Tag Archives: neighborhoods

Study: crime does not increase when people with housing vouchers move in

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A new study suggests people with housing vouchers moving into a neighborhood does not raise crime levels:

The study by New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy found that housing vouchers don’t bring crime to an area. Rather, very low-income people using the vouchers often have limited options and tend to live in areas where crime already is high…

For its study, researchers looked at neighborhood-level data on voucher use and crime in the 10 cities, and whether the number of voucher holders in an area one year led to an increase in crime the following year. The study took into account differences between neighborhoods and other factors that might lead to an increase in crime in some areas.

Researchers found no evidence, even in poor neighborhoods, that an increase in voucher use directly led to more crime. But they did find something.

“If you do look at any given point in time, you do see a correlation, a weak one,” said Ingrid Gould Ellen, a professor and co-director Furman Center. “But what seems to be driving that correlation is that voucher (users) tend to rent in neighborhoods where crime is already occurring.”

This sounds like a classic case of reversing cause and effect. But, given the history of residential segregation in the United States, these perceptions aren’t surprising. Middle- and upper-class residents don’t generally want to live in neighborhoods with people with housing vouchers, perhaps due to a fear of reduced property values, perhaps due to race and ethnicity. Thus, this perception of housing voucher residents leading to more crime can serve the purpose of helping to keep class and race lines where they already are.

A boom in “mega basements” in London draw ire

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The London neighborhood of Kensington is discussing rules to ban “mega basements” being constructed under the home and property of the wealthy:

The “iceberg home” mega basements dug three or four storeys into the ground with private cinemas, spas and swimming pools are set to be banned in one of London’s most affluent areas.

New draft rules that will limit basements to a single storey and impose much tighter limits on how far they can extend under a garden were today published by Kensington and Chelsea council.

The move follows a huge surge in applications for basements over recent years as wealthy owners have sought to by-pass planning restrictions on changes to their homes above ground by massively extending their living space underneath.

The subterranean extensions have often outraged local residents because of the noise, dust and disruption caused by digging them out, which can last for up to two years…

One of the most notorious applications was by former Foxtons estate agency owner Jon Hunt who successfully submitted plans for a cavernous basement under his home in Kensington Palace Gardens that included a tennis court and a showroom for his collection of Ferraris.

This sounds very similar to anti-McMansion ordinances with outcry over the disturbance to the neighborhood and restrictions on how big these basements can be. But, on the other hand, there is a big difference: these underground basements are hidden out of view and theoretically shouldn’t change the visible character of the neighborhood much. In some ways, the basements are genius: why not make use of underground space that is less disruptive and doesn’t alter the neighborhood’s appearance? I wonder if this is really just about construction inconvenience or it is more of a reaction to rich newcomers making changes.

Choose teardown “mansionization” over sprawl in suburbs

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Anthony Flint argues that communities should see the positive aspects of teardown McMansions:

Yes, some embodied energy is wasted in a teardown. But the new homes are universally more energy-efficient, and can be made with recycled materials and other green construction methods. What families want is a little bit more room. A recent survey by the National Association of Homebuilders found that most homeowners want something in the area of 2,500 square feet – close to the average size for single-family homes, which has been creeping up steadily over the decades.Sometimes the extra space is for multigenerational housing, a certain trend in the years ahead. The homebuilder Lennar recently touted homes with granny flats and in-law apartments – the kind of flexible housing New urbanism has been advocating for 20 years or so.

There is surely another trend of “right-sizing” and smaller homes and even micro apartments, for empty nesters and singles. But that’s the thing about the housing markets – one size doesn’t fit all. If some homeowners want more size, they’ll find a way to get it. They key factor in the teardown phenomenon is location.

The same NAHB survey found that while a bigger house was desirable, families didn’t want that house to be isolated out in the far-flung exurbs, miles from anywhere. They want to be able to walk to school or to a park, maybe even to a store to get a half-gallon of milk, or at least not spend quite so much time driving all around to disparate destinations.

And so we come back to teardowns and mansionization. Another way to describe the phenomenon is “infill redevelopment.” Builders are essentially re-using an established parcel in an already developed neighborhood. That’s a far greener step than building a true McMansion out in the cornfields. It’s the essence of smart growth – build in the places already built up, and leave the greenfields of the periphery alone.

One argument for teardowns is the rights of individual property owners to take advantage of a market that will pay them more money. However, this argument tends to pit the interests of the neighborhood or community versus those of the individual. In contrast, this argument is much more community oriented. Flint argues that the alternative is not between an individual and their neighbors but rather between suburban sprawl or infill development. These new large homes may not be ideal and communities could provide guidelines for how big they should be and/or how they should match existing homes and styles yet they are better than new subdivisions.

