Tag Archives: suburbs

New Jersey home prices rise more than other states

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Housing values keep going up in New Jersey:

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Home prices across the New Jersey climbed nearly 6% in February compared to a year earlier, the sharpest gain of any state in the nation, according to figures released this week by Cotality, a property data firm. 

The national average over that same stretch is only half a percent. The Garden State did not just beat the field. It lapped it. 

Why the bigger rise in New Jersey?

The state’s dense corridor of finance and fintech firms, pharmaceutical giants and biotech campuses has kept demand humming even as buyers elsewhere pump the brakes. 

Cotality analysts specifically flagged New Jersey’s high-wage employment base as a structural driver of housing demand, one that insulates the market from the volatility hitting Sun Belt states hard right now. 

I might put it another way as someone who studies suburbs: the state is positioned between two major metropolitan areas, New York City and Philadelphia. This both provides access to jobs and opportunities there but includes its own large collection of suburban jobs and opportunities across numerous communities that have different industries and populations. The fate of these suburban possibilities are tied to what happens in these big cities but it also has some life of its own.

Also worth noting: with these housing pressures, New Jersey is home to a number of affordable housing conversations and decisions over the years.

Suburban HQ building vacant for 18 years to be used by a small Bible college

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A long-vacant former corporate headquarters in a Chicago suburb will soon be home to a Bible college:

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Dayspring’s journey is a tale of three homes, a decades-old contact and a generous gift. And it’s led them to the long-abandoned CF Industries corporate headquarters adjacent to the Heron Creek Forest Preserve near Route 22 and Old McHenry Road.

Empty and vandalized over 18 years, the 120,000-square-foot, brick-faced concrete and steel “miracle” building will be revived, revamped and modernized with an expected move in fall 2027…

That will allow the college of about 80 students to accommodate twice as many, double the current square footage and be closer to the Quentin Road Baptist Church in Lake Zurich, where the college found a home in its early years…

Church leaders met with residents in neighboring subdivisions to discuss the vision and hosted an open house and barbecue before making the case to the village’s advisory plan commission and zoning board of appeals. Approval was unanimous and the village board followed suit…

Long Grove also is benefiting from the move. For the college’s soon-to-be neighbors, having an academic institution with a 24/7 presence will eliminate trespassing and vandalism concerns and greatly reduce calls for service to the Lake County sheriff’s office, said Long Grove Village Manager Chris Sparkman.

Having studied religious buildings, I find this story interesting on multiple levels.

First, suburban communities tend not to want to have vacant buildings. Structures should be productive, preferably producing tax revenue and/or contributing to day to day life in the community. A former headquarters building is an opportunity for another business to make it their own.

Second, having a vacant suburban building for 18 years in a wealthier suburb is a long time of vacancy. Even if a suburb might have wanted a corporate taker for this building, they might be happier after 18 years to have any productive use. As the story suggests, the community is glad someone will be taking care of the property and the approvals process went smoothly.

Third, religious groups are often willing to use all sorts of buildings and properties if they can adapt it. This is not a religious congregation – though it is a school connected to a particular congregation – but they are taking a corporate headquarters, cleaning it up, and plan to make it a religious school. Also noted in the story: acquiring the corporate headquarters required Hobby Lobby purchasing it and giving it to the congregation/school.

In the end, the suburb has a tenant for a long empty building, the former property owner was able to sell the property that sat for a long time, and a religious congregation/school has a new suburban home.

AI to help me find an expensive home that is within walking distance to Whole Foods

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What kind of potential homebuyer is Homes.com aiming to reach with their AI assisted search (“Homes Ai”)? About 20 seconds in, the video includes this line:

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Narrow it down to homes walkable to a Whole Foods.

According to a few search results, there are over 500 Whole Foods locations in the United States. Who tends to live within walking distance of these locations?

The video keeps going with the theme. After seeing some expansive interiors and a gourmet kitchen with the AI chipping in that it has white quartz countertops, the final home shown is $1.425 million.

The homes depicted appear to be in single-family home, if not suburban, neighborhoods.

