Tag Archives: suburbs

29% of suburban residents are renters

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A new study of the 11 biggest American cities finds that an increasing number of suburbanites rent:

About 29 percent of suburbanites living outside the nation’s 11 most populous cities were renters in 2014, up from 23 percent in 2006, according to a report released Tuesday by New York University’s Furman Center real estate think tank and the bank Capital One.

The finances of home ownership since the mortgage meltdown might be a lead reason for the change, but the cost of renting also is rising in most of the biggest metropolitan areas, the study found…

Renters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Traditionally, suburbs have not been very open to renters, particularly when it comes to apartments. The stereotypes of renters are that they care less about the community, they are more transient, and that their dwellings drive down housing values. But, two major things changed that could contribute to the effects of the economic crisis:

  1. What if more new renters are renting single-family homes rather than apartments? The same stereotypes regarding renters might still apply but these renters are not as easy to spot and look like they are living the suburban dream of homeownership. Plus, isn’t having renters in single-family home preferable to all the vacant homes due to foreclosures?
  2. There are more suburbs than people often think that don’t look like wealthy bedroom communities. In other words, these renters might be clustered in particular communities where housing is cheaper and apartments are more plentiful but renting in wealthier suburbs may not have changed much.

It will be interesting to see how suburban communities respond to the uptick in renters. New regulations? Reconsideration of how renters should be viewed?

“Eager to Move to the City, but Stranded in the Suburbs”

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The New York Times recently profiled a number of suburbanites who would prefer to live in the big city but can’t because of high housing prices:

Like many others in her sociological cohort these days — men and women whose children are grown and who want to trade those unused rooms in Tudor- and Victorian-style houses, as well as the steep suburban property taxes, for the city’s excitement and convenience — Ms. Fomerand finds herself stranded in the suburbs.

These empty-nesters have reaped the benefits of the suburbs: They sent their children to excellent public schools and raised them in safety and comfort, in backyards, playrooms and cul-de-sacs. And their houses have increased nicely in value. Now they would like to find apartments with doormen and elevators so they don’t have to climb stairs, shovel snow and schlep packages. They want a place where they can “age in place,” as the phrase goes. But they are finding that in the past 15 years, prices for such apartments in Manhattan and Brooklyn have risen far more than the values of their suburban homes, so much that they may never make it back to living in the city they always thought they would return to. Instead, they end up staying in their houses, or downsizing to smaller suburban homes or apartments.

To be sure, this is a problem largely felt by the comfortable: New Yorkers who have had the luck and income to live where they choose, who have had the luxury of planning and expecting a certain lifestyle when they grow older. These people could live less expensively in other cities, but often their family, friends and work are here, and they don’t want to leave the area.

“This is one of the most commonly discussed issues,” said Mark A. Nadler, director of Westchester sales for Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices. “People will say, ‘Yes, I’m moving to the city,’ but unless they’re wealthy, they end up resigning themselves to staying in the suburbs.”

Two quick thoughts in reaction to this piece.

  1. Those profiled in this story generally want to move to Manhattan or Brooklyn. Why don’t they consider moving to other parts of New York City? Underlying this could be continued ideas about what areas of New York City are desirable, safe, and more white. It is not really whether they can move to the city at all; it is more about whether they can move to the trendy neighborhoods in which they would prefer to live.
  2. There is only brief mention of affordable housing in a piece that is largely about housing prices. At the same time, this is kind of an odd note to hit; New York City prices are too high because a number of older suburbanites cannot find affordable housing in the city. If you want to talk about housing prices and affordable housing, why not highlight the less wealthy in the region who could truly benefit from such a move to the city (as opposed to doing so as a lifestyle choice)? Too often, stories about affordable housing highlight empty-nesters and downsizers (often alongside young professionals) – probably the sorts of people cities would love to have – rather than consistently examining the lives of lower-class residents.

Opposition to a proposed mosque in suburban Palos Park

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A group wants to convert a former church into a mosque in Palos Park and has encountered opposition:

An anonymous flier circulated in mailboxes and online this month decried plans to open a mosque and community center at the site of a former church in this southwest suburb, roughly a mile from the home of 72-year-old Omar Najib, who intends to pray there.

The Muslim American Society bought the property at 12300 S. 80th Ave. in December and plans to do minor maintenance at the site, with no opening day scheduled yet. The leaflet titled “Save Palos” accused the house of worship of threatening to erode housing values and congest traffic…

Opposition to new mosques has become “almost a given” in the Chicago area as well as throughout the country, a brand of Islamophobia often shrouded in concerns over zoning or urban planning, said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, based in Washington, D.C.

