When Shaun Yandell proposed to his long-time girlfriend Gina Marasco on the doorstep of their new home in the sunny suburb of Elk Grove, California, four years ago, he never imagined things would get this bad. But they did, and it happened almost overnight.
Yandell’s marriage isn’t falling apart: his neighborhood is.
Devastated by the subprime mortgage crisis, hundreds of homes have been foreclosed and thousands of residents have been forced to move, leaving in their wake a not-so-pleasant path of empty houses, unkempt lawns, vacant strip malls, graffiti-sprayed desolate sidewalks and even increased crime.
In Elk Grove, some homeowners not only cut their own grass but also trim the yards of vacant homes on their streets, hoping to deter gangs and criminals from moving in…
While the foreclosure epidemic has left communities across the United States overrun with unoccupied houses and overgrown grass, underneath the chaos another trend is quietly emerging that, over the next several decades, could change the face of suburban American life as we know it.This change can be witnessed in places like Atlanta, Georgia, Detroit, Michigan, and Dallas, Texas, said Leinberger, where once rundown downtowns are being revitalized by well-educated, young professionals who have no desire to live in a detached single family home typical of a suburbia where life is often centered around long commutes and cars.
Instead, they are looking for what Leinberger calls “walkable urbanism” — both small communities and big cities characterized by efficient mass transit systems and high density developments enabling residents to walk virtually everywhere for everything — from home to work to restaurants to movie theaters.
The so-called New Urbanism movement emerged in the mid-90s and has been steadily gaining momentum, especially with rising energy costs, environmental concerns and health problems associated with what Leinberger calls “drivable sub-urbanism” — a low-density built environment plan that emerged around the end of the Second World War and has been the dominant design in the U.S. ever since.
Changing demographics are also fueling new demands as the number of households with children continues to decline. By the end of the next decade, the number of single-person households in the United States will amost equal those with kids.
Most Western nations never got round to aping exurbanite Levittown. They never destroyed rail systems. Trashing inner city communities in the name of Urban Renewal never achieved a political mandate.
More than ever before, the cost of energy and transport may begin to govern living trends in the United States – again.
This is no surprise. We’ve always seen a cycle of people moving into the cities, moving out of the cities, moving into the cities, moving out.
Looks like everyone is moving in. And frankly, this is probably a better solution. Cars are a very inefficient mode of transportation, and people have been too spread out for many years. How many of us live more than 10 miles from work?
Given the amount of condos suddenly being built EVERWHERE in washington D.C, I would say hell yes.
“Think of all the poor McMansions! Why won’t anyone think of the McMansions!”
New developments are always a crap shoot. In this case they will likely go from nice suburban self owned middle class to mostly rental with not enough activities or distractions to keep the Children from going all Lord of the Flies.
Ya, more efficient, but who wants to live all crunched together. Most people I know say they don’t.
If you want to see how bad things can get, take a look at the cities of Palmdale and Landcaster.
back in the mid 80’s during the Reagan are aerospace boom, these high-desert town north of Los Angeles were booming suburb after suburb being carved out of the desert.
After the post 1987 real estate crash, many of these homeowners were upside down. They owned more on their house than it was worth. So they mailed the keys to the mortgage company and abandoned the homes.
Thanks to geography, this part of the high desert is in Los Angeles Country. So welfare receipts get the same LA country welfare rate living here as they do in South Central, East LA, or any of the other urban ghettos of LA County.
So slumlords bought these houses for a song and rented them to welare families. The welfare family didn’t have to worry about 3-4 hour commutes to work on the Antelope Freeway since they don’t have jobs to go to. They get much more house for their welfare dollar.
Needless to say, life on the high desert areas of Los Angeles, from Lancaster in the west to Lucerne Valley in the East, is now a suburban ghetto filled with the same gang violence that so many people moved here to get away from.
In the 20 years since this happened, the area has never recovered. The urban areas of South Central LA are now mostly Hispanic, with the immigrants pushing their way in. When you drive through Compton, Watts, Inglewood now, you see Spanish all over the place now. It is really changing. The Crips and The Bloods are now up in the Antelope Valley duking it out over the same dumb reasons.
>>Ya, more efficient, but who wants to live all
>>crunched together. Most people I know say
>>they don’t.
Well, if they’d rather live surrounded by foreclosed subprime McMansions, putting $80 worth of gas into the tank 3 times a week to drive 30 miles each way to work and 10 miles to the grocery store, I guess that’s their prerogative.
