Archive for June 30, 2008

Highest housing prices 1980 – 2006

June 30, 2008 / Wendy Waters / One comment

The Calculated Risk blog offered a couple interesting posts last week on changes to the ratio of median house price to median income since 1980. The source data, from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, covers 106 metro areas.

Available for download is the data from 1980 to 2006, so before the collapse of the current housing market. I did some sorting and tinkering with it to see what I could find out. Here are some results:

The cities where housing costs grew the most compared to median incomes were:

#1. Los Angeles / Long Beach / Santa Ana (from a ratio of 4.4 to 10.0)
#2 San Francisco / Oakland / Fremont (from 4.9 to 9.8)
#3 San Jose / Sunnyvale / Santa Clara (from 4.2 to 8.9)
#4 San Diego / Carlsbad / San Marcos (from 5.2 to 9.5)
#5 New York / Northern NJ / Long Island (from 3.1 to 7.1)

Also worth noting, the highest ratio cities (most expensive) in 1980 were:

#1 Honolulu (ratio 5.7)
#2 San Diego / San Marcos (5.2)
#3 San Francisco / Oakland (4.9)
#4 Los Angeles / Long Beach (4.4)
#5 Reno (4.2) !!

With the exception of Reno, these were also the most expensive in 2006:

#1 Los Angeles / Long Beach (10.0)
#2 San Francisco / Oakland (9.8)
#3 San Diego / San Marcos (9.5)
# 4 San Jose / Sunnyvale / Santa Clara (8.9)
#5 Honolulu (ratio 8.6)

But, of course, the 1980 and 2006 figures are snap shots.  This chart shows the less-than-constant rate of appreciation.

What’s also interesting is that about half of the cities tracked saw minimal or no change in their price ratio to median household income during this period.

Category: real estate, Uncategorized, urban history /

End of the Megalopolis?

June 27, 2008 / Wendy Waters / 5 comments

What if the costs of operating an automobile permanently reach or exceed $10 per gallon and alternative fuels cannot offer any savings just an alternative?

Then, we may see the end of the Megalopolis — although not the end of the mega-region.

On CBC’s The National Wednesday night a person interviewed (James Kunstler, I believe) in Kelly Crowe’s second story suggested that among the consequences for urban life is that cities will become more compact and many people will move to smaller cities.

He described how people will seek urban life on a more personal, human scale where they have access to everything they need in close proximity — homes, jobs, schools, recreation, entertainment, shopping, etc. Fuel consumption would therefore drop dramatically.

If this happens, it would mean the gradual emptying of outer suburbs and exurbs over the next 10-20 years.

By my read, a consequence would be that today’s mega-regions, as defined in Richard Florida’s work, would probably remain much the same. But people would be clustered in cities — some big, some small some medium sized — with large expanses of non-urban space in between, space that used to be housing or malls.

So, Florida’s famous shot of North America at night from which he developed the mega region concept will change. Today, the continuous concentrations of light roughly correspond to continuous interconnected economic regions. In the future, there will be big balls of light and little ones more resembling a connect the dots puzzle.

Maybe — as a commenter suggested in my previous post – the empty space in between can be turned back into farmland to supply more food locally.

Category: "back to the center", clusters, planning policy, residential development, revitalization, sprawl, urban history /

The end of the car-tropolis?

June 25, 2008 / Wendy Waters / 4 comments

Will the car-tropolis come to an end?  Or will America’s suburban style of living survive peak oil.  A few weeks ago I suggested that current gasoline prices will not bring down American suburbia.  I still believe this.   At current prices in the US, people could buy more fuel efficient vehicles and continue the lifestyle — if they want to do so.

But, what happens if gasoline costs $10 a gallon by 2015?  And alternative fuels like electricity are no cheaper?

To be sure, people and cities will have to find ways to function without relying on one-person-one-vehicle automobile travel.   This will mean profound changes to typical urban ways of life.

On CBC’s The National Wednesday night a person interviewed (James Kunstler, I think) in Kelly Crowe’s second story suggested two important consequences for cities:

First.  That cities will become more compact.  Second, that many people will move to smaller cities.  I’ll extrapolate on the first issue here.  And the second in a subsequent post.

