Are you ready for the new urbanites? (St. Louis, St. Charles: mortgage, how much)
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Generation Y here also...love the yard work...something about having a well manicured lawn that makes me happy...as to the yard space, both myself and my wife want it for the little ones to be able to play soccer, catch, etc w/o having to go to the park.
I'm willing to say that there is a "resurgence" in city living. And that more people (specifically in St. Louis) would consider it now than they would have 10-20-30 years ago...however, i'd be very interested in knowing how much this has reversed the desirability of the suburbs.
As to the majority of 20 somethings not wanting 3k square feet, in the burbs, with a 3 car garage...i don't know if it's so much that they don't want it, as much as they can't afford it.
Yes obviously people still have kids and focus on their career but the percentage of people focusing on getting married at 23 and starting a family is much less than it was 15-20 years ago. Review the census data and see whats happening for yourself. The desire to commute 45 minutes to your job, have a 3000 sq foot home with a 3 car garage is deteriorating. More people are interested in multi fam living w/o the maintenance of a single Fam home.
I think we also see that the stereotypical 45 minute commute, at least in St. Louis, isn't really accurate when a lot of the jobs have spread out across the metro area.
Having said that, I've seen no evidence that it's reversing the growth of 'burbs.
That's my point. It's not that I disagree that younger people now (21-35) are more interested in city living than in the past, but to suggest that the burbs are going to deteriorate is really a stretch. The current census data, at least in St. Louis, doesn't show this happening and even shows STL County losing population. The far burbs continued growing, albeit perhaps at a slower rate.
You have a lot of factors at work and one of them is that downtown is no longer the major job center it used to be. A lot of jobs have moved to the county and even the exurbs. There was an article on this not too long ago in the post that we kicked around on this forum.
There are plenty of burbs that are in decline in the STL area. Much more than 10 years ago. In addition people are reaching the threshold on how far away they can move away from the urban core. Believe it or not Downtown still is the major job center in the region and still has a higher share of jobs than any other area. Has employment grown in St Charles? Yes. However it's still a very small share of jobs in the region. Also people don't only commute for jobs. They commute for fine dining, sporting events, arts, etc.
The day of subsidized sprawl into the hinterlands has slowed and I will be surprised if it ever picks up again unless the population in the entire region starts to pick up.
Totally agree that there has been population shifts around the metro. The 2010 census data though showed some pretty large gains in the exurbs, along with massive gains downtown. Much of St. Louis City did see losses, along with St. Louis County as a whole...While St. Charles, Franklin, and Jefferson Counties saw large growth...which doesn't make me think people are fleeing super long commutes, in fact it'd make me think that there are plenty of people who're totally accepting of a 45 minute commute if they can get the home they want.
Was just checking out some data from the US Census Bureau. Lists that mean work commute time for county residents is 23.1 minutes, while mean work commute time for city residents is 24.2 minutes, which would tell me that work locations are all over this metro area, and not concentrated in one given location. Also, it lists the number of Business establishments in St. Louis City, and the number of establishments in St. Louis County. County lists: 30,660 business establishments (not including self employed individuals). St. Louis City lists: 8,928 also not including self employed. It does show that the 8,928 businesses in the city, on average are supplying more jobs than the 30,660, with the cities 8,928 businesses providing 248,732 jobs = 27.9 Employees per Business. St. Louis County has 590,782 Employees with 30,660 businesses = 19.3 Employees per business. Considering the size of the city, vs the size of the county it's also clear that business density is significantly greater in St. Louis City vs St. Louis County. But to say that St. Louis City has more jobs than St. Louis County would be incorrect.
For fun, St. Charles County lists average commute times at 25 minutes (slightly more than either city or county) and they're listed as having 8,101 businesses, employing 125,196 individuals = 15.4 employees per business.
I'm not sure there's any debate that things are changing. The debate is how much and what impact the new trend towards urban living will have on cities. Even in the St. Louis area, even in a recession, mixed use development is being proposed for almost every new project that comes up. Even the proposed plan for Jamestown mall!
And one cannot look just at in-migration for county-wide jurisdictions such as the city itself or all of St. Charles county for what's happening. The inner areas of St. Charles county such as St. Charles and St. Peters stagnated the last 10 years as buyers flocked to cheaper and larger newer construction. This path is absolutely unsustainable and is already reversing or stopping as the glut of unfinished subdivisions in Wentzville will tell you. Further, while the city as a whole has lost population, the most dense and urban parts of the city, namely downtown, has surged in population and in particular in attracting the upwardly mobile.
And this is just in St. Louis. Other cities are showing much larger and significant shifts towards urban living, especially cities like Philadelphia and Washington DC. The point about businesses still being spread out so moving to the city to save on gas is a good one. That is a big reason St. Louis will be slower to shift to a more urban-oriented area than other cities. But it will happen. The big question is when, and to what degree?
