Americans Moving Back Into Suburbs

[H. Ross Peron]

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303749904579576440578771478?mod=WSJ_hp_RightTopStories&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303749904579576440578771478.html%3Fmod%3DWSJ_hp_RightTopStories

This is unfortunate, although I wouldn't mind it as much if it meant a revival of the inner suburbs (which in many cases are doing worse than the gentrifying inner cities-just look at Compton, Downey, or Norwalk in Greater LA) rather than the continued growth of the abominable exurbs.

[Seattle]

Not in Seattle, thank goodness!

If only more states required comprehensive plans and urban growth boundaries...

[DC Al Fine]

There's been a lot of this in my city. People are starting to realise that short commutes and access to public transportation are desirable.

[Hatman 🍁]

There's been a lot of this in my city. People are starting to realise that short commutes and access to public transportation are desirable.

The OP is suggesting the opposite, actually. But I think in Canada, there is still somewhat of a trend of people moving into the city, at least to live in condos. But the suburbs (and even worse, exurbs) are continuing to grow.

[Padfoot]

Although the suburbs around Columbus are still growing at a fairly strong click, there has been a huge resurgence in the population of the city's inner core.  We have a ton of new high-end apartment buildings going up in and around downtown.  I guess we are more of an exception to the rule though.

[Torie]

I read on the plane a fascinating article in The Economist about the improvement in many inner city areas of the UK, and deterioration of places further out, including rural areas. That is happening in New York, as the poor dependent on transfer payments move out of NYC to cheaper locales, where their transfer payment stipends buy more good and services. Vermont now has a massive heroin epidemic. Troy, New York, I am told, has become a real "pit," as it becomes a pit stop as it were for this kind of population moving in.

[traininthedistance]

Ew.  That's sad.

Guess I'll try to add a tiny bit of nuance/rebuttal to this article.

The city centers are, by and large doing great, and still attracting new money and new population.  However, restrictive zoning and the simple fact of already being built out (modulo redevelopment of course) makes it hard for these areas to grow as much as demand would allow if there weren't supply issues.  Our regulatory framework, moreover, is too friendly to greenfield development and too harsh on brownfields.  It's way easier to plop some houses on a farm than turn an abandoned factory site with contaminated soil into apartments, even if there's just as much demand for the latter.

Also, central cities are not all "city center"- there's a ring of urban-but-not-downtown (very often the heavily minority areas), or perhaps inner suburb (stuff that was brand new at midcentury), that is still hurting, and losing population, and those areas are more often than not in the core city.  People are still moving out of East New York, of Nicetown-Tioga, etc.

[Brittain33]

I read on the plane a fascinating article in The Economist about the improvement in many inner city areas of the UK, and deterioration of places further out, including rural areas. That is happening in New York, as the poor dependent on transfer payments move out of NYC to cheaper locales, where their transfer payment stipends buy more good and services. Vermont now has a massive heroin epidemic. Troy, New York, I am told, has become a real "pit," as it becomes a pit stop as it were for this kind of population moving in.

Do you think Vermont's problems are linked to poorer people moving in to the state? The dominant narrative for drug issues here and other places (like Cape Cod) is that people moving in have money, and it's the local population which struggles with boredom and limited opportunities. Troy has also been in bad straits for decades because of deindustrialization, and it's always been a temptation of upstaters to ascribe problems to the "others" from downstate, whether or not the data backs it up.

[Torie]

I read on the plane a fascinating article in The Economist about the improvement in many inner city areas of the UK, and deterioration of places further out, including rural areas. That is happening in New York, as the poor dependent on transfer payments move out of NYC to cheaper locales, where their transfer payment stipends buy more good and services. Vermont now has a massive heroin epidemic. Troy, New York, I am told, has become a real "pit," as it becomes a pit stop as it were for this kind of population moving in.

Do you think Vermont's problems are linked to poorer people moving in to the state? The dominant narrative for drug issues here and other places (like Cape Cod) is that people moving in have money, and it's the local population which struggles with boredom and limited opportunities. Troy has also been in bad straits for decades because of deindustrialization, and it's always been a temptation of upstaters to ascribe problems to the "others" from downstate, whether or not the data backs it up.

Don't know, but the anecdotal chat about the ups and downs of the towns along the Hudson follows the narrative that I described. For example, Catskill became known as Cracktown around 2000, per the commentary of the marble vendor with whom I was chatting (very intellectual and knowledgeable sounding), at which time he bought the building he has his store in, on the now very presentable main commercial street for 29K. I asked why? He said it was the transfer payment crowd moving in from NYC where they were priced out. Now they are slowly being priced out of Catskill, block by block. So where do they go? On to Troy said my broker, also unusually intellectual and informed for the breed. A lady on the plane from Vermont said the same thing as to that state, when I was chatting about the amazingly huge underclass in some of these upstate NY small towns and some rural area. Are they right? I don't know, and I don't have the data.

