THE SUBURBANIZATION OF DECLINE: FILTERING,NEIGHBORHOODS, AND HOUSING MARKET DYNAMICS

This study explores how the locations and characteristics of neighborhoods affected the process of housing filtering in the Orlando metropolitan area during the 2000s. The results show that racial composition was an important determinant of filtering down and that the foreclosure rate and income composition of neighborhoods became more important factors during the housing market bust period. The filtering process tended to be more affected by neighborhood attributes than by changes in the housing market, especially during the housing market bust period. As the filtering down process was not sensitive to the neighborhood location itself, suburban areas were also susceptible to filtering down processes like inner city areas. Moreover, there was a high probability of suburban decline through filtering down during the housing market bust period. These results may be the reflection of recent trends of central city rebound and suburban decline in the Sun Belt.     

Neighborhood Affordability and Housing Market Resilience

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Although many researchers have examined factors associated with vulnerability to foreclosure, few have investigated the role neighborhood affordability plays in foreclosures in metropolitan areas. In this study, we examine the effects of location affordability (i.e., housing and transportation affordability combined) on resilience to foreclosure in more than 300?U.S. metropolitan areas during the U.S. housing recovery period. Using hierarchical linear regression with changes in zip code–level home foreclosure rates, our findings suggest the relationship between affordability and foreclosure resilience varies according to urban form (central/high-density city versus suburban low-density area) and types of metropolitan housing markets (boom–bust versus strong versus weak). In the national analysis, where location affordability was high, home foreclosure rates dropped substantially in central/high-density areas but not in suburban low-density areas. When we disaggregated the zip codes according to the market type, location affordability contributed to recovery in central cities in strong and weak metros and in the suburbs of boom–bust metros. There was no positive association in the suburbs of strong and weak metros. With improved data, future studies could measure an association between affordability and lower income renter households.

Takeaway for practice: Our study of the affordability crisis that followed the foreclosure crisis shows that planners can foster resilient and affordable housing markets by expanding and densifying affordable neighborhood locations and considering interactions between the costs of housing and transportation. Planners can improve neighborhood affordability with local and regional strategies based on the local residential density and the type of metropolitan housing market.     

Without zoning: Urban development and land use controls in Houston

Houston is the only major city in North America without zoning. The growth of Houston illustrates a traditional free market philosophy in which land use zoning is seen as a violation of private property and personal liberty. This paper explores how the lack of zoning has an impact on land use controls and urban development in Houston. Using a theoretical framework derived from institutional economics and public choice theories for institutional analyses of land development controls, it explores how local land use policies made by both the local government and non-governmental sectors shape urban development in Houston. The study results show that despite the city’s lack of zoning, local land use regulatory policies made by the municipality have significant influence on urban development. Additionally, civic and private organizations such as super neighborhoods and homeowner associations fill the gaps left by the lack of land use zoning. These two aspects contribute to land use controls and urban development of the city. The study finds that land use controls by private contract and by government legislative intervention are not mutually exclusive or immutable; that equity goals are not met in market approaches, and public planning intervention is necessary; and that deed restrictions might be better at facilitating property sales and maintenance than at improving neighborhood welfare and governance.     

The anti-apartment movement in the U.S. and the role of land use regulations in creating housing segregation

In the U.S., typically, poor and minority households are concentrated in central cities, which are ringed by middle class suburbs which contain a majority of the population of the metropolitan area. The resulting segregation is largely the outcome of public policy and institutional arrangements, rather than the excesses of a free market. Land use regulations have played a central role in creating segregation among the types of housing that are affordable to different income groups. Single family only zoning is a central institution in suburban areas; often multifamily housing is limited to a very tiny portion of the land zoned for housing. Land use policies regarding housing are formulated on a municipal level, in which states have only a minimal role and the federal government has no role. Decentralization of revenue sources and fiscal support for local services, including education, provides incentives for local zoning policies which exclude groups which are viewed as more costly to service, while decentralization of zoning powers make these policies possible. This article describes 1) the basic contours of the housing stock and population distribution in metropolitan areas, 2) the evolution of the single family only policy, and 3) recent efforts to counteract housing segregation patterns, which have had little success. Kenneth K. Baar is a attorney in the Berkeley, California and has a Ph.D. in urban planning. From 1991 to 1993, he was a Fulbright professor at the Budapest University of Economic Sciences. In 1994–95 he was visiting professor in the Urban Planning Department at Columbia University in New York City.     

