Thoughts on the New “Quasi-Urban Suburbia” — What Do “Millennials,” “Young Professionals,” and “Empty-Nesters” All Have in Common?

December 19, 2016 by

It’s funny.  When I started writing this blog about my experiences moving from the city to the suburbs about seven (!) years ago, I thought my desire to retain a certain urban sensibility was unusual.

After all, I’d seen my city friends leave for the glories of suburbia, one after another, without ever apparently looking back.  So I sort of thought that my desire to maintain a walkable, urbanist lifestyle, my own “SUMA,” was unique, almost quixotic.

But either I just wasn’t tuned in to the world around me, or I was a bit ahead of my time.  Because now I keep reading how developers are trying to build multi-use, multi-family suburban communities that retain a certain urban sensibility.  Here’s an article from this week in the Times by Marcela Susan Fischler:

Some suburbs around New York City are becoming decidedly less suburban, as new apartment buildings and condominium communities close to mass transithelp expand the downtowns of these villages and towns. Multifamily housing is also popping up near highways and main thoroughfares.

Young professionals seeking more space than they can afford in Manhattan or Brooklyn, empty nesters looking to downsize and leave the snow shoveling to others and, to a lesser extent, millennials moving out of their parents’ basements are leading the charge to a more urbanized suburbia.

What’s interesting is not just that people are looking for that urban experience in the suburbs, but the TYPES of people looking for it.  As the Times notes, it’s not just millennials who are loathe to give up the urban lifestyle — we’re also seeing the appeal to “young professionals” and “empty-nesters.”

Now, of course, one of my main themes in this blog is that NO ONE who lives in a city  ever WANTS to move to the traditional suburbs, any more than people WANT to buy a minivan.  It’s a choice borne out of circumstance (or even desperation) when you have kids and you simply have to accept that you have to give up the urban amenities for a more child-friendly lifestyle.

That is, think about what “millennials,” “young professionals,” and “empty-nesters” all mostly have in common — NO KIDS. And that makes sense. If it’s just you, or you and your new spouse, or you and the spouse you’ve had for a while, then a two-bedroom with no back yard but with a short walk to trains and downtown makes a lot of sense.  Once you have a couple of kids, though, and that second kid is sleeping in a closet, and they’re driving you ABSOLUTELY FREAKING CRAZY when you’re cooped up with them all day, then you’re going to want a bigger place.  Go break things outside for a while, kids!

So what’s my point? That there are limits to this new urbanist suburbia, and that it’s not a replacement for the traditional suburbia, at least not for the vast majority of people who decide to move (however reluctantly) to the suburbs in the first place. And as much as I absolutely love that developers are responding to urban exiles who want to retain at least some of that lifestyle, I don’t think it means the end to the traditional suburb.

Anyway, tradeoffs do not have to be absolute.  I gave up my 2,000 square foot apartment on the Upper West when my wife and I decided to have kids, but I’ve retained at least a semblance of my former life by finding a place that’s a seven-minute easy walk to the downtown of Nyack.  I don’t have the full suburban experience of a one-acre lot and all that, but I’ve got a backyard and a small pool.  And I’m surrounded by people with that same sensibility, who are willing to take that same “half-step” of moving to the suburbs, getting the bigger house, but keeping just a touch of that walkable urban sensibility.

Filed Under: Living in the Suburbs, My Life in the Suburbs, SUMA Lifestyle Tagged With: , ,

Does Moving to the Suburbs Make You a Conservative?

June 21, 2012 by

Is moving to the suburbs a political statement?  The reason I ask is that I’ve become increasingly aware of this raging battle between the forces of sprawl and the advocates of density, one that actually polarizes along familiar political lines: suburbs = conservative, and cities = liberal.

Now, it’s not just about how the cities tend to be more politically liberal and the suburbs more politically conservative. Yes, that’s absolutely and obviously true — you don’t get a lot of tea parties on the Upper West Side, and you don’t see too many “Free Mumia” banners hanging from the windows of high ranches in New City.