So, cities will become more compact, with residents living closer together.  Actually, this means that cities capable of offering higher density living will prosper and others will languish. 

Metropolitan areas with geographic constraints will likely fare well, as most already have a higher density of living and can offer a compact and low-gasoline-consumption life to their residents.

A century ago sprawl wasn’t practical so people lived closer together.  Cities with older origins and a decent sized compact residential core, even if lower density sprawl eventually prevailed, will have an opportunity to remake themselves.  Indeed the business and residents of many such cities are already doing this in such places as Detroit.

The existing residents and new comers in these cities will have to accept more apartment buildings and attached homes than currently exist.  There will be political battles.  There will also be new opportunities — without being in the automobile silo, people will potentially talk to each other more.  More people means more amenities close by from restaurants to all variety of shopping to recreational options.

The car-tropolis took decades to create and will take decades to dismantle if automobile fuel (of whatever variety) continues to rise in price.  It’s end will be more gradual than many doomsayers are predicting — in part because many people will feel trapped in their suburban homes by their mortgages being higher than house value.

Category: "back to the center", residential development, revitalization, sprawl, urban history, urban lifestyles /

Roads: not just for cars anymore

June 22, 2008 / Wendy Waters / No comments

 Using roads only for motor vehicles is wasteful.  As gasoline prices reach record highs and increasing numbers of North Americans embrace higher density living, allowing roads to be more than conduits for cars needs greater consideration.

Special events would be a place to start.

Today (Sunday) in North Portland an entire region of the city is going “car free” allowing pedestrians and cyclists to monopolize the streets. 150 blocks will be closed to motor vehicle traffic for six hours. Residents and visitors are expected to mingle, enjoy free events in the parks such as yoga classes, and enjoy the fresh air.  Portland’s event is modeled after one in Bogota where 2 million people come out on car free day.

I doubt that many will enjoy Portland’s day, in part because I doubt the combination of public transit and the roads could get that many people to the area.  But I expect it will be popular nonetheless and if it becomes an annual event — or even more frequent — it would draw more people each time.

Last weekend Vancouver had four car-free festivals in the city, each closing about an 8 block long stretch of a commercial/retail street. The traffic jams in the blocks around some of these areas were unbelievable — particularly the one in my neighborhood.  Many people clearly drove to car free events.  But, the events were packed.  There would definitely be popular interest in having a whole community car free.

We also can’t forget the spontaneous ones in which jubilant citizens take over the streets. In Germany — and probably much of Europe — soccer fans are joining together in the streets to watch and celebrate their team’s performances during the Euro 2008 soccer championships.

Perhaps these car free events will lead more city governments and residents to consider permanently closing some streets, making them pedestrian malls.  Or, if not every day, then maybe every Saturday or Sunday.  Allow the restaurants and cafes to add seating, creating a European-like sidewalk cafe culture.   Allow other retail and food sales to happen on the street.  And leave space for buskers.

Roads: lets see them put to use for community building and turn some cities from car-tropolis into places for people.

Category: communities, ecological issues, planning policy, public spaces, revitalization, transportation, urban lifestyles /

Gasoline prices: keeping shoppers closer to home?

June 18, 2008 / Wendy Waters / 3 comments

Americans drove 11 billion fewer miles in March 2008 than in March 2007.

This suggests that either people are carpooling to work, not going to work, or making fewer and shorter pleasure trips — or all of the above. This should affect shopping behavior and by implication metropolitan retail patterns.

Combined with the slowing economy, presumably many people are shopping less. But are they shopping differently?

Many blogger-pundits seem to think that high gasoline prices will help create more sustainable urban environments with people shopping locally. I’m wondering if this is really the case.

Are more people supporting retailers — particularly grocery or food stores — closer to home rather than driving to a distant Wal-Mart Supercenter or Whole Foods Market? Or, are they shopping in the same stores but going less frequently and buying more while there?

I’m going to be looking for answers to these questions.  In the meantime:

Has the high price of gasoline changed your shopping habits?

(They haven’t changed mine, but I live a block from a good shopping street, particularly for groceries, so have been shopping on foot for years. )

Category: transportation, urban retail trends /

Don’t look for manufacturing jobs “to come back”

June 17, 2008 / Wendy Waters / 5 comments

CEOs for Cities cites a WSJ article suggesting higher fuel prices and therefore shipping costs will “bring production back.”