Suburban Clusters

Almost 20% of the suburban population in the central Puget Sound lives in 85 small clusters characterized by areas of medium-density residential development in unexpectedly close proximity to retail and office uses and with a high proportion of people of color. These clusters challenge the traditional depiction of suburban housing as decentralized, with low-density single-family tracts segregated from other land uses. They indicate that residential functions in maturing suburbs not only densify, but also nucleate. At the regional level, these clusters form low-level concentrations of activity that have yet to be acknowledged. At the local level, they contain land uses that approximate those of neighborhood planning models devised since the beginning of the 20th century. Recognizing these clusters opens up important new opportunities for housing and transportation policy in suburban areas.     

Neighborhood Evaluations by City and Suburban Children

A consistent finding in research on housing choice and residential satisfaction has been the preference of parents for suburbs as child-rearing environments. Children themselves though, have rarely been asked about different types of neighborhoods as places to live. The present study is an attempt to address this gap. This article discusses some reasons for the paucity of child-oriented research and develops from the literature a picture of children's own perceptions of city and suburban neighborhoods. The results of an empirical study are then reported. A comparison of the neighborhood evaluations of 148 city and suburban teenagers suggests that both city and suburban children recognize positive as well as negative aspects of their neighborhoods; however, city and suburban neighborhoods do appear to differ in the particular characteristics that are viewed as being positive or negative. Furthermore, using detailed information on each of the individual home environments, differences in children's neighborhood evaluations are found to correspond with measured differences in specific neighborhood features such as child density, number of recreational opportunities, and presence of other selected land uses. Implications for planning and recommendations for further research are discussed.     

Exploring urban-rural disparity of the multiple deprivation index in Guangzhou City from 2000 to 2010

Both scholars and policy makers have noted the growing issue of poverty and deprivation during China's rapid urbanization. Often previous studies examine the spatial distribution of deprivation in inner cities and suburban areas, but fail to assess the whole region. Moreover, the cross-sectional nature of these studies is unable to discover its changes over time. This research aims to evaluate multiple deprivation in the administrative area of Guangzhou and its evolution from 2000 to 2010. Using the Fifth and Sixth Censuses, this study is based on 2643 neighborhood committees and 167 sub-districts (or towns) of inner city, suburban areas, and outer areas of Guangzhou. During the decade, there was persistent multiple deprivation in some areas of the inner city. The deprivation improved in suburban areas, but urban villages experienced deteriorating deprivation. Although urban-rural disparity became smaller in the outer areas, there were still some worst-hit neighborhoods. The evolution of multiple deprivation is collectively affected by institutional factors (including the dichotomous urban-rural system, economic restructure, and housing reform), and market factors (such as, market-selected urban regeneration, economic growth and individual residential mobility. This study helps governments to establish anti-poverty polices based on the characteristics of different areas and offers guidelines for urban regeneration planning in the inner city and rural planning of the outer areas.     

RESIDENTIAL LOCATION AND SATISFACTION WITH NEIGHBORHOOD CHARACTERISTICS1

In spite of high mobility, the neighborhood continues to influence the lives of urban dwellers. Higher status residents of Cleveland and its suburbs were more satisfied with various characteristics of their neighborhoods than those of lower status. Residential location—whether central city or suburban—explained more of the variance than socioeconomic or life-stage variables. This points to the important role of differences in housing stock, physical structures, and amenities in different parts of the urban complex in the explanation of neighborhood satisfaction.     

