How Atlanta Decided It Can’t Out Suburb the Suburbs (Alpharetta: mortgage, house)

[bu2]

Originally Posted by AnsleyPark

Thanks for link, jsvh. Funny enough, the following popped up while I was reading the article. Pretty interesting in and of itself.

What if City-Loving Millennials Are Just a Myth? - The Urban Edge

There was an article in the AJC a few weeks back talking to homebuilders. They find millennials are living in the suburbs in a slightly higher percentage than boomers and they want bigger starter homes than the previous generation had. Both are contrary to the prevailing urban myths.

Its like 4thwarden says. Its economic. In the city you get worse schools, more crime and less house (if you can even afford it). Some sacrifice those things for the other benefits of the city. Others choose to live in the suburbs. Some move when the school situation becomes an issue.

When we got married we could have had a large, virtually new brick house on a golf course in a nice suburb with great schools 20 miles from town-or pay the same for a 50 year old wooden house half the size 5 miles from town also in a nice area with a good elementary school but weak MS and HS. We chose to live close in, sacrifice the space, and worry about MS and HS when we came to it. But if we only had one income, we probably could not have afforded that house while there would have been lots of options in the suburbs.

[bu2]

I can't count the number of people in our neighborhood who loved the area but moved out when their kids hit middle school.

[CCATL]

Originally Posted by bu2

I can't count the number of people in our neighborhood who loved the area but moved out when their kids hit middle school.

Yes, same here. Although I think that is starting to change now, specifically with this cluster. I'm in the Jackson cluster, and increasingly students are getting into that middle school age group in this area. Most families are staying though, especially those who are already in Atlanta Neighborhood Charter. But there is also a big push for the public schools, which I think we'll be seeing more of as more families choose to live in this area and the Charter school can't take any more kids. It's already happened with public elementaries in the area, where the Charter filled up and people chose to work with the public schools to improve. That is already starting to happen with the middle school, and definitely the high school. For some reason people always skip middle school - it's like the middle child. Elementary and high have gotten a ton of attention, middle is always left for last, but is just as important.

[chiatldal]

Originally Posted by ansleypark

thanks for link, jsvh. Funny enough, the following popped up while i was reading the article. Pretty interesting in and of itself.

what if city-loving millennials are just a myth? - the urban edge

Originally Posted by ouioui

preach! I keep telling people... It could never matter how many young adults move to the city if they all leave once they start a family. Coffee shops and shiny tall buildings and bike lanes are all fine, but we need to focus on these inner city schools in order to retain families! Families that live in the city will spend in the city. Isn't that a good investment for a city's future? Don't the children who are already in city schools deserve better?

Originally Posted by bu2

there was an article in the ajc a few weeks back talking to homebuilders. They find millennials are living in the suburbs in a slightly higher percentage than boomers and they want bigger starter homes than the previous generation had. Both are contrary to the prevailing urban myths.

Its like 4thwarden says. Its economic. In the city you get worse schools, more crime and less house (if you can even afford it). Some sacrifice those things for the other benefits of the city. Others choose to live in the suburbs. Some move when the school situation becomes an issue.

When we got married we could have had a large, virtually new brick house on a golf course in a nice suburb with great schools 20 miles from town-or pay the same for a 50 year old wooden house half the size 5 miles from town also in a nice area with a good elementary school but weak ms and hs. We chose to live close in, sacrifice the space, and worry about ms and hs when we came to it. But if we only had one income, we probably could not have afforded that house while there would have been lots of options in the suburbs.

The Error with this before the 60's most people lived in cities or rural...

We now have this fixation that it's traditional to raise your family in giant houses in the suburbs when actually this something that just started after the 60's in massive numbers.

The Baby Boomers generation, technically "move to suburbs" has only happen in the last 2 generation.


The Pre Baby Boomer generation actually largely raise families in cities or small rural area.

White flight drain the cities economics the income out many cities neighborhoods in the first place which contribute to crime and bad schools. So it's ironic.

The overall trend is when people move back into cities and neighborhoods, diversity, gentrification the crime rate overalls tend to drop.

Sprawl is also a cycle, suburbs like cities can go into disrepair and people have the trend of keep moving further.


Urban Sprawl and Public Health CDC PDF

scholar negative effects of urban sprawl

Doing back to Baby Boomer generation who build the sprawl many urban planners and sociologist are looking another issues.

Before Baby Boomers before the 40's nursing homes didn't exist, in fact America is the only nation which has this occurrences. Before the 40's it was common for someone to live their whole life in a community. The Child can Walk to the store, The Elderly can walk to the store. Now we build communities that it's impossible for the elderly and children to walk to the store.

