Tag Archives: suburbs

Trying to revive “obsolete” suburban office parks

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Declining interest in space in suburban office parks means a number of people are looking for ways to use that same space:

A report from the real-estate-service firm NGKF released late last year provides new numbers on an ongoing phenomenon: the slow, agonizing death of the American office park. The report looks at five far-flung office-tenancy submarkets—Santa Clara, in the San Francisco Bay Area; Denver; the O’Hare area of Chicago; Reston and Herndon, outside of Washington, D.C.; and Parsippany, New Jersey—and finds a general aura of decline.

Between 14 and 22 percent of the suburban-office inventory in these areas is, the report found, “in some stage of obsolescence,” suggesting that between 600 million and 1 billion square feet of office space are unnecessary for the modern company and worker. That’s about 7.5 percent of the country’s entire office inventory…

There are models that developers are using to transform older office parks throughout the country, to measured success. They mostly involve turning definitely-suburban office parks into urban-like, albeit still isolated, office “cities.” (It is worth noting that many of these projects involve extensive rezoning efforts.) A facility in the community of Edina, Minnesota, is in the midst of transforming from a sprawling office center into what one local developer called “not your father’s or mother’s office park.” In practice, that means linking the park to 15 miles of bike trails, big-box-store-free retail, and green space. Other developers managing struggling office parks are considering adding farmers’ markets, hotels, and housing.

Such efforts have been going on for a while now whether from New Urbanists trying to introduce mixed uses (office parks are notoriously empty for much of the day outside of business hours) or edge cities trying to diversify their portfolio of uses and revenues (see an example like Tysons Corner). Of course, such efforts require funds and demand for the new or renovated space and it can often be easier for developers and investors to move on to new hot locations or construct all new buildings and properties.

One other idea for these office parks: why not seriously look at converting them into housing? A good amount of the infrastructure would already be present – major roads, utilities, parking lots – and many metropolitan regions are in desperate need of more housing units (particularly affordable ones). Many of these office parks are located in existing job centers so the housing would be convenient for a number of workers. I don’t know what it would cost to renovate office space to residential space but it would be interesting to see some proposals.

Why are Chicago families fleeing for cheaper homes in the suburbs?

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The Chicago Tribune leads with the story of a Chicago family who left the city for a townhouse in River Forest:

Megan Keskitalo and her husband, Glenn Eckstein, were enthusiastic city dwellers until the suburbs began calling. First it was Chicago’s crime, then it was worry about school districts, and in the end, it was money that pushed them past the city’s edge.

After a long search, the parents of two young daughters packed up their $1,300-a-month three-bedroom Lincoln Square apartment and in September paid $286,000 for a three-bedroom town house in River Forest.

“We were looking (in the city), but we couldn’t find anything in our price range, which was under $350,000,” Keskitalo said.

But, just how many Chicago families are doing this? The story sticks to general trends without any numbers:

They aren’t the only ones. While experts say Chicago’s housing market is sizzling — home sales were up about 8.1 percent in Chicago through November of this year, says the Illinois Association of Realtors — not everyone can afford to buy in the city. That’s because home prices are up too…

It’s not unusual for millennials and Generation Xers with children to flee to what real estate experts call “surbans” — walkable, amenity-rich suburbs — once they get married, have kids and are looking for less party and more quiet.

The implication of this article is that families like this are being priced out of Chicago: they might stay if they could find housing in their price range in attractive neighborhoods. Yet, there is a lot more going on here:

  1. The article also says real estate prices are on the rise in Chicago. This is generally seen as a good thing – unless it pushes desirable people, like young white families (or recent college graduates or older long-time city residents) out.
  2. There are real issues of affordable housing in Chicago and the whole region. However, there is often disagreement about who such housing should serve. Should it help keep wealthier residents in a community or serve those with much lower levels of income? Chicago is building plenty of high-end condos but there is not much action on the lower end of the market with affordable units in decent neighborhoods.
  3. This family had particular conditions for where they were willing to live: less crime, good schools, cheaper housing. Overall, they wanted a particular quality of life. They could have found cheaper housing in Chicago but without being willing to compromise on these particular issues, they left for the suburbs.
  4. How much of this is tied to the ongoing process of white flight? This family left a trendy Chicago neighborhood for an established wealthy and white suburb: River Forest is roughly 85% white and the median household income is over $113,000. Again, they could have found cheaper housing in the city (#3 above) if they were willing to live in more places that might not have been as white.

