A college degree leads to more geographic mobility

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Americans with a college degree are more likely to leave where they grew up and end up in metropolitan regions:

Today, people with a college degree are more likely than they used to be to move to metropolitan regions with good jobs and other people like them, and this means both that those regions do better over time and that the return on that education is even greater. Almost half of college graduates move out of their birth states by age 30, according to Moretti. Only 27 percent of high school graduates do. As booming cities draw in new college-educated workers, employers seeking these workers follow, and cities continue to gain strength like magnets. This improves the prospects of everyone in the region, including those without college degrees. The working-class strongholds that once prospered without college-educated workers, on the other hand, are doing worse and worse, as computers and robots replace the workers whose jobs haven’t been sent overseas, and, as a result, an oversupply of labor brings down wages for everyone still there.

It’s not just that a college degree leads to higher earnings or more opportunities; it is also that people with college degrees tend to cluster in certain locations. Even in a world where technology could theoretically allow workers to be far away from their workplaces, the clustering in desirable cities of employers, cultural scenes, and places to live with a high quality of life is linked to education levels.

Another side effect of this clustering is that cities tend to have diverse and vibrant economies while smaller communities simply can’t access multiple options. Thus, even if a smaller community has a single thriving industry, this may not work well:

Focusing on one type of industry could be a successful strategy; Warsaw, Indiana, a relatively small town in the northern part of the state, is the orthopedic capital of America, with dozens of orthopedic device companies small and large located there and a bustling economy as a result. Elkhart, Indiana is the epicenter of the recreational vehicle industry, and manufacturers and suppliers are located there, creating good jobs when the economy is doing well. Cities and towns may be able to convince a cluster of a certain type of companies to locate there, and reverse their decline. “Every place has to look at its comparative advantage, and find a niche,” Ross DeVol, the chief research officer at the Milken Institute, told me.

Having lived near Elkhart during the financial crisis, such a strategy can look good in boom times but be disastrous in down times.

Looking toward the future, are there any particular industries or sectors that would be willing to spread out geographically in order to build stronger American communities? This might limit their profits or make it difficult to attract certain employees but could it be worthwhile to invest in smaller communities in the long run (either for the communities or also for a competitive advantage)? Even sectors like health care are finding it difficult to maintain facilities in small towns because of the advantages that consolidation and economies of scale offer.

Are we already to the point where people live in rural areas because (1) they are “stuck” there or (2) because they are already well-off and have the resources or option to live there?

Making a McMansion worse with an underground garage?

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One new teardown McMansion in Los Angeles is singled out for criticism for a unique feature:

The problem with one particular McMansion currently being built in Sherman Oaks is not that it towers head and shoulders above the houses to its north, the ones to its south, and all the houses across from it on the west side of the street except for one equally obese McMansion.

The problem is that its garage also reaches far lower into the ground because it is subterranean, accessed by a deeply sloping driveway. (Photo above) This is a singularly unique feature when compared to a concentric circle of the 500 nearest single family homes.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz, who authored the city’s porous and ineffective moratorium on McMansions, refused to personally answer direct questions about the property, but denied through a staffer any responsibility for its permit because at the time it was issued, this address was not yet covered by the moratorium. It originally only insulated some communities, including several in the San Fernando Valley…but not this one.

McMansions are often known for their large garages, whether they have oversized doors to accommodate extra-large vehicles or the big garages dominate the exterior (helping to earn some home the nickname “snout houses”). I thought the underground garage would help make a large house more palatable, particularly if some of the aboveground bulk or facade was smaller because space had been moved. Such a move echoes those of wealthy homeowners in London.

Perhaps the issue is that going underground might affect nearby properties? Presumably, it takes some significant extra work to create such a garage under a house and I was under the impression that few homes in southern California. But, I’m guessing that someone who could afford this property at a high price and the new home could also ensure that the subterranean garage is stable.

Ride the bus for a safer transit experience

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A recent study of bus travel in Montreal suggests that it is a much safer experience compared to driving:

By perusing police reports from 2001 to 2010, they found motorists on these routes had more than three times the injury rate of bus passengers. Buses were also safer for people sharing the road. Cars were responsible for 95 percent of pedestrian and 96 percent of cyclist injuries on these arteries, they write in a presentation for this month’s meeting of the Transportation Research Board.

