The Death of the Fringe Suburb

[iheartthed]

Detroit will probably be the last place this "death of the fringe suburbs" takes place, considering we're still building infrastructure towards Flint and Port Huron because people can't fathom being even 30 miles or closer to Detroit proper.

If anything, I would expect the folks in the fringe suburbs will either build up their own little cities versus returning back to the center [[see Southfield and Troy) or, if worse comes to worse, move to an already established city.

Either way, it probably won't work in Detroit's favor as much as we would like.

I think it will go more like this: if the country is indeed going through a paradigm shift and Metro Detroit does not keep pace then it can be expected that the metro area will continue to decline.

Metro Detroit has squeezed just about every bit of economic prosperity that it's ever gonna get out of suburbs. Suburbs probably will probably not foster any more new economic activity for the region for quite some time [[if ever). And all of the economic activity that an urban environment would generate for the region completely misses Metro Detroit because the urban areas are so decimated.

[313WX]

I think it will go more like this: if the country is indeed going through a paradigm shift and Metro Detroit does not keep pace then it can be expected that the metro area will continue to decline.

Metro Detroit has squeezed just about every bit of economic prosperity that it's ever gonna get out of suburbs. Suburbs probably will probably not foster any more new economic activity for the region for quite some time [[if ever). And all of the economic activity that an urban environment would generate for the region completely misses Metro Detroit because the urban areas are so decimated.

Yeah, I pretty much agree with your conclusion as well.

That said, don't expect the decline to go down without a severe backlash mixed with denial [[which we've already seen).

[skyl4rk]

I recently visited a friend who lives south of South Lyon. It was a bizarre place. 2 acre lots on subdivision roads which are paved, but lead to gravel county roads. To commute to work, a minimum of 10 minutes on two lane county roads in heavy SUV traffic TO GET TO THE HIGHWAY. You cannot safely ride a bike on the paved roads, and from the stories my friend told about the politics, the township board is opposed to bike paths for some reason. The houses in subdivisions are about 100 feet apart, but they each have their own ribbon farm lot extending back into the woods. Everyone needs a riding lawnmower. No deer come around because many people have dogs. While driving around, my friend pointed out a number of failed developments. Apparently the people in that area believe that they live in the country, however when you look at the aerial map of the area, it is clear that it is an urban area of sorts. There are very few services, the stores in the area seem to be old party stores that are now the main source of food in less than 20 miles. There is a selection of restaurants in South Lyon.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=south+...h&z=14&vpsrc=6

The impression that I got was that people who lived there liked the area and preferred it to other areas. There were some failed developments, but I did not get the impression of poverty, instead, it seemed that many people were very wealthy. I think as long as people will put up with driving long distances to work, the exurbs will survive. People seem to have enough wealth to buy expensive cars and fill them with gas every other day.

[SteveJ]

I agree skylark and what everyone seems to forget is that very few people even work downtown anymore. Yeah, they might live at 26 and I-94 but they may work out of General Dynamics at 17 and Mound or the GM tech center or the Ford plant in Romeo. Most of those people have a great income and just like the quiet, no street lights, etc... lifestyle. I don't see Shelby Township or Washington Twp dying because they are far from Detroit. The article is more pointed to people who live on the outskirts of Atlanta or Dallas who drive 1 hour to get to work.

[Novine]

The big problem for the suburban communities that rode the last wave of growth is that they committed themselves to a suburban future at the very time that the suburban growth wave largely came to a halt. Having abandoned their agricultural past, they are stuck on the treadmill that required continuous growth to fund the services that the new residents who moved out to "the country" demand. But they don't have the population base to support the commercial and office development that might generate some taxes to offset the cost of providing services to new residents. Those residents are now faced with carrying the burden of providing those services themselves or paying for them through higher taxes. Or they may look to more established suburban communities where there's a more diversified tax base to pay for those services. With lending standards tightened up for both developers and homebuyers, the days of double-digit suburban growth are over and those communities that became addicted to that revenue are suffering the withdrawal pains from their addiction.