[muon2]

I read on the plane a fascinating article in The Economist about the improvement in many inner city areas of the UK, and deterioration of places further out, including rural areas. That is happening in New York, as the poor dependent on transfer payments move out of NYC to cheaper locales, where their transfer payment stipends buy more good and services. Vermont now has a massive heroin epidemic. Troy, New York, I am told, has become a real "pit," as it becomes a pit stop as it were for this kind of population moving in.

Do you think Vermont's problems are linked to poorer people moving in to the state? The dominant narrative for drug issues here and other places (like Cape Cod) is that people moving in have money, and it's the local population which struggles with boredom and limited opportunities. Troy has also been in bad straits for decades because of deindustrialization, and it's always been a temptation of upstaters to ascribe problems to the "others" from downstate, whether or not the data backs it up.

If VT's heroin problem is like suburban Chicagoland then it is due to people who get hooked on prescription pain killers. This tends to happen where the population has good health care that can readily prescribe the drugs, and that includes areas like suburbs and higher income rural areas like VT.

The next step occurs when the addiction kicks in and the addict looks to the black market for prescription opiates, like the ones that were previously available legally. It turns out that heroin is cheaper than illegal prescription opiates. Hence the huge uptick in suburban heroin use.

[Kevin]

I read on the plane a fascinating article in The Economist about the improvement in many inner city areas of the UK, and deterioration of places further out, including rural areas. That is happening in New York, as the poor dependent on transfer payments move out of NYC to cheaper locales, where their transfer payment stipends buy more good and services. Vermont now has a massive heroin epidemic. Troy, New York, I am told, has become a real "pit," as it becomes a pit stop as it were for this kind of population moving in.

Do you think Vermont's problems are linked to poorer people moving in to the state? The dominant narrative for drug issues here and other places (like Cape Cod) is that people moving in have money, and it's the local population which struggles with boredom and limited opportunities. Troy has also been in bad straits for decades because of deindustrialization, and it's always been a temptation of upstaters to ascribe problems to the "others" from downstate, whether or not the data backs it up.

Don't know, but the anecdotal chat about the ups and downs of the towns along the Hudson follows the narrative that I described. For example, Catskill became known as Cracktown around 2000, per the commentary of the marble vendor with whom I was chatting (very intellectual and knowledgeable sounding), at which time he bought the building he has his store in, on the now very presentable main commercial street for 29K. I asked why? He said it was the transfer payment crowd moving in from NYC where they were priced out. Now they are slowly being priced out of Catskill, block by block. So where do they go? On to Troy said my broker, also unusually intellectual and informed for the breed. A lady on the plane from Vermont said the same thing as to that state, when I was chatting about the amazingly huge underclass in some of these upstate NY small towns and some rural area. Are they right? I don't know, and I don't have the data.

The same thing has been happening for a while in rural parts of Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia

As the re-gentrification of nearby areas like Philadelphia and New York City and parts of New Jersey has been forcing large numbers of lower income people into smaller cities like Reading, Allentown, and Harrisburg in PA for a while. While the same development has started to occur in WV and DE where people from these cities have been moving due to the low cost of living.

Likewise in recent years the this trend has started to occur in DC area as well. Where poorer black residents in Washington are being driven out by the sharply increased prices into less desirable parts of the DMV such as PG and Charles County MD or even beyond that into PA or WV.

So yeah I'm not surprised at all.

[DINGO Joe]

I took the drug part of the discussion to another thread

As for who is moving out to  the suburbs or small towns, well D.C. is the whitest (and richest) it's been in 40 or 50 years and undoubtedly the middle class and poor are being pushed farther out (though I don't think the black man has quite resorted to moving to WV yet).

Atlanta has one of the more ridiculous looking migration patterns as the white man kept moving further and further out with black man right on his heels, though it's gotten  more directional of late with the white man filling up the mountains in the north while the black man takes the south and southeast. Of course some gentrifying has occurred in Atlanta proper itself though not on the scale of D.C.

Even land challenged New Orleans is showing some of this, as an influx of white urbanistas have entered the city from elsewhere after the hurricane and working class blacks actually edging into St. Bernard Parish, which if you knew local history, you'd think impossible.

[Frodo]

I took the drug part of the discussion to another thread

As for who is moving out to  the suburbs or small towns, well D.C. is the whitest (and richest) it's been in 40 or 50 years and undoubtedly the middle class and poor are being pushed farther out (though I don't think the black man has quite resorted to moving to WV yet).

I think West Virginia's reputation will be enough to keep most blacks east of the mountains... 

If anything, most blacks fleeing skyrocketing living costs in DC will continue to head to southern Maryland, namely Charles County which is well on its way to becoming majority African-American in coming years and decades.