Flint is hinting at another issue that many suburban communities will face in the coming decades: just how dense should desirable suburban areas become? While teardown arguments seem to mostly be about neighborhoods and retaining a certain kind of character, the bigger issue is whether suburbs should be packing in more houses or even building up. This will be a problem for two kinds of suburbs: those who have little or no open land remaining (and this ranges from inner-ring suburbs to ones 20-30 miles out from big cities who have run out of space in more recent years) and those that could attract lots of new residents. Naperville is a good example as it has a downtown and amenities that would likely attract people and it has reached its limits on the south and west after several decades of rapid growth. Indeed, Naperville has received proposals in the past for high-rise condominiums (and turned them down) and the latest Water Street development proposal suggests expanding the denser downtown.

In the end, these suburbs will have to decide if they want denser development. If they hope to grow in population or develop more mixed-use areas (for example, through transit oriented development around transportation nodes), this might require teardowns and denser development.

A new process to designate historic districts in Salt Lake City

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After a contentious recent debate over a possible historic district, Salt Lake City decided to redesign the process:

The goal of the whole exercise is to preserve historic neighborhoods or just plain nice, older neighborhoods from demolitions, outsized remodels and McMansions. The new process can lead to a historic district or landmark site, or it can lead to something less restrictive called a character conservation district.

In both cases, property owners can start the ball rolling by circulating a petition. If 15 percent of property owners within the proposed district sign petitions within six months, the Historic Landmark Commission and the Planning Commission write reports and hold hearings. Ballots would then be mailed to all property owners of record, who would have 30 days to vote for or against the district. If a simple majority supports designation, then a simple majority vote of the City Council could create it. If less than a simple majority of property owners favors a district, then a two-thirds vote of the City Council would be required to create a district.

As you can see, this is not a pure democracy. The City Council could create a district even if a majority of property owners voted against it. But zoning by referendum is not a good idea, either, because sometimes the public interest should trump the wishes of property owners.

A petition to designate a district also could be started by the mayor or by a majority of the City Council, but the same signature and voting processes for property owners would apply.

Lots of communities with established neighborhoods struggle with this issue: how to balance the concerns of property owners and neighborhood residents? This new process seems to put the onus on the voters who have an interest in each neighborhood; if they have a strong opinion about a historic district, they have time to vote. And it seems like the process recognizes the potential for another common issue that arises in communities: how to get enough people to participate in order to reach a consensus? The threshold for moving a petition to the City Council only requires 15% of property owners to be involved and later, the Council can approve a historic district with less neighborhood involvement.

I would be interested to see how well this new procedure fares. These sorts of cases between communal and personal interests are not easy to sort out, particularly when the potential large teardown McMansions are involved. Neighborhoods do change over time but local residents who bought into or who are used to a particular atmosphere or character can be quite resistant.

Seeing the social layers in the foreclosure crisis through a photography exhibit

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A new photography exhibit at the Argus Museum in Ann Arbor, Michigan takes a unique look at the foreclosure crisis:

Sociology, economics, and ultimately, autobiography, are the featured artistic elements in Charles J. Mintz’s “Every Place (I have ever lived)” at the Argus I Building’s second-story museum.

Subtitled “The foreclosure crisis in twelve neighborhoods,” this Cleveland-based photographer’s mixed-media investigation into his personal history—as told through a dozen color foreclosed dwellings in the vicinities where he’s lived—is touching and telling in equal measures…

“Each work,” Mintz tells us in his gallery statement, “is a 4’ x 4’ sheet of raw plywood with two photographs that are printed on fabric. The ‘inside’ photograph is screwed in place. The top image has been made into a window shade that pulls down over the first…

“Maps on the side pieces show where you are in my personal journey. In addition, there are charts of both the changes in median family income between the time I lived there and now (based upon the 2000 census) and the changes in racial mix between then and now (based upon the 2010 census).”…

Even as the economic and sociological demographics do their part in Mintz’s story, he makes it clear that he believes race and financial position are ultimately relative to the journey. The story might have differed at another time, but from mid- to late-20th century, Mintz seeks to build a case that our American commonalities are more tightly bound than we might otherwise expect.

It is one thing to see the numbers about foreclosures, such as the fact that the foreclosure rate in Illinois is still rising, and another to look at how this affects communities and individuals within them. What sounds particularly interesting to me about this exhibit is that this isn’t just about one person. For example, in political debates and speeches, we tend to hear stories about individuals or families which are meant to put a “human face” on the larger issues. But, through connecting individuals, communities, and larger social forces, such as the artist Mintz explaining his personal experiences as embedded in communities as well as race and socioeconomic status, we can better view and understand the multiple levels of foreclosures and how different actions at each level might be needed.

