New Geography

Category: housing

  • Permeable Pavement: Looking Below The Surface

    How can we prevent situations where environmental ‘solutions’ end up in failure? The tale of problems encountered with the misuse of pervious pavers (also known as porous or permeable pavers), used as an eco- friendly option, provides some answers.

    Low impact sidewalk and street installations can become economic problems. Why? Because failed environmental solutions placed on public property are then replaced with conventional construction, using tax dollars. The EPA Section 438 mandating all owned and leased Federal Facilities be converted into low impact development promotes permeable pavement, that is, paving that allows rainwater to pour through it, instead of running off at high speed to an inlet and overloading the storm sewer system, taking pollutants downstream with the water, and eventually infecting our streams and oceans. To understand more about it, read reporter Dave Peterson’s exposés in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

    On the surface, permeable pavers seems logical: pavement that allows rain to fall through. But what happens after the rain falls through the pavement – where does the floodwater go? A sub-base is needed to support the pavement. The rainfall must fall not only through the pavers, but also through the ground below. If you were to place permeable pavers on your back yard patio, supporting the weight of people and furniture would require very little sub-structure. If your lot was made of sandy soil that allows rain to quickly filter through, better yet. But if the ground underneath is clay or rock, the water must be retained or piped off with a sub-drainage system. If this is starting to sound expensive, as we say in Minnesota, you betcha!

    This sub-surface material must be sponge-like, and allow a conduit for water to either pass through to a piped system to be transported elsewhere, or have enough small void areas to retain the water until it can slowly be filtered through its lowest layer seeping back to the earth. To create a ‘base’ with properties that has ‘void spaces’, plenty of rock and large stone is used.

    Of course this means digging a very deep channel under the proposed pavement, moving (removing) the old soil and hauling in this sub-base material. A 100 foot long 30 foot wide road would require a five foot deep excavation with 555 cubic yards of soil to be removed, and almost the same in sub-base to be hauled in. Since a large dump truck holds up to 20 cubic yards (typically less), that small section of street would require at least 27 trips to and from the destination with 27 truckloads of rock, no doubt consuming massive amounts of petroleum.

    Anybody who has been in Minnesota in the winter knows that during, those seven months of freezing weather, cold is redefined. Water expands about nine percent as it freezes, so 555 cubic yards of water would increase about 50 cubic yards. Where does the water go? Up! Water pressure can lift pavers and cause havoc in the winter, so before cold weather sets in it is recommended that the liquid be vacuumed out of the sub-surface and hauled away. Now how much energy does that take?

    People and patio furniture are not that heavy, certainly not as heavy as a bus, which weighs somewhere between 26 and 40 thousand pounds transferred to the tires, depending upon the size and how many it is carrying. This weight is then transferred to the pavement, which is on top of rocks and stone that are intentionally ‘loose,’ to hold water.

    There is another problem with permeable pavement in some applications: water settles to a level surface. A few years ago we designed a low-impact, clustered neighborhood in Minnesota. At the ‘consultants’ meeting with the developer, the young engineer pushed the permeable paver idea. We had designed the neighborhood by harnessing the natural grade, embracing the heavily wooded site’s natural drainage to save most of the existing trees on the steep slopes. In other words, we planned to use what nature provided, eliminating much of the grading, costs and environmental impacts. On this site there were some fairly steep grades, in many cases exceeding a five foot drop in its length along private drives.

    The engineer aggressively insisted on permeable pavers. His idea was to create a five foot deep sub-base under the private drives (26’ wide) and run the gutters of the roofs underground to the sub-surface drainage system. In such meetings it is not polite to scream, “Are you out of your mind?” Instead, after the meeting I told the developer to kill the idea for being far too expensive. The developer did not heed my advice, and when the economics of the engineering was done, the cost escalated out of control. Several months of the engineer trying to (unsuccessfully) convince the city that the permeable pavers was a great solution caused the project to be delayed. By the time it was approved (with the natural drainage solution), the recession was in full swing and the development went dormant.

    From a personal experience, when I built my Green Certified home in 2008, MNGreenstar provided points for permeable pavement but only if the underlying base held the storm water underneath. The soil of my lot is sandy, and could have quickly absorbed the rainwater, allowing a fairly cheap sub-base, but the ‘green’ certification did not allow for compromise. The green certification ‘all or nothing’ approach meant that my sub-surface would have added $5,000 to the construction to get a few green ‘points’ encouraging the ‘nothing’ side of the equation. So, instead of designing the driveway with permeable pavement, we used sculpted landscaped strips (like the driveways of yesterday) to reduce the paved surface area and the overall costs. It is not unusual to see people taking pictures of my ‘low impact’ driveway, which adds curb appeal and value, however, we gained no green points for this logical solution.

    Why the motivation to push permeable pavement? In many cases it might indeed make sense. One reason is profitability, not by those selling the pavement alternatives, but by the consulting industry that specifies materials charging fees based upon a percentage of the construction cost. Permeable pavers and other ‘green’ alternatives can add a considerable amount to costs, and to the profitability of a consulting firm. If all bids were based upon rewarding solutions that cost less, with a penalty for solutions that cost more, consultants would truly deliver on the promise of sustainability; development costs and future maintenance burdens would plummet, while the environment would benefit. If we rewarded engineers employed by government agencies by allowing them to share a percentage of the money they saved by introducing green solutions that are cost effective, it would bring about change overnight.

    Can this be done? Absolutely. The technology and educational materials have been developed for this overhaul, but it would take effort and investment, since we’re currently in an economy where up to 65% of the architectural and land consultants are unemployed, and those remaining are not exactly overloaded with work.

    The EPA Section 438 is the Federal agenda to rebuild existing facilities and have all new construction (including all military bases) comply with low impact standards. On some new construction and redevelopment, permeable pavement could be effective, but it is unlikely to be cost effective where heavy loads, bad soils, and/or frigid weather occur.

    The decreased pavement width of New Urbanism is a start in the right direction, as long as safety and functionality are maintained. Combined with the reduced ‘length’ of infrastructure in plans like Prefurbia, it is entirely possible to reduce the environmental impact of newly paved development by about 30%, and of re-developed areas (i.e. EPA Section 438) by more than 50%, while increasing function and value. Now that we have the knowledge to do so, isn’t it time to start reaping the benefits of design techniques that reduce pavement without harming function?

    Photo by Mockney Rebel; “Pavement Archeology”

    Rick Harrison is President of Rick Harrison Site Design Studio and Neighborhood Innovations, LLC. He is author of Prefurbia: Reinventing The Suburbs From Disdainable To Sustainable and creator of Performance Planning System. His websites are rhsdplanning.com and performanceplanningsystem.com.

  • Land Use Regulation Blamed for High Hong Kong House Prices

    The Wall Street Journal  reports that growing concern about Hong Kong’s high house prices has led the special administrative region’s Chief Executive Donald Tsang to promise an overhaul of housing and land use policies in the fall.     

    Chou Hong-Wing, a real estate professor at Hong Kong University told The Wall Street Journal  that "Hong Kong isn’t short of land." Chief Executive Tsang indicated agreement, saying that the only way to solve the problem in the long run is tackling "market demand and land supply."

    A broad array of economic research has documented the higher house prices that occur where there land supply is overly restricted. In a survey of seven nations, Hong Kong was rated as the most unaffordable market in the 7th Annual Demographia Housing Affordability Survey in January, with a Median Multiple of 11.4 (median house price divided by median household income). Sydney and Vancouver, both with stringent land rationing (smart growth) programs ranked second and third, at 9.6 and 9.5 respectively.

