next american cities

Denver, Portland, Seattle, Phoenix, Dallas, Las Vegas, Raliegh, and Charlotte are the regions where the largest growth in industry is occuring in America today. As much as I love the concept of the “creative class”which touts the idea that culturally liberal/high population-density/19th century American cities will prosper the most in the future - because of their ability to attract the most innovative people - on the whole, the numbers don’t seem to show that.

In my humble opinion, Boston, NYC, San Francisco, and Chicago, are all either growing at a very slow rate or are losing jobs because of high taxes to provide social services - for those who suburban communities refuse to care for - and because of the lack of affordable housing due to zoning regulations and anti-development interests within older cities.

In addition, these cities only attract a small demographic group of people who actually want to live there (meaning that I am not speaking of the inner-city poor, recent immigrants, or the elderly). This small demographic group consists of young singles, gays, artists, and a small contingent of baby boomers choosing to downsize and enjoy the amenities of urban life. This group comprises only 10-15% of the American population. Older American cities do not attract married people with children, single mothers, and most baby boomers. This group is the 85-90% of the population - that polls show - do not want to live in 19th century cities. Part of that is based upon American cultural ideas that old cities are violent, inhumane, inconvenient, and that children, ideally, should not be living in cities. But even more importantly, it is based on the lack of affordable housing.

Let’s do the math. Suppose a family of four is willing to live in a city in a home that is 1,000 square feet, rather than live in a suburban home of 2,000 square feet. Assume that the house in the city sells at $800 a square foot (as they do in San Francisco and Boston) they will be paying $800,00. In contrast, if this family of four bought a 2,000 square foot home in Portland or Charlotte at $250 a square foot they are only paying $500,000! And that number is still a couple of hundred thousand dollars above the national median home price.

Now you may reply that land is more scarce, and is therefore more desirable, in cities, and is therefore worth more. Four to five times more? That’s a question that none of us can truly answer, because we have lived all of our lives in a world of exclusionary zoning practices and NIMBYism that distorts market prices. Will this change as the environmental impetus seeks to enable more growth to occur in already urbanized areas? Only time will tell.

http://www.citiesonahill.org/columns/2006/11/the_creative_class_canard.html