June 20, 2008
Housing the Poor in McMansions
“Once rundown downtowns are being revitalized by well-educated, young professionals who have no desire to live in a detached single family home typical of a suburbia where life is often centered around long commutes and cars.
They are looking for ‘walkable urbanism’ — both small communities and big cities characterized by efficient mass transit systems and high density developments enabling residents to walk virtually everywhere for everything — from home to work to restaurants to movie theaters.
In 2025 there will be a surplus of 22 million large-lot homes that will not be left vacant in a suburban wasteland but instead occupied by lower classes who have been driven out of their once affordable inner-city apartments and houses.
The so-called McMansion will become the new multi-family home for the poor.”
Quite a vision! I think the ideal is to have both a city apartment and a rural second home (for weekends, summers, etc).
– via 53 Cent a Day Guru –
June 20th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Right - and both in very classy areas for assuring a high resale value ;-)
June 20th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Markus: You never sell, you just pass it on to the kids to squabble over when you die.
June 20th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
o.k, but just in case something goes wrong - e.g. trading…
Cheers,
Markus
June 20th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Markus: It can never go that wrong; my wife only gives me $200 at a time to lose. :-)
June 20th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Seems to be an international trend, suburbs are mega-out here in most EU countries as well, while inner cities are going through an incredible revival.
People don’t want long commutes from isolated suburbia where nothing is going on while being burdened by large gardens any more, result is that inner cities are going through an amazing apartment building / loft conversion etc boom.
To be honest, a house in the green has ALWAYS been my worst nightmare of utter boredom and sheer mediocrity.
Hmm.
Mao, I suppose you’re just joking, but I sincerely hope you didn’t become sensible in your middle age and drop trading for a living in favour of joining the salary slave ranks ?!
;-)
June 20th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
MarkusP: The suburbs make sense assuming you have enough space, but the crammed in, cookie cutter, ticky tacky “communities” are a vision of hell, I agree. Space is key and it costs more and more as the planet gets more crowded. Being comfortable all boils down to having money, preferably a lot of it.
June 21st, 2008 at 3:26 am
great book to read regarding this viewpoint on future suburbia (for those who havent already):
The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century - by James Howard Kunstler
the customer review “Fuel Drop + Climate Change + Disease + Water Drop = Great Depression.” by Robert D. Steele is a nice encapsulation… fellow tin-foilers will particuarly enjoy it!