  • Why America’s Young And Restless Will Abandon Cities For Suburbs

    For well over a decade urban boosters have heralded the shift among young Americans from suburban living and toward dense cities. As one Wall Street Journal report suggests, young people will abandon their parents’ McMansions for urban settings, bringing about the high-density city revival so fervently prayed for by urban developers, architects and planners.

    Some demographers claim that “white flight” from the city is declining, replaced by a “bright flight” to the urban core from the suburbs. “Suburbs lose young whites to cities,” crowed one Associated Press headline last year.

    Yet evidence from the last Census show the opposite: a marked acceleration of movement not into cities but toward suburban and exurban locations. The simple, usually inexorable effects of maturation may be one reason for this surprising result. Simply put, when 20-somethings get older, they do things like marry, start businesses, settle down and maybe start having kids.

    An analysis of the past decade’s Census data by demographer Wendell Cox shows this. Cox looked at where 25- to 34-year-olds were living in 2000 and compared this to where they were living by 2010, now aged 35 to 44. The results were surprising: In the past 10 years, this cohort’s presence grew 12% in suburban areas while dropping 22.7% in the core cities. Overall, this demographic expanded by roughly 1.8 million in the suburbs while losing 1.3 million in the core cities.

    In many ways this group may be more influential than the much ballyhooed 20-something. Unlike younger adults, who are often footloose and unattached, people between the ages of 35 and 44 tend to be putting down roots. As a result, they constitute the essential social ballast for any community, city or suburb.

    Losing this population represents a great, if rarely perceived, threat to many regions, particular older core cities. Rust Belt centers such as Cleveland and Detroit have lost over 30% of this age group over the decade.

    More intriguing, and perhaps counter-intuitive, “hip and cool” core cities like San Francisco, New York and Boston have also suffered double-digit percent losses among this generation. New York City, for example, saw its 25 to 34 population of 2000 drop by over 15% — a net loss of over 200,000 people — a decade later. San Francisco and Oakland, the core cities of the Bay Area, lost more than 20% of this cohort over the decade, and the city of Boston lost nearly 40%.

    In contrast, the largest growth among this peer group took place in metropolitan areas largely suburban in form, with a strong domination by automobiles and single-family houses. The most popular cities among this group — with increases of over 10% — were Las Vegas; Raleigh, N.C.; Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif.; Charlotte, N.C.; Orlando, Fla.; San Antonio, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth, in Texas; and Sacramento, Calif..

    Furthermore, most of the growth took place not in the urban centers of these regions but in the outlying suburbs. This cohort expanded by more than 40% Raleigh’s suburbs — 37,000 people — over the decade. Houston’s suburbs gained the most of any region of the country, adding 174,000 members of this particular generation.

    These findings should inform the actions of those who run cities. Cities may still appeal to the “young and restless,” but they can’t hold millennials captive forever. Even relatively successful cities have turned into giant college towns and “post-graduate” havens — temporary way stations before people migrate somewhere else. This process redefines cities from enduring places to temporary resorts.

    Rather than place all their bets on attracting 20-somethings cities must focus on why early middle-age couples are leaving. Some good candidates include weak job creation, poor schools, high taxes and suffocating regulatory environments. Addressing these issues won’t keep all young adults in urban settings, but it might improve the chances of keeping a larger number.

    Our findings may also give pause to those developers who often buy at face value the urbanist narrative about an city-centric real estate future. In the last decade, many developers have anticipated  a continuing tsunami of wealthy young professionals, as well as legions of “empty-nesters,” flowing into the urban cores. This led to a rash of high-end condominium developments. Yet in the end, the condo market turned out far less appealing than advertised, crashing virtually everywhere from Chicago and Las Vegas to Atlanta, Portland and Kansas City. This has left many investors with empty units, distress auctions or far less profitable rentals.

    One hopes the development community might still learn something from that failure. But the Urban Land Institute among others increasingly maintain that vast new frontiers for new high-density growth will develop in the inner-ring suburbs. Yet in many areas with strong central cores, such as New York, Seattle and Chicago, inner suburbs usually grew slowly, particularly in comparison with the further out peripheral expanses.

    Critically, the notion of mass suburban densification is likely to meet strong resistance from local residents. This will be particularly marked in attractive, affluent “progressive” areas like the Bay Area’s Marin County, Chicago’s North Shore suburbs and New York’s Hudson Valley. People who move to these places are attracted by their leafy, single-family-home-dominated neighborhoods and village-like shopping streets. Nothing short of economic catastrophe or government diktat would make them accept any intense program of densification.

    Of course, some urbanists claim that the new millennial generation, born after 1983,  will prove “different” from all their predecessors. Yet research to date finds older millennials may prove more attracted to suburban living than many density advocates suggest. According to a survey  by Frank Magid and Associates, more millennials consider suburbs as their “ideal place” to settle than do  older groups.

    As generational chroniclers Morley Winograd and Mike Hais have noted, the fact that most millennials plan to get married and have children only reinforces this trend over time. Another problem may prove that millennials may be running out of ideal urban options.  Back in the 1990s it was far easier to buy a home in one of the nation’s handful of really attractive cosmopolitan urban settings — for example,  brownstone Brooklyn, Northside Chicago, LA’s beach communities or San Francisco. Today these areas suffer some of the highest housing prices relative to incomes of any places in the country.

    Rather than blindly accept the vision of a mass movement back to the urban centers, developers might focus instead on what kind of housing, and community, addresses the needs and affordability concerns of millennials as they move into full adulthood. Over the next ten years, the number of millennials entering their mid-30s will expand by over 40 million   – a population larger than those of elderly residents who will be old enough to give up their homes.

    This large group is also most likely to continue moving to the lower-density, more affordable South and  West. These areas already boast disproportionate percentages of millennials, Hais and Winograd report.

    It’s time for developers and planners to look more closely at how young adults as they enter their 30s vote with their feet. Unless there has been a mind-numbing change in attitude or an unexpected return to good governance in cities, young adults entering middle age will continue their shift toward suburban and lower-density areas in the decade ahead, upending the predictions of most pundits, planners and development experts.

    This piece originally appeared at Forbes.com.

    Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and is a distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, and an adjunct fellow of the Legatum Institute in London. He is author of The City: A Global History. His newest book is The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, released in February, 2010.

    Photo by mamamusings, Liz Lawley, Upstairs Window – Encroaching fog

  • The Evolving Urban Form: Chicago

    Looks can be deceiving. No downtown area in the western world outside Manhattan is more visually impressive than Chicago. Both the historic Loop and the newer development north of the Chicago River, especially along North Michigan Avenue have some of the most iconic structures outside of emerging Asia. Yet these vertical monuments mask a less celebrated reality: that of dispersing, low density urban area.

    Chicago Combined Statistical Area: Let’s take a close look at the 2010 census data. Overall, the combined statistical area, which includes the metropolitan area (Note 1) and two exurban counties added nearly 365,000 people, for a growth rate of 3.9 percent. This is well below the national growth rate of approximately 10 percent (Map, Figure 1). Chicago followed the general trend of with growth being greatest in the outer suburbs while declines took place both in the inner suburbs and the historical core municipality (Figure 2).

    Massive Core City Loss: The historical core city of Chicago lost but 200,000 people, and fell to a population of 2.7 million, the lowest count since the 1910 census. The population is down 925,000 from 1950 and at the current rate would drop at least 1 million from the 1950 peak by the 2020 census.  Chicago is at risk of joining London and Detroit as the only two historical core municipalities in modern times that have lost more than 1 million people.

    Inner Suburbs: As in New York and Seattle, Chicago’s inner suburbs grew slowly. The inner suburbs include the part of Cook County that is outside the city of Chicago as well as Lake County, Indiana (home of Gary), which shares the city of Chicago’s eastern border. The inner suburbs added fewer than 30,000 residents and grew only one percent.