But it’s more about how the suburbs versus the cities arguments tend to reflect conservative and liberal values:
  • Suburbs:  Big houses, big lots, big cars, big highways, assimilation, personal freedom, ownership society.
  • City: Dense spaces, walkable neighborhoods, community involvement, concern for the environment, diversity, public transportation, renters over owners.
For example, check out this almost comical “suburban manifesto” put out by L. Brooks Patterson, the supervisor for Michigan’s Oakland County, titled “Sprawl, Schmall…Give Me More Development”, and tell me it doesn’t read like something being shouted by a guy in a colonial hat in front of a picture of President Obama morphing into Hitler:

Sprawl is not evil. In fact, it is good. It is the inevitable result of a free people exercising their cherished, constitutionally protected rights as individuals to pursue their dreams when choosing where to live, where to work, where to educate, and where to recreate.

***

The anti-American Dreamers would have you believe that suburban growth is at the root of all problems that beset our cities, both in Michigan and across our country.  They seem to believe that citizens left thriving cities, and that it was their departure that caused high crime, high taxes, invisible public services, and failing public school systems. Anybody who believes that line of thinking is taking denial to a whole new level. Sprawl did not cause the decline of the cities. Cities declined because they squandered their assets. High crime rates, high taxes, failing schools, foul air and a lack of open green spaces forced people to move.

It will probably not shock you that Mr. Patterson is a Republican.  But my point is that the pro-suburban argument properly articulated is inherently conservative: the individual over the community, assimilation over diversity, highways over public transportation, personal freedoms over environmental protection.
Conversely, the urbanist perspective is almost inescapably liberal, stressing how dense walkable neighborhoods foster a sense of community, reduce environmental impact, promote diversity, provide for affordable housing, and reduce transportation costs.  From the urbanist view,suburbs are ridiculously wasteful and hideously (and often subtly) subsidized.
All of this puts me in a difficult position, as a liberal who actually lives in the suburbs.  Does just living here make a political statement that I don’t value diversity, or the environment, or public transportation?  Am I betraying my own sensibilities to drive an SUV?  Do I need to get fitted for my tri-corner hat?
Maybe not.  As Allison Arieff points out in a response to Patterson in the New York Times, there’s a middle way between the glorification and vilification of sprawl, a movement to bring a more community-minded sensibility to suburban environments not as an act of governmental or political will, but simply a response to basic market demand:  developers who realize that many of their clients want those smaller, walkable neighborhoods, and people living in the suburbs who are finding ways to connect and foster a real community.  As she says, living “better and smarter shouldn’t be a partisan issue.”
That makes sense to me. Like a lot of people who moved to the suburbs, I wasn’t making a political statement. I wasn’t taking sides in this battle, or foregoing my liberal sensibilities to adopt Mr. Patterson’s vision of the American Dream.
I just wanted more closet space.
Filed Under: News, Suburbs versus Cities Tagged With: , , ,

The Return from Exile in Reverse: Re-Creating the Suburban Experience in New York City

June 5, 2012 by

Jesse McKinley had a great piece in the New York Times last week about trying to recreate a stereotypical suburban experience within Manhattan. A native suburban, his theory was that the city is slowly becoming “suburbanized“:

 The ’burbs seem to be everywhere, from miniature golf in the Village to batting cages on the Upper West Side. There’s table tennis off Park Avenue South, an Applebee’s in Harlem and highway-style hotels like the Comfort Inn on the Lower East Side. Multiplexes are more common than art houses, and don’t even try to avoid trivia nights. If not for all the big buildings and honking, you could easily mistake Manhattan for Mahwah on some nights.

McKinley thinks that this might be the result of changing demographics, with people from the suburbs moving into the city and providing a target market for their “cultural traditions.”  Sort of like the way that an influx of ethnic immigrants create the need for more Pakistani restaurants, but far less spicy.  I would also add that, to the extent that his thesis is accurate — and I’m not quite convinced that a couple of bars offering ping-pong is a sign of the suburbanizing apocalypse — it might be that more couples deciding to stay in the city after they have kids might create a greater need for more “family-oriented” activities.

Anyway, as part of testing his theory, McKinley wrote a funny travelogue of a weekend he spent sampling these suburban diversions throughout the city:

  • A trip to the Manhattan Mall, which he found disappointing insofar as the “mall” doesn’t have a food court. No food court!  What kind of mall is that?
  • Trivia Night at a bar on the upper west side, which is I guess representative of the average suburban night out.
  • Two nights at a cheap chain hotel.
  • Dinner at Chevys, a classic suburban chain.
  • Mini-Golf at some place down in the Village.
  • Brunch at Applebees, the great “neighborhood grill,” if you live in the worst neighborhood in the world.
  • An Imax movie.
  • A few swings at the batting cages.

