Reversal of Metro Sprawl (Minneapolis, Bloomington: apartment, foreclosures, houses)

[Cruz Azul Guy]

This is an intriguing article regarding moving trends in the Twin Cities.

Reverse migration: Flight to the exurbs stops cold | StarTribune.com (http://www.startribune.com/local/90584664.html?elr=KArksCiUHc3E7_V_nDaycUiD3aPc:_ Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUr - broken link)

[northstar22]

Sad news. I actually like sprawl. It's good for the economy, and leads to more jobs and more economic growth.

[west336]

IMO sprawl is inefficient and costly, so I'm all for this new trend.

[Danie123182]

Originally Posted by flyingwriter

Sad news. I actually like sprawl. It's good for the economy, and leads to more jobs and more economic growth.

How does sprawl help the economy?
By making us spend more of our money on fuel? Driving on roads loaded with potholes because the tax base isn't sufficient to maintain the 10s of thousands of miles of extra roads that wouldn't be needed with smart growth. I guess that would be good for suspension repair shops but car repair is just a leech industry. I would much rather go out to eat or to a movie then spend that money on car repair.

In all actuality it makes no sense for sprawl. The only thing that sprawl provides is cheap land for manufacturing and warehouses. Building homes on that land provides no benefit that a 7 story apartment wouldn't provide economically.

People who live in city centers usually spend more of their money in locally owned retail outlets and restaurants keeping their money in the community. People in burbs however buy at wal-mart and target and spend their money on fast food sending their money to Wall Street investors and foreign manufacturers.

[mod cut: unnecessary/personal attack]

[uptown_urbanist]

I don't necessarily agree that people who live in the city are any more likely to shop locally than are those in the suburbs, other than the fact that many of the newer sprawling places are more likely to have big box stores and franchises and fewer independent small places. Not to mention that in the Twin Cities Target IS local... (actually, the shopping locally thing is one of my top priorities, but I don't necessarily think that many city residents see that as any more of a priority than their suburban counterparts)

All that said, I certainly do my best to shop local and independent, hate sprawl, and agree that it's not good for the economy. There have been some other recent articles discussing the increased poverty and job loss (and foreclosures) in outer suburbs; one of the reasons cited was that a higher percentage of jobs in those far out locations were construction or real-estate based, and once the demand for building dropped people working in those fields were disproportionately hurt. You can't realistically keep building forever, so sometime the shoe had to drop. Not to mention that keeping building out and out has led to all sorts of additional expenses like more roads (to serve low density populations), duplication of services, etc.

But for those who do like sprawl, I don't think the Twin Cities will be filling in anytime soon; there will undoubtedly be plenty of sprawling suburbs available for years to come for those who prefer it.

[knke0204]

Originally Posted by flyingwriter

Sad news. I actually like sprawl. It's good for the economy, and leads to more jobs and more economic growth.

I think you are meshing apples and oranges.

Sprawl is the phenomenon of horrible Development practices. It's the acculmination of poor City Governements, Citizen participation, and greedy development companies.

The end result of sprawl is Economic Growth, as you mentioned. But it's the road they take to achieve this growth that is wrong. There are actually more EFFICIENT ways to Grow the Economy and expand and develop economically, than to sprawl.

Much of the reasons for spraw are the affordability.

Why would a developer pay $100 million for land aquisition in Hennepin County in, let's say Brooklyn Park, when $70 million can be spent for the same area of land up the road in Wright County.

It's a phenomenon that I have personally been a part of. Living in the NW burbs, the town I lived in went from 2,000 people in 1990, to 10,000 by 1995, to 15,000 by 2000 and now is an area of nearly 25,000 people. It's a school district that HAD 3 schools in 1990 and has BUILT 3 schools since 2000. It's a town that once had k-6 in ONE school and now has 3 schools for 1-5!

All of this was for affordibilty of land.... I know somebody who has a 1 floor, 2 bed, 1 bath 1/4 acre home in Crystal they bought in 2002 for $140,000 and somebody with a 4 bed, 3 bath, 1/2 acre home in Big Lake for $160,000 they bought in 2003.

That's sprawl for you.

You can't really blame cities though. Local governments struggle economically, so anyway to Increase their tax base by development they are going to take advantage of.

[gearedtowardssalad]

Should be interesting to see the census's population results of Minneapolis.

[northstar22]

I don't see why sprawl is so evil. Not everyone wants to live in super-dense big cities or in small towns - and so the suburbs are the perfect place for them. There are plenty of locally-owned businesses in the burbs, and as uptown_urbanist mentioned, Target IS local here. As far as the driving goes, there ARE mass transit options in the suburbs. The Twin Cities bus system goes all over the metro, the SW Transit buses cover the southwest burbs, and the Northstar rail line goes all the way out to Big Lake. The Twin Cities burbs are actually big on mass transit. This isn't Atlanta, where there is almost NO mass transit outside the central city.

The hatred for suburban development and sprawl crosses over into the irrational at times. It seems that many people see suburbanites as money-hungry, greedy, cultureless, wasteful pigs. I've even seen people claim that sprawl is immoral! Why? How does well-planned suburban growth like we have here in Minnesota hurt anybody?

[Kebinminn]

I don't mind the sprawl as I believe if people want to live somewhere it's none of my business. Personally I could never give up time with my family for a long commute so we will likely stay closer to the core of the city.

[west336]

Suburbs ARE a great compromise, IF planned right. The problem is that most suburbs don't plan as part of a larger cohesive unit. In other words they act independently ("selfishly") and feed off the larger metro area but don't want to be part of a larger community. Since that's a strong statement, I want to be clear that I'm over-generalizing, and I have examples in mind when I said that.

For example, many suburbs do not plan neighborhood streets as part of a larger metro grid. Exceptions may be St. Louis Park, Richfield, Bloomington (East), Brooklyn Center, etc. It therefore becomes extremely difficult to "fuse" the different pieces of the metro puzzle together and seemlessness and cohesiveness stop, and often times so does community and sense of place. These are purely my opinions, btw.

I personally love suburbs that connect neighborhood, walkability and privacy all at once. For instance, you are inclined as an American to want a house with a two-car garage and a front and back yard. You can have all of that on a SMALLER lot with neighbors close by, corner stores at busier intersections and large parks scattered between neighborhoods. The suburbs (and suburbanites) I don't like as much are the ones that promote 1/2 acre or larger lots in cul de sacs flagshipped by big box retail at the intersection of "45 mph and No Sidewalk Ave". I get the sense they want to have their cake and eat it too.

Obviously it's not a black and white issue (pun) because everyone has their own idea of personal "utopia".