So it appears “Homes Ai” is aimed at a wealthier potential homebuyer with particular lifestyle interests? Could “Homes Ai” help people search for reasonably priced housing or affordable housing?

“Informal housing” and affordable housing in the postwar suburbs

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Historian Michael Glass describes how informal housing units came to be in the postwar suburbs:

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Yes, this was a major surprise during my research. While scanning through microfilm reels of local newspapers, I kept coming across exposés of “illegal apartments,” that is, single-family homes illegally converted for multifamily occupancy. This took many forms: owners might rent out the basement, convert the garage into a dwelling, or wall off the attic as a separate apartment. Urban planners conducted comprehensive studies, and they estimated that by the 1970s between 10 and 20 percent of the single-family homes had been subdivided. A truly astounding statistic! 

In addition to being exclusionary and costly, the postwar suburban development model was completely unsustainable. Today the housing stock in Nassau County consists almost entirely of single-family dwellings. But people in the suburbs also needed cheap rentals, especially low-income families, young singles, divorced couples, retirees, and undocumented immigrants. Because zoning prohibited multifamily housing in most places, homeowners and landlords met these needs by converting single-family homes into apartments. 

The apartments were hidden, but certainly not a secret. Local officials absolutely knew the subdivisions were happening, and they let it continue because the informal apartments were meeting important housing needs. What I take from scholars of informal housing in the Global South – folks like Ananya Roy and Raquel Rolnick – is that turning a blind eye is itself a policy choice. It’s a way for government officials to manage housing needs in a context of scarcity. 

My basic argument is that informal apartments became the tacit solution to the affordable housing crisis. It helped resolve contradictions: local officials could simultaneously declare their opposition to new apartment construction while continuing to quietly tolerate informal units. 

People needed housing in the growing suburbs, homeowners adapted their properties, and local officials responded by not doing much. I wonder how much the lack of local reaction discovered was due to:

  1. The actual need for housing. How many units were needed in the postwar decades, particularly in comparison to today? Even as suburbs were growing rapidly, how much would local officials admit that even more housing was needed?
  2. The reference in the quote above to apartments is interesting as many suburban communities did consistently resist apartments because this might lead to different kinds of residents and affect the character and property values of nearby single-family homes. Informal housing is preferable to apartments until when?
  3. What happened when local residents complained about informal units? Say a resident suggests their neighbor has created an informal housing unit in violation of local regulations. How did local officials respond given #1 and #2 above? The quote above refers to media exposes so there must have been some local responses.

This might fit into a bigger story of suburban residents who since World War Two have used their homes and properties in ways that go against local regulations or what was expected. The idea of property rights is pretty important in many suburbs but so is the impulse to not have one’s property and housing values threatened by nearby land uses.

What private equity expects from suburban residential developments and “a revenue gap”

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A new proposed residential development in suburban St. Charles sparked discussion about the possibility of including affordable housing:

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A 29-acre site in St. Charles — one of the last remaining open properties in town for residential development — is becoming a flashpoint for housing affordability in the city.

With a new proposal on the table, some city officials are requesting affordable units while the project’s developers argue it would hurt their private equity-backed bottom line…

The developers said they are trying to support retail along the Randall Road corridor by “attracting residents with disposable income.” City officials responded by saying there are people who work for the city who can’t afford to live there.

During the March 16 meeting, the developers said offering affordable units, such as a $1,070-per-month studio, would “provide a revenue gap.”

The basics of the story are not unusual for suburban residential development projects. A developer sees an opportunity. Upscale residential units can bring a good profit and upscale suburban communities tend to like residential properties that enhance their status and character. The city responds to the proposal with a few requests, including requesting some affordable housing units for several groups in the community the suburb would like to retain or attract. A period of negotiation or dialogue commences.

What is different here is that the developer has clearly stated that substituting affordable housing units will lead to a revenue problem. Why? Because there are expectations from the private equity supporting the development. The article does not discuss the details (and they may not be publicly available) but it sounds like it can be put another way: not enough money will be made on this development if affordable housing is included.

Profit-making is not unexpected. The clash between private equity money and affordable housing is less often in the public view. What amount or percentage does private equity expect to make on residential development? Can it make room for any affordable housing or is it completely about profit maximization?