During the same time period in Montreal, nobody was killed while riding the bus, though 668 people were injured. (It’s unknown if that number includes bus operators, who are powerful magnets for abuse.) Meanwhile, auto occupants suffered 19 deaths and 10,892 injuries. Cars were linked to 42 pedestrian and three cyclist deaths, while buses were linked to four and zero, respectively…

In the United States car occupants have a fatality rate 23 times greater than bus passengers, while it’s respectively 11 and 10 times higher in Australia and Europe. They suggest getting more people on public transit could make a large impact on public health.

In terms of public health, the safety argument is compelling: without having to go all the way to self-driving vehicles for all, buses could be an important tool in reducing deaths. Yet, I’ve discussed before that I don’t think many middle- to upper-class Americans would choose to travel by bus in denser areas if they can afford to drive. I don’t know if the safety argument could overcome either (1) the stereotypes of riding the bus and (2) the inconvenience of the bus schedule as opposed to driving a car.

Perhaps what we need is for a city or two to experiment with a public campaign to boost bus membership with a safety campaign. Would residents find it compelling?

Aurora, IL a large suburb or a place that should celebrate pumpkins and strawberries?

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A recent interview with the director of Wayne’s World included some comments about the suburb of Aurora, the hometown of Wayne Campbell.

“It’s starting in February and ending on July 4 with a headbanging session to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ in an effort to get more people than ever before together to headbang to that song,” Spheeris said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly posted online Thursday. “I can’t believe it. Don’t they have pumpkins or strawberries to celebrate? Isn’t that crazy?”…

For its 25th anniversary, the film is set to return to some theaters Feb. 7-8. Meanwhile, the Aurora Downtown group, the city of Aurora and the Aurora Area Convention and Visitors Bureau are organizing a celebration of the movie scheduled to start Feb. 3 and wrap up July 4.

Planned events include a children’s air guitar competition, a trivia contest and a headbanging event to try to beat the Guinness record…

“She may not be aware that Aurora is a city of 200,000. She may think it’s a lot smaller based on the ideas of the movie,” Rauch said. “I think she might just be thinking that her movie may not be as important as pumpkins or strawberries.”

This all sounds fairly lighthearted but it does provide an opportunity to highlight the second largest city in Illinois. Indeed, the Downtown Aurora group has a page dedicated to this topic: “Aurora, Beyond Wayne’s World“:

You might be aware that Aurora is the second largest city in Illinois. With a population of 200,456 it is second only to Chicago. But did you know that Aurora got it’s nickname “The City of Lights” by being the first city in the country to have all electric street lights? Or that Aurora has been scouted for top-name films in recent years? Here is a list of fun facts that you might know about Aurora, IL.

In the film, Aurora doesn’t look so big. At the same time, the population doubled over this time period (1990-today) from just under 100,000 residents to 200,000 residents.

Sales of luxury homes continue to slump

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Several new reports suggest the luxury housing market is not doing so well:

Sales in the Hamptons, Aspen and Los Angeles fell by double-digit percentages in the fourth quarter, as the supply of unsold homes grew and prices came under pressure, according to market reports Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers & Consultants.

Separate research from Redfin found that luxury properties nationwide under-performed the broader housing market for the eighth consecutive quarter. The supply of homes priced at $1 million or more rose 1 percent in the fourth quarter, while the number of $5 million-plus homes was up 15 percent.

The article starts with the suggestion that the election limited sales. But, that doesn’t do much to explain the issues over eight quarters. Perhaps there is a bit of a luxury home bubble? I mean, how many multi-million dollar properties can be bought and sold? I also feel like I have seen numerous news stories in recent years about the latest home that is breaking the record for asking price. But, such homes are only within reach of the wealthiest people.

It would be interesting to hear what experts think this slump means. Builders shifting away from super expensive homes to cheaper homes? The wealthy looking to invest in other kinds of real estate? Any problems with vacant properties in these communities?

More unusual conversions of buildings to housing in Chicago

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Here are a few examples in Chicago of converting solid older structures into residences:

Developers have never shied away from turning the remnants of Chicago’s past into residences—see the omnipresent warehouse-turned-loft projects across the city. Conversion treatments are now being found where they are less expected: A former Jewish orphanage in Wicker Park is now a single-family home. The old Sears store on Lawrence Avenue in Lincoln Square? It’s likely to become a 40-unit apartment building. Most impressively, a landmarked church at 2900 West Shakespeare Avenue in Logan Square reemerged in November as a 10-unit condo building. Other similar projects are in the works.

