The American suburbs as we know them are dying (Commentary)

[M II A II R II K]

The American suburbs as we know them are dying


March 5th, 2016

By Ashley Lutz

Read More: http://www.businessinsider.com/death...verview-2017-3

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People in the US suburbs are changing the way they shop, where they eat, and what they want in their homes. Malls are shutting down as e-commerce continues to take over, and the casual-dining chains that fed shoppers after a day of hoofing it through the mall are struggling to cope.

- The line between city and suburb has already started to blur, Fadi Masoud, an urban planning professor at the University of Toronto who contributed to a forthcoming book called "Infinite Suburbia" told Business Insider's Leanna Garfield. "Some people still attribute the oldest part of the city, which is predominantly pedestrian-friendly and more dense as ‘urban,’ and then everything else that starts going out further in distance from the core as 'suburban.' But that definition doesn’t work as well now," he tells Business Insider. "What you would usually define as urban and suburban is eroding." Urban planners across America are rethinking how suburbs are designed. Towns like New Rochelle, a suburb of New York City, are evolving to focus less on space and possession and more on walkability and environmental impact.

- In an article from August 2016, Bloomberg cited data from real-estate site Trulia that showed that the premiums paid for McMansions have declined significantly in 85 of the country's 100 biggest cities. For the purpose of the study, Trulia defined a McMansion as a home that was built between 2001 and 2007 and that has between 3,000 and 5,000 square feet of space. To cite one example, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the extra money that buyers were expected to be willing to pay to own a McMansion fell by 84% from 2012 to 2016. In that same city in 2012, a typical McMansion would be valued at $477,000, about 274% more than the area's other homes. Today, a McMansion would be valued at $611,000, or 190% above the rest of the market. Experts told Business Insider's Madeline Stone that the youngest generations of homebuyers tend to value efficiency more than ever before, and feel McMansions are impractical and wasteful.

- As anchor store behemoths like Macy's, Sears, and JCPenney close hundreds of locations, the future of malls is in jeopardy. The commercial real estate firm CoStar estimates that nearly a quarter of malls in the US, or roughly 310 of the nation's 1,300 shopping malls, are at high risk of losing an anchor store. Once that happens, it spells trouble for communities — especially those in the suburbs where job opportunities are more limited than in cities. --- "Malls are big, big contributors to city and state taxes, jobs, and everything," Howard Davidowitz, chairman of research firm Davidowitz & Associates, told Business Insider's Hayley Peterson. "Once they close, they are a blight on the community for a very long time." As a transformation in retail continues to shutter giants Sears and Macy's and threaten malls across the country, food court mainstays like Sbarro, Cinnabon, Jamba Juice, and Panda Express face an uncertain future.

- "In the past several years, a handful of America's largest corporations have joined a mass exodus from their suburban headquarters to new home bases in the city, and millennials seem to be the driving force," writes Business Insider's Chris Weller. Beginning in 2015, McDonald's, Kraft Heinz, and ConAgra Foods have all left the leafy suburbs of Chicago for office spaces downtown. In August, General Electric announced it was ditching Fairfield, Connecticut, for Boston. And several years ago, Swiss banking giant UBS returned to New York City after 15 years in Stamford, Connecticut. The reason? UBS realized much of its top talent lived 35 miles south, in Manhattan.

- The roads and bridges that connect America’s suburbs are in desperation need of repair. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gives the US a D grade for its roads and a C grade for its bridges. The US Department of Transportation estimates that almost $1 trillion is needed to improve the current Interstate and highway system in the US. --- "In suburbs, the big challenge is repairing the existing highway system," Christopher Leinberger, chair of the center for Real Estate and Urban Analysis at George Washington University, told Business Insider. "Ideally, there won’t be any new highway capacity built because we can't afford to maintain what we have."

- For many years, suburban residents sought out the treat of going to casual dining chains. But as more people choose to make their own food at home, the restaurant industry is in crisis. The weakest link in the industry was casual dining, which was the bottom performer in all but two months of the year. The vast majority of these restaurants are in the suburbs. --- Ruby Tuesday is in search of a new CEO and in the process of selling 95 restaurants amidst falling sales. Bloomin' Brands, the parent company of casual dining chains including Outback Steakhouse and Carrabba's Grill, announced plans in Febuary to close 43 locations after a "challenging" 2016. Buffalo Wild Wings — where same-store sales fell 2.4% in 2016 — is engaged in a power struggle with activist investor Marcato Capital.

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New Rochelle Redevelopment

[mhays]

To boil it down, many suburban areas are densifying and becoming more diverse. And brick-n-mortar retail has problems, particularly with old-line department stores.

[lio45]

To cite one example, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the extra money that buyers were expected to be willing to pay to own a McMansion fell by 84% from 2012 to 2016. In that same city in 2012, a typical McMansion would be valued at $477,000, about 274% more than the area's other homes. Today, a McMansion would be valued at $611,000, or 190% above the rest of the market.

Wow, this writer is totally math-challenged!

Going from 274 "arbitrary units" to 190 of these same units is not "falling by 84%".

When the arbitrary units we're talking about... happen to be percentage points themselves, someone dumb enough who actually wants to say the value fell by 84 "arbitrary units" might inadvertently say it became 16% of what it was. The issue, of course, comes when you fail to realize that naming the units... is quite misleading in this case!