    This suggests some limitations to the newly developing mantra that has inner suburbs will be the locus of future growth although there are scattered inner suburbs in other cities (such as Hoboken, New Jersey) that did see growth. Perhaps the old mantra, about people returning to the city from which they had never come was finally quashed by the realities of the 2010 census.   

    Outer Suburbs: The outer suburbs, which include the remaining counties of the metropolitan area, grew at a rate of 16.5 percent, actually grew faster than the national average of approximately 10 percent. The outer suburbs added more than 500,000 people. The largest growth, 175,000 was in Will County, to the south, one of the five “collar counties” that used to define the boundaries of the metropolitan area. McHenry County, the most distant of the collar counties added 100,000. The fastest growth was in far suburban and also southern Kendall County, which more than doubled in population.

    Chicago Metropolitan Area: Overall, the Chicago metropolitan area added approximately 360,000 people and grew 4.0 percent from 2000. This is well below the national average population growth rate, however was above that of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, once among the  nation’s of leading growth areas until the last decade.

    Historical Trends: The city of Chicago, like other historical core cities, had previously been dominant in its metropolitan area. The earliest Census Bureau metropolitan area (“metropolitan district”) estimates from 1900 indicated that more than 90 percent of the region’s population was contained in the city of Chicago. By 1950, the city of Chicago had fallen to 66 percent of the metropolitan area as defined in that year.  The city of Chicago now has only 28 percent of the combined statistical area population of 9.7 million (Figure 3, Table and Note 2).

    CHICAGO METROPOLITAN AREA
    POPULATION TREND BY COUNTY: 2000 TO 2010
    1900 1950 2000 2010 Change: 2000-2010 % Change: 2000-2010
    HISTORIC CORE MUNICIPALITY
    Chicago   1,698,575   3,620,962   2,895,671 2,695,598 -200,073 -6.9%
    INNER SUBURBAN      178,052   1,255,982   2,965,634 2,995,082 29,448 1.0%
    Cook County, IL      140,160      887,830   2,481,070 2,499,077 18,007 0.7%
    Lake County, IN        37,892      368,152      484,564 496,005 11,441 2.4%
    OUTER SUBURBAN      378,896      884,980   3,237,011 3,770,425 533,414 16.5%
    DeKalb County, IL        31,756        40,781        88,969 105,160 16,191 18.2%
    DuPage County, IL        28,196      154,999      904,161 916,924 12,763 1.4%
    Grundy County, IL        24,136        19,217        37,535 50,063 12,528 33.4%
    Jasper County, IN        14,292        17,031        30,043 33,478 3,435 11.4%
    Kane County, IL        78,792      150,388      404,119 515,269 111,150 27.5%
    Kendall County, IL        11,467        12,155        54,544 114,736 60,192 110.4%
    Kenosha County, WI        21,707        75,238      149,577 166,426 16,849 11.3%
    Lake County, IL        34,504      179,097      644,356 703,462 59,106 9.2%
    McHenry County, IL        29,659        50,656      260,077 308,760 48,683 18.7%
    Newton County, IN        10,448        11,006        14,566 14,244 -322 -2.2%
    Porter County, IN        19,175        40,076      146,798 164,343 17,545 12.0%
    Will County, IL        74,764      134,336      502,266 677,560 175,294 34.9%
    CHICAGO METROPOLITAN AREA   2,255,523   5,761,924   9,098,316 9,461,105 362,789 4.0%
    EXURBAN METROPOLITAN COUNTIES        75,540      150,332      213,939 224,916 10,977 5.1%
    Kankakee Coiunty, IL        37,154        73,524      103,833 113,449 9,616 9.3%
    La Porte County, IN        38,386        76,808      110,106 111,467 1,361 1.2%
    CHICAGO COMBINED STATISTICAL AREA 2,331,063 5,912,256 9,312,255 9,686,021 364,150 3.9%
    Data from the US Census Bureau

     

    Since 1950 (Note 3), all of the growth in the Chicago area has been in the suburbs. By 2000, both inner suburbs and the outer suburbs each had more people than the city of Chicago. Today the outer suburbs, with forty percent of the region’s population, represent the largest demographic force in Chicago (Figure 4).

    We do not usually associate Chicago with the dreaded term “sprawl” but Chicago now stands as the third largest urban agglomeration in the world in land area, trailing only New York and Tokyo. The Chicago urban area covers more land than Los Angeles, which has a far higher urban density.

    Dispersing Employment: Chicago’s dispersion extends to employment. Despite having the second strongest central business district in the nation (after Manhattan), jobs are rapidly decentralizing. Last year the Downtown Loop Alliance reported that private sector employment in the Loop fell 20 percent during the last decade. Overall, the downtown area of Chicago now represents approximately 10 percent of regional employment, barely half the percentage of Manhattan or Washington, DC.

    American community survey data from 2009 indicates the total employment in the North West corridor along Interstate 90 has at least as much employment as downtown Chicago. This corridor, anchored by the edge city (Note 4) of Schaumburg, is typical of emerging suburban centers around the nation. Only two percent of workers in this corridor use transit for commuting.

    Another corridor, along Interstate 88 (anchored by Lisle and Aurora) has at least two thirds the employment of downtown, with only one percent commuting by transit. The North Shore corridor encompassing parts of northern Cook County and Lake County is of similar size to the Interstate 88 corridor and has a larger transit work trip market share of five percent.

    Downtown, on the other hand, has the third largest transit work trip market share in the nation, following Manhattan and Brooklyn. In 2000, 55 percent of people working downtown (the larger downtown including the Loop, north of the River and adjacent areas to the west and south) commuted by transit. This illustrates the strength of transit for providing access to the largest, most dense downtown areas in contrast to dispersed suburban areas.

    Perhaps more telling, the number of jobs and resident workers (the “jobs-housing” balance) in the city of Chicago are converging toward equality. According to American community survey data, there are 1.1 jobs in the city of Chicago for each working resident. This is substantially less, for example, than Washington (2.6), Atlanta (2.0), Boston (1.7), San Francisco (1.4) and Baltimore (1.4).

    On the other hand, two of the three large suburban corridors have higher ratios of jobs to workers than the city of Chicago. The Interstate 88 corridor has 1.3 jobs per worker, while the North Shore has approximately 1.5 jobs per worker. The Interstate 90 corridor has slightly more jobs than workers. These data indicate that Chicago is well on the way to a more evenly distributed employment pattern that has become more common around the nation.

    Middle America’s Leviathan: The Chicago area has been very resilient through the years. After nearly a century as the nation’s “second city,” Aaron Renn points out the area could fall from its much cherished “global city” status. Still, Chicago remains the dominant urban area between the coasts. Virtually all of its Midwestern competition has fallen away (such as Detroit, St. Louis and Cleveland). However, in the longer run Chicago could be displaced by Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston. Nonetheless, the urban area’s visually arresting business district will retain its iconic status even if, overall, the region looks more and more like the rest of highly dispersed Middle America.

    ——

    Note 1: This article uses metropolitan area and combined statistical areas as defined by the authoritative US Office of Management and the Budget.

    Note 2: The 1950 references provided because the closest to the Post-War democratization of homeownership and car ownership and expansion of car oriented suburbanization. Before World War II, most US historical core cities were comparatively dense, while a far smaller share of the population lived in the suburbs.

    Note 3: Figure 3 and the Table show data for the 2010 geographical definition of the combined statistical area. Earlier metropolitan area definitions are also referred to in the text.

    Note 4: An “edge city” is a major employment center outside the central business district (downtown).  “Edge city” became a part of the language as a result of Joel Garreau’s 1991 book, Edge City: Life on the Urban Frontier.