Postwar suburban houses reviewed

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A review of two new books on postwar suburban homes points out some of the idiosyncrasies of the houses:

The one-story ranch loosened its belt and spread out, and the Split Level, that most American hippogriff of house hybrids, took flight. The origins of the split level are murky: it originally offered a small footprint and a means to make better use of sloped northeastern sites. But it soon spread to locations where neither item was a real concern. It was an easy means to reintroduce functional separations that residents soon realized were valuable: locating bedrooms a stairway away from living rooms wasn’t merely Victorian prudishness—it made good sense. Split levels also fueled the rise of that most suburban setting, the rec room, which was usually located in basements or lower levels and almost invariably a more informal children-oriented social space, frequently enabling the relative re-formalization of the main living room.That suburban building sited homes on big lots is not news, but what is worth noting, as Lane points out, is how the houses were designed in relation to those lots. The formal and inward-oriented facades of pre-war homes gave way to houses whose facades were dominated by the living room picture window, affording a glimpse not merely of one’s own yard but those of your neighbors. As Lane comments, “The windows looked out on the new landscapes that formed around them and also enhanced the perception of spaciousness so much desired by this generation.” The scenography was often repetitive, but it was open: As John Updike commented in Rabbit Redux, “now the view from any window is as into a fragmented mirror, of houses like this, telephone wires and television aerials showing where the glass cracked.”…

Distinctive design was rarest from the larger builders, but similar trends characterized a very wide swath of construction, despite an often complicated level of agency. Jacobs cites a National Association of Home Builders study in 1959 indicating that 38.3 percent of builders designed their own homes, 34 percent used a contract or in-house architect, 12 percent hired a designer of some sort, and 6 percent purchased blueprints through a commercial service. Countless independent and uncoordinated actors who end up producing a similar monotony is unfortunately often the story of America.

And my favorite part of this review:

Suburban building has long been reviled by sociologists and ignored by architects. As Lane comments, “scholarship has been delayed and disturbed by decades of neglect and dislike.” Some of that neglect and dislike is warranted: it’s hard to find all that much architectural distinction in the vast majority of suburban homes. Their general interchangeability discourages the kind of design interest that has given us many monographs on vernacular rowhouses and bungalows and only a handful on the ranch home. There are countless books on a dozen homes in New Canaan, Connecticut, but almost no books on the remaining thousands of homes there; that balance is mainly right—and yet.

Simply the sheer number of homes built in the decades after World War II meant that these design choices would be influential. With a massive housing shortage building up through the Great Depression and World War II, homes were needed quickly and the existing economic, political, social, and design forces led to these particular kinds of homes.

But, as a suburban scholar I agree that such homes have either gotten little attention or have been reviled. These homes were incredibly influential, even if they weren’t true Modernist structures or deviated too much from existing vernacular designs or weren’t designed by architects but rather were mass-produced. Much of the scholarship and commentary on these postwar homes is done from a critical, after-the-fact angle and with an implicit alternative vision of how an urbanized America might have turned out. There is some truth in all of these critiques: these suburban communities were racist (in that non-whites were typically not welcome), initially had particular visions of gender roles and family life, promoted consumerism and driving, and took up a lot of land without much thought of the consequences. At the same time, millions of Americans enjoyed their new homes and the opportunities that came with them.

A McMansion has been part of the American Dream for a while

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Teen Vogue suggests the historic American Dream involves a McMansion:

The mythic American Dream, defined by the wordsmiths at Merriam-Webster, is an “American social ideal that stresses egalitarianism and especially material prosperity.” We all know what that social ideal has looked like historically: a 9-5 job, two cars, two kids, and one McMansion complete with a white picket fence. It’s what your parents, grandparents, and probably even great-great-grandparents aspired to (though they probably didn’t use the term McMansion in the’50s — McDonalds was still at novelty back then).

But according a new poll conducted by Harvard’s Institute of Politics, 48% of millennials believe the American idyll is dead. More than 2,000 young Americans between 18 and 29 years old were interviewed about the government, the military, the future of the country, and the collective outlook on the future is…not great!

