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2. Surveys have long shown preference for the picket fence lifestyle until recently, whether people could afford it or not. I'm not sure why realtor organizations conducting these surveys would rig them since they tend to benefit more from new housing.
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I keep forgetting that was a NAR survey. perhaps JEB read this piece, in which someone from eevil Brookings quoted the survey?
Part of the challenge translating what's in the Times piece to our area is that the term "fringe suburb" is often associated with suburbs full of single-family homes that are far removed from jobs. In our region, some of the outer suburbs already contain a mix of housing types, and they are near major regional job centers.
What I understand you and Bluefly to now be emphasizing is that a somewhat higher percentage of people who live in these areas would trade some square footage or lot size for proximity to a somewhat walkable town center. Ergo, a Brambleton in Ashburn might be viewed more favorably that another Toll Brothers development of single-family homes miles removed from any shopping.
If you want to call that - or the broader notion that people increasingly look for options to reduce the amount of time they spend in their cars - a "cultural shift," I've now said repeatedly I don't disagree. It's a nice, big tent.
Having said that, there are other trends in the region. I find the movement of prosperous Asian and Middle Eastern families to single-family homes in places like Fairfax and Loudoun (often in neighborhoods that are further removed from public transportation from where they've previously lived) just as significant as the movement of high-income white singles to condos in DC or the continued movement of AA families to Maryland. The former are also important to this area's future, and there are still multiple versions of what people consider most desirable.
You forgot to add in the cost of case. Here is the AAA average, per year by car type, which could easily come out to be much more than $2000 per year for all car types. Than you can add on Insurance and Maintenance.
For every piece like that - which I did read - there is another piece like this:
Part of the challenge translating what's in the Times piece to our area is that the term "fringe suburb" is often associated with suburbs full of single-family homes that are far removed from jobs. In our region, some of the outer suburbs already contain a mix of housing types, and they are near major regional job centers. .
thats true. Loudoun, close to Dulles airport and its associated job concentration, is most unlikely to share the fate of the inland empire in Calif, parts of Nevada, etc. There are other outer suburban areas in metro DC less favored than LC, but I suspect even they may fare better than some of the sunbelt areas spawned by the bubble.
"What I understand you and Bluefly to now be emphasizing is that a somewhat higher percentage of people who live in these areas would trade some square footage or lot size for proximity to a somewhat walkable town center. Ergo, a Brambleton in Ashburn might be viewed more favorably that another Toll Brothers development of single-family homes miles removed from any shopping. "
yes, a greater inclination for planned communities with those charecteristics is part of it - as is favor for higher density suburbs with transit access (merrifield), as is favor for older pockets with density filling in around them (falls church and old town fairfax) as is favor for new density in the oldest urban areas (Old town Alex and DC) as is favor for high density in what had been inner suburbs but increasingly look urban (Rosslyn-ballston, Silver Spring). I see all these as different manifestations of similar impulses.
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If you want to call that - or the broader notion that people increasingly look for options to reduce the amount of time they spend in their cars - a "cultural shift," I've now said repeatedly I don't disagree. It's a nice, big tent. .
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Having said that, there are other trends in the region. I find the movement of prosperous Asian and Middle Eastern families to single-family homes in places like Fairfax and Loudoun (often in neighborhoods that are further removed from public transportation from where they've previously lived) just as significant as the movement of high-income white singles to condos in DC or the continued movement of AA families to Maryland. The former are also important to this area's future, and there are still multiple versions of what people consider most desirable.
Its not only high income white singles in DC. There are asian americans there, and some african american renovatgors (indeed thats the story of the new Anacostia). And its not only about class replacement, the old "gentrification", which has been going on in DC (and Old town alex, and many cities elsehwhere) for decades, but rising total populations. One of the reasons I like looking at whats going on somewhere like North Arlington, is that its easier to see the shift to density without the confusion of the race issue, or even as much of the class issue. Movement to the outer fringe has been a theme for a long time. Movement of major employment centers to the fringe has been a theme since the 1990s ("Edge City"). Now we have a new theme. How far it will go - how many of the folks who say they would move to walkable TOD IF the conditions were right, is hard to say.
