The Decline Of Suburbia?

Experts Predict Exodus From Far-Flung Neighborhoods Back To Urban Living

(CBS)  The promise of the suburban dream is what brought Nichole Cinaglia and her daughters to a neighborhood more than 30 miles outside of Sacramento, California.

"I mean I think it's everybody's dream to own a home and then have their kids grow up in their home, you know, like they used to so many years ago," Nichole says.

Sixty years ago, cheap gas and new highways helped fuel suburbia's rapid rise, creating a new American utopia. But as CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy reports, the triple threat of falling home values, empty nesters returning to the city and sky-high gas prices is driving suburbia to the brink.

Some developments are left half built while other homes look abandoned. Demand for suburban housing is dropping so fast that a recent study predicts that by 2025 there will be a surplus of 22 million large-lot homes in suburban areas.

Nichole can't afford the $800 in gas she burned each month commuting to her job, so she's selling her house for less than half what she paid for it.

It sounds hard to believe, but some experts are now predicting that this could be the beginning of the end of suburbia -- that far-flung neighborhoods could be tomorrow's slums.

Author James Howard Kunstler has been predicting the decline of the suburbs for more than 15 years.

"I think the project of suburbia is over," he says.

Kunstler says housing far away from job centers won't survive.

"We've put so much of our national wealth and even identity into the idea of suburbia that we can't imagine having to let go of it or substantially change it," he says.

But change is building in Sacramento. The region adopted a back to the future approach known as "smart growth": high-density development in walkable neighborhoods near job centers and transit.

In the past three years, projects with apartments, condos and town homes increased 533 percent, while the number of subdivisions with large homes dropped 21 percent.

"The rapid rise in gas prices over the last six months has made that general direction this region has decided to go look like an especially good decision," says Mike McKeever of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments.

McKeever doesn't believe suburbs will disappear overnight, but says buying on the far edges of a region is now an economic gamble.

"That's a risky bet. It might pay off but it's a risky bet," he says.

Nichole Cinaglia plans to rent near her job. But she still thinks about the life she used to have.

"I don't miss the commute, but I miss the idea," she says. "I miss that it was mine."

A dream abandoned miles away now is beginning to fade.

A lot of people in this forum worry that if they work remotely, management will decide to outsource their job. Hey, if managment wants to outsource, they are going to do it whether you work remotely or in a corporate office.

Working remotely should be embraced by managers and staff alike. One thing you can be sure of is that management does not want to outsource themselves, and they can work remotely just as easily as their staff.

The main thing for workers to do is work as efficiently and productively as possible. That is the best way to keep from being outsourced.

In a lot of cases, the most efficient way to work is from a remote office. Remote Office Centers lease individual offices, internet and phone systems to workers from multiple companies in shared centers located around the suburbs. There is a free web site where people can go to find Remote Office Centers near where they live:

http://www.remoteofficecenters.com

It is too expensive to move from the suburbs back to the city. It is easier and more efficient to move the office to the suburbs. That is what Remote Office Centers do.

[barbaram99]

I grew up in the sticks rural small towns in Maine where everybody knows everybody. That I miss. But they are wonderful if ye can have yer own place,farm,grow yer food and those who don''t have sp needs can live and do.
It is not right they jack every thing up. It is greed. Ye can''t find a rent in Seattle under 650 a month and if so the class of people are drinkers/partyers. We are on fixed incomes and 50+.

[tootall10142]

Greed is having its lunch and the desert is bitter sweet.

[blackyowe]

I hope Suburbia dies a quick death and does it quietly. It is a long over due death! Long live small town and rural America!

[barbaram99]

i did not want to bring a child into the world that might be handicapped and I am a sp needs adult. So some think of others and if it would be fair to a child that suffers and won''t have a good life in the process. I am childless as that was the right thing for me. I am a Manier and we have always called the govt the nanny govt. It has nothing to do with the parties we we need to belong to in order to vote in the primary. Yes rents are sky high. 2 or have to be room-mates and pay their part,

[libsluv2spit]

its disappearing because.............

not too many people are desiring to have a ''family'' anymore..hence the growth of ''lofts'' and ''condos'' and luxury apartments...

[txgrouch2006]

And who is buying them? Thirty-something professionals who have boat loads of money.
Posted by Element51 at 01:05 PM : Aug 08, 2008

So what you''re saying is, suburbia is disappearing because the MIDDLE CLASS IS DISAPPEARING.

Everyone is getting either VERY RICH ("boatloads of money") or VERY POOR.

BTW, exactly WHERE ARE THOSE BOATLOADS OF MONEY COMING FROM??? The can''t all be outsource managers.

Could it be - - - - DRUGSSSSSSSSS?????????????