    Photograph: Downtown Chicago from the Air (by author)

  • Adelaide Land Prices Top Sydney

    The median price of serviced (improved) lots for new houses in Adelaide is reported to have risen above that of far larger Sydney by the Housing Industry Association of South Australia. Housing Industry Association of South Australian Executive Director Robert Harding attributed the high price of land to government policies that have limited the supply of land available for building. Nearly all thousands of square miles of land around Adelaide are off-limits to house building due to state government restrictions.

    Adelaide is the slowest growing major metropolitan area of Australia, yet has some of the worst housing affordability among larger metropolitan markets. The 7th Annual Demographia Housing Affordability Survey found median priced Adelaide housing to be 7.1 times median household incomes, ranking the metropolitan area eighth most unaffordable out of 82 with more than 1,000,000 population.

    Before the adoption of its strong smart growth (urban consolidation) land use restrictions, median house prices in Adelaide were one-half or less the present level (Figure). By comparison, new houses can be purchased in much of the United States for less than the median price of an empty lot in Adelaide ($180,000), though not in areas that have adopted smart growth restrictions.

  • Are Millennials the Solution to the Nation’s Housing Crisis?

    During his Twitter-fed Town Hall, President Obama admitted that the housing market has proven one of the “most stubborn” pieces of the economic recovery puzzle to try and fix.  The President — as well the Congress and the building industry — should  consider a new path to a solution for housing by tapping the potential of the very generation whose votes brought Barack Obama into the White House in the first place.   

    The Millennial Generation (born 1982-2003) represents not just the largest generation in American history but the largest potential market for both existing and new housing in the United States. There are over 95 million Millennials and over the next five years the first quarter of this cohort will enter their thirties, an age when people are most likely to buy their first home.

    Contrary to what is often written about this generation it is very much interested in owning a home, preferably in the suburbs. Sixty-four percent of Millennials say it is very important for them to have an opportunity to own their own home; twenty percent named it as one of their most important priorities in life, right behind being a good parent and having a successful marriage.

     And, contrary to the usual claims of “new urbanists” (themselves largely members of the older X and Boomer Generations) most Millennials want to live in the suburbs where the current housing crisis is most acute. According to a study by Frank N. Magid Associates, 43 percent of Millennials describe suburbs as their “ideal place to live,” compared to just 31 percent of older generations, most of whom still yearn for the smaller towns and rural settings of an earlier America.  

    Most Millennials already live in suburbs and enjoyed growing up in suburban settings surrounded by family and friends that supported them.  A certain portion, of course, enjoy living an urban life while young, but most tell researchers that they want to raise the families many are about to start in the same suburban settings they grew up in.

    Furthermore, Americans between the ages of  25 and 34, both Millennials and those on the “cusp” of the generational change from X to Millennial,  represent a greater proportion of the overall population in the South and West than elsewhere. These are the very regions that suffered the most from the collapse of housing prices that stemmed from the mortgage financing scandals of the last few years. Unleashing this potential demand for suburban housing in these hard-hit areas would bring two huge benefits. It would stabilize prices for existing homes while at the same time boosting the prospects for new housing construction.  

    The challenge is how to enable the Millennial Generation to achieve its desire to own homes without reigniting the speculation and unsustainable financial leverage that   triggered the Great Recession. Clearly, in the immediate future at least, the current excess of supply in the housing market should mitigate the risk of too much demand chasing too few houses.  As much as they are criticized by the financial industry and its Republican allies, the recently enacted financial regulatory reforms might also provide an additional bulwark against allowing the market to misbehave a second time.

    But the biggest factor may be the lessons learned from experience.  Millennials have borne much of the brunt of the Great Recession and tend to be keenly aware about the importance of living within your means.  Wanting a suburban home does not mean, as many urbanists assert, that Millennials want McMansions. Like earlier generations, especially their GI Generation great grandparents, they are likely to be cautious and frugal home-buyers. However, this frugality and caution does not translate into a meek acceptance or desire for a future as apartment renters, as some suggest will be the case.    

    In the short run, Millennials will not be able to engineer a turnaround all by themselves; most Millennials can’t afford much beyond the next month’s rent, let alone the down payment on a mortgage. Many are still living with their parents to avoid having to pay rent and the cost of a college education at the same time.

    To address this part of the challenge, the federal government needs to do what it did to revive the moribund housing market in the 1930s. The New Deal created today’s commonly accepted 30 year mortgages with a 20 percent down payment by making them a financial instrument that the newly formed Federal Housing Administration would insure. Before that landmark legislation, home mortgages were rarely offered for more than half of the home’s value and normally had to be repaid in no more than five years.

    As a result that era’s civic generation (the GI or Greatest Generation) was able to afford single family homes with a surrounding tract of land, an offer returning World War II veterans seized with alacrity. These houses now make up much of the country’s inner suburb housing stock.    Today’s housing crisis requires a similarly radical reinvention of the basic home mortgage to be offered to those buying their first home. Under this proposal the length of the mortgage could be extended up to as many as 50 years, reflecting the increased life expectancies — and longer working careers — that most Millennials can expect to enjoy. Since no market for such debt instruments currently exists, it would be up to the federal government to create one through the process of reinsurance, just as it did in 1934.

    To further encourage home buying by Millennials, the federal government should also provide incentives to financial institutions to swap out the principle of the Millennials’ student loans in exchange for a new loan, whose principal would be collateralized by the value of the real estate the former student would be acquiring. The student loan would be paid off as part of the mortgage, making Millennials better able to afford a home and freeing up additional discretionary spending that current worries over student debt curtail. Today’s lower housing prices today might make this package both attractive to investors and financially viable.

    Many economists today argue against the whole notion of encouraging home ownership by anyone, let alone young Millennials. Some point out that when looked upon strictly as an investment choice, the value of a home rarely appreciates faster than the overall stock market.

    This type of analysis, which forms the basis for arguing against any federal policy that would further encourage home ownership, ignores the proven benefits to the nation that derive from home owners committed to the success of their local community.  Voting participation rates among home owners, for instance, traditionally run higher than rates among renters, and neighborhoods of owners tend to be more stable places to raise children. 

    More important still is what homeownership means to the nature of a property-owning republic. Survey after survey shows that home ownership remains a central part of the American Dream and a central aspiration, particularly for immigrants and young people. A policy that works against this ideal presents a political risk that any politician should be wary of taking.

    To restore this part of the American Dream, and to lift the worry of millions of Americans whose house is worth less than what they owe on their mortgage, the Obama administration must take bold steps to restore a vibrant residential housing market.    President Obama, who built his winning margin in 2008 through an unprecedented mobilization of Millennial voters, is the ideal person to combine a plan for economic recovery efforts with meeting the aspirational goals of most Millennials to own their own home.

    To save the housing market, and extend the recovery beyond the financial elites, America will need a new wave of home buyers.  If the President works to tap this resource, he can begin to turn around the “stubborn problem” of the housing market and restore the middle class economy. If he does so, the whole country will soon be tweeting his success.

    Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais are fellows of NDN and the New Policy Institute and co-authors of Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation Is Remaking America to be published in September and Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics.

    Photo by 3Ammo

  • The Costs of Smart Growth Revisited: A 40 Year Perspective

    “Soaring” land and house prices “certainly represent the biggest single failure” of smart growth, which has contributed to an increase in prices that is unprecedented in history. This  finding could well have been from our new The Housing Crash and Smart Growth, but this observation was made by one of the world’s leading urbanologists, Sir Peter Hall, in a classic work 40 years ago. Hall led an evaluation of the effects of the British Town and Country Planning Act of 1947 (The Containment of Urban England) between 1966 and 1971. The principal purpose of the Act had been urban containment, using the land rationing strategies of today’s smart growth, such as urban growth boundaries and comprehensive plans that forbid development on large swaths of land that would otherwise be developable.