Sports teams that are suburban franchises

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Many major American sports teams have names referencing cities or states. Some of these teams are located in the suburbs while they refer to cities in their names. But I recently was thinking about teams that are intentionally suburban. Perhaps they never were located in the city (versus teams that started in cities but moved out later). Perhaps their name refers to a suburb or suburban area. These four teams came to mind:

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  1. Anaheim Ducks. They started in a large suburb in southern California and are still there today. Makes sense given that it is in the sprawling Los Angeles area?
  2. New Jersey Devils. Named after a state but this team has been in the suburbs of New York City (in the named state) for a number of years after an earlier homes in Kansas City and then Denver. Newark is also a large suburb but the state is largely caught between the big cities of New York City and Philadelphia.
  3. New York Islanders. Named after the state but located from the beginning in the Long Island suburbs (with a short time in Brooklyn in the 2010s).
  4. Arizona Cardinals. Since moving to this state, they played in Tempe and Glendale. (The team played in St. Louis and Chicago in their previous stops – they were a city team until they moved to a new region.)

On one hand, a few other teams might seem to fit this bill. Take the New England Patriots who play in the suburbs and whose name refers to a larger region. They were initially founded as the Boston Patriots. There might be others.

Two questions emerge from these quick thoughts:

  1. Was there something about hockey teams founded in the last 50 years that some aimed at suburban audiences moreso than other sports?
  2. Does being a major sports franchise in the suburbs or associated with the suburbs make a substantive difference to the team and its results? Given that more Americans live in suburbs than other settings, do these suburban locations tend to make it easier for residents of the region to attend?

Voter turnout in the Chicago suburbs slightly up or down last week

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Voter turnout numbers in last week’s primary elections show limited change from previous years:

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Voter turnout Tuesday was greater than 2022’s midterm primary in suburban Cook, DuPage and Kane counties, but lower than four years ago in Lake, McHenry and Will counties…

DuPage County is currently reporting the highest turnout level at 24.6%, which could increase when mail-in stragglers are eventually reported. In the 2022 midterm primary, DuPage was the only county with more than 20% turnout among the suburban collar counties…

Lake County had the lowest voter turnout in the suburbs at 17.7% Tuesday. That’s down from 18.4% in 2022…

McHenry County is currently reporting 18% voter turnout, down from 19.6% in 2022. In Will County, turnout was 19.1% Tuesday, down slightly from 19.5% in 2022.

Most of the article tries to explain why these numbers are what they are. The underlying question seems to be this: have Americans eligible to vote lost interest in voting? About a fifth of suburban voters do so. What, if anything, would really change that number?

The apathy of suburban voters also matters because candidates will want their votes in numerous elections in November and in 2028. In plenty of states, suburbanites will determine elections because of the number of people who live in such places and the presence of both Democrats and Republicans.

Of course, in later races that are not really contested, these low turnout primary votes then set who will win the November election. To not vote in some primaries means voters will have limited choices in November.

Blood plasma centers showing up in wealthier suburbia

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Suburban strip malls and office buildings now house more blood plasma centers:

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Every day, an estimated 215,000 people donate plasma, the yellowish liquid component of blood. Mr. Briseño is among them. He is not jobless or facing eviction, but, like many in the American middle class, he is caught in the vise of rising expenses and wages that aren’t growing fast enough to cover them. So he is turning to a method more commonly associated with the lowest-income Americans. For people like him, an extra $600 or so a month can mean making a mortgage payment or covering increased health-insurance costs.

While no one publishes statistics on the exact incomes of people who sell their blood plasma, the location of the centers suggests a shift toward a less financially desperate clientele. A recent study by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Colorado, Boulder, observed that while older plasma centers are clustered in low-income areas, newer centers were increasingly likely to open in middle-class neighborhoods. A New York Times analysis shows the trend has continued: Centers have sprung up in more than 100 such neighborhoods, in suburbs and wealthier sections of cities, since researchers finished collecting their data in 2021…

For decades, plasma centers have been concentrated largely in impoverished and under-resourced neighborhoods and faced charges of exploitation. In her 2023 book, “Blood Money: The Story of Life, Death, and Profit Inside America’s Blood Industry,” Kathleen McLaughlin explored how plasma centers targeted, among others, laid-off autoworkers in the Rust Belt and communities along the U.S-Mexican border.