[element51]

We live in a small city, pop.165,000, and the area that used to be "down town" had really gone to the dogs. The buildings were a mess, businesses had fled, and no one went there. Then they started remodeling the old buildings and putting in loft apartments. The old business buildings were converted into restaurants and bars and the lofts sold like hot cakes. The prices start at around a half million and go up. They can''t convert them fast enough. And who is buying them? Thirty-something professionals who have boat loads of money. So things can change in the right atmosphere. I might add that the average working class pay here is 8 to 10 bucks an hour. As for the rest of the city, houses are priced at 125K and up and sales are slow because now that the sub prime thing has come up, no one can qualify for a loan. Rentals are sky high, a one bedroom small apartment at 750.00 and up. I don''t know how people do it. Things are changing but it''s hard to see where it will all go. Glad my house is paid for. All I have to do is pay property tax and it goes up every year. Now almost 3000.00 a year, and I thought I owned the house. Wrong! It belongs to the state. How stupid of me. As Dylan said long ago, "the times they are a''changing."

[toldyouso12]

People will be moving to the suburbs that lived centrally, because those properties are only for the rich now.

Posted by mollydtt at 11:48 AM : Aug 08, 2008


Businesses are not immovable as outsourcing has taught us. Many suburbs may adjust by giving up more land and greenspace and transporting companies and services to the strip mall areas or even park like areas in their midst---in short, suburbia will morph into alternative inner cities away from the original urban areas. Ugly? yes. Necessary--yes--a trade off between what keeps millions of homes viable and stopping the vast tract of homogeneous homes that look like a bad version of the Stepford wives with SUVs.

[toldyouso12]

My advice to urban dwellers: hold on to your homes in the city or near work centers. They will become far more valuable than the poorly built, compressed wood and plastic homes in the suburbs. Those in far flung suburbia are sitting ducks. (myself included) soon enough, people will be flocking back to inner cities and landlords will begin displacing minorities and others to take advantage of the shift. The most valuable: Will be turn of the 20th century homes or older, with real woodwork and craftmanship. The kind of homes featured on HGTV''s "if these walls could talk" or "this old house" or "dream drives" You will note that these shows rarely (if ever) include homes built after 1955. as for me--I''m in the burbs with 3 acres--but I am only about 10 minutes from work (by highway)--maybe I can hang onto my place--maybe not.

The Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn, IKEA, Hobby Lobby era is about to come to a close. LOL

[mollydtt]

I bought a house 17 years ago fairly centrally located, and near a walkable little shopping area. While it is nice to think that all that woodland and farmland might be spared from irresponsible sprawl, the reality is that property values for modest, centrally located neighborhoods is skyrocketing. People will be moving to the suburbs that lived centrally, because those properties are only for the rich now.

[credibility2]

The problem with suburbia is that it lacks an infrastructure that was intended for growth and homes have taken over space where streets and thoroughfares should be supporting mass transit. Where I live, the closest train or rush hour bush routes are one mile away, which isn''t convenient when you can''t get around due to physical limitations, or you''re trying to reduce gas consumption. Many suburbs are supporting tax bases that apartment dwelling urbanites don''t have to contend with. And many urban areas are in rapid decay (Gary, Detroit, parts of Chicago, etc.) and again the residents tend to be low-income and not able to sustain municipal expenditures due to a disproportionate tax base, comparative to many suburban areas.

[missingamerica]

I''m afraid so-called free trade is not the one-man Clinton show you paint here. It''s primarily the greedy corporate moguls who pushed this through and it would have been done with or without Clinton. Who could stand int he way of WalMart in the ''90''s? No one I know of.

Posted by talkingham at 10:39 AM : Aug 08, 2008

You are of course right...Wal*Mart was smart enough to help the husband of someone who was on their board of directors for six years become President, and they taught corporate America a lesson...and it paid off in "free" (then why is it costing America so much?) trade.

Big Oil used it well...first training Cheney up as CEO of Halliburton, and then finding a puppet with family credentials to serve as a figurehead for Cheney to operate behind...and you will note that Big Oil managed to surpass Wal*Mart''s profits.

Obama does not worry me - any even slightly shady links that have been posited about his dealings appear to be limited to real estate, and anybody who wishes to increase the value of the land that America sits upon would be a nice change.

But who, I wonder, controls McCain? So far it would appear to be Big Oil, once again...

[malta-falcon]

There are more options than the extremes of 2 acres in suburbia or a 10 story building downtown. I own about an 1/8 acre in a suburb just outside the urban core. We have enough yard for a modest swimming pool and a swingset in the backyard. The neighborhood is close to town, so there is useful bus service. All the streets have sidewalks, and I can walk to both the grocery store and my office. I hope the suburbs are not dead, but I do hope the higher gas prices limit the crazy sprawl where people buy bigger houses than they need on bigger lots than make sense and drive massive SUVs.

People who expect that technology will somehow rescue the nation so there are no changes to our lifestyle from high gasoline prices give it too much credit. Technology is advancing and may give us some of what we enjoyed with cheap gasoline, but it is a fantasy to think we will have the same huge cars for the same price but with much cheaper energy (whether it''s hybrid, electric, hydrogen, or whatever). That cannot happen overnight, and when they are fully developed there will still be tradeoffs. If these technologies could actually deliver all that people expect, they would have been developed sooner. And I do not just mean transportation: telecommuting is not a technology to save us. We are human and need face time and interaction to do our jobs well. And not everyone has a job that can be done remotely.