    The Economics of Urban Containment (Smart Growth): The findings of Hall and his colleagues were echoed later by a Labour Government report in the mid-2000s which showed housing affordability had suffered under this planning regime. Author Kate Barker was a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, which like America’s Federal Reserve Board, is in charge of monetary policy. Among other things, the Barker Reports on housing and land use found that urban containment had driven the price of land with "planning permission" to many multiples (per acre) above that of comparable land where planning was prohibited. Under normal circumstances comparable land would have similar value.

    Whether coming from the left or right, economists have demonstrated that prices tend to rise when supply is restricted, all things being equal.  Certainly there can be no other reason for the price differentials virtually across the street that occur in smart growth areas. Dr. Arthur Grimes, Chairman of the Board of New Zealand’s central bank (the Reserve Bank of New Zealand), found the differential on either side of Auckland’s urban growth boundary at 10 times, while we found an 11 times difference in Portland across the urban growth boundary. 

    House Prices in America: The Historical Norm: Since World War II, median house prices in US metropolitan areas have generally been between 2.0 and 3.0 times median household incomes (a measure called the Median Multiple). This included California until 1970 (Figure 1). After that, housing became unaffordable in California, averaging nearly 1.5 times that of the rest of the nation during the 1980s and 1990s (adjusted for incomes). Even after the huge price declines from the peak of the bubble, house prices remain artificially high in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and San Jose, with median multiples of six or higher.

    William Fischel of Dartmouth University examined a variety of justifications for the disproportionate rise of California housing prices and dismissed all but more restrictive land use regulation. He noted that "growth controls (restrictive land use regulations) have the undesirable effect of raising housing prices." Throughout the rest of the nation, more restrictive land use regulations have been present in every market where house prices rose substantially above the historic Median Multiple norm, even during the housing bubble. No market without smart growth has ever reached these heights.

    Setting Up for the Fall: Excessive Cost Increases in Smart Growth Markets: The Housing Crash and Smart Growth, published by the National Center for Policy Analysis, examined the causes of house price increase during the housing bubble. The analysis included all metropolitan areas with more than 1,000,000 population. It focused on 11 metropolitan areas in which the greatest cost increases occurred (the "ground zero" markets), comparing them to cost increases in the 22 metropolitan areas with less restrictive land use regulation (Note 1).

    • Less Restrictively Regulated Markets: In the less restrictively regulated markets, the value of the housing stock rose approximately $560 billion, or 28 percent from 2000 to the peak of the bubble (Note 2). In nearly all of these markets, the Median Multiple remained within the historical range of 2.0 to 3.0 and none approached the high Median Multiples that occurred in the "ground zero" markets.
    • Ground Zero Markets The value of the housing stock rose $2.9 trillion from 2000 to the peak of the bubble in the "ground zero" markets, all of which have significant land use restrictions (Note 3). The 112 percent increase in the "ground zero" markets was four times that of the less restrictively regulated markets. The Median Multiple rose to unprecedented levels in each of the "ground zero" markets, peaking at from 5.0 to more than 11.0, four times the historic norm.

    The 28 percent increase in relative house value that occurred in the less restrictively regulated markets (those without smart growth) is attributed to the influence of loosened lending standards. The excess above 28 percent, which amounts to $2.2 in the "ground zero" markets is attributed to to the supply restricting strategies of smart growth (Figure 2).

    The Fall: Smart Growth Losses

    The largest house price drops occurred in the markets that had experienced the greatest cost escalation, both because prices were artificially higher but also because prices in smart growth markets are more volatile.  The "ground zero" markets, with only 28 percent of the owner occupied housing stock, accounted for 73 percent of the pre-crash losses ($1.8 trillion). Thus, much of the cause of the housing crash, which most analysts date from the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy (September 15, 2008), can be attributed to these 11 metropolitan areas.

    By contrast, the 22 less restrictively regulated markets accounted for only six percent ($0.16 trillion) of the pre-crash losses. These 22 markets represented 35 percent of the owned housing stock (Figure 3).

    If the losses in the ground zero markets had been limited to the rate in the less restrictively regulated markets (the estimated impact of cheap credit), losses would have been $1.6 trillion less (Note 4). The Great Recession might not have been so "Great."

    Economic Denial and Acknowledgement: In his writing forty years ago, Dr. Hall noted that English planners denied the connection between the unprecedented house price increases and urban containment. This same denial also informs smart growth advocates today. This is perhaps to be expected, because, as Hall noted 40 years ago, an understanding of the longer term consequences would have undermined support for these policies.

    To their credit, some advocates recognize that smart growth raises house prices. The Costs of Sprawl – 2000¸ a volume largely sympathetic to smart growth, also indicates that urban containment strategies can raise housing prices. The only question is how much smart growth raises house prices. The presence of urban containment policy is the distinguishing characteristic of metropolitan markets where prices have escalated well beyond the historic norm.

    The Social Costs of Smart Growth: Moreover, the social impacts of smart growth are by no means equitable. Peter Hall says that the "less affluent house-owner … has paid the greatest price for (urban) containment" (Note 5). He continues: "there can be little doubt about the identity of the group that has got the poorest bargain. It is the really depressed class in the housing market: the poorer members of the privately-rented housing sector." Finally, Hall laments as well the impact of these policies on the "ideal of a property owning democracy."

    Hall’s four decades old concern strikes a chord on this side of the Atlantic. Just last week, a New York Times/CBS News poll found that nine out of ten respondents associated home property ownership with the American Dream. Planning needs to facilitate people’s preferences, not get in their way.

    ——–

    Note 1: The housing stock value uses a 2000 base, which adjusts house prices based upon the change in household incomes to the peak.

    Note 2: The underlying demand for housing was substantial in some of the less restrictively markets, which is illustrated by the strong net domestic migration to metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, Austin, Dallas – Fort Worth, Houston, Raleigh and San Antonio. At the same time, some more restrictive markets (smart growth) that hit historically experienced strong demand were experiencing huge domestic outmigration, indicating little in underlying demand. This includes Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and San Jose. Demand, however is driven upward in more restrictively metropolitan areas by speculation which, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas is attracted by supply constraints.

    Note 3: The 11 "ground zero" metropolitan markets were Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, San Jose, Sacramento, Riverside-San Bernardino, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Miami and the Washington, DC area.

    Note 4: The pre-crash losses in the 18 other restrictively regulated markets were $0.5 trillion. These markets accounted for 37 percent of owner occupied housing in the metropolitan areas of more than 1,000,000 population, compared to 35 percent in the less restrictively regulated markets, yet had losses three times as high.

    Note 5: The Containment of Urban England also indicates that new house sizes have been forced downward by the planning regulations (see photo at the top of the article).

    Photograph: New, smaller exurban housing in the London area (by author)

    Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

  • Outlawing New Houses in California

    UCLA’s most recent Anderson Forecast indicates that there has been a significant shift in demand in California toward condominiums and apartments. The Anderson Forecast concludes that this will cause problems, such as slower growth in construction employment because building multi-unit dwellings creates less employment than building the detached houses that predominate throughout California and most of the nation. The Anderson Forecast says that this will hurt inland areas (such as the Riverside-San Bernardino area and the San Joaquin Valley) because their economies are more dependent on construction than coastal areas, such as Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area and San Diego.

    Detached Housing Permits Remain Strong in the Historic Context: The Anderson Forecast reports that multi-unit building permits have recovered more quickly than building permits for detached housing. However, any such shift is likely to be highly volatile. Since the peak of the bubble, the distribution of building permits between detached and multi-unit in California has been on a roller coaster. Indeed the Anderson Forecast characterizes the "2010 US Census" as "showing a significant shift in demand toward condominiums and apartments." Actually, the 2010 US Census asked no question from which such a conclusion about housing types or any question from which such a conclusion could be drawn.