And it’s not like those overpriced housing developments offer any sort of “privacy” anyway.
Me, I’d rather run down the street for groceries, and take the subway or bus to work.
And many forget why suburbia was encouraged by the goverment in the late 40s and early 50s. I can’t remember the quote, but Watson Jr, while running IBM, talked about the advantage of having his company spread out around the country, just so one nuclear strike couldn’t take out everything.
The Paradise/Hell of Suburbia was a Dream/Nightmare implemented for Comercial reasons disguised as security and fueled by cheap energy.
The end of cheap energy will crumble the notion of Suburbia, that is, at it’s core the negation of city and community.
#5 Ron Larson. Let’s not forget San Bernardino.
I agree with joaoPT. It looks like Suburbia is going to die a slow death. I have a weird prediction for you. As the cost of commuting increases, we will see the value of dwellings (homes, condo’s apartments, etc.) closer to city centers dramatically increase in value while those nice neighborhoods further away dramatically decrease in value. Soon, those with money will sell their monetarily decreasing homes in suburbia and buy lesser but more expensive and convenient homes near the city center.
So what was once the flight of the affluent to leave the city center will become the flight of the affluent TO the city center.
To me, this redistribution is inevitable.
Not because the affluent cannot afford the gas to get to work, but because the value of their investment – homes – is steadily decreasing and the only way to stem the loss will be to sell quickly and purchase properties which are increasing in value – those near the city center.
How many sub-prime loans went into foreclosure? About ten percent. There’s a reason they’re called sub-prime. So apparently 90% of the people that got homes should have been denied because of the other 10% and because of the middle class people that took a chance interest rates would stay low(and the Feds that raised the rates).
The real threat to the suburban dream is environmentalist policies that want to force people into cramped living.
Ron Larson said,
“If you want to see how bad things can get, take a look at the cities of Palmdale and Lancaster (in Southern California).”
My family and I moved from a rental house in the suburbs of Los Angeles to the rural outskirts of Lancaster, CA in 2005. At the time, we could not afford to buy a house in the general sub urban Los Angeles area (where the average 3 bedroom house in a bad neighborhood was going for $400K+). In contrast, a nice house in a decent rural neighborhood on 1 acre of land was going for under $200K in Lancaster. As a side note, over the next 4 years house prices went up about 23% per year and gas prices increased only slightly. My commute went from from 35 miles, 1.75 hours (each way) to 70 miles, 1.25 hours (each way). The trade off in commute distance was worth it at the time since it took less time, was a much nicer drive and gas prices were more reasonable (under $2 per gallon). Now that gas is over $4.50 per gallon and rising each week, the situation is different. Public transportation exists but the commute time is approximately 2.5 hours one direction and 4 hours the other direction.
Just another example of life in wacky Los Angeles.
Correction. I meant to say we moved to Lancaster,CA in 2003 NOT 2005.
What is going on here is people are buying another McMansion for half the price they originally paid. They move into the cheaper home and let the original McMansion go into foreclosure. And so what, their credit record is hosed for 5-7 years but the have the essentially the same house for half the money. Original McMansion then turns into a meth lab or pot farm.
It seems so !!! No more CREDIT TO PAY FOR IT, OR PETROLEUM TO POWER IT !!! Only solution: Back into the Cities !!! Time to PLOUGH UP THE HIGHWAYS AND EXPRESS-WAYS AND BUILD RAILROADS FOR BOTH FREIGHT AND PEOPLE !!! Little tiny engines buring gas and spewing pollution used up all the oil and polluted the atmosphere !!! The “Automotive Dream” has turned into a NIGHTMARE !!!
Might be interesting to see what would happen if Bushonomics had invested in bringing Hydrogen pumps to all our communities instead of death and war. Toyota just came out with the first mass produced Hydro car. They won’t get much sales though since there is only one hydrogen pump in Washington DC. Thanks again GWB.
You should stick with tech news. The housing bubble is sooooo 2006.
#17 – You win the hack of the day award. That’s the worst post on here in a long time.
As for the story, the version posted on Yahoo! was better.
#19 – It was the worst post since, um, your last post!
#20 – Your worship is noted. Please, continue to worship me, as I’m the most interesting thing around here.
For years the press had articles about the pending bust of the California market due to the exploding prices. The sub-prime issue was the pin the popped the bubble.
No big surprise and not a serious issue for the rest of the folks who don’t live in over-heated markets.