There are a couple problems with this thinking.

First, large manufacturers or importers have millions and billions invested in their overseas production and supply chains. Oil will have to be much more expensive for them to make a sudden move, and even then it may still work to keep manufacturing where it is.

Many companies are happy with the quality of product produced overseas. Even as wages started to rise in China in 2006, for example, an NCR executive discussed reasons why manufacturing might not return to the US:

Product quality can become an issue, and we find that we can get better quality outside the United States.

Also, large manufacturers whether Nike or NCR, distribute around the world. Moving manufacturing to the United States would still mean high shipping costs to other markets — and places like China and India are fast growing consumer markets. So there is not necessarily a long term saving in US manufacturing.

Additionally, the larger manufacturers benefit from the sizable labor force in places like India and China. In the latter (and maybe the former) industry suburbs have emerged where factories and worker housing exist in close proximity. Setting up in the US in the era of high gasoline prices and a demographic-based labor squeeze would be risky — could employees reach the factory and would you find enough of them.

The second problem with pondering whether jobs are “coming back” is that it is hearkening back to a bygone era. Leaders and citizens in cities that have been shedding manufacturing jobs for years need to look forward.

More manufacturing will be done in the United States in the coming years. No question. But I believe it will be new products, not old ones: A new trendy shoe company will make niche footwear in the USA; an emerging computer electronics company will invent the next cool gadget (ie the next iPod or Blackberry) and produce it in a US city.

Supporting innovation, invention, and local entrepreneurs to create new cool things in their basements or apartments will generate new manufacturing jobs.  Begging a long-gone global giant to return is wasting perfectly good creative energy.

Category: economic development /

How I picked Vancouver

June 13, 2008 / Wendy Waters / No comments

Richard Florida has asked his blog readers to chime in for his Who’s Your City Canada book. As promised, here’s how I chose Vancouver.

I’m one of the few people you meet in Vancouver who was born here. Growing up, spending time in the forests, mountains and on the beaches near Vancouver became integral to my life, as did going places by bus and bicycle.

Then I went to the US to attend grad school and pursue an academic career, initially assuming that once done I would not be moving back to Vancouver as academics typically have limited choice when it comes to location.

I moved first to Fort Worth, Texas for a Masters and then to Tucson Arizona for doctoral work in history. In Fort Worth, although I made some great friends among fellow grad students, and enjoyed getting to know the area and the incredibly warm and generous people there, I never felt completely comfortable – something didn’t feel right, I think it was a “personality clash,” if you will (thanks to RF’s book I now have words to describe my experience). Having to drive everywhere also started to irritate me.

When I moved on to Tucson, I was more comfortable, enjoying opportunities to explore the mountains and desert and loving the ability to walk and cycle much more (yet still found automobile ownership essential). But something was missing. Although close to Mexico – which I loved – the city seemed quiet and a little isolated. I didn’t notice Vancouver’s flow of people, goods and ideas from everywhere until it wasn’t there.

While in grad school I did have the opportunity to spend time doing research in other cities, where I did feel more comfortable: Mexico City, Chicago, New York. I figured out that I was a city person. Although I did well in grad school, and enjoyed it, increasingly I became disenchanted with what typically came next – tenure track job with the workload, the pressure, and the likely unsatisfying location.

I concluded that I needed to forge a different path. Thanks to a Canadian government scholarship (a SSHRCC doctoral fellowship) I had independent funding to write up my dissertation, freeing me to go anywhere and decided to move back to Vancouver. This move also provided me the opportunity to strengthen a friendship there that was becoming romantic (we’re now married with two kids).

It was weird trying to redefine myself in Vancouver after a 5 year absence, and trying to forge a new post-academic identity for myself. But I loved being back in Vancouver: for the climate, the recreational opportunities, the multi-cultural milieu, the brew pubs, coffee houses and the creative entrepreneurial energy that enveloped the area during the dot com boom (and I did work for an internet company, riding the wave of boom and bust).