Now, as much as I liked this piece, as a self-appointed champion of the suburbs, I’m a wee bit nettled by the reductionist approach to suburban living.  We will not be MOCKED!!!  Or, rather, we can mock ourselves, in the way that only, say, Italian people can properly make Italian jokes.  But it hurts to see someone practically put on “blackface” like this.  Seriously, Applebees?  Ouch!

More to the point, I’ve lived in the suburbs for almost three years now, and I don’t do most of the stuff that McKinley put in his piece.  I get the mall, and the batting cages, and I guess I can understand the trips to stereotypically suburban restaurant chains.  But why stay at an Econo Lodge? Suburbanites don’t stay in cheap hotels — we live in cheap houses!  And what about miniature golf?  I haven’t even seen a miniature golf course here in the Hudson Valley area in years — they were all closed down and turned into McMansion developments.  The only place you get mini-golf is down at the shore.  It’s really more of a vacation activity.

So I don’t know if he quite captured the true modern suburban experience. If you really want that experience, and I don’t know why you would, here’s what I’d add to the agenda:

First, you can’t rent some small little hotel room at the Econo Lodge; rather, you should get some cheap suite hotel, because you need a kitchen that you can cook in.  Here in the suburbs, we don’t go out every night to fancy places like Chevy’s and Applebees — we cook.  So pick up some groceries, cook up a meal, and eat it in front of the TV like the rest of us suburbanites.

Second, when you’re done eating, skip the miniature golf and the batting cages, and get in touch with your true suburban self:

  • Take a trip to Costco, because nothing says suburbs like picking up 400 rolls of toilet paper.
  • Rent a lawnmower and start mowing a section of Central Park.  You’ll probably end up in jail, but you can’t spend a suburban weekend without cutting some grass.
  • Buy a car seat, and try to install it in a cab. That’ll take up a good half a day. The cabbie will be thrilled!
  • Clog up a toilet, and fix it yourself.

Buying stuff, cooking a meal, mowing the lawn — now, THAT would be a suburban weekend.

Filed Under: Humor, Living in the Suburbs, News, Return from Exile Tagged With: ,

Are the Fringe Suburbs Really Dying? The Brookings Institute Weighs in Again

December 1, 2011 by

We’ve written before about the “great debate” about whether the American love affair with the suburbs is dying. Basically, it’s a debate about where people SAY they want to live, and where they are actually choosing to live.  That is, people keep saying that they want to live in dense, diverse, urban environments, but Census data keeps showing migration from cities to the suburbs.

The Brookings Institution has been the loudest banger of the drum in favor of the argument that the suburbs are dying, that people don’t want to live in that sprawl anymore.  We see this again in a New York Times op-ed from Christian B. Leinberger, a senior fellow at Brookings, who contends  that planners need to recognize the need to develop walkable environments:

Simply put, there has been a profound structural shift — a reversal of what took place in the 1950s, when drivable suburbs boomed and flourished as center cities emptied and withered.

The shift is durable and lasting because of a major demographic event: the convergence of the two largest generations in American history, the baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) and the millennials (born between 1979 and 1996), which today represent half of the total population.

Many boomers are now empty nesters and approaching retirement. Generally this means that they will downsize their housing in the near future. Boomers want to live in a walkable urban downtown, a suburban town center or a small town, according to a recent survey by the National Association of Realtors.

The millennials are just now beginning to emerge from the nest — at least those who can afford to live on their own. This coming-of-age cohort also favors urban downtowns and suburban town centers — for lifestyle reasons and the convenience of not having to own cars.

Over all, only 12 percent of future homebuyers want the drivable suburban-fringe houses that are in such oversupply, according to the Realtors survey. This lack of demand all but guarantees continued price declines. Boomers selling their fringe housing will only add to the glut. Nothing the federal government can do will reverse this.

I don’t disagree with any of that, but neither do I buy that the fringe suburbs are dying.  I agree that we need to create more density in the suburbs — as someone who works in suburban real estate, I can attest that walkable village downtown areas command a premium on the market, precisely because people love the idea of living in the suburbs while still being able to get a cup of coffee without having to drive.

