U.S. Cities Are At A Crossroads

[jmecklenborg]

Also, I find all of this chatter to be comical in light of what city cheerleaders of my generation (born in the 1970s) went through the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. I remember when there were tons of vacant buildings in Manhattan, old skyscrapers missing all of their windows in Detroit, etc. The rent was cheap everywhere and only the best sort of people tolerated all of the crap that came with living in cities. You were laughed at if you advocated for cities.

Now almost every midsized U.S. city has come roaring back. Places like Kansas City and Cincinnati that were on the ropes between 1990 and 2010 are thriving. Places that weren't on the map 30 years ago like Columbus and Nashville are ascendant. There is hardly such a thing as a "bad" neighborhood anymore - you have to go somewhere truly ridiculous like Toledo or East St. Louis.

Much of this push has happened since 2015 as the demographics of the kids born in the mid-1980s (25% more births in 1990 as compared to 1975) collided with a cooling of speculative suburban construction. It all came about very quickly and without any sort of advocacy by urban boosters or a big policy change (i.e. streetcars or form-based code). It all happened because of demographics and the self-policing of the banks who lost tens of billions in the collapse.

So the policy nerds can get on Twitter and NUMTOT and post on Citylab and wag their fingers all they want about the "missing middle" or whatever the hot topic is but they have no power in the matter. None of their positive or negative predictions will come true.

[mhays]

Depends on the city. Some were well into the infill trend in the 80s.

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

There is hardly such a thing as a "bad" neighborhood anymore - you have to go somewhere truly ridiculous like Toledo or East St. Louis.

i think it's still relatively easy to find "bad" neighborhoods in all but a handful of cities. but East St. Louis isn't just "bad"; it's apocalyptic.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

There is hardly such a thing as a "bad" neighborhood anymore - you have to go somewhere truly ridiculous like Toledo or East St. Louis.

wait....... what????????????????

cities like toledo and ESL are the only ones with "bad" neighborhoods?

what universe are you living in?

[Obadno]

Its actually quite interesting to see how remote working (now embraced by circumstance) and self driving vehicles allow people high levels of mobility. And at the same time you still have a strong trend towards urbanization among the young. You also have a strong reshoring tendencies as the fragility of global supply lines and the costs associated with manufacturing in China vs Mexico is completely reshaping industry and Manufacturing in north America.

However housing construction has come back in a big way especially in the sunbelt not quite to the level of 2006 or so but significant (although in my experience the new suburban developments are more densely packed.

I personally know multiple people who would not live in the city if they could be remote 100% and I know of least two couples who are moving to small cities or way out into the rural hinterlands of the metro they are in. They have no desire to remain in an urban environment and only did so out of necessity.

For one I think its a good thing that people will live where they want but it might also result in cities not having the level of growth and renaissance they have enjoyed for 30 years.

Unlike some I dont suspect the cities will die (although some high profile cities need to get their crime situations under control lest they have a repeat of the 1970's) but I do think we may see a revival of smaller towns and cities across the country.

Not just exurbs but honest to god small towns. Because of Covid places like Delaware, Maine, Montana and Connecticut saw population growth not seen in decades. The combination of desire for cheaper housing +Boomers retiring+ millennials subrubanizing+ remote work+ high tech manufacturing reshoring will see many smaller cities and towns actually revive themselves.

And before you think its impossible it really only takes a couple of high net worth families to move to a smaller city or town with high costal incomes or just one medium sized company to locate in a smaller city to make a massive impact.

[mhays]

Places people like are likely to grow. That might include some inner cities.

You can also escape TO urban places.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by mhays

Places people like are likely to grow. That might include some inner cities.

You can also escape TO urban places.

I know some folks that, because SF rents were down in the past year, moved TO the City, when they previously were unable to afford it.

[mhays]

Some people will also decide that their Kansas City jobs let them move to Chicago.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

There is hardly such a thing as a "bad" neighborhood anymore - you have to go somewhere truly ridiculous like Toledo or East St. Louis.

I think this is a coastal thing. In cities that have a scarcity of buildable land, there aren't really places that are "off limits" anymore. Even in NYC, it's pretty wild how places that seemed "off limits" just a decade ago are fair game today. But this hasn't really happened yet in a lot of other places that are still dealing with the forces of sprawl.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

wait....... what????????????????

cities like toledo and ESL are the only ones with "bad" neighborhoods?

what universe are you living in?

Just 10-15 years ago nearly all U.S. cities had vast "no-go" zones. The murder rates were double what they are now. Cars were broken into all of the time. People were mugged all of the time.

But really the sheer geographic scale of it was what was amazing - just mile after mile of economic and social dysfunction. Now you're only seeing pockets of it. There's like a single shady block left on what used to be a 2-mile stretch of drug dealing/prostitution.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Just 10-15 years ago nearly all U.S. cities had vast "no-go" zones. The murder rates were double what they are now. Cars were broken into all of the time. People were mugged all of the time.

