BIKE: interesting take on sprawl

[Michael Zakes]

            http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?next=2&ColumnsName=fha



            by Froma Harrop  
     
        
      All newspaper editors want to know what their readers like. If you would like to read this feature in your local newspaper, please do not hesitate to share your enthusiasm with your local newspaper editor.


      RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 2005, AND THEREAFTER 



      A good friend lives alone in a charming 1940s house. She bought the cozy home 15 years ago from a couple who had raised four children there. A real-estate agent recently told her that she would advertise the three-bedroom house as a "starter home" or "condo alternative." In other words, modern families of four don't want to live in the sort of place that families of six once happily called home. 

      This story pops into my brain whenever I read that America's spiffed-up urban neighborhoods can't attract families with children. The hottest cities -- the Portlands, Denvers and Austins -- are said to be becoming the most childless. 

      The main reason, we are told, is that middle-class families can no longer afford to live in these areas. They've been priced out of the neighborhoods now blessed with cute shops, good restaurants and plummeting crime rates. Only young professionals and older retirees can afford to live in them. 

      But is this true? Many of these same families are buying gigantic places in exurbia that cost the same as, if not more than, a traditional urban house. So price itself is not driving them out. They are driving themselves to bigger houses. 

      The modest older home no longer fits the supersized American Dream. To many, the middle-class standard has ballooned to five bedrooms, four garages and a large playroom off an enormous kitchen. The average house built in the 1950s was 1,100 square feet. By the late '90s, it had more than 2,000 square feet -- even as families shrank. 

      Yet the smaller houses -- whether in town or nearby suburbs -- were the picket-fenced paradise that our World War II soldiers dreamed of. They tend to be very well built, and their kitchens, though small by McMansion standards, would rival the cooking areas of many restaurants in Paris. 

      In the '50s, children routinely shared bedrooms with their siblings, even in the suburbs. Families of five would make do with one full bath. Some of the big new houses seem like condo buildings, with each family member having a private bedroom, bath, television and sometimes a little fridge. 

      Nicolas Retsinas, director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, says that immigrant urban families continue to see the American Dream in smaller old houses. "Our research shows that new arrivals to the United States still have that image," Retsinas said. "And they are likely to find that single-family home in the inner-ring suburbs." 

      Of course, there are other reasons middle-class people leave the city once they have children. Schools are an issue. Here, race may play a part, and so does class. Black and Hispanic middle-class families are also moving away from the urban poor. 

      But many good and improving urban public schools still have trouble attracting middle-class families. And many parents who send their kids to private schools still feel obligated to move the clan far from the city. 

      You'd think the convenience factor of urban living would be a real magnet for harried two-income families. If Mom and Dad work downtown, they can get to their jobs in minutes. They can spend more time at home -- and less time chauffeuring children, who can walk many places. 

      You hear parents talk about the dangers of raising children in the city. The truth is, the most dangerous place for a teenager is behind the wheel of a car. Exurban teens drive all the time -- often on hazardous semi-rural roads. The big irony is that many of these kids drive long distances to hang out in the hip urban neighborhoods that their parents have "saved" them from. Friends who live in town say that their houses fill on weekends with their children's exurban friends, who want to be near the excitement. 

      Clearly, many factors go into a family's decision to live in one place or another. But middle-class parents should know that they do have choices, and one may be their old urban playground. If they can get past the idea that they must have a four-car garage, they may very well be able to afford a house in town -- where, in all probability, they won't need four cars, anyway. 

      To find out more about Froma Harrop, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com. 

      COPYRIGHT 2005 THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL CO. 

      DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC. 
      Originally Published on Wednesday March 30, 2005 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.bicycleaustin.info/private.cgi/forum-bicycleaustin.info/attachments/20050403/836fc517/attachment.htm