But I still think that there’s a whiff of “we want this to be true, so it is true” in these arguments. Certainly, census data does not support the idea that people are migrating to dense urban environments, and my experience of both working in the suburbs and now living in the suburbs suggests that there’s still a lot of interest in traditional suburban neighborhoods: big lots, picket fences, back yards, cul-de-sacs, the whole thing.  Would those people like to see more public transportation options, and more walkable downtowns?  Yes, of course.  The question is whether they’d be willing to pay for them.  That, I’m not so sure about.

Filed Under: News, Suburbs versus Cities Tagged With: , ,

Suburbs in the News: Is it Actually Cheaper to Live in the City Than in the Suburbs?

July 20, 2010 by

A really interesting article in the New York Times recently by Tara Siegel Bernard asking the question whether, contrary to popular perception, it’s actually cheaper to live in the city than in the suburbs.

The answer, of course, is that it is MUCH more expensive to live in the city.  There. Now you save a few minutes of your life, and you don’t have to go read the article.

But if you have some time, go check it out:

Here’s what we found: a suburban lifestyle costs about 18 percent more than living in the city. Even a house in the suburbs with a price tag substantially lower than an urban apartment will, on a monthly basis, often cost more to keep running. And then there’s the higher cost of commuting from the suburbs, or the expense of buying a car (or two) and paying the insurance.

The Times says the city is actually cheaper for a family making about $175,000 a year, mostly because people in the suburbs have two significant additional costs: property taxes and cars.  The only caveat was that if the couple is going to put their kids in private school in the city, then the suburbs start to become more competitive.

Now, a couple of things about that.  I absolutely agree with the point that sometimes people miscalculate the additional costs of living in the suburbs from needing a car, or multiple cars, and having to pay property taxes.  I’m not so sure that the average family taking a lot of cabs every month doesn’t narrow that gap, but I will absolutely agree that property taxes in the city are ridiculously low.  My brownstone in the city had four units, which altogether were probably worth about $7-8 million, and the property taxes on the building were about $25,000. In Westchester, you pay property taxes like that for a $1M house.  No question that’s an issue.  Property taxes are horrible.

But I think that the analysis in the article missed a couple of things.  First, the article cheats a little, because the theoretical couple in question ends up buying a median priced ($675,000) home in Park Slope.  I know that the people in Brooklyn might hunt me down and pelt me with artisanal cheeses, but let’s be honest — Park Slope is itself a suburb.

(Sounds of a fine handmade gouda hitting flesh).

Seriously?  We’re going to try to compare living in the city versus living in the suburbs, and the Times’s idea of “living in the city” is Park Slope?  Why not go out to Bay Ridge?  Or Flushing?  I’ll bet it’s even cheaper there. Sheesh.

Second, on the other side of the equation, I would have liked to see the Times look at some homes other than in South Orange, New Jersey, where the median price for a four bedroom home is apparently about $600,000.  For one thing, that’s a lot higher than the median price in a lot of the other suburbs of Manhattan.  For another, if the basic gist of the article is to make side-by-side comparisons, I’m not so sure that a two-bedroom, one-bath coop in Park Slope is the analogue to a four-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath house anywhere.  If you have two kids, that two-bedroom is going to be a wee cramped.  Forget it if you have three. You’ll have all that extra expense of defending yourself in court when you kill one of them, or your wife, or a hapless cabbie in a fit of parental rage.

So if you were to look at, say, a 3 bedroom coop or condo in Manhattan, a REAL city (ducking a handmade wheel of brie), against a four-bedroom home in some other counties ringing Manhattan, you’d have a much bigger spread.

Third, and most importantly, I don’t see anything in the Times’s analysis of the increased cost of everyday living in the city compared to the suburbs.  That’s the real savings that you get for foregoing all the wonderful things that the city has to offer.  Everything is cheaper. Everything. Your food, your drinks, your dry cleaning, your toilet paper.  Everything.  I would think that this would add up.

