Saturday, February 09, 2008

The Next Slum?: "Strange days are upon the residents of many a suburban cul-de-sac. Once-tidy yards have become overgrown, as the houses they front have gone vacant. Signs of physical and social disorder are spreading."

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We are entering a period of testing for the nation's residential private governments. I think we will see how well they can stand up to the economic stresses of the gutshot housing market. Thanks to Fred Pilot for the link.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The larger question is how private local government will fare in the long term as residential preferences change with demographic shifts away from the master planned suburbs and their now ubiquitous HOAs.

As Leinberger notes, this isn't just about the subprime crisis. It's about a larger structural change in settlement patterns away from the tract home suburban trend that has dominated since the 1950s. The shift is more people are expressing a preference to live in urban centers close to jobs, shopping and entertainment.

Interestingly, author Jack Lessinger also predicted nearly two decades ago that decline and blight would afflict the suburbs -- particularly older inner surburbs -- as Americans abandoned them. But instead of moving to urban centers, Lessinger in his 1990 book "Penturbia: Where Real Estate Will Boom After the Crash of Surburbia" predicted people would migrate out of metro area burbs to small town America in search of less stressful saner and simpler lives.

Anonymous said...

Dear Dr. McKenzie,
The link you have posted does not work. Do you, or Mr. Pilot, have another? This is an article allAmerican's should be reading. When is especially, "Private America," going to wake up?
Thank you!

Evan McKenzie said...

This story seems to have disappeared from the site. I searched for it by title and topic and it didn't come up. Strange...I will search again later.