Economists tell us that economic activity (jobs) will tend to cluster for a couple of reasons. First, and most true historically, firms (businesses) that export goods to other cities prefer locations with access to transportation infrastructure -- ports or rail depots. This has become much less necessary as the interstate highway system has made highway interchanges almost as usefull as a large port or or rail depot. Second, firms (businesses) tend to do better when they are nearer to other related firms. This can be to either promote face-to-face communication with suppliers, accountants, banks, advertizing agencies or it can be to access a large pool of potential workers.
So where does this leave people to live? Well, outside these employment clusters. Economic theory also tells us that because commuting costs (time and money costs) are so important, land closest to emplyment centers should be most valuable and, because they have the highest time cost to commuting, where the highest income households choose to live. But that doesn't really describe how the world looks. The wealthy tend to live in suburbs furthers away from traditional downtowns.
Historically, this is because when the streetcar and later the auto allowed people to move away from crowded and polluted downtown neighborhoods that were populated by people of all different incomes and ethnic backgrounds. So the suburbs were populated by people who may have had the higher commuting costs, but they also were willing to pay the most for lower crime, better schools and a back yard. Crime and schools might be obvious, but the backyard is much overlooked. And to that I mean not backyards specifically, but housing that matches the economics and the lifestyles of the day. Building a new house where a house currently exists is expensive, building a new house on agricultural land where lots of houses are going to be built at once is cheap. More than anything else, this tells the story of suburbs and why inner ring suburbs are beginning to struggle.
The goal of this web log is to tell the story of inner ring suburbs, explain the economic forces that shape them, and try to think through strategies that will bring them successfully into the the mid-century.
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Jeff, I'm not sure that the observation that inner ring suburbs are beginning to struggle is a universal condition. In my region its really a mixed bag. Some are struggling, from a combination of the tax and funding profile of the state shifting to supporting larger municipalities, as well as from social issues in the nearby urban centers causing exodus and a changing demographic in some towns. But yet other towns are thriving, with rising property values and thriving business districts.
ReplyDeleteThe odd thing is there is not necessarily a correspondence between these two. Some of the towns receiving people fleeing urban areas are thriving in ways not reflected in high school rankings or property values. I see them receiving home owners invested in their communities, making improvements, solidifying once shaky neighborhoods. Yet in the "solid" towns with high property values, good schools, and nice business districts they are struggling with budget and services.
I absolutely agree that the condition is not universal, but I think that on average, these towns are not doing well. I am waiting on a graduate students to create an algorthim that will allow me to use census data to track changes and hopefully figure out what seems to differentiate successful from unsuccessful inner ring suburbs.
ReplyDeleteOk, the second point about the correspondence has me stumped.
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