    The trends in the building permit data are not completely clear. In 2005, the year before prices started to collapse, 75 percent of building permits in California were for detached housing. This trended downward, reaching a low of 52 percent in 2008. In 2009, the detached housing recovered to account for 73 percent of all housing building permits. Then the figure fell back to 59 percent in 2010.

    With these erratic trends, it is tricky to forecast longer term market trends and consumer demand.  Economic projections in 1934 would have suffered from a similar problem, as the Great Depression was continuing and no one could really tell when it would end. Today’s continuing housing depression may be similar.

    Moreover, as the Anderson Forecast notes, detached housing construction declined in the early 1980s, dropping to 42 percent in 1985. In fact, over the 25 years between 1960 and 1985, detached houses accounted for an average of only 54 percent of new housing construction in California, well below the 2010 figure of 59 percent (Figure 1).

    Equally important, the condominium market remains in a deep depression. In 2010, less than four percent of houses built for sale in the United States were multi-unit buildings, including condominiums (Figure 2), as an increasing majority of multi-unit buildings have been built as rentals (Figure 3). Comparable California data is not available, but from the peak of the bubble (2006/7) to 2009, there was a loss of more than 3,000 owner occupied  multi-unit dwellings with 10 or more units, while owner occupied detached houses increased by nearly 100,000 (Note 1).

    If there is an intrinsic pent-up preference for condominium living, it is not evident in the poor performance of high-density developments even in such theoretically desirable places as Santa Monica, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and North Hollywood. Condominium prices, for example, have fallen 52 percent in the major California metropolitan areas, compared to 48 percent for single-family houses (Figure 4). Naïve developers, relying too much on the much promoted notion that suburban empty-nesters were chomping at the bit to move to new housing in the core area, often watched their empty units liquidated at $0.50 or less on the dollar or turned into rentals.  Further, if people are moving to apartments, it’s not for love of density but more likely due weakening economic circumstances.

    Inland California Continues to Grow Faster: The Anderson Forecast also suggests that growth in interior California will suffer because "workers are less likely to move inland into an apartment and commute toward the coast." This assumption of slower inland growth reflects the conventional wisdom that areas outside the large coastal metropolitan areas have stopped growing since the burst of the housing bubble as people flock towards the coastal urban core (Note 2). The reality is different, as interior California and the peripheral metropolitan areas of the larger metropolitan regions (Note 3) continue to grow more strongly even in bad economic times. After the burst of the bubble, from 2008 to 2010 (Figure 5):

    • In the Los Angeles area, the adjacent Riverside-San Bernardino ("Inland Empire") and Oxnard metropolitan areas, combined, have grown at seven times the rate of the core Los Angeles metropolitan area.
    • In the San Francisco Bay area, the adjacent Napa, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa and Vallejo metropolitan areas, combined, have grown nearly twice as quickly as the core San Francisco and San Jose metropolitan areas.
    • California’s deep interior, the San Joaquin Valley has grown even faster than the exurban areas of Los Angeles and San Francisco.

    One key reason: most people who move to interior areas do not commute toward the core.  For example, less than 10 percent of workers in the Riverside-San Bernardino metropolitan area commute into Los Angeles County, a market share that declined 15 percent between 2000 and 2007. Many also simply cannot afford the higher cost of living in the coastal metropolitan areas, which likely will continue to retard growth in the core metropolitan areas.

    The Policy Threat to New Houses : A survey by the Public Policy Institute of California suggests a vast preference (70%) for detached housing among the state’s consumers.  This continuing preference is demonstrated by detached housing prices that are generally two times historic norms relative to incomes in the coastal metropolitan areas (Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and San Jose).

    Yet now, this choice is under a concerted assault by both the state and many local governments, cheered on by most media and the academic community.  For years, planning regulations have driven land prices so high that house prices have risen to well above the rest of the nation (Figure 5) under regulations referred to by terms such as "smart growth" and "urban containment." The regulations and the inevitably resulting speculation propelled a disproportionate rise (nearly $2 trillion) in California house prices compared to national norm. If California house prices had risen at the same rate relative to incomes as in more liberally regulated areas, the loss to financial markets could have been hundreds of billions of dollars less when the bubble burst (Figure 6).

    Planning for Crowding and Density: California’s assault on detached housing is taking on a distinctly religious fervor.  The state’s global warming law (Assembly Bill 32) and urban planning law (Senate Bill 375) is providing a new basis to impose draconian limits on the construction of detached housing. For example, in the San Francisco Bay area, it has been proposed that 97 percent of new housing be built within the existing urban footprint. That would mean an emphasis on multi-unit housing and little or no new housing on the urban fringe. The option of a single family home will be all but non-existent for   even solidly middle income Californians.

    Planning authorities in the Bay Area seem oblivious to the fact that destroying affordability also destroys growth, already evident by the state’s poor economic performance and ebbing demographic vigor.    Planners rosily project 2 million more people between 2010 and 2035 in the San Francisco Bay area. The growth rate over the past 10 years suggests a number less than half that (Figure 7) and given the rapid aging of the area, even this estimate may be too high. The planners also project more than 1.2 million   new jobs, something difficult to believe given the more than 300,000 job loss (Note 4) that occurred in the Bay Area between 2000 and 2010 (Figure 8).

    The Environmental "Fig Leaf:" The environmental justification for these policies is fragile . Research supporting higher density housing has routinely excluded the greater emissions from construction material extraction and production, building construction itself and common greenhouse gas emissions from energy consumption that does not appear on consumer bills. Further, higher densities are associated slower and more erratic speeds, which retards fuel efficiency and increases greenhouse gas emissions, a factor not sufficiently considered.

    The report seems to ignore any other options besides rapid densification, which as McKinsey Global Institute has pointed out is not at all necessary to reduce GHG emission reductions. They point to other factors as more fuel efficient cars.   

    Oddly, the San Francisco Bay Area proposal does not even mention working at home (much of it telecommuting), the most environmentally friendly way of accessing employment. Working at home has grown six times the rate of transit since 2000 in the Bay Area.

    Outlawing New Houses Detached housing remains the overwhelming choice of Californians. There is no indication that this preference is about to be replaced by a preference for high-density housing.  Current and future middle class Californians could be corralled into more crowded conditions, because questionable planning doctrines mandate that detached housing should be outlawed.

    —-

    Notes:

    1. Calculated from 2006, 2007 and 2009 American Community Survey data. The over ten unit category is used because is more generally reflective of the dense condominium development generally favored by densification advocates (Latest data available).

    2.  Another questionable tenet of conventional wisdom is that the price declines in the outer suburbs were greater than in the cores. When the price declines reached their nadir, core California markets were generally at least as depressed from their peak prices as suburban markets.

    3. Metropolitan region refers to combined statistical areas, which have a core metropolitan area, such as the Los Angeles MSA and include surrounding metropolitan areas, such as the Riverside-San Bernardino MSA and the Oxnard MSA.

    4. Annual, 2000 to 2010, calculated from California Economic Development Department data.

    Lead photo: Houses in Los Angeles. Photograph by author.

    Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

  • Detroit: A Century On The Smart-Growth Grid

    The following excerpts are from a report that was intended to solve many of the planning issues facing one of America’s largest cities: Detroit. Its conclusions are in many ways counter to the ‘Smart Growth’ principles being promoted by influential decision makers. It was compiled by the city’s highest level planners and engineers:

    “One disadvantage under which Detroit is working is the extremely mixed character of its building – fifty thousand dollar houses, warehouses, saloons, institutions, slums, factories of all sorts, inexpensive dwellings, great apartment houses, and huge billboards follow one another almost in the same block, to the great detriment of practically all classes of occupancy. A zone system, if established, would bring order out of this chaos; and it would so stabilize the character of neighborhoods as to greatly increase land values. Though such control may at present be impossible, much may be done to assist in establishing zones or districts confined to one type of use, such as residential, industrial, and the like.”