Neighborhood spillover effects between rezoning and housing price

The objective of this research was to investigate neighborhood spillover effects between rezoning of vacant parcels and housing price in the Knoxville, TN area. The study is unique in that it correctly highlights the need to analyze the dynamics of zoning structure and accommodates the neighborhood spillover effects associated with the real estate market. Results indicate that the probability of rezoning vacant land is expected to increase as housing price in a neighboring location increases. The rise in the housing price in a neighboring location implies increasing pressure on housing demand. This increased pressure on housing demand likely contributes to greater demands for residential development and commercial development that complements residential use. Currently, the major guidelines for the approval of rezoning petitions, according to the planners in the Knoxville area, are consistency with long-and short-range land use plans adopted by state, municipality, and county governments, and consistency with surrounding land use and environmental constraints, e.g., slope, flooding, and drainage. Local planning authorities can modify and update consistency measures in the current guidelines by accounting for varying degrees of housing demand pressure. For example, consistency measures can be strengthened in areas with greater housing-price increases, if preservation is desirable because these areas are likely to experience greater rezoning pressure.     

Agglomeration effect and tax competition in the metropolitan area

This paper analyzes tax competition between a central city and a suburban city in a metropolitan area allowing migration. We compare the local government’s tax policies both in the closed economy and in the open economy. Then, we investigate how the agglomeration effects influence the migration in equilibrium and examine the centripetal forces and the centrifugal forces in the metropolitan area. We also investigate the efficiency of the market equilibrium. It is found that each government has a dominant strategy in determining tax rate in a closed economy. The population distribution depends on the housing lot’s and public good’s elasticity of utility in an open economy. The tax rates of both cities depend on the marginal productivity of the public good in the central city. It is shown that less concentration on the central city occurs in the equilibrium.     

Silver bullet or trojan horse? The effects of inclusionary zoning on local housing markets in the United States

Many local governments are adopting inclusionary zoning (IZ) as a means of producing affordable housing without direct public subsidies. In this paper, panel data on IZ in the San Francisco metropolitan area and suburban Boston are used to analyse how much affordable housing the programmes produce and how IZ affects the prices and production of market-rate housing. The amount of affordable housing produced under IZ has been modest and depends primarily on how long IZ has been in place. Results from suburban Boston suggest that IZ has contributed to increased housing prices and lower rates of production during periods of regional house price appreciation. In the San Francisco area, IZ also appears to increase housing prices in times of regional price appreciation, but to decrease prices during cooler regional markets. There is no evidence of a statistically significant effect of IZ on new housing development in the Bay Area.     

基于Kriging方法和GIS技术的地价时空格局研究

为了研究城市内部地价变化的区域规律,以及引起局部地价上涨的原因,采用剔除二阶趋势的普通Kriging方法,结合GIS技术进行栅格运算,对北京市1998-2005年间的土地交易价格数据进行了时空分布格局的研究。研究发现：北京市地价分布与环线具有很好的耦合关系,市中心辐射影响明显,尚没有形成独立的次级中心;城市内部地价增长的主要原因为功能中心的辐射影响,城市规划和升值预期的影响以及基础设施改造和交通条件的改善;在北京市郊区化过程中,地价变化表现出先外围大幅增长后内部大幅增长的规律,表现出资源约束下的城市土地利用模式。     

Neighborhood Revitalization and Displacement A Review of the Evidence

Few issues have presented as great a challenge to urban policymakers and planners as the decline of the central city. As middle- and upper-income families migrated from the city to the suburban ring, they often left behind a decaying core increasingly populated by low-income and minority families. Despite evidence that these trends are continuing, numerous instances of spontaneous neighborhood revitalization have been occurring recently. While this new dynamic suggests that central cities may be staging a resurgence, it has also created concern that low-income city residents are being displaced from their neighborhoods as they find themselves unable to compete in the inflated housing market. The displacement phenomenon has received widespread attention in the popular press and has become a concern of many neighborhood groups and local planners. This paper reviews the evidence of displacement in revitalizing neighborhoods to determine if available data support the conventional wisdom. The conclusion is that, while displacement may be a serious problem in some neighborhoods, there is little support for the notion that a substantial trend is occurring or that in the aggregate large numbers of poor households are being affected.     