Architect discusses “natural historic evolution of neighborhoods”

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An architect discusses historic preservation and ends with two paragraphs on the changes that neighborhoods experience:

Yet embracing historic preservation too fervently and dogmatically can be problematic. Not all old buildings in historic neighborhoods are salvagable. Some are functionally, technically and architecturally beyond redemption. And over time entire neighborhoods change in ways that necessitate appropriate physical changes. For example, homes constructed 50 or more years ago, perhaps unrealistically small and impractical by today’s standards, may need enlarging, upgrading of windows and exterior materials, and new environmental systems.

Furthermore, insisting that all new buildings look like old buildings in a neighborhood is an overly restrictive policy. Good architects can design modern buildings that, without being historic replicants, aesthetically harmonize with historic buildings. Indeed, mindlessly creating architectural clones denies the natural historic evolution of neighborhoods, towns and cities, where community fabric is collectively enriched over time as human needs and desires, available technologies and aesthetic styles play out.

Perhaps the trick is ensuring that this “natural historic evolution” happens more smoothly and both sides, those who want to preserve some of the older buildings and those who want to build new structures, feel like they are getting something out of the deal. I wonder: are there neighborhoods that have successfully done this?

Additionally, what is the time frame for this natural change? A few decades? Fifty years? I would suspect this would depend on the neighborhood, particularly if the older neighborhood had buildings people wanted to save. I’ll be very curious to see what happens to suburban neighborhoods. Particularly for post-World War II suburbs, how much will people want to save? If McMansions are lower quality construction, as critics charge, will they last long enough for people to want to save them?

Argument: McMansions are turning Queens into Brooklyn

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A writer argues Queens, New York is being ruined by McMansions:

Then one day, the McMansions came roaring in. Progress! People cut down trees, bricked up laws and built their houses right up to the property line. Children started “playing” on their computers indoors. They started getting heavier as the utility companies grew richer because oversized homes use a lot more energy than smaller homes with trees close by to shade them. I sure hope the utility companies are sending those McMansion owners holiday greeting cards to thank them for their extra business. I’d say they owe them at least that much.

More and more, green lawns in Queens are transforming into the cement sidewalks of Brooklyn. One of the reasons that Queens homeowners are paving their lawns is because the multiple families dwelling in those roomy McMansions are creating a shortage of parking spaces. What’s the solution? Pave your lawn so you can transform it into a front driveway. Or, maybe they don’t like grass. Why move to Queens then? There’s always Brooklyn. Brooklyn already has lots of cement sidewalks. They even have cafes! Wouldn’t it be easier to find a setting that suits your needs than dwelling in a setting you have to transform?

This is not my neck of the woods but I have a few thoughts about this:

1. It sounds like there are a lot of teardown McMansions in Queens.

2. Blaming McMansions for the rising weight of children seems silly. Only kids who live in McMansions are sitting inside more?

3. I wonder if it is really McMansions that are the issue here or that change is coming to Queens. The main point of the argument is that this writer doesn’t want Queens to be like Brooklyn. Presumably, it should remain distinct which includes having different kinds of housing. McMansions could be just a symptom of larger concerns about neighborhood change.

“First large scale [lost letter] study” results from London

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The results of a lost letter study in London provide some interesting results:

Neighbourhood income deprivation has a strong negative effect on altruistic behaviour when measured by a ‘lost letter’ experiment, according to new UCL research published August 15 in PLoS One. Researchers from UCL Anthropology used the lost letter technique to measure altruism across 20 London neighbourhoods by dropping 300 letters on the pavement and recording whether they arrived at their destination. The stamped letters were addressed by hand to a study author’s home address with a gender neutral name, and were dropped face-up and during rain free weekdays.

The results show a strong negative effect of neighbourhood income deprivation on altruistic behaviour, with an average of 87% of letters dropped in the wealthier neighbourhoods being returned compared to only an average 37% return rate in poorer neighbourhoods.

Co-author Jo Holland said: “This is the first large scale study investigating cooperation in an urban environment using the lost letter technique. This technique, first used in the 1960s by the American social psychologist Stanley Milgram, remains one of the best ways of measuring truly altruistic behaviour, as returning the letter doesn’t benefit that person and actually incurs the small hassle of taking the letter to a post box…

As well as measuring the number of letters returned, the researchers also looked at how other neighbourhood characteristics may help to explain the variation in altruistic behaviour — including ethnic composition and population density — but did not find them to be good predictors of lost letter return.

This is a good example of a natural experiment.

I wonder if there is any equivalent to this in the online realm. Perhaps an email that is mistakenly sent to the wrong address that would require a user to then take a small amount of time to forward the email to original recipient?