[malta-falcon]

There are more options than the extremes of 2 acres in suburbia or a 10 story building downtown. I own about an 1/8 acre in a suburb just outside the urban core. We have enough yard for a modest swimming pool and a swingset in the backyard. The neighborhood is close to town, so there is useful bus service. All the streets have sidewalks, and I can walk to both the grocery store and my office. I hope the suburbs are not dead, but I do hope the higher gas prices limit the crazy sprawl where people buy bigger houses than they need on bigger lots than make sense and drive massive SUVs.

People who expect that technology will somehow rescue the nation so there are no changes to our lifestyle from high gasoline prices give it too much credit. Technology is advancing and may give us some of what we enjoyed with cheap gasoline, but it is a fantasy to think we will have the same huge cars for the same price but with much cheaper energy (whether it''s hybrid, electric, hydrogen, or whatever). That cannot happen overnight, and when they are fully developed there will still be tradeoffs. If these technologies could actually deliver all that people expect, they would have been developed sooner. And I do not just mean transportation: telecommuting is not a technology to save us. We are human and need face time and interaction to do our jobs well. And not everyone has a job that can be done remotely.

[talkingham]

I''m afraid so-called free trade is not the one-man Clinton show you paint here. It''s primarily the greedy corporate moguls who pushed this through and it would have been done with or without Clinton. Who could stand int he way of WalMart in the ''90''s? No one I know of.

[malta-falcon]

There are more than just 2 options between acres in suburbia or a 10 story building downtown. I own about an 1/8 acre in a suburb just outside the urban core. We have enough yard for a modest swimming pool and a swingset in the backyard. The neighborhood is close to town, so there is useful bus service. All the streets have sidewalks, and I can walk to both the grocery store and my office. I hope the suburbs are not dead, but I do hope the higher gas prices limit the crazy sprawl where people buy bigger houses than they need on bigger lots than make sense and drive massive SUVs.

People who expect that technology will somehow rescue the nation so there are no changes to our lifestyle from high gasoline prices give it too much credit. Technology is advancing and may give us some of what we enjoyed with cheap gasoline, but it is a fantasy to think we will have the same huge cars for the same price but with much cheaper energy (whether it''s hybrid, electric, hydrogen, or whatever). That cannot happen overnight, and when they are fully developed there will still be tradeoffs. If these technologies could actually deliver all that people expect, they would have been developed sooner. And I do not just mean transportation: telecommuting is not a technology to save us. We are human and need face time and interaction to do our jobs well. And not everyone has a job that can be done remotely.

[missingamerica]

Clinton raised taxes on businesses and people who could afford to pay them and the economy boomed.

[...]

Posted by talkingham at 10:13 AM : Aug 08, 2008

Yah, Clinton was alright...as long as you are willing to ignore what his short-sighted and inequitable but "free" trade actions did to (roughly in order of the timing of the impact):

- America''s manufacturing jobs

- America''s service jobs

- The flow of investment capital out of America to build factories and service centers in cheaper nations

- The massive increase in global pollution caused by the transfer of light and then heavy manufacturing to places where the phrase "environmental responsibility" is met with a puzzled stare

- The tremendous increase in global energy consumption which will lead to a far faster depletion of the planet''s global petroleum reserves

- The modification of China and India into energy-intensive economies, which places their people at enormous risk of starvation - and thus places the world at risk of resource-motivated war - when the day comes that petroleum supplies become scarce...

In short, if you ignore the fact that Clinton''s actions will probably lead to more human death and destruction that has ever before been seen throughout all of recorded human history, he was alright...

[omega39-2009]

We risk losing the newly telecommute-enabled jobs themselves, as recent history indicates that once it is proven that a job can be performed remotely, our oh-so-patriotic corporate titans immediately offshore it to cheap climes - either on their own initiative, or in response to the demands of any of a number of "shareholder activists" who never think beyond how much money they can get NOW.possible.

Posted by ibsteve2u

I had the exact same thought when I read casadcoeur''s post. If it can be done a few miles away, it can also be done in India.

[talkingham]

Mission Accomplished Bush.
You took a surplus and turned it into a half-trillion deficit. Yeah you''re a real conservative aren''t you liar.

Clinton raised taxes on businesses and people who could afford to pay them and the economy boomed. It made the republicans so mad they impeached him for being human and dwelled incessantly on his biology, spending more than $50-million to investigate his *** life. yeah, the "conservatives" won and now we have an economy in shambles, no new energy plan as they promised (except to support big oil), and a trillion dollars poured into Iraq so a bunch of radical Shiites can have a budget surplus.

Yes, Mission Accomplished indeed, Der Decider.