Interesting article about the "housing shift" in Finneytown. (Cincinnati: section 8, apartments)

[CincyExpert]

Finneytown: Testing the housing shift | Cincinnati Enquirer | Cincinnati.Com

Talks about the increase of Section 8 and other issues in this inner-ring suburb, and what the community and school district is doing to adjust to these changes.

[jlrosen]

What are the inner rings suburbs going to do? You have 50-60 year old housing stock that isn't historic and is small for today's standards. Not only that, all the housing stock in these tiny jurisdictions was built within a few years, so it is all at about the same age and level of deterioration.

The original owners are in a lot of these homes, and as they get older they are less likely to support school levies and increases in the property tax due to fixed incomes.

what kind of future do these places have? It doesn't look good. If someone wants to live in the city, they will live in the city; if someone wants to live in the suburbs, they will probably go to a new suburb where the houses aren't much more expensive and are new.

[Briolat21]

Just like people moving out of the cities, there will be cycles of people moving out of these inner ring 'burbs. Then some group - artists, trendmeisters, whomever - will discover what a great deal it is, and redevelop the area. Then they will tear down existing homes/apartments that are blighted and build huge condos. Then the low-income people who initially were blamed for starting the deterioration will be priced out (the suburb will have regentrified), move on and start the cycle (supposedly) somewhere else.

Cinci is about 30-40 years behind Detroit in this cycle. The inner ring suburbs of Royal Oak, Ferndale, and others have come back very nicely, from being pretty much wastelands in the early 80's. Now they are happening places to be.

As in all other life-spans, its all cyclical.