My current career path (doing economic and market analysis in the commercial real estate investment management sector) may be limited long term by being in Vancouver, although I’m in a great place for growth now. Toronto is the centre of this activity in Canada. But, Vancouver is home because I feel like I can be myself here and don’t see a long-term move to Toronto or anywhere else as likely.

***

If you have a story about how and why you chose your current Canadian city — or why you didn’t choose a particular Canadian city — and what this decision has meant for the other aspects of your life, Richard Florida and his team would love to receive it. Go to his blog page for more information, or post a brief story here and I’ll be sure to forward all the responses.

Category: urban lifestyles /

Chicago: Creative Capital of the Universe?

June 10, 2008 / Wendy Waters / 3 comments

Fast Company has released the 2008 Fast Cities report. Chicago and London are its cities of the year.

What intrigued me was the statement that Chicago is the creative capital of the universe (at least for 2008, presumably).

The article then offers discussion as to why this is from “creative” residents, including Grant Achatz (business person) who insists that an environment in which people will take risks is key, as workers but also as consumers and in life generally.

“People perceive New York as the most creative place, but it’s not as lively as it is here. More risks are taken here. You have a community that’s willing to embrace food for what it is, look past preconceived notions, and not be scared to try something new.”

The attitude behind this bold statement fits Richard Florida’s assessment of Chicago’s personality as being one of an extrovert. Interestingly enough, however, in Florida’s research Chicago did not come through as a place particularly open to new experience.

Others thought that Chicago’s grit gave it an authenticity as well as the edgyness that makes people think.

Chris Ware (Graphic Designer):

It’s an honest city, and because of that, it has a grim, refreshing isolation to it.”

Brad Morris (Second City Comedy Ensemble Member)

A great creative place has to have great art, great food, and a combination of beauty and grit to be inspired by. Chicago has all of that.”

While Chicago no doubt has lots to offer and tons more potential as a city, the creative capital title seems a stretch. But, if the point is to get everyone thinking differently about Chicago, and re-thinking any older images they may have had — then it worked for me. (Calling the Bay Area or New York a creative capital would hardly have been newsworthy.)
Here are some economic facts about Chicago, some of which really surprised me.

  • Chicago has a faster growing economy than either New York or Los Angeles, at 1.9%.
  • In 2007 it had the 7th fastest growing population among US cities (not sure if this is the metro area or Chicago proper, presumably the latter).
  • 29% of downtown Chicago residents have graduate degrees (over 3 times the national average)
  • Chicago is the number one city for business investment and expansion according to Site Selection Magazine.
  • 30 Fortune-500 companies are based in the Chicago Metro, second only to New York in the USA.

addendum: highly recommend a read of the post on the same topic by Brendan at Where Blog.

Category: attracting talent, clusters, economic development, resident attitudes, urban history /

Book Review: The Concrete Dragon

June 5, 2008 / Dave Atkins / 2 comments

Image from Amazon
The Concrete Dragon: China’s Urban Revolution and What it Means for the World by Thomas J. Campanella

Reviewed by guest blogger, Dave Atkins.

Thomas Campanella’s book is a timely, eye-opening analysis of the wrenching urban revolution transforming China. Written in a clear, conversational tone, but packed with data and anecdotal stories that demonstrate the author’s insight into China, this book will amaze, confound, and challenge all those who seek to plan and manage urbanism.

The first chapters describe the scale of urban transformation underway in the Pearl River Delta, Shanghai, and Beijing. For those unfamiliar with China, it is an exciting story of rapid progress, amazing growth, and boundless ambition. But after laying the historical and political contexts, Campanella begins to systematically detail the human costs of growth–principally the destruction of neighborhoods and displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. It is ironic that the Chinese character for “demolition,” Chai, has become a symbol of resistance–whereas in the west, it is a yuppie tea at Starbucks.