Residents in Bayonne, N.J., rallied last month against plans for a Muslim community center there, bearing signs that read “Stop the Mosque” and “If the Mosque Comes the Mayor Go’s” (sic). Around the same time, members of a Christian group spoke out against a mosque scheduled to open this spring at the site of a former South Milwaukee, Wis., church. In late November, tempers also flared at a forum over an Islamic center proposed in Fredericksburg, Va.

Even as mosques and other non-Christian religious buildings have become more common in the Chicago suburbs, they still occasionally encounter opposition. See earlier posts about mosques and opposition here, here, here, and here. That there are national discussions about Muslims and ongoing conflict with Muslim groups only adds to typical NIMBY concerns from suburbanites.

One hurdle that new religious groups can encounter are local governments which may or may not support their groups. The end of this particular article suggests the mayor of Palos Park “immediately condemned the anonymous leaflet as cowardly.” Yet, would the local government feel the same way if a vocal and sizable portion of the community rallied against the new mosque and community center?

Balkanized suburbs and declining local revenues

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A story about several suburbs outside Philadelphia highlights a problem facing many suburban communities: how can they counter declining revenues when residents and businesses move away?

Pennsylvania’s Delaware County is a crazy quilt of municipalities. Just to the west of Philadelphia, it is home to some of the oldest suburban communities in America. It is dense, with more than half a million people packed into townships and boroughs as small as a half square mile. Such tight confines can make governance difficult under any but the best conditions.

If a neighborhood starts to change in a way its middle-class residents don’t like, they can move a few miles to a newer house, a better school district, and lower property taxes. The communities they leave behind are faced with the impossible math of declining revenues, rising taxes, and an increasingly needy population…

But Hepkins’ most attainable plan is his ongoing effort to lash Yeadon together more tightly with its neighboring municipalities. He dreams of creating a non-profit 311 call center that could cover the six eastern Delaware County municipalities served by the William Penn School District. This centralized office could connect residents with immigration, veteran, and senior services…

The mayors of Lansdowne and East Lansdowne have been receptive to Hepkins’ advances, but his other three counterparts are hesitant. Even if the local politicians do overcome their own parochial interests, it’s an open question how much resource-sharing between six struggling municipalities would accomplish. A system incorporating the region’s more prosperous communities would be far more advantageous, akin to the revenue-sharing policies utilized in the Twin Cities metro region. But nothing like that is being seriously discussed in the Philadelphia area.

Several thoughts come to mind:

  1. This is a reminder that suburbia is much more diverse than the standard image of white and wealthy communities. Suburbs have increasing numbers of non-white and poor residents and there are various types of suburban communities ranging from bedroom suburbs to industrial centers.
  2. Local governments are often very reliant on property taxes. And Pennsylvania has a lot of local taxing bodies though it trails Illinois. Thus, suburban communities are very interested in wealthier residents as well as businesses that can bring in money through property taxes and sales tax revenue. This creates a kind of competition that is difficult for everyone to win.
  3. A number of metropolitan regions and urban communities in the United States have considered ways to band together to tackle common economic and social issues. This can be hard to do because one of the features people like about the suburbs is having more local control. Moving local revenues to another community – even if it is needed or might benefit the region as a whole – can be a hard sell, particularly in better off suburban communities.

I suspect we’ll see more and more stories like this in the years to come.

Bringing food waste recycling to the suburbs

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The next step in recycling may be coming to a suburb near you:

So far, food scrap collection programs have been voluntary. But starting in May 2017, it will be mandatory in Highwood, a first in Illinois. Several towns in Lake County and other suburbs have or will have some option to recycle food scraps this year.

“We’re going to be trend setters, I like to think,” said Adrian Marquez, assistant to the Highwood city manager. “We know this is going to be big test.”…

U.S. residents throw away up to 40 percent of their food, which amounted to more than 35 million tons in 2013, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported…

With an overall recycling rate of 48 percent but a goal of diverting 60 percent of waste from landfills by 2020, Lake County has emerged as a regional leader in residential food scrap collection. That diversion rate is priming Lake County’s effort, but DuPage, Will, Cook, and Kane counties also are promoting food composting as municipal hauling contracts go to bid or are renegotiated, Allen said.