    This suggests that the ‘Smart Growth’ goals of mixed uses and mixed incomes may not be so ‘smart’.

    Of course, those who believe in intermixing all sorts of uses and incomes on the same block refer to cities where, a century ago, such a mix was normal, and suggest that the isolation of modern transitional zoning is a far worse option.

    As we read further:

    “In this report, stress will be laid on the less expensive residential development, for which… if the street and lot system is not well adapted to it, there will result serious and at the time wholly unnecessary waste and expense. Moreover, the added cost in land and improvements is apt to cause a deduction in the cost of the building which will lower the standard of living in an entire district.”

    In other words, this report is referring to the importance in lower income residential development to create the most efficient form of streets and infrastructure. This would free up funds that would have otherwise been used for wasteful design to be applied to housing. The results of reducing wasteful construction would enhance living standards, instead of lowering them. The authors of this report understood the importance of efficiency, and how it relates to the welfare of residents outside the gentrified sections of the city. The report goes onto recognize one of the most important financial aspects of development:

    The house should normally represent three fourths of the cost; the improvements, such as sewers, sidewalks, etc. about an eighth; and the raw land an eighth.

    Why is this so critical? Before the current housing market crash and the resulting depletion of American bank accounts, home builders traditionally stood by this model. But after the dot-com bubble, where investors put their money into vapor-ware only to see their investments disappear, the new favorite investment became land and buildings. In many areas of the country developers and national home builders went on a bidding spree, hiking raw land prices into the stratosphere. In the past, the financial rule was that a completed lot could not exceed 1/4th the total home price. The ‘rule’ was now broken, ignored or modified. Financial institutions also turned their heads away. Had the real estate market continued to hold fast to the above formula that served history so well, there may not have been a housing crash.

    The report questions another aspect of ‘smart growth’, too:

    “No Alleys. Alleys are unnecessary and wasteful of room, except where dwellings are in continuous rows or in groups of three or more. For detached and semi-detached cottages the space between adjacent houses necessary for light and air is sufficient also for a walk from the street to the back door.”

    While alleys are fodder for heated discussions from many sides of the planning field, clearly this city’s planners do not like them, yet this particular city is full of alley-laden blocks. Those that blame poor planning on the automobile embrace alleys as a way to hide cars in the rear yards. What this actually does is literally surround the home with pavement and vehicle use-areas. Instead of reducing the connection between home and automobile, it increases the connection. The authors clearly recognize this, and go on to promote common gardens and play areas in the rear yards instead.

    The report is very specific about street design. It suggests that the streets be sized for the traffic count, rather than creating unnecessarily wide streets everywhere, perhaps recognizing that too many cities have one size that is supposed to fit all. Unfortunately, planning and engineering consultants often seem to feel, inexplicably, that a short cul-de-sac in a city serving 10 lots somehow carries the same traffic as a street with ten times or more that number of homes. Many sections of Las Vegas, for example, from the air look like a sea of paving and rooftop – and that’s in the suburbs!

    The report addresses street grids, as well:

    “In rough topography the rectangular and the formal have no place, as they require heavy construction expense otherwise unnecessary. Even in flat country… the depressingly monotonous effect of the rectangular system should be avoided, on economic grounds if no other, for the dead level of mediocrity to which it brings districts depreciates their total value very materially. While to be sure no site is worth very much less than the average, none is worth very much more, whereas with variety in the layout many lots may be created with unusual value, due to location, attractive outlook, and special shape of lot adapted to the needs of the particular resident.”

    Oh my, such harsh words against the very grid pattern that the ‘Smart Growth’ movement promotes. It seems that the authors are suggesting a much more organic design, which can eliminate the monotony that detracts from housing and community values. It would seem that the very rigid relationships that are being promoted by ‘smart code’ proponents would not be embraced in this city, at least not by the top level staff and advisors.

    The details of this report?

    DETROIT
    Published by the Commission
    1915

    It was located in the Cornell University Archives library annex. Called Detroit Suburban Planning, and authored by Arthur Coleman Comey, Landscape Architect, it was based on the preliminary plan for Detroit by Edward H. Bennett, Architect. It included input from the commissioner of parks and boulevards, the commissioner of public works, and the city engineer.

    I grew up just outside the border of Detroit in the 1950s and early 1960s. It seemed that, for the most part, development continued on the same grid patterns, ignoring this report for at least the 40 years that followed its publication.

    Today, to provide a hope for sustainability for Detroit, we need to heed the report and provide better housing for those that cannot live in architectural wonderlands that only the wealthy can afford, or be subsidized by tax dollars that are no longer available. The development process of trying to jam each and every unit allowed by a regulation’s most minimal dimension in order to achieve the highest possible density pretty much guarantees that the development will fall into the very same traps that the report warned us about.

    Rick Harrison is President of Rick Harrison Site Design Studio and Neighborhood Innovations, LLC. He is author of Prefurbia: Reinventing The Suburbs From Disdainable To Sustainable and creator of Performance Planning System. His websites are rhsdplanning.com and performanceplanningsystem.com. To learn more about the kind of communities described in the report, check out Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design’s Landscape Urbanism writings and programs, or, to learn more about Prefurbia as applied specifically to this kind of redevelopment, click http://www.rhsdplanning.com/redev.swf (to request a DVD, contact rharrson@rhsdplanning.com.

  • The Evolving Urban Form: Shanghai

    According to the results of the 2010 census, Shanghai’s population was nearly 1,000,000 people more than had been projected by local authorities. The provincial level of jurisdiction grew from a population of 16.4 million in 2000 to 23.0 million in 2010. Shanghai is one of the world’s fastest growing megacities (urban regions of more than 10 million population). Shanghai’s 6.6 million population growth equals the strong growth of the Manila urban region over the same period but trails the 7.4 million growth in the Jakarta urban region. Shanghai modestly extended its lead over Beijing as China’s largest urban region, where the growth over the same period was 5.8 million.

    As is typical of urban regions around the world, Shanghai’s population gain was concentrated outside the core, in suburban and exurban areas (see table at bottom). A map of Shanghai’s districts can be seen here.

    Suburban Growth: The nine suburban districts grew 69% between 2000 and 2010. The suburban areas grew from 9.5 million in 2000 to 16.0 million in 2010, adding the equivalent of the population of greater Toronto, Dallas-Fort Worth or the Rhine-Ruhr (Essen-Dusseldorf). The suburbs dominated growth, with 99.2% of the population gain

    Sonjiang, to the west of Honquiao airport grew the most, adding nearly 150% to its population. Pudong, a huge district that extends from the new edge city development across the Huangpu River from downtown all the way to Pudong Airport on the Yangtze River added 1.9 million people and now has a population exceeding 5 million (Note).


    Pudong Business District

    The Inner Core: The inner core is the all of the famous Bund, with its Western-style commercial architecture along the Huangpu River and Shanghai’s best known shopping street, Nanjing road. The three districts of the inner core all lost population. Overall, the inner core population dropped from 1.209 million to 926,000, a decline of 23%. This may seem surprising, in view of the large number of high-rise condominium buildings that have been constructed in this area. However, these buildings typically replaced higher density low rise development that was generally not up to modern standards. The inner core has a population density of 119,400 people per square mile (46,100 per square kilometer), down from 155,700 per square mile (60,100 per square kilometer) in 2000. Even so, the inner core retains a population density more than 50% above that of either Manhattan or the ville de Paris. 


