Suburbs and the free market

There is a commentary in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal entitled The War Against Suburbia. Joel Kotkin writes:

Suburbia, the preferred way of life across the advanced capitalist world, is under an unprecedented attack -- one that seeks to replace single-family residences and shopping centers with an "anti-sprawl" model beloved of planners and environmental activists.

And then the rest of the article is a much longer explanation of the same. But a lot of it is wrong.

Suburbia is not a natural creation of the free market, but rather was highly influenced by government policies. In suburbia, the local government generally prohibits the construction of dense housing, so people are given the choice of buying a single family house or living somewhere else.

The reason why cities emptied can be largely attributed to another government policy: integration of schools via forced busing. White middle class families fled the cities in the 1950s so that their children wouldn’t have to attend schools with ghetto blacks.

In the Washington, DC area where I lived until this summer, developers would have loved to build high density housing, but every community in the DC area has a NIMBY attitude towards high rise buildings. And there is an archaic federal law prohibiting the construction of tall buildings in the city of DC itself.

In the Hell’s Kitchen area of Manhattan where I live now, developers would love to tear down the old tenements and build modern high rise apartment buildings, but zoning laws prohibit this. In the article, Mr. Kotkin writes, “since 2000 ... New York City has gained less than 95,000 people while the suburban rings have added over 270,000.” He offers this as evidence that people prefer suburbs, but how can people move into the city if the city won’t allow the construction of more housing?

It seems to me that there would be less suburbanization if the free market were allowed to determine what kind of housing people live in.

Comments

[superdestroyer]

Since you lived in DC, you will also know that people would drive the Hells of I-95 from Fredricksbug and I270 from Fredrick so that they could have a single family home. Comare the houses sold the Loundon county compared to condos in Arlington County and you will see what the majority want.

I'm sorry but people outside Manhatten just do not want to live above the Chinese food restaurant and across the street from the Liquior store when they have kids.

[Michael A. Clem]

Interesting post. While there's no doubt government policies had some impact on the development of the suburbs, I'm not sure it's quite as clear-cut as you make it. An important point would be that of roads and highways. If suburban residents had to pay the full cost of the roads that gave them access to the inner city, most likely fewer people would have moved to the suburbs.
Nonetheless, I think many people do prefer the suburbs as opposed to urban living.

[Samuel Alito]

This is, of course, changing. Note that a pair of 53-story condo buildings is going up in Sacramento (?!), with 1700 applicants for the 750 available $500K 1,100 sqft apartments -- a price that would be considered absurd there as recently as last year. It is not clear whether people want to live "above the Chinese restaurant and across from the liquor store" (or, to put it another way, "near the amenities of city living") when they are prevented from doing so by regulation.

And there are lots of new condos going up in New York, even in Hell's Kitchen. McHale's, for example, is losing its lease as the building goes down for a new condo. I can't be too sad, since it represents progress of a sort, but I'll be going there for a last burger and beer this week for certain.

Sam

[superdestroyer]

Sam,

You should look at the Clarksburg development in Montgomery County Maryland that will add several thousand single family homes in an area of the DC suburbs.

NYC is unique but if you look at most older, urban cities they are shrinking (Baltimore, Detroit, DC) etc. What would be more interesting is how the close-in suburbs are becoming more like the inner city as the middle class keeps fleeing farther away.

[Half Sigma]

"if you look at most older, urban cities they are shrinking (Baltimore, Detroit, DC) etc."

I don't know so much about Baltimore or Detroit, but I do know that the population of DC is pretty much fixed because the authorities won't allow much development.

I guarantee you that if they zoned a few forty story apartment buildings near a Metro station in the good parts of NW DC, you'd see the population of DC rise.

[Samuel Alito]

I don't know much about Baltimore, Detroit, or DC either (though my general impression is that the cities along the northeast are shrinking generally). I do know that many of the Western cities that invented sprawl (Phoenix, Denver, Houston, even Los Angeles) are seeing major development in the city center. These cities have fewer concerns about a "historic district" than NYC does (tearing down an onion warehouse is not a big deal to most people). The further out the suburbs are, the less desire to live there--driving an hour to get to your job in exchange for being far away from the Chinese restaurant (or any restaurant) is not something that appeals to most people.

[Half Sigma]

"driving an hour to get to your job in exchange for being far away from the Chinese restaurant (or any restaurant) is not something that appeals to most people."

The ideal place to live for most people is to have an acre of land and a 5 minute commute. But that's not going to happen if you work in a major city. Even Donald Trump can't afford his own detached house in Manhattan! (Rich people like Trump will have an apartment in the city and a house in Connecticut for the weekends, and one further away in Nantuckett or the Hamptons for summer weekends.)

The point of my post is that more people would choose the 5 minute commute and give up the house an hour away if the government would let developers build the high rise housing.

[lee]

I hate everytime I hear "if suburban residents had to pay the full cost of the roads." Don't they know there is a Highway Trust Fund which collects federal excise taxes on tires and GASOLINE taxes and this pays for the roads? Also states have gasoline taxes which pay for roads. Since the only way you can drive on the roads is to buy gasoline and to pay the gasoline taxes DRIVERS PAY THE FULL COST OF THE ROADS.

[Michael A. Clem]

All that means, lee, is that all drivers pay the full cost of the roads--it doesn't distinguish groups of drivers. Still, in one sense, you may be right. If the government wasn't in the road business, we might find that some roads would, in fact, cost less to build and maintain. Suburbia might not be largely a creation of government regulation...

[lee]

Yes, but the intent of the above "full cost of the roads" comment indicated that the writer doesn't understand that the non-driver pays nothing.