Personally I think there is a certain frailty to the demand for a quarter acre lawn. This is based on my personal observation (highly contested by some) that in most instances the lawn is NOT used the way that people who want them say they need them. The ages when kids actually go out and play on the lawn is shorter than many adults realize, and in our region (and I think many others) the draws of homework, organized activities, electronics, etc take up way more time than is realized. and the alternatives - town house yards, parks and other public recreational spaces, etc - are seriously underestimated. I think a signficant element in the demand for the lawn (and hence, the SFH on 1/4 acre or larger lot) is social-cultural pressure, and another element is lack of awareness of the "urban" (note, not to be equated with city limits) alternative amenities. But thats a huge cultural shift to make - I dont know of the millenials experience of the city - broader, as pct of their generation, than for us boomers - will change that. but it might.
That American Spectator article was not a mirror of the NYTimes article and all the stats therein. It was completely void of any stats and basically was some guy's opinion that he likes big houses because he didn't grow up in one and that cities are "barbaric hellholes".
He's obviously wrong on the last point and is just pandering to dated beliefs. One could argue that the very suburban PG County increasingly fits his description. But he makes the same mistake Jeb makes, which is to try and draw that dated city versus suburb line and ignore how people are living in those suburbs now. As I'm sure you saw today, White Flint's bowling over a strip mall for a high-concept tower (tallest in MoCo) as part of a larger shift to an urban environment for that corridor.
That American Spectator article was not a mirror of the NYTimes article and all the stats therein. It was completely void of any stats and basically was some guy's opinion that he likes big houses because he didn't grow up in one and that cities are "barbaric hellholes".
He's obviously wrong on the last point and is just pandering to dated beliefs. One could argue that the very suburban PG County increasingly fits his description. But he makes the same mistake Jeb makes, which is to try and draw that dated city versus suburb line and ignore how people are living in those suburbs now. As I'm sure you saw today, White Flint's bowling over a strip mall for a high-concept tower (tallest in MoCo) as part of a larger shift to an urban environment for that corridor.
The point is that there's generally a mix of statistics and advocacy in these types of pieces, though few are as obviously cheerleaders for one particular mode of development as you are. For every article describing cities as "barbaric hellholes," there's a piece calling suburbs "sterile" places where only Applebees can be found. I tend to blow past them, but then I wasn't the one who linked to the puff piece in the Times, either.
Ask people who move to Arlington rather than DC in part for ACPS, rather than DCPS or a hefty private school tuition bill, or someone who moves to McLean rather than Bethesda in part for lower taxes, or someone who moves to Potomac rather than Great Falls to avoid having Ken Cuccinelli as their elected official, whether political boundaries are "so 1990s."
We're talking the types of landscapes, not the social / political environments. Someone who moves near Ballston for better schools is still making an urban lifestyle choice.
I don't know where you got the idea that I advocate one type of transportation. I'm all about freedom of choice and mobility. Cars have a place but so do bikes, buses, trains, and feet. Perhaps I misunderstood you, but you're the one advocating forcing people to depend on one mode of transportation, not me.
Edit: I see, you said one type of development. That's not true either. We have no shortage of sprawl. I simply see the need to increase supply of more integrated development patterns to serve the increased demand, decrease harm to the environment, and provide more access to jobs for the poor.
Ask people who move to Arlington rather than DC in part for ACPS, rather than DCPS or a hefty private school tuition bill, or someone who moves to McLean rather than Bethesda in part for lower taxes, or someone who moves to Potomac rather than Great Falls to avoid having Ken Cuccinelli as their elected official, whether political boundaries are "so 1990s."
as i said above, sometimes political boundaries matter. Though in all the cases you sight you have to be more specific than simply suburbs vs city Schools vary a lot among suburbs(i dunno, are PG schools that good that someone leaving DC for schools necessarily would accept them in lieu of Arlington?) and the other two cases you sight are maryland vs va, not city vs suburbs.
The piece in the Times at least cited some data, and raised some interesting issues about the fate of far suburban bubble burbs. It somewhat elided over the distinction between middle suburbs and the outer fringe, and of course between the subset of outer burbs with major employment concentrations and others.
The point is that there's generally a mix of statistics and advocacy in these types of pieces, though few are as obviously cheerleaders for one particular mode of development as you are.
poor bluefly.
jeb, did you see in the other forum where I was called a suburb basher for supporting the suggestion that someone consider living in reston instead of chantilly cause his wife might want to look at jobs in Tysons and not count on employment west of Reston? the folks who find theres a firm with a incentives for hiring in Ashburn, and use that to indicate that theres no need to worry about jobs if you live in LC - without regard to any issues of skill, fit, etc. Where if you suggest that Loudoun county, which HAS TOD zone in their zoning ordinance (mapped around the silver line stations) wants TOD, you are told you are trying to force urbanism on Loudoun? Its like an alternate reality in there. talk about cheerleading, indeed.
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