    Toward Nanjing Road

    The Outer Core: The six districts of the outer core gained 6%, increasing from 5.723 million to 6.060 million people. Two districts sustained minor losses and another three made modest gains. The district of Putuo was the exception, gaining 23%. The outer core districts had a population density of approximately 60,100 per square mile, or 23,200 per square kilometer in 2010.

    Overall, the entire core grew 0.8% and accounted for 0.8% of the growth in the jurisdiction. The population density was approximately 64,000 per square mile or 25,000 per square kilometer.

    Urban and Rural Shanghai: Overall, Shanghai covers approximately 2,445 square miles (6,333 square kilometers), a land area somewhat more than that of the Statistics Canada defined Toronto metropolitan area (2,279 square miles or 5,901square kilometers). However, Shanghai’s population is nearly four times that of the Toronto area. Even so, Shanghai’s rural population remains at approximately 3,000,000 people.

    Based upon the new census count, it is estimated that the population of the urban area is approximately 20,000,000. The suburban areas, inside the urban area but outside the core are estimated to have a population density of 10,600 per square mile or 4,100 per square kilometer, well below the density of the core. Even so, this suburban density is well above that of all but a few of the urban areas of Western Europe. The suburban areas include a number of undeveloped areas that are completely surrounded by urbanization.

    Decentralized Employment: Shanghai has also developed a decentralized employment base, despite having one of the world’s largest central business districts, with 1.25 million jobs. By comparison, Manhattan has approximately 1,750,000 jobs south of 59th Street, while Tokyo has approximately 4,000,000 jobs inside the Yamanote Loop. The central business district has approximately 15% of Shanghai’s employment.

    Shanghai’s Urban Expansion: Shanghai continues to expand in virtually every direction. It is likely that Shanghai’s urbanization will mean that of Kunshan, an urban area of nearly 1.5 million people located in the Suzhou Prefecture of Jiangsu. In addition, the urbanization is also likely to soon meet that of Taicang, another urban area in Suzhou that has a population of approximately 500,000.  At least one of Shanghai’s Metro lines is planned to be extended to Taicang.

    Shanghai’s urbanization is also poised to spill across the border into the province of Zhejiang. Development is also spreading to the east and southeast in Pudong, including Lingang, which will eventually have 1 million residents. The ocean will prevent further expansion in this direction. Lingang is the point from which a 17 mile (28 kilometer) long bridge crosses one-half of Hangzhou Bay Bridge to Shanghai’s new island port, the largest in the world.

    Shanghai exhibits the same trends that are evident in other world megacities. Like Seoul and Mexico City, the inner core population density is falling. And like Jakarta, Mumbai, Manila and most other large urban areas in the world, the overall population density is declining even as population growth continues.

    Shanghai: Population by District & County (Qu & Xian)
    2010 Census
    POPULATION            
    Sector Area: Square Kilometers  Population: 2000  Population: 2010 Population: Change 2000-2010 % Change % of Growth
    INNER CORE 20.1     1,209,000       926,000      (283,000) -23.4% -4.3%
    Huangpu Qu 4.5        575,000        430,000       (145,000) -25.2% -2.2%
    Jing’an Qu 7.6        305,000        247,000         (58,000) -19.0% -0.9%
    Luwan Qu 8.0        329,000        249,000         (80,000) -24.3% -1.2%
    OUTER CORE 261.4     5,723,000     6,060,000       337,000 5.9% 5.1%
    Changning Qu 38.3        702,000        691,000         (11,000) -1.6% -0.2%
    Hongkou Qu 23.5        861,000        852,000           (9,000) -1.0% -0.1%
    Putuo Qu 54.8     1,052,000     1,289,000        237,000 22.5% 3.6%
    Xuhui Qu 54.8     1,065,000     1,085,000          20,000 1.9% 0.3%
    Yangpu Qu 60.7     1,244,000     1,313,000          69,000 5.5% 1.0%
    Zhabei Qu 29.3        799,000        830,000          31,000 3.9% 0.5%
       
    CORE DISTRICTS 281.5 6,932,000 6,986,000 54,000 0.8% 0.8%
       
    SUBURBAN 6,051.1     9,476,000   16,031,000     6,555,000 69.2% 99.2%
    Baoshan Qu 415.3     1,228,000     1,905,000        677,000 55.1% 10.2%
    Chongming Xian 1,041.2        650,000        704,000          54,000 8.3% 0.8%
    Fengxian Qu 687.4        624,000     1,083,000        459,000 73.6% 6.9%
    Jiading Qu 458.8        753,000     1,471,000        718,000 95.4% 10.9%
    Jinshan Qu 586.1        580,000        732,000        152,000 26.2% 2.3%
    Minhang Qu 371.7     1,217,000     2,429,000     1,212,000 99.6% 18.3%
    Pudong Xin   Qu 1,210.4     3,187,000     5,044,000     1,857,000 58.3% 28.1%
    Qingpu Qu 675.5        596,000     1,081,000        485,000 81.4% 7.3%
    Songjiang Qu 604.7        641,000     1,582,000        941,000 146.8% 14.2%
       
    TOTAL 6,332.6   16,408,000   23,019,000     6,611,000 40.3% 100.0%
       
       
    POPULATION DENSITY          
       
    Sector Area: Square Kilometers  Area: Square Miles  Population/ KM2: 2000 Population/ KM2: 2010 Population/ Mile2: 2000 Population/ Mile2: 2010
    INNER CORE 20.1              7.8         60,100         46,100       155,700       119,400
    Huangpu Qu 4.5               1.7        127,800          95,600        331,000        247,600
    Jing’an Qu 7.6               2.9          40,100          32,500        103,900          84,200
    Luwan Qu 8.0               3.1          41,100          31,100        106,400          80,500
    OUTER CORE 261.4           100.9         21,900         23,200         56,700         60,100
    Changning Qu 38.3             14.8          18,300          18,000          47,400          46,600
    Hongkou Qu 23.5               9.1          36,600          36,300          94,800          94,000
    Putuo Qu 54.8             21.2          19,200          23,500          49,700          60,900
    Xuhui Qu 54.8             21.2          19,400          19,800          50,200          51,300
    Yangpu Qu 60.7             23.4          20,500          21,600          53,100          55,900
    Zhabei Qu 29.3             11.3          27,300          28,300          70,700          73,300
    CORE DISTRICTS 281.5           108.7         24,600         24,800         63,700         64,200
    SUBURBAN 6,051.1        2,336.3           1,600           2,600           4,100           6,700
    Baoshan Qu 415.3            160.3            3,000            4,600            7,800          11,900
    Chongming Xian 1,041.2            402.0              600              700            1,600            1,800
    Fengxian Qu 687.4            265.4              900            1,600            2,300            4,100
    Jiading Qu 458.8            177.1            1,600            3,200            4,100            8,300
    Jinshan Qu 586.1            226.3            1,000            1,200            2,600            3,100
    Minhang Qu 371.7            143.5            3,300            6,500            8,500          16,800
    Pudong Xin   Qu 1,210.4            467.3            2,600            4,200            6,700          10,900
    Qingpu Qu 675.5            260.8              900            1,600            2,300            4,100
    Songjiang Qu 604.7            233.5            1,100            2,600            2,800            6,700
    TOTAL 6,332.6        2,445.0           2,600           3,600           6,700           9,300

     

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    Lead Photograph: The Bund (all photos by author)

    Note: Pudong includes the large Pudong business district, which is directly across the Huangpu River from the Bund in the central business district. However, Pudong is a relatively new development and was not a part of the urban core. Moreover, Pudong extends far to the east and southeast.

    Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”