the city. The team is not leaving for another market but just for the suburbs.
At the same time, losing the biggest team in town to a suburb is not a good look for leaders. The Bears have played in the city for a century. They are the most popular sports team in town. Soldier Field hosts other events but it has been the home of the Bears for decades. The loss of the Bears could be added to the narrative of losing companies and residents.
Discounting whether the offer from the city is a viable one – putting a dome on Soldier Field is no easy task – I think this is a necessary political move. The mayor and city leaders need to make a good offer to save face. The big city leader cannot let the big team leave without a fight. And ten years from now, when the Bears are playing in a suburban property that earns the team even more money and the city of Chicago has moved on, there may still be lingering blame for those who let the Bears leave no matter what offer or public statements they made.
A couple of decades ago, artificial turf was often a thin carpet atop a hard surface—rough on the knees as well as the eyes. Athletes playing on it complained that it wore their legs out. But as the product improved, so did homeowners’ interest. From the US to the UK, artificial grass retailers have seen sales tick up during pandemic lockdowns, when housebound property owners put their money toward home improvements. Indeed, Google Trends shows a worldwide surge in searches for “artificial grass” during the middle of 2020.
Even the most famous grass enthusiasts like the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club are open to the idea. The organization behind the Wimbledon championship is trialing hybrid court surfaces—real grass weaved with plastic fibers—to promote lawn tennis in climates worldwide and extend the season in the UK.
Still, all of this fake grass sprouting across the planet has sparked backlash. Some of the biggest protests have been in Australia, where synthetic turf installations became more common in home gardens and playing fields during the Millennium Drought—a roughly 12-year dry spell that ended in 2009. Many cities and regions faced extreme water restrictions that included a total ban on lawn watering in some areas…
The most obvious environmental problem with artificial grass is it’s rooted in the biggest climate nemesis of all: fossil fuel. Synthetic turf is made from a stew of petroleum-based components, making it nearly impossible to recycle. At the end of an artificial lawn’s useful life, which is about 15 years, it will likely go to a landfill or be incinerated…
Yet, even if artificial turf becomes easy to recycle, real grass will still in some ways be greener. Grass naturally absorbs carbon dioxide. Its soil supports wildlife from worms to birds. There are varieties for almost any kind of climate. Unless, of course, that climate doesn’t have enough water.
The legacy of the suburban lawn will be long indeed if the manicured green grass is replaced by green artificial turfs for decades. If it is no longer grass, is the desirable part the color or the nostalgia?
As noted elsewhere in the article, the artificial turf is not the only option. In places like Las Vegas, a rockscape or desert setting is more appropriate. Elsewhere, a yard may be filled with native plants or a garden. If the purpose of the lawn is to provide a connection to nature for the residents, these options can fit the bill in a way that artificial lawns cannot.
The real trick would seem to be creating an artificial turf that better mimics a grass lawn in look and feel without negative environmental impact. A soft and lush lawn that does not need watering, does not rely heavily on fossil fuels, and is similar to the image many Americans have of the proper yard of a single-family home? That may be the lawn worth keeping in yards across the country.
Just last week, a committee of city councillors discussed a report on eight yet-to-be-approved new suburbs, including a proposed community called “Nostalgia.”…
Tuscany? No offence to residents of this northwest suburb, but it has little in common with the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance.
Walden? Yes, there’s a pond — located a short drive from the McDonald’s, TacoTime and Save-On Foods. I doubt Thoreau would find much solitude.
And don’t get me started on Ambleton, currently under construction at the far north end of the city. As in, you can “amble” past monotonous rows of houses along Ambleside Avenue and Ambleton Street and other future roads with proposed names like Amblefield, Amblehurst and Ambledale…
These bad names are a shame because Calgary is rich in history and stories. Community names, which will outlast all of us, are a chance to show this off…
Calgary has long had a naming policy. Its current version states that community names “should either reflect Calgary’s heritage or local geographic feature(s) including flora and fauna, and/or further a sense of community.”
Yet, somehow, council approved a community named Cityscape, even after a 2013 city report said that name “could imply any part of Calgary,” and can be shortened to “City,” which is plain confusing.
The names of suburbs are indeed interesting to consider. They are marketing tools to differentiate a new community or subdivision from existing locations while also drawing from a similar playbook to not be too unusual within suburbia. They are often generic names intended to appeal to suburban values, whether that involves nature or nostalgia (perhaps literally as suggested above) or likeable destinations or middle-class values. Names can be changed later in a community’s existence, but this is not common.
It is intriguing that there is an official naming policy, even if it is applied inconsistently or could be improved. In the United States, subdivision names likely need approval from a municipality or whatever local government body approves the development. For a new suburb or community, someone considers that name. But, I have not run into written naming policies or guidelines in American contexts.
A “bridesmaid suburb” is a second-choice postcode and could become a strategic buying trend as ballooning interest rates bite into borrowing capacity…
“Buyers will still have to consider alternatives or the bridesmaid suburbs to their first preference, possibly not because of price but because of diminished borrowing capacity.