This article leaves me with a number of questions:

  1. When the program is mandatory as opposed to voluntary, what does that mean? Residents have to participate as opposed to not participate?
  2. I assume this is more effective in the long run in encouraging participation and disposing of more food waste but are there numbers to back this up? As noted, some people have composted for years; is that a viable alternative to promote in suburbs or are very few people willing to go to that trouble?
  3. Is being the first to this a marker of a particular quality of life in some suburbs? In other words, do communities want to participate partly because it signals something important about what their community values?

It will be interesting to see if this does become the new normal within a few years.

Regulating sex businesses in the suburbs

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Many suburbs want nothing to do with strip clubs and similar businesses so they employ several methods to discourage them:

Warren is running into something that has plagued businesses dealing in sex for decades. Local governments — and the officials elected to govern them — don’t want these businesses around, according to Judith Hanna, a professor at the University of Maryland.

Hanna has testified as an expert witness in more than 150 court cases involving sexually oriented businesses. She even wrote a book about her experiences…

The majority of the cases she testified for involve strip clubs, which Supreme Court rulings protect because of First Amendment rights…

Menelaos Triantafillou, a professor at the University of Cincinnati who teaches courses in planning and urban design, explains: “The only thing you can regulate is not the use itself,” he said, “but the specific location.”

Local governments typically allow these businesses to exist in industrial areas. Restrictions are placed on how close they can be to other establishments such as schools and day cares.

In the particular case discussed in this article, the community is working hard to make a swingers club go away. But, it sounds like they are making it up as they go to appease voters as several local officials have privately supported the new business.

Perhaps an alternative strategy is in order. Zoning is a big deal in suburbs as they get to keep uses that limit endanger property values or a high quality of life away from single-family homes. But, zoning can only do so much. Yet, communities can make it clear that certain businesses are not welcome. While suburbs often welcome new businesses (they provide jobs, property tax revenue, perhaps sales tax revenue), couldn’t they also make it hard for the new business to make money? I’m thinking bad publicity, protests, no invitations to the local chamber of commerce and local events.

Anger at idea that suburban taxpayers should bail out Chicago Public Schools

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The city-suburb divide can often be quite wide (and require therapy to overcome) and John Kass illustrates another dimension of this chasm:

In today’s angry class war politics, if you’re a suburban taxpayer in a blue state like Illinois, you might get the feeling you’ve done something wrong. But all you’ve really done is work your tail off and go without to take care of your family.

You might miss the city and ache for it, or you may be indifferent, but either way, you know you’re out there. My wife and I know. We did it for the kids. To send them to good, safe public schools. And many of you have done the same…

But the Democratic bosses of Illinois just told you that you’re going to pay some more, to bail them out of the fiscal mess they made of CPS…

But we don’t feel like bailing out a corrupt Chicago system that won’t change the way it does business.

This echoes one of the underlying reasons many Americans left cities in the first place: they didn’t want to pay/take responsibility/be party to/live near urban problems. The move to the suburbs was intended to provide a better home for their families and to pay taxes to a local government that could be more responsive to their own interests. And this move to the suburbs – particularly by wealthier white residents – left many cities in difficult situations with declining tax bases.

Does it matter that this argument is made in Illinois where political corruption is common? Arguably, taxpayers in Illinois should be suspicious of how all of their local and state tax dollars are used. Or, would typical suburbanites never want to contribute their hard-earned money to the city unless forced (and regardless of how well the money is used)? I suspect the second statement is fairly common among suburbanites – “my tax dollars should go to my community rather to other communities” – and this tends to get most loudly expressed when regional or metropolitan plans are suggested.

The unusual development of Rosemont, Illinois

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Rosemont is a different kind of suburb and the Daily Herald sums up its unique growth over 60 years:

Before it was an entertainment and business mecca of the suburbs, Rosemont was an oft-flooded swampy area with pothole-ridden, unpaved roads, no streetlights and taverns that became hangouts for the mob…

Today, the 2.5-square-mile town on the edge of O’Hare International Airport has 4,200 residents — many of whom live in a close-knit gated community and are employed by the village. But what drives Rosemont’s economy is its estimated 100,000 visitors a day, drawn to the town’s 14 hotels, a shopping mall, offices and village-owned venues including a stadium, theater, convention center and entertainment district…

Almost from the beginning, Rosemont linked itself to O’Hare, which was on its way to becoming the world’s busiest airport. As other suburban towns fought airplane noise and expansion plans, Stephens was feeding off it…

In 1958, Stephens brokered a deal with Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley for access to Chicago water in exchange for a 162-foot-wide strip of Foster Avenue that would allow the city to connect to O’Hare. Rosemont got the right to 4 million gallons of water per day at Chicago rates.