Listen, I love the city. I lived in the city for 17 years. I miss it, and would still live there if: (1) I didn’t actually work outside the city (which makes me different from most people making this decision), and (2) I wasn’t looking to raise a family and realizing that I really wanted the extra space.  I recognize all the drawbacks of living in the suburbs — hell, this blog is basically one long post about the drawbacks of living in the suburbs — but increased expenses are not one of them.

Filed Under: Best of, Living in Manhattan, Living in the Suburbs, News Tagged With: , , ,

Someone is STILL Stealing My Newspaper

August 24, 2009 by

Someone is STILL stealing my newspaper.

I’m starting to wonder if I’ve moved into a scary netherworld, whether all the stories you hear about how wonderful the suburbs are because of their safety and security is just a lie, a scam. That really the suburbs are filled with cheap people who steal your newspaper.

So no New York Times again this morning, second time this week. We seemed to be doing well the last few weeks, but now my paper thief has returned. Maybe, like in all those Law and Order episodes, what’s happened is that he was in jail for the past few weeks, and has been thereby unable to steal my paper. But now he’s been released, and he needs his Frank Rich fix. I wonder if I can get my local police department to do a search of people who’ve been in jail for just the past month or so, and were recently released, and live in my building. That’s probably a lot of bother.

What’s worse is that they keep stealing the SUNDAY paper, not the weekday. Maybe they’re a big (and deeply ironic) fan of the “Ethicist” in the Sunday magazine. But as much as I hate someone stealing my weekday paper, it’s worse on the weekend because you have to go buy the replacement paper at retail and get all the Sunday sections, even those sections that came in the Saturday paper the day before. So I have to go pay $4 for a paper that I’ve already half-read. And on top of that, the Times will only reimburse me for like $2, which is the prorated value of the Sunday paper.

You would think that this wouldn’t bother me so much, but, well, things apparently bother me a lot. I should talk to someone about that. But, man, there’s nothing worse than throwing on some shorts, getting your coffee, and walking downstairs to get your paper only to find an empty table.

I’ll keep you updated, because I know this is just as important to you.

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Filed Under: Living in the Suburbs, My Life in the Suburbs Tagged With: ,

Someone is stealing my newspaper

August 3, 2009 by

I think someone is stealing my newspaper.

I can’t be sure. The New York Times delivery department might be lying to me when I call them every morning to yell at them for not delivering my paper. They keep telling me they’re delivering it, so every morning I schlep downstairs to get the paper, and no paper. So then I call and yell at them. And they tell me they’re delivering it, and the vicious cycle starts again.

In the most recent call, I got the distinct impression that the nice woman from Omaha or Bengladesh or wherever was insinuating that I was being a little unreasonable. Something about the “oh, I see you’ve been calling multiple times every day” comment that she made. I then pointed out to her that maybe it wasn’t the best idea for the Times to get me too used to reading the online version for free, what with the death of newspapers and all.

So I’m not sure what’s happening. Either the New York Times is lying to me — and who can imagine such a thing after, you know, Jayson Blair and Judith Warner– or one of my new neighbors is stealing my paper.

Which is funny, because for 15 years the Times delivered its paper to my front door in big bad Manhattan, leaving it right on the front stoop out there on the street. And in 15 years, I didn’t get the paper maybe 5 times. Even though all someone had to do to steal it was walk up about 6 stairs, grab it, and then saunter off. So now I’ve lived in the suburbs for about a week, and my paper has disappeared every day.

My conclusion: people in the suburbs are crooks.

Alternate conclusion: the people in my building are excited about the new “free paper” they find every day in the lobby, and don’t realize its mine.

Alternate conclusion #2: Jayson Blair has been moved to the home delivery department.

I’ll keep you updated.

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Filed Under: Living in the Suburbs, My Life in the Suburbs Tagged With: , ,

My first suburban accomplishments

June 24, 2009 by

So how is the adjustment to SUMA going? So far, I have eaten Chinese takeout from a storefront restaurant, shot a 87 (my best round ever) at my local country club, watched a Yankee win from a big overstuffed chair, drove to two different quickie marts to find a copy of the New York Times. More importantly, I’ve eaten three meals so far with my parents, hung out with my youngest brother, reprogrammed my mother’s car so she can get country music on her satellite radio, and slept 9 hours at one time. So far so good.

Filed Under: Living in the Suburbs, My Life in the Suburbs Tagged With: , , , , , ,