This is how the suburbs die

The Week ^ | 1/21/206 | Michael Brendan Dougherty

[ek_hornbeck]

In 1974, corporate behemoth GE moved its headquarters from Manhattan to the suburban Fairfield, Connecticut. Last week, it announced that it was leaving Fairfield for Boston's waterfront district. And as GE goes, it has people wondering whether the suburbs are going to lose their economic lifeblood.

Mad Men reminded us that mid-century advertising executives worked in the heart of Manhattan, but slowly began their retreat to the burbs as crime exploded in New York City. The corporate offices followed them and their growing families in the 1970s and 1980s.

[TexasFreeper2009]

quote “The only declining suburbs are the ones that happened to have lower property values for various reasons and have undergone massive demographic changes as poor urban former slum dwellers swept in and brought their crime and gangs with them.”

This is exactly the suburbs the article is referencing.

And as that process accelerates, those nice safe suburbs schools and neighborhoods will start to be infested one by one as the poor sweep in. The oldest and worst maintained suburbs will be hit first, the ones primarily built in the 50’s and 60’s. And once those go they will start to negatively affect the nearby nicer/newer neighborhoods and more importantly the schools that they attend along with the children from nicer newer neighborhoods.

The process is inevitable and has been ongoing for all of history.

Poor people have to live somewhere. And they will ALWAYS live in the cheapest areas.

Just look at the real estate listings in nearly ANY mid to large size city in America and you will easily see the cheapest homes are in the original suburbs which ringed the downtown areas. And the next cheapest ones are the the next ring built in the 60’s and 70’s. The homes in the inner ring are in such poor shape they are mostly being bulldozed and replaced with new homes, while the former commercial and industrial buildings near the inner city are being converted into high end lofts.

All the people who have been living in these newly “gentrified” areas HAVE to live somewhere, and they will start moving to the secondary rings of 60’s and 70’s suburbs as they get priced out of the core and inner ring of original suburbs.

[miss marmelstein]

For everyone who escapes the city (I escaped for a short while not because of ghetto types but because I was tired of walking 30 blocks for a broom), more and more people are either returning to it or retiring to it. No car, no car insurance, no property taxes if you rent. The best emergency rooms and doctors galore. It’s great, take my word.

[NorthMountain]

That is until the SHTF.

And now we get to the heart of the matter.

[x]

I don’t think the suburbs are dying...I think of it more as concentric rings around the city. When the first ring becomes old, the streets fall apart, the neighbors become lousy, etc, people who can leave do just that - and move to a secondary ring.

True, but it can also work the other way. Overbuild miles outside the city and you could have trouble finding buyers and that leads to decay as well.

Plus, it can be hard to tell where the city ends and the suburbs begin. Some "inner suburbs" have the advantages people are looking for from the city, lower taxes than the city, and a lot of wealthy residents. I don't think they'll just roll over and play dead.