The caveat in the first paragraph may be important: people in the 1950s didn’t use the term McMansion as it didn’t really become widely used until the late 1990s (and yes, the Mc- prefix also wouldn’t have made much sense). But, did those post-war suburbanites really aspire to a McMansion, often defined as an overly large, poorly built home sitting on a small lot within the sprawling suburbs? Not really. Many of those early suburban single-family homes were quite modest in size. The Levittown homes were around 1,000 square feet and could even be purchased with unfinished second levels. In comparison, today’s new homes are roughly 2.5 times the size of the average new homes of the early 1950s. Many post-war suburban homes were mass produced but they weren’t considered garish or ostentatious. Were these new suburban homes better than many of the other housing options after World War II? Yes and there was indeed a real housing shortage. But, it is a real stretch to claim the American Dream always included a Mediterranean inspired 3,000 square foot home tightly packed into a small lot in a gated neighborhood.

Questioning “the barbecue effect” as city residents travel more each year

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One European researcher wanted to explain why city residents travel more kilometers each year than suburbanites:

Why do city dwellers so urgently need to get away? Statistics show that they cover a large number of kilometers in their free time, often travelling much longer distances than suburban residents. What are they after? And what is the energy cost? Research carried out at EPFL shows that, rather than making up for a supposed lack of green space, city dwellers also seek the density of other cities or the company of friends and family. And despite the distances they cover, their carbon footprint is lower than that of suburban residents. And for good reason: they use public transports more and cars less.

These conclusions contradict a hypothesis commonly advanced to explain the large number of kilometers covered by city dwellers: to enjoy nature and some quiet time, things not available at home. Under this same hypothesis, people who live in suburban areas are thought to take advantage of their surroundings and therefore do not need to get away in order to grill some sausages or build a snowman. This is referred to as the ‘barbecue effect’ or ‘offsetting effect.’ This explanation runs counter to the concept of the compact city that, from the transport perspective, should translate into lower per-capita energy use than in more sprawling cities.

Sébastien Munafò, a researcher in the Urban Sociology Laboratory, wanted to challenge the barbecue effect and made it the subject of his thesis. He took two cities, Geneva and Zurich, and divided them into three sectors: downtown, inner suburbs and outer suburbs. He then analyzed the daily and occasional comings and goings of residents, using figures from the “Mobility and Transport Microcensus” that is carried out every five years by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office. When it comes to daily commuting, no surprises: urbanites don’t go far – nearly everything is close by – while suburban dwellers rack up the kilometers…

“The barbecue effect implies that one does not freely choose where one lives and that city dwellers find themselves prisoners of unpleasant surroundings,” said Sébastien. “But in most cases, city living is very expensive. Those who live there are thus making a choice, one that offers advantages as well.” This means people decide where to live as a function of their lifestyle: the suburbs for those who like to be close to nature, or the city for those who prefer its density and diversity. And having a little patch of green nearby doesn’t keep urbanites from travelling extensively, because in the end that is also part of their lifestyle. “One could say that there is an urbanity effect: the more we live in cities, the more regularly we move around, the more comfortable we are travelling, and the better access we have to reliable means of transportation,” concludes the researcher.

Two quick thoughts:

  1. It would be very interesting to see whether this holds up across cities and countries. For example, the researcher suggests city living is quite expensive in Switzerland (and generally elsewhere in Europe) and this means residents are wealthier. In the United States, there are definitely wealthier city residents but large cities are also the places where many of the poorest neighborhoods are located and the lack of resources severely limits travel.
  2. I would be in favor of more theories or mechanisms having clever names like “the barbecue effect.” It is probably too colloquial for many researchers but it is more accessible to the public. Plus, it invokes food and this can’t be a bad thing.

American exurbs continue to grow

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Joel Kotkin points out that despite claims to the contrary, the exurbs are growing:

We first noticed a takeoff in suburban growth in 2013, following a stall-out in the Great Recession. This year research from Brookings confirms that peripheral communities — the newly minted suburbs of the 1990s and early 2000s — are growing more rapidly than denser, inner ring areas.

Peripheral, recent suburbs accounted for roughly 43% of all U.S. residences in 2010. Between July 2013 and July 2014, core urban communities lost a net 363,000 people overall, Brookings demographer Bill Frey reports, as migration increased to suburban and exurban counties. The biggest growth was in exurban areas, or the “suburbiest” places on the periphery…

Far from being doomed, exurbia is turning into something very different from the homogeneous and boring places portrayed in media accounts. For one thing exurbs are becoming increasingly ethnically diverse. In the decade that ended in 2010 the percentage of suburbanites living in “traditional” largely white suburbs fell from 51% to 39%.  According to a 2014 University of Minnesota report, in the 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas, 44% of residents live in racially and ethnically diverse suburbs, defined as between 20% and 60% non-white.

