Slumming it in the Exurbs?
April 29th, 2009By Sara Wolfson
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| Creative Commons flickr image by user merfam |
Last spring, Chris Leinberger wrote in The Atlantic that the pendulum was slowly shifting away from suburban life due to our country’s changing demographics, growing public demand for “urban” amenities like walkable neighborhoods and better transportation options, and the overbuilding of exurban housing — far from jobs and highly inconvenient when gas gets expensive.
Leinberger, citing predictions that there will be a “likely surplus of 22 million large-lot homes (houses built on a sixth of an acre or more) by 2025,” argued that “many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s — slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay.”
A shocking turn of phrase, yes — but was he wrong?
It’s certainly too early to pass a verdict, but a full year has passed since Leinberger’s article that provoked so much discussion. With affordability at record highs, the dismal housing market has experienced an uptick in the last few months. Even still, millions of houses — focused mostly in exurban areas around the country — are sitting vacant. High Country News has a great article about a dying Arizona exurb, and what it might mean for how we think of growth in the future:
After a decade of riding high, the exurbs are in crisis. In California, Nevada and Arizona, thousands of foreclosed homes sit empty, weeds reclaim vacant lots in new subdivisions and big-box stores are shutting down. The local newspaper warns of roof rats infesting abandoned neighborhoods and mosquitoes colonizing unused swimming pools. Many observers believe that this is only a slump, albeit a deep one, and that the old patterns of growth will someday return. Others aren’t so sure. It’s possible, they say, that even after the national economic crisis subsides, the Western urban urge to expand rapidly and without limitation may have ended.
“I’m not sure that the era of sprawl is over,” says Ed McMahon, senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute. “But the paradigm of unlimited suburban and exurban growth has definitely shifted.”
