Last week Richard Florida headlined an “Urban Lab” panel at the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate. It was moderated by Sam Chandan, who is dean of the Shack Institute.
1. Suburban brain drain. This is happening. Florida states that (real estate) development is the key to rebuilding the suburbs. It will challenging to reorient the suburbs away from the car (though suburbs vary greatly), but I do agree that many suburban areas need a refresh to keep them relevant against this brain drain.
2. Decline in home ownership. Florida believes we will see owning vs. renting drop to about 50-50. This would be a pretty big change given that US homeownership is currently hovering in the low 60s and this is already at historic lows. However, the trend is towards urban and that often means more renting.
3. New city characteristics. Access to urban amenities, cultural capital, and transportation is critical and should drive new development. Transit and rail infrastructure can “open up” new areas and combat issue #4, below.
Last week Richard Florida headlined an “Urban Lab” panel at the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate. It was moderated by Sam Chandan, who is dean of the Shack Institute.
1. Suburban brain drain. This is happening. Florida states that (real estate) development is the key to rebuilding the suburbs. It will challenging to reorient the suburbs away from the car (though suburbs vary greatly), but I do agree that many suburban areas need a refresh to keep them relevant against this brain drain.
2. Decline in home ownership. Florida believes we will see owning vs. renting drop to about 50-50. This would be a pretty big change given that US homeownership is currently hovering in the low 60s and this is already at historic lows. However, the trend is towards urban and that often means more renting.
3. New city characteristics. Access to urban amenities, cultural capital, and transportation is critical and should drive new development. Transit and rail infrastructure can “open up” new areas and combat issue #4, below.
Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Richard Florida has a new book coming out in the spring called, The New Urban Crisis.
Noteworthy about the book is that he has changed his tune with respect to the potential of the “creative class” to form the new middle class. Here’s a quote from the Houston Chronicle:
“I got wrong that the creative class could magically restore our cities, become a new middle class like my father’s, and we were going to live happily forever after,” he said. “I could not have anticipated among all this urban growth and revival that there was a dark side to the urban creative revolution, a very deep dark side.” -Richard Florida
Regardless of what you think of the work of Richard Florida, I’m sure this book will be bedside for most urbanists. The focus is on creating a new kind of inclusive urbanism, which is top of mind for so many of us today.
If you’d like to pre-order it, you can do that here.
great inversion
.” This is about poverty moving to the suburbs and the core of cities becoming a kind of “gated suburb.” (i.e. wealthy)
In response to this narrative, City Observatory recently published a post where they call this a new mythology. Joe Cortright argues that it is simply an exaggeration that sounds good in media headlines. And indeed, if you look at some accounts of poverty, the swings haven’t been that dramatic.
However, if you dig into this study by Luke Juday at the University of Virginia (cited in the City Observatory article), there have been some interesting changes.
Below is a chart that shows the percentage of adults (over 25) with a bachelor’s degree (or higher) sorted by distance from the city center. This particular chart is a composite of 7 northeastern (US) cities. The brown line is 2012 and the orange line is 1990.
As you can see, there has been a huge spike in educated people living in city centers – at least in the northeast.
Here is that same chart for Atlanta:
New York:
In the case of New York, it looks like the entire city just became more educated.
Miami:
Educational attainment is often the single biggest determinant of income. So there is something to be said about highly educated people concentrating themselves in city centers. We may not want to call it an inversion of great proportions, but it’s a meaningful shift.
4. Housing affordability. Florida reiterates “the great inversion.” Poverty moving to the suburbs; cities now housing the rich. He also isn’t sure that capitalism alone will solve this problem. Gives example of Manhattan where market is focused on high-end luxury residential.
5. Florida argues that planning and real estate knowledge need to come together to overcome some of the information-asymmetries inherent in the development industry. I’ve written about similar ideas before. I try and apply this sort of multi-disciplinary thinking to urban issues.
6. Micro-living is not a silver bullet for “chronic poverty.” I think it serves a segment of the housing market.
Richard Florida has a new book coming out in the spring called, The New Urban Crisis.
Noteworthy about the book is that he has changed his tune with respect to the potential of the “creative class” to form the new middle class. Here’s a quote from the Houston Chronicle:
“I got wrong that the creative class could magically restore our cities, become a new middle class like my father’s, and we were going to live happily forever after,” he said. “I could not have anticipated among all this urban growth and revival that there was a dark side to the urban creative revolution, a very deep dark side.” -Richard Florida
Regardless of what you think of the work of Richard Florida, I’m sure this book will be bedside for most urbanists. The focus is on creating a new kind of inclusive urbanism, which is top of mind for so many of us today.
If you’d like to pre-order it, you can do that here.
great inversion
.” This is about poverty moving to the suburbs and the core of cities becoming a kind of “gated suburb.” (i.e. wealthy)
In response to this narrative, City Observatory recently published a post where they call this a new mythology. Joe Cortright argues that it is simply an exaggeration that sounds good in media headlines. And indeed, if you look at some accounts of poverty, the swings haven’t been that dramatic.
However, if you dig into this study by Luke Juday at the University of Virginia (cited in the City Observatory article), there have been some interesting changes.
Below is a chart that shows the percentage of adults (over 25) with a bachelor’s degree (or higher) sorted by distance from the city center. This particular chart is a composite of 7 northeastern (US) cities. The brown line is 2012 and the orange line is 1990.
As you can see, there has been a huge spike in educated people living in city centers – at least in the northeast.
Here is that same chart for Atlanta:
New York:
In the case of New York, it looks like the entire city just became more educated.
Miami:
Educational attainment is often the single biggest determinant of income. So there is something to be said about highly educated people concentrating themselves in city centers. We may not want to call it an inversion of great proportions, but it’s a meaningful shift.
4. Housing affordability. Florida reiterates “the great inversion.” Poverty moving to the suburbs; cities now housing the rich. He also isn’t sure that capitalism alone will solve this problem. Gives example of Manhattan where market is focused on high-end luxury residential.
5. Florida argues that planning and real estate knowledge need to come together to overcome some of the information-asymmetries inherent in the development industry. I’ve written about similar ideas before. I try and apply this sort of multi-disciplinary thinking to urban issues.
6. Micro-living is not a silver bullet for “chronic poverty.” I think it serves a segment of the housing market.