SteveJ is right that many of the exurban residents have the money to support that kind of lifestyle. But there are others living in those communities who won't be able to afford a future where growth no longer pays the bill for government and the costs of living in those places rise with every increase in gas prices. That likely explains some of the population declines the Census showed in places like Groveland and Sumpter and Casco Townships. People who weren't wealthy couldn't afford to pay the way of living that far from centers of commerce.

[SteveJ]

There will always be a Casco Twp or a Groveland Twp etc.. The people that live in those areas be it the rich guy who owns his own business and built a 4500 sq ft palace or the guy that looks like he came out of the kentucky backwoods with his 950 sq ft dump aren't going anywhere. The people up there don't have any services to begin with. The sheriff patrols the area so they have no local police. Forget about snowplow service unless they live off of a state road. They are happying chugging away in their pickup truck and going to Meijer on 26 mile and I-94 for their groceries. These people will tell you, they don't want any services. Most of those subdivisions in Macomb and St Clair that have been newly built are owned by the association and the city does not have to maintain or plow their snow.

[iheartthed]

I agree skylark and what everyone seems to forget is that very few people even work downtown anymore. Yeah, they might live at 26 and I-94 but they may work out of General Dynamics at 17 and Mound or the GM tech center or the Ford plant in Romeo. Most of those people have a great income and just like the quiet, no street lights, etc... lifestyle. I don't see Shelby Township or Washington Twp dying because they are far from Detroit. The article is more pointed to people who live on the outskirts of Atlanta or Dallas who drive 1 hour to get to work.

But what happens when those sources of economic activity phase/age out? If you have 10 square miles of developed land that is being supported by the General Dynamics plant then what happens when that plant inevitably gets absorbed by a competitor or goes out of business?

I don't think the types of suburbs that we have been building for the past couple generations are very "economically elastic". By economically elastic, I mean they don't handle contraction very well. They are great places to be when times are good but they aren't very good at producing a stop gap when things swing the other way. Places like Shelby Twp or Washington Twp are supported almost entirely by either 1) big employer payrolls or 2) small business entrepreneurship based in another community, since low density suburbs aren't that good at supporting small business entrepreneurship. Both situations leave the prosperity of those places highly dependent on outside forces.

[Novine]

"The people that live in those areas be it the rich guy who owns his own business and built a 4500 sq ft palace or the guy that looks like he came out of the kentucky backwoods with his 950 sq ft dump aren't going anywhere."

If you look at the 2010 Census numbers, a good number of people couldn't or wouldn't stick around those place. They also lost population even as some surrounding communities added population. But those places are less of a concern than places like Washington or Macomb Township. How are those places going to pay for themselves long-term? iheartthed made a good point that when the economy contracts, those places don't have an economic base to keep them afloat. They can cut services or raise taxes but that makes them less attractive places to live when there are a half-dozen suburbs that look just like them where people can go.

[Johnnny5]

There are very few services, the stores in the area seem to be old party stores that are now the main source of food in less than 20 miles.
.
.
.


You cannot safely ride a bike on the paved roads, and from the stories my friend told about the politics, the township board is opposed to bike paths for some reason.

There are at least a half dozen large chain grocery stores within 5 miles of South Lyon and two right on the main street [[Kroger and Busch's). There are also a number of small, independent grocers as well. Opposed to bicycle paths??? Then why would there be a large paved bicycle trail that runs from downtown South Lyon and connects to all the retail developments in New Hudson [[Lowes, Walmart, Etc) and keeps going to connect to Kensington Metro Park, Island lake Park, Milford and as far East as downtown Wixom? I'm not sure how much time you spent in South Lyon, but I'm assuming it was dark...

[urbanhat]

Assuming this editorial is true, can you give me local examples where outer sprawlburbs are dying or dead? Because I can't think of any.

Seems to be that the inner suburbs are [[very generally speaking) declining, and the outer suburbs are comparatively much stronger. And I live and work in an inner suburb.