[mrnyc]

retail is certainly changing a lot and the back to the city movement continues unabated yes. millennials seem to be flocking around downtowns, at least until they have the second kid. even then if you can telecommute at least part of the week, you can live anywhere in your region, so you are a golden god. and with trump making america great again, the factories will be back and the roads fixed, so that will take care of the rest.

[mhays]

Good one!

[dc_denizen]

we used to build shopping malls, now we build cities?

[The North One]

HAHAH I fucking wish, but no, they're not.

Suburbia is still going strong in this country. The closing of the overbuilt shopping malls is no indication of suburban decline. The lack of McMansion sales is more of an indication of the declining middle class.

[the urban politician]

This article is so damn poorly slapped together that i don't know where to begin. It is chalk full of generalizations, lazy analysis, and extremely broad conclusions. Just another lousy pro-city fluff piece.

There is nothing out there, nothing, that indicates that American suburbia is dying. Is it changing? Yes. Are malls in trouble? Yes, many are.

But the suburbs are going very strong in America today, and largely remain where most of the growth is and where most families live.

^ chock full. it's a weird phrase.

[photoLith]

The suburbs ain't go anywhere unfortunately, cities are regaining population and density but for every good development going on in any city, there are 5 horrible culdesac developments going up. People like their big generic yards and their big crappily built houses in the suburbs. Just because shopping malls are dying out doesn't mean generic suburbia is going anywhere.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by mhays

To boil it down, many suburban areas are densifying and becoming more diverse. And brick-n-mortar retail has problems, particularly with old-line department stores.

This, beat me to it.

[lrt's friend]

I really look at this as very depressing. It is not about urbanization but about suburbia becoming even more uninteresting deserts. It is really about family debt and that they can no longer support even lower end casual restaurants or mid level retailers. It is the spiral downward that we are seeing.

While we look at this movement back to the city, there are also stories coming out that millennials are finding living in the city unaffordable. They cannot afford to live in downtown condos even on a rental basis. They cannot afford car ownership in many cases.

The question really is that we are creating a society that does not pay a living wage to most workers and that increasingly workers face unstable situations.

[Flyers2001]

Originally Posted by photoLith

The suburbs ain't go anywhere unfortunately, cities are regaining population and density but for every good development going on in any city, there are 5 horrible culdesac developments going up. People like their big generic yards and their big crappily built houses in the suburbs. Just because shopping malls are dying out doesn't mean generic suburbia is going anywhere.

Did you grow up with no yard or park to play in? You make it seem living in the suburbs is a terrible thing.

Are there no "crappily" build homes in cities?

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Flyers2001

Did you grow up with no yard or park to play in? You make it seem living in the suburbs is a terrible thing.

Are there no "crappily" build homes in cities?

Ignore the young uns, particularly young and unmarried males under 40, when they say "the suburbs are horrible! I will never leave the city!"

It's a yawner, a broken record. They will join the train eventually. It's just a matter of children, wives, and getting a tad bit older. With few exceptions

[M II A II R II K]

Perhaps the suburbs would be more appealing if they were more than just seas of asphalt where the only nightlife is people at home watching TV

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Perhaps the suburbs would be more appealing if they were more than just seas of asphalt where the only nightlife is people at home watching TV

The suburbs aren't that--at all. That is an obscene generalization, to say the least.

I mean, come on--do you actually believe that?

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Perhaps the suburbs would be more appealing if they were more than just seas of asphalt where the only nightlife is people at home watching TV

When do people actually have time for a nightlife any more? If you balancing between kids and jobs, there is nothing left but watching TV.

[Pedestrian]

The problem in single family home suburbs is a demographic shift with lower family formation among the young and the retirement and, more recently, mortality of baby boomers. It is not a newfound preference for city life among people historically averse to it (i.e. those with multiple children).

Bricks and mortar retailing has fallen prey to a different problem entirely: e-commerce. The only bricks and mortar retailers doing notably well are those where people want to see and touch the merchandise before buying or those where shipping is prohibitive. Somewhat ironically, this includes the big box home building/repair/maintence stores like Home Depot and Lowes which are doing quite well.

And restaurants--many articles have been written about what's wrong with restaurants and the picture remains unclear. Still, among the things that can be said is that there is a shift to healthy and "organic" food preferences that are hard to satisfy in chain restaurants. The few that are doing well make an outspoken claim on their healthiness like Panera Bread and, before they sickened so many, Chipotle. Meanwhile, with the bottom end of the wage scale rising--a $15 minimum now in some places--there is less margin for restaurants with mediocre success to stay in business.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Perhaps the suburbs would be more appealing if they were more than just seas of asphalt where the only nightlife is people at home watching TV

Cocooning and congregating in personal spaces like "man caves" and home theaters, for which only suburban homes usually have space, is a "thing"--a positive attraction to the suburban lifestyle, not something most people want to avoid. Only the young and childless feel an urge to congregate in drug and alcohol fueled mass settings.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

we used to build shopping malls, now we build cities?

Guess most affluent suburbs like New Rochelle can afford the move. Others are still stuck.