The reason for repurposing instead of demolishing is simple: The quality of old construction often surpasses that of today’s standards. “Most of the brick structures that were built in the postfire era used high-quality materials such as Chicago brick,” says Greg Whelan, a Redfin real estate agent. “Intrinsically, these buildings have high value because they don’t make that brick anymore.” Plus, existing structures bypass height restrictions dictated by modern zoning laws and solve the issue of the lack of vacant land in the most desirable neighborhoods.

These projects fix problems for developers. And the quirks of unconventional buildings appeal to homeowners. In the former church, bell towers allow ceilings, supported by original steel trusses, to soar as high as 30 feet. Slate from the old roof was repurposed as tile in the lobby. (There are plenty of modern features, too, including floating vanities the bathrooms and quartz countertops in the kitchens.) The exterior looks much like it did when the church was built in 1908, with dramatic arched Gothic windows and regal stone detailing around newly built balconies. Three of the 10 units were still available at presstime for between $480,000 and $650,000.

Presumably there are some limits to which older buildings get converted. Although this article doesn’t mention it, I assume a big factor is money: will the conversion provide a sufficient return on investment for the developer? Also, cities won’t necessarily allow anything to be converted to residences. It likely helps if the structure is already in a residential location (common for churches) and is a building that the neighbors like (as opposed to an eyesore or mismatch that even a conversion can’t fix).

I’m still intrigued by the conversion of religious buildings into residences. The architecture of such buildings is often conducive to groups (which would be limited when converted into multiple units) and intended to provide a physica connection with the spiritual realm. How exactly does this architecture fit the tastes of homeowners? Can you easily reduce the spiritual architecture to its component pieces like large windows and high ceilings? See an earlier post about converting Chicago churches into residences.

The flow of young adults to cities has slowed, leading to the idea of “peak millennial”

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Have we reached “peak millennial” for America’s cities?

Dowell Myers, a professor of demography and urban planning at the University of Southern California, recently published a paper that noted American cities reached “peak millennial” in 2015. Over the next few years, he predicts, the growth in demand for urban living is likely to stall…

The debate is full of contours and caveats, but it really boils down to this: Are large numbers of millennials really so enamored with city living that they will age and raise families inside the urban core, or will many of them, like earlier generations, eventually head to the suburbs in search of bigger homes and better school districts?

Their choices — and it will be at least a few years before a definitive direction is clear — will have an impact on city budgets and gentrification fights. It could change the streetscape itself as businesses shift. It will affect billions of dollars’ worth of new apartments built on the premise that the flood of young people into cities would continue unabated.

It could also have a big impact on the American landscape more generally. For the past half-century, the trend toward suburbanization has continued with no real opposition. Even in the 1990s and 2000s, when urban areas were starting to turn around, subdivisions continued to expand. Have millennials ended that trend?…

Stay tuned. A few quick thoughts:

  1. One underlying issue here is the idea that cities need to keep growing in population in order to be vibrant or relevant. Can all American cities grow at significant rates? Should they?
  2. As noted in this article, the pull of suburbs is still strong. Any reversal from suburbs to cities is likely to happen over decades, not within a short span or a single generation.
  3. If cities are affected by a small generation after millennials as well as a declining rate of millennials staying in cities, who will they try to attract next? The article also notes that immigration levels have stabilized. Will there be a new plan from mayors and other urban leaders to bring in more residents?

Claim: popular 90’s TV shows prompted people to move to cities

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This is not the first time I’ve seen this argument: Friends wasn’t just entertainment…it helped make cities cool again.

I tested out my hypothesis—that “Friends” triggered the proliferation of boutique coffee shops across the nation—on Facebook a few days ago, and found some agreement. My good friend Kenyon Farrow, an award-winning writer and advocate for HIV/AIDS awareness, who’s based in D.C., was with me on this, writing, “I think ‘Friends’ (and ‘Seinfeld’) are totally responsible for marketing cities to young white suburbanites, [which] helped fuel the market-demand side for gentrification to take place in the ‘90s and 2000’s.

”

That was about the extent of agreement on my “Friends” theory, though—my barista cred all damned to hell now. But others in the debate made the gentrification connection Farrow offered. Wrote Ben Adler, who I worked with at Grist: “Americans have increasingly become alienated by the social isolation of suburban, car-dependent life. That’s fueled both the urban gentrification that brings the cafes, and the cafes themselves.”