But really the sheer geographic scale of it was what was amazing - just mile after mile of economic and social dysfunction. Now you're only seeing pockets of it. There's like a single shady block left on what used to be a 2-mile stretch of drug dealing/prostitution.

you sorely need to visit cities like chicago, philly, detroit, cleveland, st. louis, baltimore, etc. if you think that large areas of abject social dysfunction only exist in small cities like ESL or toledo.

[Obadno]

Anyone saying there aren’t still large swaths of bad neighborhoods in major metros are just fooling themselves.

While it is true cities are vastly improved to what they were at their nadir in the 1980’s and most of the complaints about the current state of cities is more of a reflection of stagnation in improvement rather than outright decline for the last several years ( cities and crime are still at historically low levels especially when you go back to the period between 1970-1990.)

That doesn’t mean it’s streets of gold and honey. There are big issues with homelessness (more a mental health issue than anything) and there are lots of crime ridden collapsed neighborhoods.

If you feel like they no longer exist it’s because you aren’t looking

[craigs]

Also, jmecklenborg's timeframe is off. Young people started flocking back into certain central cities--Boston, New York, San Francisco--by the mid-1980s, and that accelerated nationwide in the 1990s, as evidenced by the 2000 census. The most troubled and smaller inland cities may have been last in line, but with a few exceptions, they did eventually join the party.

[Chef]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

The "missing middle" isn't going to save us. Banks won't finance its construction because small multifamilies don't make money because their management is inefficient compared to larger multifamilies.

Minneapolis legalized triplexes in 2018 and nothing has happened.

There have actually been a fair number of missing middle type fourplexes built in Minneapolis over the last few years. It looks like a local developer has found a formula that works and they are now being built in increasing numbers.

Some examples:

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9622...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9583...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9523...7i16384!8i8192

There are many more but they are so recent that they aren't on street view yet. It is something that began a few years a ago and seems to be accelerating year by year. There are six or seven of them under construction in my neighborhood right now.

The threeplexes got the headlines with Minneapolis' zoning reforms but the real story was legalizing four to six story midrises by right along all the arterial streets and transit corridors, along with getting rid of parking minimums. Those are the reforms that are driving a major wave of new development that is currently under construction. They also seem to be making it possible for developers to build on smaller lots because they don't need parking or political connections to get variances - I'm seeing smaller lots getting redeveloped now with stuff like this:

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9394...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9447...7i16384!8i8192

I believe all the developments I posted replaced single family houses.

[Tom In Chicago]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Just 10-15 years ago nearly all U.S. cities had vast "no-go" zones. The murder rates were double what they are now. Cars were broken into all of the time. People were mugged all of the time.

But really the sheer geographic scale of it was what was amazing - just mile after mile of economic and social dysfunction. Now you're only seeing pockets of it. There's like a single shady block left on what used to be a 2-mile stretch of drug dealing/prostitution.

Seems like 10 to 15 years ago was a golden age for cities compared to the troubles that plagued them into the early 1990s. . .

. . . and if you think there are only pockets of bad areas today, I could drive you through vast swaths of the west and south sides of Chicago that would turn your hair white!

. . .

[mhays]

That's good stuff, Chef.

Agreed on parking. With no mandates, a lot of options open up for small-site development as well as pencilling small units in general.

[Steely Dan]

^ the lion's share of core minnepolis and st. paul is alleyed.

most residential lots there seem to be in the 30 - 50 foot wide range.

that's more than enough lot width to stick 3 to 5 spaces on a pad off the alley for pretty damn inexpensive dedicated parking (and i imagine that's exactly what most of chef's examples have in back).

so while it's totally awesome that minnepolis has relaxed/eliminated its parking reqs, i can't imagine that parking was a terribly big hurdle preventing small-scale multi-flat construction there in the past.

[mhays]

Good point. It's more relevant for a 20-unit building close to transit.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by mhays

It's more relevant for a 20-unit building close to transit.

Oh yeah, totally.

4 - 5 story, 20 unit buildings on smallish lots become way cheaper if you eliminate dedicated parking.

In practice in Chicago, that really only works for rentals though, because the local condo market has a very strong bias for deeded parking, and developers will almost always choose to pay for dedicated parking (even when not required to do so) because the increased per unit sale cost will usually more than cover it, not to mention making it easier to sell the units in the first place.

[mhays]

For a condo, yes, probably anywhere but New York. In my area we don't build many condos due to liability laws, and the few are all larger concrete buildings. So everything outside of a few cores is all rental apartments or townhouses which don't face that issue.

Our condo towers can do fewer parking spaces than units, but something like 0.7 seems to do better than 0.3...someone tried that and regretted it, made worse by Covid, closed borders, etc.