Rising income segregation in the United States

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Sociologist Stephen Klineberg discusses income segregation and a new Pew Report that suggests it is growing in the United States:

So what’s happening – as the gap between rich and poor increases, people increasingly live in very separate worlds and we’ve always sort of been more comfortable in communities made up of what the Wall Street Journal once called PLUs, people like us. Right? We never liked it too much. There were a lot of people much poorer than us or much richer than us. We’d like to be in those communities where we felt at home and with people like ourselves and you see it in Houston, I think, more than most other cities because Houston is still, today, the most spread out, least dense major city in the country…

The great danger for the future of America is not an ethnic divide. It’s a class divide…

Oh, tremendous consequences of the isolation of the poor in places where there are only other poor people with very few connections to the job opportunities that are out there, to the knowledge. We know that there are several forms of capital. Right? There’s human capital, which is education. There’s financial capital and there’s, above all, social capital. Who do you know? Who are you connected with? Who can you go to for advice? Who will know about jobs that are opening and help connect you to those jobs?

And so the isolation of the poor creates two things. Number one is it isolates the poor in ways that make it much more difficult for them to work their way out of poverty and it isolates the rich so that they live in worlds where they have no clue as to the kind of challenges that people are facing.

This is not a new issue. However, several decades ago, the focus was more on the extremely poor/the hypersegregated living in inner cities, and now the problem is perceived to be affecting more people.

The Pew report can be found here and here are some of the findings:

The analysis finds that 28% of lower-income households in 2010 were located in a majority lower-income census tract, up from 23% in 1980, and that 18% of upper- income households were located in a majority upper-income census tract, up from 9% in 1980.

These increases are related to the long-term rise in income inequality, which has led to a shrinkage in the share of neighborhoods across the United States that are predominantly middle class or mixed income—to 76% in 2010, down from 85% in 1980—and a rise in the shares that are majority lower income (18% in 2010, up from 12% in 1980) and majority upper income (6% in 2010, up from 3% in 1980)…

By adding together the share of lower-income households living in a majority lower-income tract and the share of upper-income households living in a majority upper-income tract, this Pew Research analysis has developed a single Residential Income Segregation Index (RISI) score for each of the nation’s top 30 metropolitan areas…

Among the nation’s 10 largest metro areas, Houston (61) and Dallas (60) have the highest RISI scores, followed closely by New York (57). At the other end of the scale, Boston (36), Chicago (41) and Atlanta (41) have the lowest RISI scores among the nation’s 10 largest metro areas.

Worth paying attention in the years ahead. Even in the era of Facebook, Twitter, and more weak ties, neighbors and neighborhoods still matter for a number of important life outcomes.

Argument: New England neighborhoods attract movies because they have character and don’t have McMansions

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A columnist in Swampscott, Massachusetts argues New England neighborhoods have a sense of place, don’t have many McMansions, and therefore attract filmmakers:

If you’ve ever traveled outside New England, you begin to notice that most of the rest of the country looks a lot alike. Rapid development on a budget lends itself to a landscape of boxy stores in strip malls and cookie cutter homes. Some of these cookie cutter homes are “McMansions,” and very nice to live in, but even so their exteriors are unmemorable, duplicated a million times over.

New England—Swampscott—looks different.  Neighborhoods have personalities. The roads curve in unpredictable ways.  Houses don’t all look alike. I happen to like the intricate purple paint on a certain home on Paradise Road, but we all have our favorites…

Yet there is true value in this difference.  Part of the reason that Massachusetts has attracted so many movies is because of our location—place matters.  Grown-Ups 2 is here because Swampscott looks like a typical New England town, and New England is a good brand, a marketable brand.

And crucial to the New England brand is a community’s willingness to embrace its historic past, to pay attention to its older buildings, and to, in short, care about the way something looks. A quick drive through the Olmstead District will remind all of us how lucky we are that the Mudges had the foresight to hire someone so talented to lay it out, that the town pays to upkeep the greens, and that the homeowners in the area now take such pride in their property.

New England does indeed have its own style and character though plenty of other places in the United States have historic preservation districts that are intended to save older buildings.

There is an interesting implication here that McMansions developed in places with less character. This would be intriguing to track: did the term first arise in Sunbelt locations or in more historic communities that felt threatened by new, big, mass produced homes?

I also wonder how many movies actually do film in New England compared to other locations. According to the Massachusetts Film Office, five films are in production or have recently finished filming. Like many other places, Massachusetts offers incentives for filmmakers:

Massachusetts provides filmmakers with a highly competitive package of tax incentives: a 25% production credit, a 25% payroll credit, and a sales tax exemption.

Any project that spends more than $50,000 in Massachusetts qualifies for the payroll credit and sales tax exemption. Spending more than 50% of total budget or filming at least 50% of the principal photography days in Massachusetts makes the project eligible for the production credit.