This is NOT a protest book. But the stories of displacement, the sacking of architectural history, and the value systems underlying this march to progress speak for themselves. Apart from being appalled at the human costs, what can westerners take away from all this? Three themes emerge:

  • Scale - Everything good and bad about western urbanism is amplified by several orders of magnitude. We begin from the sheer size of Chinese urbanism: 102 cities in China have more than 1 million people; compared to 9 in the United States.
  • Distinctions - urban “renewal” in China is nothing like that in US history. Understanding it is complex, especially in regard to suburbanization:
    • The city remains the dominant political unit and administrative unit, with suburbs possessing little relative clout. In the US, suburban communities taxed their wealthier base and built better schools and infrastructure, strengthening the cultural bias against cities. In China, cities have long been the ticket to stability for people, with mobility restricted and city-dwellers guaranteed food while the rural population starved.
    • Suburbs have a completely different context than in the US. In China, suburbs are populated with gated, self-contained communities. Buyers choose from all inclusive lifestyle estates with Anglicized (and intentionally bourgeois) names like “Latte Town, Glory Vogue, Yuppie International Garden, Wonderful Digital Jungle, and–cutting to the chase–Top Aristocrat.”

      Jobs have followed more or less in sync with the development of housing, so these suburbs are not “bedroom communities,” but more like mini factory towns. The concept of danwei–the communal work-unit model, and the housing form of siheyuan – courtyard-based living compounds–permeates development practices in sharp contrast to more open community development models in the US. In China, in the midst of extreme density, there is a tendency to organize into self-contained units. In the US, for all our proclaimed individualism, there is a bias towards community integration and an assumed role of government that is very different than China–a country we might assume would be much more communal.

    • The automobile is rapidly becoming central to Chinese experience. In the US, bicycles are a symbol of sustainability, recreation and fitness. In China, they are rapidly becoming associated with an image of a backward past.
  • Timeliness - August 8, 2008 will mark the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing. The urban revolution is part of a national drive to present a shockingly modern China to the world in time for the Olympics. After reading this book, I come away with the impression that what is going on with Chinese urbanism is more significant, more focused, and more imperative than even the US drive to land a man on the moon in the 1960s. It is impossible to understate what 8/8/8 means to China. Other books, such as China Shakes the World: A Titan’s Rise and Troubled Future — and the Challenge for America by James Kynge describe the implications of China’s economic growth and associated social problems, but Concrete Dragon puts things in an infrastructural context, literally describing the architecture of supremacy.

I am not a professional urbanist, but I found the depth of this book impressive and the themes thought-provoking on many levels. The culture is so different from the west and yet the same types of changes are being attempted–on a massive scale–yielding unpredictable results. As an intellectual laboratory, it challenges our perspectives. As practical history, we are about to witness the birth of something spectacular.

Reviewed by guest blogger, Dave Atkins.

Category: book reviews, development conflicts, economic development, planning policy, poverty, residential development, sprawl /

Should absentee owners be discouraged?

June 1, 2008 / Wendy Waters / One comment

In his recent Planetizen Interchange post Vancouver director of planning Brent Toderian discussed the problem of maintaining housing afford ability in a “world class city.” He asks:

is the corresponding increase in demand (and thus prices) from a global market a great thing to the teachers, the police officers, the nurses, the service sector employers? These professions are needed to run a great city, and they are struggling to find more affordable housing without an insane commute.

First, let us assume that the number of people buying “vacation condos” in Vancouver is sufficiently high to be impacting prices. I’m a little skeptical but Toderian’s source in all this, Condo marketing guru Bob Rennie, is very knowledgeable about who condo buyers are. So, we’ll go with it.

Second, would it be advisable to discourage these types of owners?

  • Some of them likely provide needed rental apartment housing in their condos.
  • In helping to fuel demand for condo units, they have generated jobs directly in construction and the like and indirectly through economic spill over.
  • These non-resident condo owners also help fuel an important economic sector — tourism; they are tourists.
  • If Vancouver (or any world city) became known for discouraging foreign home ownership it would appear somewhat xenophobic, and would likely send the wrong message to potential talented immigrants as well as tourists.

Yet, not discouraging non-resident ownership contributes to higher prices and a lack of affordable housing.

Toderian rightly warns that there are:

no easy answers, as managing who buys real estate is a risky game, with the great potential for unforeseen consequences.

He wants to learn from other cities who also face the challenge of being world class and affordable. However as Richard Florida observes in his recent book, a lack of affordable housing and being an economic development spike apparently to go hand in hand.

Maybe there isn’t a good solution?

Category: planning policy, real estate, residential development /