For others on our Facebook thread, the secret of the coffeehouse’s mainstream appeal was pure and simple: It’s just “a good idea,” wrote my buddy Justice Rajee, a family advocate at the Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center. “Having someplace to sit have a beverage and do what you need when you can’t go home is good.”

This is the reverse of the argument I’ve been thinking about in recent years: the proliferation of popular TV shows depicting happy suburban life in the 1950s and 1960s helped push Americans to the suburbs. At face value, this might seem to make sense as Americans are influenced by what they watch on TV (and they watch a lot of it). However, I have some data that suggests the connection is not as clear. (There is an upcoming paper coming out of this; more on the particular topic when it sees the light of day.)

Generally, we don’t know as much as you might think about how much television influences people’s behaviors. The argument for Friends or Seinfeld and cities suggests people viewed the shows and wanted to emulate that lifestyle. Is the link that direct? If we asked people why they moved to the city, would they cite a television show or would they be more likely to mention things like jobs, cultural opportunities and the lifestyle, or housing options? The influence of television may indeed be subtle which begs the question of how we might uncover as social scientists the empirical link between viewing and deciding where to live. If seeing things on TV mattered, wouldn’t others be turned off by city life with so many crime and police procedural shows?

“Why we love to hate McMansions, but still buy them”

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A rare article (in which I am quoted – you can find those parts yourself) that argues the McMansion is not going away. Here is the closing argument:

His clients aren’t interested in small houses or apartments, he says. “When they were immigrants, arriving, they saw these mansions, these houses, and that was the dream.”…

At Trotters Glen in Olney, Toll Brothers has sold 17 of the 58 planned homes. Stokes and her colleague, Sharon Nugent, say the development attracts affluent buyers in their 40s and 50s, with many drawn by Our Lady of Good Counsel, a nearby private school. Some add multi-generational suites or first-floor master bedrooms to accommodate elderly relatives or themselves in the future. “They’re building the dream home that they can stay in forever,” Nugent says.

Asked if they’d call the homes McMansions, Nugent and Stokes don’t bristle at the term and say their buyers probably wouldn’t either. “I don’t think they’d mind having it called a McMansion,” says Stokes.

“When you read [it in] an article, you think it’s derogatory,” Nugent says. “But in my mind, I chuckle and laugh, because we’re selling them. And they’re selling well.”

The one part that may be missing in this argument is finding more of the people outside of the coasts (California is represented by the fictional Bluth family, the Toll Brothers example comes from suburban Maryland) who like and purchase such homes. At the same time, each of these examples may even drive home the point further: even in the midst of suburban Maryland, there are people building and buying McMansions.

If the McMansion is indeed here to stay, perhaps a different question to ask is how big the American home might eventually be. Some of the rise in the median and average new home size could be blunted by a resurgent housing market where more small and medium sized homes are constructed (as opposed to the big ones that offer more profit). Or, what would change the minds of Americans so they wouldn’t desire a larger home (whether for a status symbol or to store all their stuff or to get the most bang for their buck or to have an investment for later)? Altering the emphasis on the big and comfortable single-family home is likely a long task.

Bonus: to go along with this article, see my recent series on defining the McMansion.
Trait #1: size
Trait #2: relative sizeTrait #3: architecture and design
Trait #4: a symbol

The most diverse Census tract in America is in…Anchorage?

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This information from a 2015 story is still surprising: several Anchorage census tracts are the most diverse in the United States.

Mountain View, a northeast Anchorage neighborhood, boasts the most diverse census tract in all of America. That’s according to University of Alaska sociology professor Chad Farrell, who analyzed the census data.
In fact, Farrell says the country’s three most diverse census tracts are all in Anchorage, followed by a handful in Queens, as in New York, which usually tops everyone’s diversity guess list…
Farrell found that two things boosted Mountain View to the top. First, there is a sizable white population left. In many other places, neighborhoods that have increased in diversity have also seen white flight. Not so in Mountain View.
Mountain View also has a significant Alaska Native population, which other cities in America lack.
Alaska’s diversity has spiked in recent years for a host of reasons. Among them are its economy, which prospered when other states were reeling from recession, because it is driven by fishing and oil.
The state is also home to nine military bases, and Mountain View butts up to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. Hawaiian businessman William Hoopai recently opened a new restaurant on the main drag called West Berlin.
Not exactly where many would expect to find such diversity.