And how about the seniors, a group that pundits consistently claim to be heading back to the city? In reality, according to an analysis of Census data, as seniors age they’re increasingly unlikely to move, but if they do, they tend to move out of urban cores as they reach their 60s, and to less congested, often more affordable areas out in the periphery. Seniors are seven times more likely to buy a suburban house than move to a more urban location. A National Association of Realtors survey found that the vast majority of buyers over 65 looked in suburban areas, followed by rural locales.

This article throws out a lot of reasons why they might want to do this: wanting to own a single-family home, wanting more space (both in the home and in the community), feeling part of a smaller community, sending their kids to good schools, having communities with low crime, and accessing plenty of available jobs. Put another way, the exurbs have downsides but enough Americans consistently seem to want to live on the metropolitan fringe.

At the end, Kotkin suggests that planners and others need to own up to this reality: cities cannot provide these desirable traits. I wonder if that is the case; is the answer that it is either dense inner cities or sprawling exurbs? I think many cities and closer suburbs would want to be able to claim the positives cited above. And there are likely many pockets where this is possible even if not all residents of major cities have these advantages. But, instead of trying to suggest that all people should get used to dense city life or exurban life, why not look for more ways to enhance opportunities throughout an entire region? Perhaps it is a problem of government layers as every community looks out for their own interests first. Or perhaps this is still impossible in a country where race and social class matter tremendously for the kinds of places where people live. Rather than suggest Americans want to live in a certain kind of setting, we need solutions to issues in a variety of communities throughout metropolitan regions (and beyond).

Does sprawl contribute to difficulty for adults in making friends?

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One writer suggests the suburbs and their isolated spaces reduce the opportunities for friendship:

But when we marry and start a family, we are pushed, by custom, policy, and expectation, to move into our own houses. And when we have kids, we find ourselves tied to those houses. Many if not most neighborhoods these days are not safe for unsupervised kid frolicking. In lower-income areas there are no sidewalks; in higher-income areas there are wide streets abutted by large garages. In both cases, the neighborhoods are made for cars, not kids. So kids stay inside playing Xbox, and families don’t leave except to drive somewhere…

One is living in a real place, with shared public spaces, around which one can move relatively safely. It seems like a simple thing, but such places are rare even in the cities where they exist. (I live in North Seattle, undoubtedly coded as urban for census purposes, but my walkshed is pretty lame. Meanwhile, a few miles south of me they’re building million-dollar single-family homes square in the middle of a perfect walkshed, right across from the zoo.)

A robust walkshed is an area in which a community of people regularly mingles doing errands, walking their dogs, playing in the parks, going to school and work, etc. Ideally, cities would be composed of clusters of such walksheds, connected by good public transit…

Both these alternatives — walkable communities and co-housing — likely sound exotic to American ears. Thanks to shifting baselines, most Americans only know single-family dwellings and auto-dependent land use. They cannot even articulate what they are missing and often misidentify the solution as more or different private consumption.

Five quick thoughts:

  1. There is a lot of emphasis on the nuclear family in the United States, whether in suburbs or other areas. This could be contrasted with other societies that place more emphasis on multigenerational households or living near extended families.
  2. You don’t necessarily have to be in a city to have public spaces or walksheds like these. Many Americans express a preference for small towns and these communities can often be tight knit. Or, you could have denser areas in suburbs that have such public spaces.
  3. The article argues that college is a good example of what can happen when people are put in close proximity. I would argue that college is a very unusual outlier for many Americans where they are forced (they pay for this too) to live in close proximity and then spread out as soon as they get a chance. In fact, many college students try to get out of dorms ASAP while many others are commuters. The residential college experience is not one everyone experiences and it is an unusual setting for relationships.
  4. The broader American emphasis on individualism makes friendships more difficult regardless of public spaces. Think of the frontier or pioneer mentality or our current celebration of mavericks and solo entrepreneurs. Did Steve Jobs need friends? Would Americans have fulfilled their Manifest Destiny if they had stayed in their neighborhoods or small towns?
  5. Does the data back this up? What if Americans are satisfied with their friendships? Does the number of close friends differ by spatial context? This argument is made via anecdote but there are plenty of surveys that ask about friendships. For example, here is a simple table with GSS data on how much satisfaction Americans get from their friendships by spatial context:

GSSSatfrndBYXnorcsiz

The differences in this table are not large but this incomplete analysis suggests people from smaller communities derive more satisfaction from their friendships.

Has the situation in France’s suburbs improved?

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As volatility drew attention to French suburbs in the last decade, this article asks whether life there is now improved.