#19–JamesHill==can you clue us in as to “why” #17 was a bad post? Seems to me the post is saying we would be better off if we/Bush had pushed for energy independence. And if we had, the housing crises might have been softened?
So, on point and accurate. Your complaint is what?
#12 – Lyin’ Mike
>>The real threat to the suburban dream is
>>environmentalist policies
Yeah, man! Drill ANWR! Despoil Nature! Save the McMansions!!
This will mean the death of the American Dream. Doesn’t it say something in the Constitution about the “Right to Own Ostentatious $700,000 Homes in East Bumfuck”???
The reason for the mortgage crisis was a general fraud perpetrated on home buyers by housing developers. I purchased a house in December of 2005. The builder offered to pay all closing costs if I used their mortgage company. I did. I did not realize that gave the builder an excellent opportunity for the builder’s mortgage company to establish an inflated price for the property. If I used the builders mortgage company they avoided the possibility of my being turned down by an independent mortgage company because the appraised value did not meet the sale price. It appears that many homes in my neighborhood were sold at inflated prices. Shortly after I closed my mortgage was sold to a major national mortgage company. The builders mortgage company walked away with a bag of money and the national mortgage company was left holding my paper. I am not having a problem paying my mortgage but there are many foreclosures in my neighborhood because of the way the mortgages were issued to unqualified buyers.
Couple of problems with this:
1) It is still way cheaper and faster and more convenient for me to go to the NYC from 45 miles away in my car alone than to use public transportation. Unless something magically happens, public transportation as-is is incapable of satisfying normal commuting needs as efficiently as personal transportation.
2) At least in the suburbs where I live (average working class mechanics, teachers,…) there are no foreclosures for the people who bought their houses to live in… Every single one (and I look over some 30 miles of my preferred biking route) was a house purchased for “turnover”, now stuck half way into “renovation”. Same as with the oil, speculators are the villains. At least in the housing bubble they have already paid their dues. Hopefully the same will happen with the oil.
3) Finally, the quality of life. I wouldn’t exchange my 1500 sq ft house with the yard 45 miles from NYC for McMillions worth of abode in the NYC with all of its problems, nevermind something of the “equal value”.
#22 jbenson2 wrote, “No big surprise and not a serious issue for the rest of the folks who don’t live in over-heated markets.”
It seems like maybe you’re living in some sort of bubble of your own. This situation is affecting not only Americans but governments and investors half a world away, because they invested in packaged securities that bore ludicrously generous AAA credit ratings that had been handed out like Halloween candy by heretofore credible credit rating agencies.
By many accounts, Bernanke narrowly averted the kind of panic that could have resulted in long lines at the bank to withdraw money. The Fed worked feverishly on a Sunday (the Lord’s day, so stone them) to put together a deal for Bear Stearns, create a brand new federal credit facility, and lower interest rates, all so that Monday morning’s news could carry some semblance of confidence to financial markets that were on the verge of a meltdown.
I have to take issue with your “not a serious issue” diagnosis. It falls a bit short of reality.
Hydrogen would have been as big of a boondoggle as “The War”, but this is about housing, not energy.
Now that old urban centres have fallen to the bottom…it is time for gentrification to happen. Especially since manufacturing and shipping has gone from many old cities to newer grounds.
It comes down to every generation undoing what their parents generation did and re-doing what their grandparents did (more or less, urban changes happen at a slower rate).
Or this would just be a good way to trick all the hipsters to move to Detroit. Who is up for forming The Next Big Thing, Detroit’s North by North East?
#17, water vapor is a greenhouse gas, bigger than CO2, so hydrogen cars should be banned too shouldn’t they?
There are a few houses in my neighborhood that have been foreclosed and sold at auction. We also have houses that have not been taken care of and look horrible. Not to mention the increase in drug dealers and gangs driving around. This used to be a nice neighborhood and it still is better than most places but things are getting tough.
It’s overpopulation. Pure and simple. More people = more problems. I was watching a show on HGTV and some lady in Hong Kong was looking to buy a home, the AVERAGE price per square foot…$1000!!! Hopefully we don’t see this happening here any time soon but as population grows so does price. I agree with the user above, people are fleeing to the city, rent is going up. I drive a hybrid so 30 miles or less is ok by me although I’d prefer a closer proximity, I can live with the commute from hell.
Doesn’t it say something in the Constitution about the “Right to Own Ostentatious $700,000 Homes in East Bumfuck”???
That would be under the “persuit of happiness clause”