Population loss in St. Louis city in the last decade was due, in a very significant way, to black flight. Those north St. Louis neighborhoods are wildly dangerous, the schools are an unholy mess -- any family with options or any means at all are leaving the area, and who can blame them? But you're seeing gains in professional city residents. Gentrification is so obviously happening in many St. Louis neighborhoods. The only way you could argue otherwise is if you've not been there in the last decade. Numbers alone won't tell that whole story.
And I've said it before and I'll say it again: There are like a bajillion well-priced single family homes in St. Louis -- that one of my favorite things about the city. You don't have to live in a condo in St. Louis if you don't want to -- you could have a cute little house in a safe neighborhood for as little as $75,000 or a stunning historic mansion for millions. This city has options for everyone, but the idea that we have to give up the SFH in order to live in an urban neighborhood is just silly.
Believe it or not Downtown still is the major job center in the region and still has a higher share of jobs than any other area.
You are probably right in overall terms, and I'm really not trying to pick a fight here, but I just don't believe that the current census data supports some of the far ranging conclusions reached in the original article that started this thread that suggests a mass migration to urban cores is going to occur, nor do I believe your implication that the far burbs are going to wither and die.
Here's a link to a PDF of the post article that we discussed on this forum back in May:
Some interesting stats from this article that are relevent to our discussion:
*Jobs in St. Louis fell by 14% from 2000 to 2009, outpacing population loss of 8%. The total number of jobs lost in the last decade according to the chart in the article was 86,074.
*Jobs in STL County fell by 13 percent, well outpacing population loss of 2%.
*St. Charles County jobs increased by 28%, and Lincoln, Monroe and Jefferson Counties in Missouri had double digit percent job increases from 2000-2009.
*A 2009 Brookings Institution study, using 2006 data, found that more than half of all jobs in the area are located more than 10 miles from downtown STL. Only 14% of jobs were within three miles of center.
*Although I always focus on St. Louis, the same Brookings Institute study said this movement of jobs away from the urban core is occuring in 95 of the 98 metro areas analyzed.
So I agree that young people today are getting married later, having kids later and having fewer of them, and a growing number of them prefer living in or closer to the urban core, at least compared to 20-30 years ago, but I still think projections that we are on the verge of some type of massive influx to the urban core in St. Louis (and apparently most other areas) is not borne out by anything in the current census data.
I also agree that we are unlikely to continue to see people moving out in the same large numbers as they did in the past several decades.
I still don't see a major shift in the other direction borne out by anything in the most recent census data. mabye the next 10 years will completely shift in the other direction, but that seems extraordinarily unlikely to me. The last census shows both jobs and people continue to move out from the urban core. It would be quite a reversal to change those trends in absolute terms in the next decade or two, particularly when the jobs have been moving out with the people. You also have the school issues and perceptions, fairly or unfairly, of crime.
I found a link to a press release of the study with a chart that shows that more than 60% of the jobs in the STL area are more than 10 miles away from the city center:
[LEFT]Metro Areas with Most Job Sprawl[/LEFT] [LEFT]Large Employment Center[/LEFT] [LEFT]Share of Jobs – More Than 10 Miles Away From City Center*[/LEFT]
[LEFT]Detroit‐Warren‐Livonia, MI 77.4 percent
Chicago‐Naperville‐Joliet, IL‐IN‐WI 68.7 percent
Dallas‐Fort Worth‐Arlington, TX 66.9 percent
Los Angeles‐Long Beach, Santa Ana, CA 65.6 percent
Philadelphia‐Camden‐Wilmington, PA‐NJ‐DE 63.7 percent
Atlanta‐Sandy Springs‐Marietta, GA 63.2 percent
Miami‐Fort Lauderdale‐Miami Beach, FL 62.6 percent
St. Louis, MO‐IL 60.9 percent
San Francisco‐Oakland‐Fremont, CA 57.3 percent[/LEFT]
Seattle‐Tacoma‐Bellevue, WA 56.0 percent
I'm willing to say that there is a "resurgence" in city living. And that more people (specifically in St. Louis) would consider it now than they would have 10-20-30 years ago...however, i'd be very interested in knowing how much this has reversed the desirability of the suburbs.
As to the majority of 20 somethings not wanting 3k square feet, in the burbs, with a 3 car garage...i don't know if it's so much that they don't want it, as much as they can't afford it.
I'm willing to say there is a "resurgence" in city living as well, which, by the way, I think is great.
But this is one quote from the article linked in the op's original post:
"John McIlwain, president of the Urban Land Institute says: 'The age of sub-urbanization and growing homeownership is over, and the coming decades will be the time of the great re-urbanization. We should replace front lawns and sedans with apartments and trains.'"
Don't you think this goes a little too far? I'm thinking that's just so much wishful thinking on his part.
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