If we're talking about general trends, you're right, but Leinberger's point isn't that the exurbs are already dead, it's that there are signs of future death. Some of those signs are the unbuilt subdivisions other posters have mentioned. Another sign is shifting preferences in housing. If he's right [[and he may not be) that more and more people will want houses in walkable places, that will become visible in the landscape only gradually.

Also, it's true he has a self-interest in this. As a guy with a background in real estate, he would love to see the opportunity to redevelop inner-ring suburban places. It just happens that self-interest in this case is aligned with the more sustainable option.

[antongast]

Opposed to bicycle paths??? Then why would there be a large paved bicycle trail that runs from downtown South Lyon and connects to all the retail developments in New Hudson [[Lowes, Walmart, Etc) and keeps going to connect to Kensington Metro Park, Island lake Park, Milford and as far East as downtown Wixom?

Maybe because the township board in question, going by the Google Maps link in the post you quoted, is Salem Township in northeast Washtenaw County, which is a good bit further south than the area you're describing.

[Gannon]

The only reason places like Fenton and Brighton work as sprawlburbs of the suburban officespaces is due to lax speed enforcement on the interstates...and ignorance of the importance of personal time and sleep! Too many people now regularly drive 80+mph on those highways without thinking about it. It is a risk to drive I-96 from US-23 at the speed limit.

But all of those drive times are short ONLY on a perfect day without accidents and inclement weather...these folks forget we live in Michigan?! Sprawlburbia was a bad idea from the get-go, but only obvious to these geniuses when gas became properly priced around $4 per gallon. Even near $3 is too cheap, since it is being subsidized by war and the loss of life in the next generation.

I wouldn't want that on my conscience...bad enough I have to buy gas to get around town now.

Once I began looking at my days in thirds...8 hours for work, 8 hours for a rich and rewarding personal life, and 8 hours for a good night's sleep...then it became painfully obvious that driving any longer than 15 minutes to a workspace was a HUGE sacrifice on my part...I was giving up too much of my life to commuting. I really discovered this when I lived in Los Angeles, where even a short freeway commute could turn into brakelight purgatory with something as benign as someone's flat tire 'crisis'.


Sincerely,
John

[Bham1982]

The only reason places like Fenton and Brighton work as sprawlburbs of the suburban officespaces is due to lax speed enforcement on the interstates...and ignorance of the importance of personal time and sleep! Too many people now regularly drive 80+mph on those highways without thinking about it. It is a risk to drive I-96 from US-23 at the speed limit.

Keep in mind that with two-income households, folks often work in different metros. For those folks, a place like Brighton makes a ton of sense.

One can live in Brighton and commute to Detroit, Flint, Ann Arbor or Lansing. One spouse can work in Lansing, and the other in Detroit.

It could be even be argued that Brighton is equally or more convenient than anywhere in tri-county Detroit, because it gives you the flexibility to easily target very different job markets.

[skyl4rk]

I was only in the area 1 day and did not see the entire area, so sorry if I described it incorrectly. I believe it was Salem Twp in Washtenaw, south of South Lyon.

Regarding services, water comes from a well, sewer is a septic tank, so all it takes is electricity to pump water, and an occasional septic tank pumping. Roads have not been improved so no additional tax cost there. I'm not sure if they have natural gas, more likely they have propane tanks. Fire is probably based on the old Township volunteer organization, so low taxes there too. The County Sheriff has law enforcement authority, so that is funded by taxpayers throughout Washtenaw County [[a service probably heavily subsidized by Ann Arbor business and residents). I don't think this area is limited by lack of services and the people I talked to seemed to be proud that they were in the country and did not need city services. Apparently they did build a second high school based on anticipated growth but now the growth is not happening, so there is some tax dollars that the homeowners will have to pay. It would be interesting to compare the tax burden per house between this area and a house in the city. I would bet that taxes are far lower in the country.

So I don't think that lack of services are limiting growth in this area [[once demand for new housing picks up again). The only thing that I can think of that would limit growth is commute time: congestion, road lanes and road quality. If that is true, then here is a scary thought: the only entities that can control or limit exurb sprawl are MDOT and County road commissions, by deciding not to spend money on road improvements and expansion. The sad thing is that by not improving roads, there will be more traffic deaths and injuries.