The article interprets the findings as even the people who made it to suburbia – often assumed in American society to be wealthier – also feel the financial need to donate plasma.

But I wonder if this is the best way to interpret this. Suburbia is much more complex and diverse than the images of white and wealthier bedroom suburbs in the postwar era. The era of a single earner supporting a growing suburban family is long gone. Across metropolitan regions, a variety of residents live with wealthier communities right next to working-class communities, places with lots of white collar jobs near places with manual labor and working-class jobs.

And what if this is not just about financial need. For Americans of different social classes, what do they see as moral or permissible to sell or do if they need money? What if the perceptions about selling plasma have changed more broadly in American society?

Or what if this is more about expanding markets. If there are already concentrations of plasma centers in lower-income neighborhoods, perhaps this is the next stage of finding more people to donate. The other areas are already saturated; this is a growing industry. The article says there are billions of dollars at stake in the industry.

I have not seen any local suburban concerns about this but I wonder if some communities or leaders or residents see plasma centers as a negative use of land in the kind of community they are in.

Fewer children born in the US affects one of the major reasons given for living in the suburbs

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Multiple intertwined social forces created the American suburbs as we know them today. One factor involves raising children in the suburbs. The suburbs are perceived by many to be the best places to raise children due to their houses, yards, quieter environments compared to the city, good schools, and other amenities. And since Americans often want or expect their children to do better than themselves, the suburbs are the place in which they believe this happens.

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What happens if fewer children are born in the United States? This will not necessarily stop people from living in or wanting to live in the suburbs. But it could change their calculations about where to live or how to live in the suburbs. Some quick examples of how this might play out:

  1. Suburbs are built on the idea of growth: new subdivisions, new activity. If growth slows, communities have a different identity and have to draw on different revenue sources. With less growth, communities shift to maintenance or building in different ways (see #2).
  2. Suburbs have historically prioritized single-family homes as they provide space for nuclear families. But if fewer people need the space and yards of single-family homes (plus the issue of current prices), communities and developers will go for more townhouses and condos.
  3. There is a reduced need for schools. Education is often viewed in the United States as the tool for social advancement. Many suburbs take pride in their schools. Growing suburbs equaled more schools. But fewer kids in the community means fewer enrolled students.
  4. A suburban lifestyle built around kids’ activities and driving them around. The suburbs often require driving kids to school, sports, religious congregations, and more. The driving will not necessarily cease but the era of “Walmart moms” and “soccer moms” might diminish.

Many have complained that the streets of the suburbs are quieter than they used to be because kids are now inside or in organized activities. What if the suburban streets of the future (and schools and playgrounds and park districts and so on) are quiet because there are no kids living in suburbia?

Two quotes illustrating negative suburban responses to the idea of the state overriding local zoning

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Some suburban officials expressed concern regarding Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s suggestion that the State of Illinois should be able to override local zoning. Two quotes from a news story provide some of the justification for the suburban argument. Here is the first quote:

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“Zoning is one of the great protectors we have for investment,” he said. “Zoning is not (there) to exclude. Zoning is to protect.”

Suburbanites have invested money into their homes and zoning helps ensure property values increase/do not drop. Suburban residents like single-family homes, in part because of they view them as sources of wealth. They then can see many other land uses near these homes as threats to those values.

The second quote:

“Our local leaders are best positioned to craft solutions tailored to their residents’ needs,” he said.

Suburbanites also like local control. They can create zoning to prompt development that is consistent with what already exists in the community. They can spend local monies on what residents want. They have more control of local spending, rather than letting others further away spend their monies.

At the same time, do the efforts to protect and retain local control mean that suburban communities limit who might live in their community? Zoning for larger lots will tend to drive up housing values. Keeping zoning (and other matters) under local control means local officials can shape local options. If lots of suburban communities follow these logics, this can limit opportunities.