Rosemary
http://her-home-blog.com

Only well-off boomers can afford to buy a 900 sq.ft loft for $500,000+

Of course, as many other posters note, it’s unlikely they’ll leave that loft between dusk and dawn, unless they have private security coverng both their condo and their destination.

Fuel prices are a very minor issue for commuters – even less so with the new high-mileage turbodiesels coming to the U.S, starting this year (and electric cars in 3-5 years)

Finally, I was amused by his claim that drywall is load-bearing – think any engineer at his university would support that claim?

Speaking of zoning ( personally I am opposed to ALL zoning/planning. I believe in pretty strict property rights.), many cities ( in their effort to maintain their “urban lifestyle” I suppose. Though suburbs and other places do some of the same stuff) use zoning to ban businesses that cater to poor and middle class people and save all people money. In many cities there are no discount stores, supermarkets,etc. IMHO, this also probably contributes to the obesity epidemic as affordable quality food is zoned out of many cities. Of course, many of the health nannies are the same people who control the “planning” ( or rather the process of stifling economic competition, resulted in overpriced crap).

Fuel prices, comparatively, are a very MINOR cost in the grand scheme of things. Especially considering all the other areas where you usually save money in non-urban areas- housing, food, lifestyle benefits. No one forces people to buy SUVs or houses they can’t afford. people choose to. gas prices have been rising forever- where is the tipping point? People have mostly accepted it. Personally ( though I admit I am on the low end of driving) if gas prices went up a whole dollar a gallon it would cost me about $200 a year. Whoopty Do. I probably save about $10,000 a year on food and rent not living in the city.

The one thing that makes no sense to me- if people can’t afford their house payments, how the heck can they afford housing in the expensive city. I guess they all live in “exclusive” overpriced suburban communities.

Some of it is just personal preference. A lot of people dont like noise, small spaces, crowds, and so on. Some people live for that stuff. But I think dollar for dollar you get best value in a modest middle class area outside of the city.

END of ramble.

First, the middle-class infrastructure has moved to the suburbs. To get to decent shopping from where I live, you have to drive at least eight to ten miles…OUT from the central city! But we do have a WalMart right down the road.

Second, the central area of the city has deteriorated to the extent that it’s unlikely ever to recover. Most of the housing–which itself was suburban 50 years ago–was cheaply built junk to begin with, and now it’s old, run-down cheaply built junk.

Third, the environment in the central part of the city is not very pleasant. A strip of upscale housing runs up the old main drag from mid-town to up-town, but it is flanked on both sides by blight. Less than a quarter-mile from me in two directions are gang-infested slums. The two surviving strip malls within walking distance are dangerous, dirty, and overpriced. One of my neighbors was shot by a purse-snatcher in one of them; at the other, I was actually CHASED around the parking lot by a panhandler. Consequently, I get in my car and drive five miles to get to the nearest reasonably safe and clean grocery store. There’s no question of “walkability.” That is a laughable concept here.

In my neighborhood, you can set your clock by the cop helicopter fly-overs: we get buzzed at 11:00 p.m. sharp every Friday and Saturday night. And we enjoy plenty of other buzzings, too, at all hours of the day and night. The sounds of gunfire, gang-bangers doing wheelies in stolen cars, unmuffled Harleys, and sirens are a constant part of the background noise, keeping the decibel levels high. On New Year’s and the Fourth of July, you stay inside and hope the bullets arcing down from guns shot into the air don’t come through your roof and ceiling.

You live here at your peril. Police protection is nonexistent. The last time I called 911 when a prowler was at a bedroom window, the dispatcher said (direct quote!), “Well, if he tries to get in, call us back.” No joke! An hour later a cop showed up. Guess he could have taken me to the ER after the rape, eh? This episode occurred two nights before the guys across the street were pistol-whipped and chased down the street by a gang of four home invaders.

Third, Minimum Wage is dead right when he says public transport in LA-type cities (as opposed to San Francisco or London-like cities) amounts to a rolling platform for gangs of thugs. The bus system here is unusable — to make the 25-minute one-way drive from my house to my job takes two hours and ten minutes on a bus! I can tell you from experience, it ain’t a fun trip. The city is gagging light-rail down our throats, trashing neighborhoods and closing businesses for mile after mile along the construction route, and the result will be a trolley car that makes the same milk run on exactly the same schedule as that bus. And trust me: it will carry the same clientele.

People around here will pay through the schnozz to avoid this kind of lifestyle. When gasoline reaches about $5 a gallon, consumers will demand electric cars and they will continue to drive to work from the suburbs. Only wealthy professionals can afford to buy in the upscale parts of the central city and send their kids to private school. There’s not a middle-class parent in this country who will sell a perfectly fine home in a quiet neighborhood to move to a slum and put the kids in a dangerous inner-city public school.

While the central Phoenix area does have some amenities — the town has finally developed a cultural life, mostly situated downtown and in Scottsdale — for most people getting to a play, a concert, or a baseball game quickly is not worth the trade-off.