President Francois Hollande paid a rare visit to one of the infamous “banlieues” this week — Courneuve, north of Paris — where he vowed that under the egalitarian principles of the French Republic, “no areas are left behind.”…

“This could explode once again, because the social injustices are still there and there is a deep hopelessness among the young,” warned Mehdi Bigaderne, the 32-year-old deputy mayor of Clichy-sous-Bois, the Paris suburb where the 2005 riots began and then spread to other parts of the country…

But many see the changes as cosmetic. It can still take an hour and 40 minutes to reach Paris even though the capital lies just 15 kilometres (nine miles) away…

One official report found unemployment was 23 percent in the suburbs, compared to nine percent countrywide, in 2013. Among people aged 15 to 24, the figure rose to 42 percent.

Experts say the problems of the “banlieues” have deep roots, one of which is urban planning.

In other words, solutions to this require extended work rather than quick platitudes or actions that don’t address the deeper issues. But, are citizens in these metropolitan areas truly interested in promoting the welfare of all? How serious are different levels of government about addressing the issues? Is promoting better urban planning enough of a solution? This will be worth watching for quite a while to see if conditions improve.

Allowing suburban residents only two garage sales a year

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Suburban homeowners must protect their interests, from policing Halloween decorations to limiting the number of garage sales at one address:

Wheaton residents may soon be limited to hosting only two garage sales per year, each for a maximum of two days.

The Wheaton City Council reviewed a proposed ordinance Monday that would modify the city’s existing garage sale regulations.

“There are some homes in the city where people have stuff out on their lawn every weekend throughout the year, or at least throughout the summer months,” said Councilman John Prendiville. “The neighborhoods are becoming a little bit upset with that, they think it is hurting the enjoyment of their property.”

City Manager Don Rose added that this summer has been “different,” with the number of “almost continuous garage sales, taking up the name of hoarder sales” becoming problematic in several neighborhoods.

What exactly does “hurting the enjoyment of their property” mean? Perhaps it is referring to enjoying nature on the front lawn, whether through using the space or having a clear sight line from house or porch to other areas. Perhaps this is generating some extra noise and blocking sidewalks or parking along the street. But, what it really probably means is that homeowners are worried about their property values. What does it look like if neighbors consistently have things for sale in their driveway or front lawn? It looks lower class and less desirable. It is suggestive of commercial establishments or of neighbors who constantly need money. All of this could translate to less value.

At the same time, I’d be interested to hear how a suburban community would enforce this guideline. Will people have to officially register their garage sale? Will police officers start a database? Will neighbors be able to take time-stamped photos of illegal garage sales and turn this in as evidence?

Time of year for HOAs to crack down on holiday decorations

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As Halloween decorations emerge, homeowner’s associations are back to patrolling displays. See this example in Naperville:

After neighbors complained to the Ashbury Homeowners Association board about the traffic and noise created by the celebrated house decorations, the group installed rules that thwarted Thomas’ plans.

“I am disappointed,” said Thomas, who has lived in the 1100 block of Conan Doyle Road in south Naperville for 21 years and has decorated his house for the past 18 years. “For a lot of people, the house has become a tradition and it is something people look forward to.”

Thomas’ display has grown over the years, and now includes over 2,000 pieces with lights and synchronized music. Visitors to the cul-de-sac have also grown — he estimates about 8,000 people visited last year alone — which is why neighbors raised concerns about traffic and safety with the Ashbury Homeowners Association board.

The board notified neighbors via its October newsletter that a “Holiday Decorations Rule” was voted on and passed at its Sept. 21 board meeting. The rule limits a person’s decorations to 50 percent of the yard, excluding lights, and restricts the display to 30 days before and after the holiday.

I can see both sides to this story. The homeowner may be asking why the association is now instituting these rules. He has had displays for years; why now? The HOA might say that the displays keep growing and attracting thousands of people disrupts the neighborhood. On the other side, suburban residents tend to prefer quiet streets and neighbors that don’t draw negative attention to themselves (even if they are raising some money for charity). The owner could respond that these are just temporary decorations. The final guidelines may be reasonable: a homeowner could still do a lot with 50 percent of their yard and thirty days before and after provides around 60 days for the displays.

To avoid issues such as these, wouldn’t homeowners associations be better off having such guidelines on their books from the beginning or before such situations arise where single owners feel like they are being singled out? Associations are often pilloried for having silly rules on their books but they can help cut off situations such as these.