[Gannon]

Keep in mind that with two-income households, folks often work in different metros. For those folks, a place like Brighton makes a ton of sense.

One can live in Brighton and commute to Detroit, Flint, Ann Arbor or Lansing. One spouse can work in Lansing, and the other in Detroit.

It could be even be argued that Brighton is equally or more convenient than anywhere in tri-county Detroit, because it gives you the flexibility to easily target very different job markets.

Oh, no doubt. But of those I know out 'past Egypt', they both work in Metro Detroit. Those tend to be the ones who wonder why nobody visits any longer, either, LOL! In my family, we have subtle wars over where the large gatherings are...on both the Irish and Polish sides...since so many have been lured to Sprawlburbia.


Heck, when gas was the highest, even my Livonia Friend started doing the calculation for merely coming downtown as often as he did! That sort of thinking, to me, is the right way to always look at it...not merely when world events cause gas to be competitively priced with our European brethren. I think we should all live like gas was $5 per gallon, actually. Then put that $1 per or more into savings when it is cheaper, as a buffer for when reality hits later.

Then again, he prides himself on the number of engines in his stable...not just for high-speed transportation, but also outrageously high-speed snow and water recreation and the inane pursuit of the perfect lawn. Same type of guy doesn't understand the value of growing his own food, too...exactly the type I've been trying to wake up and bring on board for years.


Cheers!

[ThisIsForTheHeart]

Keep in mind that with two-income households, folks often work in different metros. For those folks, a place like Brighton makes a ton of sense.

One can live in Brighton and commute to Detroit, Flint, Ann Arbor or Lansing. One spouse can work in Lansing, and the other in Detroit.

It could be even be argued that Brighton is equally or more convenient than anywhere in tri-county Detroit, because it gives you the flexibility to easily target very different job markets.

If one spouse is working at the GM Tech Center, then that spouse is looking at a 2 hour commute time from Brighton. I know many people who work in Novi and travel from the eastern suburbs and their commute time is around one hour or at times one hour and 30 minutes.

Roughly 20 hours per week would be spent in the car for commute time to and from work. That don't seem very convenient.

Our Metro Area is too fubar in the sense there is no central location. Everything is spread out in every direction.

I still see growth well past the exburbs. 26 mile road/Van Dyke and up Van dyke around 30 mile road. new plazas and stores have been put up in the past few years. Housing might not be a boom like it was where 10 new house might have been completed per day but their are still houses being put up in newly constructed subdivisions

[Hermod]

With regard to unfinished subdivisions, that happened all over the US beginning in 2006. The housing market imploded and new homes were not selling regardless of their location. Construction loans from the banks dried up. Subdivisions under construction were frozen in time with whatever number of houses had been built. If the halt came early in the life of the sub there were only a few scattered homes on a large piece of ground. If the sub was more mature, there would be a scattering of vacant lots.

I was up in Gingellville [[Orion Township) last week and things there looked pretty prosperous with nice homes on large lots. No one is going to build a large source of employment in downtown Detroitanytime soon.

[ordinary]

brakelight purgatory

Amen. For some crazy reason I have kept track of how much money I've spent on gas this year. Of course all of it isn't from my commute [[St. Clair Shores to Melvindale) but so far it's been over $2600. Last time I mentioned something about my commute, somebody here immediately bit my head off and told me to f------ move! It's not that easy. Maybe retirement.

[mwilbert]

As long as people look at this stuff in stark, binary terms like "death" vs "life", the discussion is naturally going to tend toward the hyperbolic.

What seems indisputable to me is that there is a mismatch in the US between the amount of housing that exists in "walkable urban" areas and the demand for it. That's why so many of those areas are so expensive. But you can't go from that observation to say than no one wants to live in exurbia, or than no one will want to in the future. Even less can you say that this necessarily means that lots of people will want to move to Detroit, which doesn't actually have wide expanses of walkable urbanity at this time, even if the potential exists. On the other hand, I think people who think that people under 35 have the same attraction to suburbia that their parents did know some atypical under-35's.