Why do I stay here? Because I can’t sell my house in this market and because I’m not interested in driving upwards of 90 minutes one-way to get to work. As soon as I retire and real estate turns around, I’m outa here!

I can’t stand not being able to see the stars! (not to mention the cost!)

I live in less than 400 sq ft, and I don’t “need” more than 2,000 sq ft of land, but my government doesn’t allow that as a stand-alone option.

How does that work? I’ve rented my whole life and I’ve never turned my neighborhood into a slum.

The planners and politicians have limited preferences for affordable housing, and your preferred options are probably not among theirs.

Government will never give you the range of affordable housing options you’d like.

There is a pretty simple solution to skyrocketing gasoline prices: Make your elected representatives build a public transportation system. In the end it is win/win for everyone (faster commute, less traffic, good for nature, employment in a coming recession). Besides, riding the bus is more social than spending the time in isolation driving to work and sipping your coffee

No thanks! Where I live the planners and politicians keep cramming light rail down our throats (even when we vote it down) and all this transit system has done is provide a mobile platform for gangbangers.

I grew up riding the NYC subways and it was nothing like the pool of human flotsam and jetsam we have here.

i just want a better selection of affordable housing… anywhere. urban center or suburban farm land, i don’t care, i just want to be able to have a choice in the first place.

I don’t get the way people wax rhapsodic about sending their kids out to play alone in the yard. I can attest from my own childhood that that is boring. Also, why would you have kids if you didn’t want to spend time with them?

On the other hand, I recently had a child, and I have absolutely no idea how we can avoid moving to the suburbs; the schools are just not safe in the city.

Despite all this, I am skeptical that many people will really move out of the suburbs. The housing cost is just too daunting when you haven’t internalized the other savings, and people get used to the time they spend commuting and cleaning their big houses. It’s hard to imagine a different way of living until you’re doing it.

I have to say that the avant-garde may already be trying to reclaim the cities, but to me, small town living is where its at. I have everything I need in the town I live in, and even have managed to kidnap my wife from a nearby big city and converted her to small town living.

As someone else has probably pointed out, the fuel problem will be at least somewhat mitigated by conservation and technology. Our small town is mostly self-sufficient anyway.

I think as a country, we have been living way beyond our means for the better part of a century. We are going to have to make the shift back to living below our means. To some, that will mean moving to the city, for others, that will mean simply a return to community.

Whatever happens, its better to make that shift gradually and sooner rather than drastically and later.

All that subprime lending did was to put renters into houses they can’t afford to keep. Since they put nothing down, they are just “renting” these houses. These “owners” are probably one disaster or paycheck away from losing the house.

As for urban living, you need to get out more. Go to Brooklyn, where you have a myriad of shopping choices just blocks away in any direction. At the same time, you need to get used to all those people walking around all the time.

funny enough, though, they are building rows of nice new townhomes across the street from the dilapidated old housing, condos out of the old factories for big bucks, smack in the middle of the crime district.

at our new apartment, we are less than a mile away from all the shopping we could ever need. both our commutes are far less stressful (though mine is longer), and the peace of mind and improved concentration that comes with peace and quiet is priceless.

maybe that’s just the city where we live, but i have my doubts. i see very little advantage to living downtown.

The forces mentioned are all already mostly at work — isn’t most of this already priced into the market? If people wish to AND can afford to live in, say, Boston proper, aren’t they doing so already?

But I don’t think it is going to happen tomorrow.

You know, when we bought our current house in 2005 (which we thought might be near the top of the market), many of my reasons for buying here are included here: walkability, proximity to downtown (we’re in a first-ring suburb), proximity to public transit, modest house sizes (by modern standards), quality of construction (1928 brick bungalow), and increasing gas prices. We briefly tried out living in the exurbs by squatting with a downsizing aunt & uncle, and I hated being so far from the center of things — I resented the time on the road. Whenever gas prices go up here, and I hear lots of whining from SUV drivers about the costs of their 50-mile commute, well . . . you make your choices.

I liked the idea of curbs on the highway lanes to keep people in their safe lane as opposed to the lane changing mayhem that’s developed.

I purposely stay in the city (well, in the outskirts but I’m not quite in suburbia) so I can avoid the monster highways this video waxed so poetic about. I have a car, but also use public transportation quite a lot. I just hate driving!

I thought it was pretty funny though that they thought the modern highways would mean an increase in community and oneness with nature. Seems to have had the opposite effect.

db

But the more modern idea of the poor taking the bus to their minimum-wage jobs while the rich live in downtown condos is quite interesting. You may be right, but I’d want better soundproofing before moving into one of those ritzy new condos, even if I could afford it.

There are several reasons for this. One is that obviously people with less income are more likely to take on subprime loans and default and they aren’t living in the high class burbs. But the other reason is commercial real estate. How often do you see a Wal Mart or other big box retailer close a 5 year old store to open up another one in greener pasture only a few miles away? It happens all the time, even in a thriving economy. Then that community is left with a hulking shell of a building and the associated problems of unkeptness that go with it. This contributes to a lot of problems with declining values. But again, most of this can be chalked up to bad planning.