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Want more affordable housing? Invest in our cities.
Posted Jul 24, 2008 by Daniel Lerch
The top story on msnbc.com a few mornings ago discussed how rising gas prices are prompting --and in some cases forcing-- people living in far-flung suburbs to move closer to their jobs.
When the Mitchells bought their modular home in rural Platteville, Colo., north of Denver, they were among the many Americans trading a long commute for an affordable house. Seven years later, the Mitchells are making another, more painful trade. Their housing woes compounded by the growing cost of Brian's 50-mile roundtrip commute, the couple recently decided to let their home fall into foreclosure. Instead, they are renting a house that is biking distance from Brian's job.
For decades we've heard this story of the young family moving to the suburbs for an 'affordable house.' But except for the few cities with very strong cores like New York and San Francisco (and more recently Seattle, Portland and others), this idea that there's no affordable housing in the cities is simply false. There's plenty of 'affordable housing' in tens of thousands of cities around the country. It's just that it doesn't have the size, the neighborhood safety, and the high-quality local amenities (schools, parks, good groceries, etc.) that most people with some degree of housing choice want.*
That may seem nit-picky, but I think it's an important point because it draws attention to the real issue: we've neglected our urban cores (which is the nice, non-loaded city planner's term for 'inner cities') to the point that people with housing choice generally don't want to live in most of them -- and at the same time, we've long subsidized the infrastructure and fuel needed to live and work in distant suburbs and bedroom communities (one of my favorite essays on this: "Why Sprawl is a Conservative Issue" by Michael Lewyn).
Countless families like the Mitchells can't be blamed for having moved to a 50 mile-commute suburb. We've had 60 years of policy and investment to make that their most attractive choice. But they, together with millions of inner-city families who haven't had that suburban choice, are now all stuck in the same mess: They all need to cope with rising fuel prices without the benefit of the high-quality public infrastructure and amenities communities need to thrive in a low-energy world.
It's long past time for an overhaul of our national priorities when it comes to urban and suburban development. Fortunately, and there's growing interest in just such a change, led Rep. Earl Blumenauer, the Brookings Institution and others.
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*Yes, racial/cultural differences are part of it as well, but that's a whole other can of worms (one that's changed quite a bit since the post-war 'White Flight' phenomenon) that I'll deal with in another post.
Photo credit: Newark, NJ by cesposito2035 
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