Chicago: wealthy from suburbs to the city? (Oak Brook, Detroit: hotel, homes)

[Tex?Il?]

Originally Posted by edsg25

i disagree, willie. our suburbs are unsustainable. they were heavily subsidized from the start, coinciding with the interstate highway system that allowed them to spring up overnight.

energy costs will make them shrink. i have no question about that.

If Chicago shrinks and suffers, that means disaster for our suburbs. Look at Detroit.

Yes, income disparity is great, but Chicago like the suburbs has many of those "have's" you speak of.

There were suburbs before there were heavily subsidized interstates, although they weren't nearly as extensive before WWII, as they were after.

The first suburbs were streetcar suburbs, Model Ts allowed people to live a little further from train stations. Now that technological innovation is transforming our cars to be super efficient, etc. (hybrids, electric, etc.) driving won't be as unsustainable as it used to be).

People will ALWAYS want to have the best of both worlds, access the cultural offerings and employment of a major city, while having quiet, peace, green space, and a slower pace.

Resources become more scarce, technology helps in sustainability.

Even apart from the fact that a lot of people will still want their suburban retreats, there are other issues that make Chicago different from NYC, that make it an apples and oranges comparison. Mostly, that the % of respective cities that are safe, gentrified, or just generally appealing is quite different.

Also, when was the last time you've been to Detroits suburbs? Real estate prices may have fallen further than in Chicagos suburbs, (but that just makes the more affluent areas more affordable for first time home buyers), but other than that there is little that is obviously different between the suburbs of both cities.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by edsg25

If Chicago shrinks and suffers, that means disaster for our suburbs. Look at Detroit.

This goes against your argument. The nicer suburbs of Detroit are really the only area worth living in in that metro area. Sure, there are some hearty "urban pioneers" staking out territory in the city, and I don't disparage them for that, but the wealthier suburban enclaves have survived quite nicely compared to anything in the City of Detroit.

[Chicago76]

Originally Posted by edsg25

i disagree, willie. our suburbs are unsustainable. they were heavily subsidized from the start, coinciding with the interstate highway system that allowed them to spring up overnight.

energy costs will make them shrink. i have no question about that.

If Chicago shrinks and suffers, that means disaster for our suburbs. Look at Detroit.

Yes, income disparity is great, but Chicago like the suburbs has many of those "have's" you speak of.

A lot of the suburbs definitely are not sustainable, nor will they be as attractive in the future due to consumer preferences, location, and maintenance costs. Above all else, people need access to employment. Continued sprawl limits workplace choices...especially for those living on the edge. The portion if the burbs that is not sustainable is the "most house for the money" suburb. "Most house for the money" burbs pop up where land is cheap (on the fringe), and transportation costs are high (especially when switching jobs to another metro location). The only reason these areas exist is to serve a point in time preference for housing in a highly commoditized way. 1970s tri levels were nice for about 15 years. 25-30 years after initial construction, these neighborhoods begin to suffer. The same thing is happening with mid 80s housing stock today. There needs to be another selling point besides how much house and how good of schools an area will get you at a point in time, because those things inevitably change.

Suburbs in rail lines with downtown districts and those in the thick of commuting options (like in most of DuPage) offer something else. Those areas will do fine. The city will do fine. Areas in Cook with some desirable historical and walkable town center will be fine. Everything else, probably not...including some McMansion suburbs that are highly desirable today.

[Lookout Kid]

The model with Chicago itself being the only viable economic node in the metro area is just not what the future holds. I think the suburbs over the next several decades will sort of densify around multiple nodes or belts of activity (transportation lines, transportation hubs, interchanges, clusters of offices, etc.), and be less "blob-like" than they are today. The "areas in-between" will be less viable, and probably filled with poorer residents. The fringes will only fare well if they are close to a particular node. We sort of already see this developing, but abundant energy and automobile use allows for great distances to be traveled in pretty much any direction.

Bringing up the Detroit example again as a "worst case"... You see clusters in various suburban locations that have more economic activity than all of central Detroit. If Chicago's economic woes really do crush the city (which seems unlikely to me), I suspect you will see secondary and tertiary clusters surpass the city itself. If high energy prices or fuel shortages make the automobile uneconomical, I think Chicago's greater Loop area will remain quite vibrant with "satellite" nodes located at advantageous suburban locations.

[MassVt]

The exurbs will likely suffer the most, as they are just too far from the urban core to be attractive to potential home buyers. One could argue that some of these places should never have been constructed at all.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

The model with Chicago itself being the only viable economic node in the metro area is just not what the future holds.

Based off of what? Both the city and suburbs have been seeing economic growth lately. The median household income and 6+ figure households have been increasing at a good rate relative to housing growth (2010 to 2013) too in the city itself - actually at a higher rate than San Francisco believe it or not and a little lower than NYC (LA is increasing more than NYC, SF, and Chicago).

[williepotatoes]

A city that is twenty billion dollars in debt and has a failed school system which is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy is the ultimate definition of unsustainable.

[nikitakolata]

Originally Posted by edsg25

there was a thread on the NYC forum about how so many of the wealthy in high end suburban enclaves like westchester county and choosing to life in the city, basically the gated communities for the 1% in the heart of Manhattan.

this got me thinking. what about Chicago?

and my thinking became somewhat more expansive here, beyond just the 1%. When you drive through areas of the the city such as the Near North Side, it looks like a boomtown compared to any areas I see in suburbia. high rise buildings shoot up throughout the area.

do you think a trend exists here…..do you think there will be a real shift of wealth from the suburbs back into Chicago? and do you think many of the young couples who populate the lakefront neighborhoods and who once when they started having kids would settle in the suburbs will instead in increasing numbers more and more stay in Chicago instead?

are we headed more in the direction of the European model where the core (city) is the prime real estate and the periphery (suburbs) is less wealthy in comparison?

Personally, I don't see it happening. I don't think there is anything that could get me to move back to Chicago after the 5 years I spent there. My life in the suburbs is just as walkable as my life was in Chicago and now, when I do have to drive somewhere, it takes so much less time because there is much less traffic.

Perhaps the exurbs like Oswego, Plainfield, Johnsburg, etc. won't fare well in the future. But I don't see the suburbs with rail service and downtown areas going anywhere. Our lives here are just so much more pleasant that I don't think we'll ever leave. Plus, I don't have to worry about schools, my kid will go to the local public school, easy.

[jdiddy]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

The model with Chicago itself being the only viable economic node in the metro area is just not what the future holds. I think the suburbs over the next several decades will sort of densify around multiple nodes or belts of activity (transportation lines, transportation hubs, interchanges, clusters of offices, etc.), and be less "blob-like" than they are today. The "areas in-between" will be less viable, and probably filled with poorer residents. The fringes will only fare well if they are close to a particular node. We sort of already see this developing, but abundant energy and automobile use allows for great distances to be traveled in pretty much any direction.

Bringing up the Detroit example again as a "worst case"... You see clusters in various suburban locations that have more economic activity than all of central Detroit. If Chicago's economic woes really do crush the city (which seems unlikely to me), I suspect you will see secondary and tertiary clusters surpass the city itself. If high energy prices or fuel shortages make the automobile uneconomical, I think Chicago's greater Loop area will remain quite vibrant with "satellite" nodes located at advantageous suburban locations.

Yep, this.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by williepotatoes

A city that is twenty billion dollars in debt and has a failed school system which is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy is the ultimate definition of unsustainable.

Hate to break it to you, but most big cities in the US are in debt. NYC is over $100 Billion in debt or at least was as of a few years ago.