An Aging Nation: The Older Population in
the United States, US Census PDF

Elderly population is about raise because of the baby boom.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDY1kEjQ5Uw


Suburban growth is a called Social trap, like pollution.

Social Trap in Psychology | Study.com

"Social traps bring short-term gains for some, with serious long-term consequences for many others"

[chiatldal]

Originally Posted by bu2

I can't count the number of people in our neighborhood who loved the area but moved out when their kids hit middle school.

Their a term for this "urban pioneer" are the people moving in during gentrification


The is ironic again white flight is what brought down many city neighborhoods economically and schools in the first place,

For the neighborhoods and schools to improve they need the diversity, wealth, and parents involvement back.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by chiatldal

Their a term for this "urban pioneer" are the people moving in during gentrification


The is ironic again white flight is what brought down many city neighborhoods economically and schools in the first place,

For the neighborhoods and schools to improve they need the diversity, wealth, and parents involvement back.

I'm not talking just about "urban pioneers." This applies to more established neighborhoods as well.

You are very right about "cycles." Neighborhoods age and decline. At some point, most revitalize. Inner city neighborhoods are revitalizing here while some inner suburbs are in decline.

[chiatldal]

Originally Posted by bu2

I'm not talking just about "urban pioneers." This applies to more established neighborhoods as well.

You are very right about "cycles." Neighborhoods age and decline. At some point, most revitalize. Inner city neighborhoods are revitalizing here while some inner suburbs are in decline.

All city neighborhoods are established neighborhoods.



My point was it's not a chicken or egg situation. Today we have this narrative that suburbia is the ideal place for the family, when actually this concept is relevantly new and was started by the baby boomers.

We associate cities with crime and poverty and part of this always exist but actually most neighborhoods started to decline do to white flight, with end of segregation, Redlining practices. And some chases Black flight case neighborhoods to decline too.

So people now are saying they don't want to live in cities because of poverty, crime or bad schools, when actually it's because of people left cities is what put the poverty, crime or bad schools... And only most likely way to reverse this for the wealthy move back in the neighborhoods.


They are in better shape now but even Iman Park and Virginia-Highland started to decline during the 70's.

A lot of the west side neighborhoods and even south side neighborhoods were white majority or mixed but middle class neighborhoods before 1970's. But integration happen and a Black Mayor then a huge white population drop.

Strangely Sweet Aurburn was actually a middle to upper class black neighborhood before the 1960's. But then Black flight happen and neighborhood started to decline.


Mid and outer suburbs can decline too, dying Malls and Strip Malls and etc. This is cause white flight is still occurring.


Dead mall Wiki

the economics and nostalgia of dead malls | NY Times


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In this environment a 10 year old can not walk to the store, a 60-70 year old can not walk to the store.

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/200...desac_zoom.jpg

The irony is the retirement populations is about skyrocket. because of the Baby Boomers and people living longer.


in 1950 nobody was thinking about the sustainability of the elder population. Because the elderly population generally live near family assistance or walkable neighborhoods. 10 million is a lot different than 90 million. And a lot of the elder populations is about to be isolated

http://www.agingstats.gov/Main_Site/...ges/Ind_1a.jpg

[bu2]

Decline is natural for neighborhoods as they age and there are newer alternatives nearby. They don't get an influx of new people investing and the residents tend to get older with fewer school age kids. Its just natural for new residents to update housing. Older residents tend to keep things like they were. It wasn't until we started looking at moving that I realized how dated our residence, where we had been at over 15 years, was.

Druid Hills has been through several cycles of decline and renewal over its 100 year history and has never had white flight. White flight just sped the decline in some places.

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by hautemomma

Right. Millennials are up to age 34 or 35 now. Many are married, with kids, living in the suburbs. Many are also single, in a sort of extended adolescence mode, not thinking about how they will be 30 in five years. I say this not with snark, but as a truism - some in my extended family, for example.

I dare say with income inequality and stagnant wages most Millennials cannot afford the apartments allegedly being built for them, the gentrifying communities with the walkability they supposedly want or the suburban homes with decent square footage 15-25 miles from the city.

And many of them live intown with small kids, and have no plans of moving to the suburbs.

[Big L]

Although I am a Gen-Xer, I believe that jobs are another factor that drives a lot of millenials out to the 'burbs at some point. Intown living is great if your job in also somewhere intown. On the other hand, it could get dicey if your next step up the corporate ladder takes you to a company in Alpharetta, Duluth, or Kennesaw.


From a personal standpoint, intown living also seems to be very costly even if you are closer to work. We make a decent living, but I honestly have never understood how some folks could afford these $200-400K homes on typical Atlanta salaries. I definitely must be missing something!