”Bridesmaid suburbs are adjacent to higher-profile neighbouring suburbs. They cost less to buy into but share many similarities to the first-pick suburb next door, including access to public transport routes, schools and major shopping hubs…
“A bridesmaid suburb can still allow you to secure a lifestyle with comparable amenities and appeal, and only a short drive down the road.”
While this is used in Australia- a quick Google search suggests this term has been around there for several years – I wonder if it might also apply to suburbs in the United States. Are there many homeowners who would have preferred to live in the most desirable suburb but could not afford it and so settled in nearby communities? There are several assumptions at work here:
Many people want to live in the most desirable suburbs. If supply and demand is the only factor at work, more people wanting to live in desirable suburbs drives up home prices so much that there is not enough housing. Additionally, my own sense of American suburbs is that some of the most desirable and exclusive suburbs also intentionally limit their housing supply to help maintain their character and status. Are there such suburbs that always stand out above any other location in the region and where most people would want to live?
Suburban homeowners want to max out their borrowing capacity and get the most they can – a more expensive home – through their mortgage. People can borrow up to a certain point decided by lenders, but how many go all the way to the maximum allowed?
The exact community in which you live matters less than the clusters of suburban communities you can access. It is less about a particular zip code and more about a cluster of adjacent zip codes. Suburbia offers driving access to a lot of communities so perhaps you do not have to live in a particular place to enjoy the benefits. At the same time, communities that appear similar on certain factors can be quite different in terms of character and everyday experiences.
As the Southwest enters its second decade of megadrought, and the Colorado River sinks to alarminly low levels, Rio Verde, a largely upscale community that real-estate agents bill as North Scottsdale, though it is a thirty-mile drive from Scottsdale proper, is finding itself on the front lines of the water wars. Some homeowners’ wells are drying up, while others who get water delivered have recently been told that their source will be cut off on January 1st. “It’s going to turn into the Hunger Games,” Harris said grimly. “Like, a scrambling-for-your-toilet-water-every-month kind of thin.” The fight over how best to address the issue is pitting neighbors against one another. “Water politics are bad politics,” Thomas Loquvam, the general counsel and vice-president of EPCOR, the largest private water utility in the Southwest, told me. “You know that saying, ‘Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting’? That’s very true in Arizona…
Most Foothills residents draw their water from wells, but several hundred homes sit on land without reliable access to water, so the inhabitants rely on cisterns, which they fill with a delivery from a water truck every month or so. When Cindy Goetz moved to Arizona from Illinois, in 2012, she had never heard of hauled water. “But I did some research on it – you know, is a well better, or is hauled water better? And my decision was, hauled water is better,” she told me. “A well can get contaminated, it can run dry. How about just pay a little extra to have someone bring it in from the city? It’s already drinkable. I asked [my real-estate agent] and he said that it’s done a lot in Arizona. And it wasn’t like a homestead out in the middle of nowhere. There were streets and power and phone lines and all that. I assumed it would be O.K. It’s wasn’t presented as, ‘By the way, it could stop.'”…
Homeowners who didn’t have wells were suddenly uncertain that they’d be able to wash their dishes or flush their toilets. Some water haulers reassured their customers that they could find water for them, at least for now. Hornewer, who runs a water-hauling company, told me that not all haulers were scrupulous about the legality of their sources. “To them, it’s just kind of like the Old West,” he said. “If the water’s there, grab it. If you want to get it from Phoenix illegally, sure, you can do that. But that’s a short-term fix.”
Some residents came to believe that the best long-term solution for the hauled-water homes was to form a Domestic Water Improvement District, or DWID. The DWID, as a political subdivision, would be able to buy land to extract water from one of the few aquifers in Arizona that still had excess capacity for sale. A DWID could also get funding, or apply for grants, to eventually build water-treatment infrastructure for the area.
But not everyone in the Foothills wanted their neighbors to form a new government entity. Rumors spread on Facebook, claiming that the DWID was a power grab. People who had once acted as if worries about water scarcity were overblown began imagining their own elaborate worst-case scenarios: What if the DWID imposed taxes, or used the power of eminent domain to seize non-members’ wells, or put liens on people’s houses? What was next, an H.O.A.? “They have the power to condemn, whether they claim they’re going to use it or not,” Christy Jackman, the DWID’s most vocal opponent, told me. “They do have the power to put in streetlights, to pave areas. So here’s this little group, and they’ll have those powers.” The pro-DWID faction grew frustrated that their neighbors, many of whom had wells, were blocking their ability to secure water for themselves. “It’s the haves and the have-nots,” Nabity said. “Literally, some neighbors were like, ‘Screw you guys. You bought a property that doesn’t have water. That’s not my issue.’”
The suburban sprawl of the American Dream assumes there is cheap, accessible water for the new homes. Few residents would even think about water not being available unless there are some unusual circumstances.
So what then happens to sprawling subdivisions when water is hard to obtain? The article above discussed multiple solutions that either do not work well when a whole region has limited water or when they run up against the preferences of suburbanites.
Since having water is essential for life, including in the suburbs, it will be interesting to see what solutions are reached. One solution – not building sprawling communities – does not seem like a viable option since there are many people who want to live in such settings and Americans have constructed such developments for decades.
Legally Sociable 