[SteveJ]

Brighton to the tech center is less than an hour. Plus you're going the opposite of traffic so you're good. A lot of people may have one spouse that works in Lansing and one that works in the metro area somewhere. I know Brighton is real popular with downtown Lansing workers.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

I think you have your facts "ass backwards". First off, none of the tax credits for home purchases in 2008, 2009 and 2010 were given to builders of new structures, they were given to qualified buyers who purchased their first home, regardless of when it was built. Additionally, the 2008 legislation stipulated that the credit be repaid in 15 equal annual installments beginning in 2010, so it was basically a no-interest loan for first-time home buyers. Under Obama's stimulus program legislation, this incentive became a true tax credit in 2009 and it was later expanded to non-first-time home buyers. [source]

Secondly, the bubble began to burst in 2007 [source] [[Richard Sable was the condo builder in your example of Heritage Village and his company went under in the second half of 2007), which make it clear that the federal tax credits for first-time buyers were in response to the "bust", not fueling it.

Third, it was the availability of historically low mortgage interest rates coupled with greatly-relaxed underwriting standards in the 2000-2006 time frame that "caused home ownership to be much more affordable and within the reach of many more people" - not the housing crisis as you claim. Even with continued low interest rates on home mortgages, mortgage lender's tightened down payment and credit score requirements have put home ownership beyond the reach of many who could have gotten a mortgage back in 2000-2006.

Good post. Even though the housing crisis made more homes available at cheaper prices, a lot of people still can't afford a home due to the tighter lending standards, larger down payments that most don't have, along with astronomical credit scores to qualify.

[Ocean2026]

We have a fringe candidate running for president but our fringe suburbs are still growing rapidly - whether is in teh DFW@ Metroplex, Houston or the others.

On the other hand its 40 degrees today -coldest this fall and that has to be your fault.

[iheartthed]

No one is going to build a large source of employment in downtown Detroitanytime soon.

Didn't Quicken just move 2000 employees to Detroit?

[Danny]

Another cause for death of fringe suburbs is race.

When I logged on to projects. nytimes.com for 2010 census reports. I saw how the color graph that represents individual races who are living in a certian area. The color of green that represents White communities. The shifting color from dark green to light green within 10 years represent white communites decreasing, but the percentage numbers are increasing. African Americans, Asians, East Indians, Chaldeans and even Arabs both Christians and Muslims are moving into those areas for better enviroments.


For metro Detroit areas places like Novi, Farmington Hills and West Bloomfield have seen a quick growth of Middle class African American and Asian families. While in Troy East Indians along the Chinese, N. and S. Koreans and Vietnamese families make their home. They will be the people who would determine to either fix or destroy those fringe suburbs.

[bartock]

If one spouse is working at the GM Tech Center, then that spouse is looking at a 2 hour commute time from Brighton. I know many people who work in Novi and travel from the eastern suburbs and their commute time is around one hour or at times one hour and 30 minutes.

Roughly 20 hours per week would be spent in the car for commute time to and from work. That don't seem very convenient.

Our Metro Area is too fubar in the sense there is no central location. Everything is spread out in every direction.

I still see growth well past the exburbs. 26 mile road/Van Dyke and up Van dyke around 30 mile road. new plazas and stores have been put up in the past few years. Housing might not be a boom like it was where 10 new house might have been completed per day but their are still houses being put up in newly constructed subdivisions

Great point in bold. The other thing about the Hall Road area, and specifically north an east of there, is that people are still moving from the east side of Detroit and inner burbs, and there are a lot of folks from Canada that shop in that corridor. 313WX mentioned "little cities" - that is exactly what is happening.

...and Gannon, are you really suggesting that one should feel "extra" responsible for the loss of life in other countries because they have a 45 minute commute? Holy shit, this isn't Good Will Hunting.