Three features strike me as consequential in this story: (1) geographic proximity to O’Hare Airport; (2) a unique vision from the Stephens family who has largely been able to guide the community; and (3) the success the suburb has had in attracting businesses and visitors. Many suburbs would like to have some of the features that Rosemont has today – particularly the regular visitors who bring tax dollars into the local coffers – yet all of those same features – a convention center, an arena, proximity to O’Hare, years of seeking out a casino – would not fit the character of many communities nor would they necessarily all come together.

In other words, a suburb like this is rare as not every suburban community can develop an entertainment base and have it pay off. (Unfortunately, this article doesn’t delve much into the suburb’s finances. How much debt is there? What is the local tax rate? What happens if one of these major centers or projects crashes?) The lesson to be learned here may be that this is a rare suburb in the Chicago region and it cannot be easily emulated.

Therapy for those making the city to suburb move

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For families that are having a hard time leaving the city behind, the move to the suburbs can be easier if others help:

People move for many reasons. Brokers, however, see a familiar thread: Couples move to the suburbs after having kids. And, as people marry later and live in the city longer, moving becomes more than just packing. Mentally and emotionally, experts say, people wrestle with changing from city dweller to suburbanite.

“I see this all the time with my practice,” said David Klow, owner of Skylight Counseling Center, which has offices in Chicago and Skokie. “Where we live gives us a sense of identity.”

Swapping city life for the suburbs is different from moving to another town or neighborhood. Real estate agents say city-to-suburbs folks often need special hand-holding…

In September, Alison Bernstein launched Suburban Jungle in Chicago, which she started after moving from New York City to the surrounding area and feeling lost on which neighborhood would best fit her family. The company’s sole purpose is helping families transition from, for example, Lincoln Park to Lake Forest. Employees meet with shoppers, aiming to best match a town to their personality. They connect clients to suburb experts and locals at no cost, taking a commission from the sale.

“Our job is literally 98 percent therapy and not real estate,” Bernstein said. “It’s like, ‘Am I making the right move?’ It’s a lot of stress, and it’s a big change.”

Even as Americans move quite a bit (see evidence here and here), it can be a stressful process. However, two things strike me about this particular article:

  1. All the people cited here are on the higher end of the socioeconomic spectrum. The moves invoked include going from Lincoln Park to Hinsdale or Lake Forest. These are people who can afford to use a company like Suburban Jungle.
  2. Some of the fear of the suburban life might be driven by negative stereotypes of the suburbs. Some of these may have some truth – such as having fewer entertainment spots in the suburbs – but the typical suburban critiques (which have a long history dating back nearly a century) present a very one-sided view.

All together, being able to move to these kinds of suburban communities – wealthy, safe, good schools, clean, high property values – would be a dream for many people. On the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum, people often move to the suburbs seeking necessities such as work or cheaper housing but can end up in suburbs that have many problems that cities feature.

More Chicago suburbs hiring staff

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Perhaps this is another sign of a more positive economy (and more tax dollars): some suburban governments are hiring again.

According to a Daily Herald analysis of 61 suburbs, 31 of them added the equivalent of 139 full-time jobs during the fiscal year that ended April 30, 2015, for most suburbs and Dec. 31, 2014, for others.

But 16 suburbs eliminated the equivalent of 46 full-time jobs and 14 towns held the line on the head count from the previous year, the analysis of the suburbs’ most recent audits show…

Still, the vast majority of towns are operating with much smaller staffs than just a few years ago. At its peak seven years ago, employment by the 61 towns was nearly 10 percent higher with the equivalent of 13,251 full-time jobs, compared to a low point of 11,977 full-time equivalent positions two years ago, according to the analysis…

According to the analysis of the audits, the 61 towns in suburban Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties first saw significant job reductions in 2010, when they reduced their workforces by 3.8 percent.

While this analysis is interesting, more background might be helpful. Suburban governments today have to balance efficiency (meaning keeping tax increases small or cutting the budget) and quality of life (the suburban life that many of the residents who moved to the community want to continue and enhance). This is not easy to do; residents tend to want more for their money and many might be convinced that government can always cut waste (or at least cut the money they don’t personally care about or benefit from). But, at some point, employees are needed.

This article suggests that a number of the new hires in suburban communities are part-time employees to limit the benefits costs. I’d be interested to see data on whether having more part-time employees in local government leads to better service and community outcomes.