城市小套型住宅设计发展趋势研究

随着我国城市化进程的深入,在土地资源急度紧缺的现状下,城市住宅在需求和套型设计方面出现了新变化,小套型住宅成为我国住宅市场发展的主流。本文通过对国外及香港地区小套型住宅设计的发展趋势研究及影响我国小套型住宅设计的因素分析,从而总结出我国小套型住宅设计的发展趋势。     

Exurban development influences woodland bird composition

One of the fastest growing types of land-use change is exurban development—low-density housing outside urban service boundaries. However, how individual species are responding to exurban development remains uncertain. We monitored birds for 5 years across three housing density levels in northern California oak woodlands. We compared community and species responses to exurban development (4–16 ha parcels) with suburban and undeveloped natural areas. We found that individual species and groups of species exhibited variable responses to exurban development. Some species and guilds were impacted by exurban development to the same extent as suburban development while others were less sensitive to this type of land use. For example, the proportion of the bird community composed of tree-and-shrub feeders was similar between exurban and natural areas, whereas proportions of temperate migrants showed significant reductions at both suburban and exurban sites. Similarly, Northern Flicker, Hutton's Vireo, and Orange-crowned Warbler were equally rare in exurban and suburban sites, making large, undeveloped parcels essential for their conservation. By explicitly measuring ecological changes associated with parcel size and density this research provides valuable information to land-use planners on the consequences of zoning for biodiversity conservation.     

TARGETED SMART GROWTH PLANNING INITIATIVES IN THE SUBURBS: EFFECTS ON HOME VALUES

Although many studies have examined the effects of regional growth management policies on housing prices, little is known about the impact of neighborhood‐level smart growth strategies on home values in the targeted and nearby communities. The purpose of this article is to measure the impacts of a pair of geographically focused smart growth planning and development efforts on home values in the suburban context. This article examines two initiatives under the Atlanta Regional Commission's Livable Center Initiative (LCI) as examples of smart growth planning. The results show that smart growth developments focused both on a smaller scale town center LCI and on a larger scale activity center LCI have positive effects on housing prices inside the target area. However, their effects on adjacent areas differ, with the larger scale activity center having some positive effects on nearby property values, while the smaller scale effort resulted in lower values in some nearby areas. The results indicate that smart growth development programs may contribute to revitalizing old suburban downtown centers, but that the effects of smaller scale efforts may result in predominantly zero‐sum outcomes, in which higher values within the target area are accompanied by lower values in adjacent areas.     

Economic comparison of single family vs. multifamily housing

The costs and benefits of single family vs. multifamily housing are of interest to city planners, developers and individual dwellers. While the tenants' preference for both types has been extensively discussed in other publications, this paper presents a comprehensive economic analysis of the two alternatives. The analysis employs a common model of a built neighborhood which was designed specifically for both alternatives of the same performance standard as expressed by habitable area, service systems and the quality of finish.Three types of costs were considered: the building, the development and the land costs. The costs of building and development were calculated from detailed quantities and the cost of land was based on prevailing market prices. The sensitivity of results with respect to changes in several key parameters-dwelling size, soil condition, housing density and the flexibility to future extensions was also explored.     

Housing Homeless People: Local Mobilization of Federal Resources to Fight NIMBYism

Local sentiments are rarely favorable to human service facilities. City governments and neighborhood organizations frequently utilize zoning restrictions to exclude various community facilities, including services and housing for homeless people. This exclusionary phenomenon is commonly referred to as “not‐in‐my‐backyard” or “NIMBYism.” The power of NIMBYism is grounded in the local autonomy afforded municipalities concerning land use policies. However, recent cases suggest that the tradition of local authority over certain types of land uses is being reexamined and, even more frequently, challenged at the extra‐local level. Given this trend, the purpose of this article is to question the assumption that local government will be able to preserve their authority over housing for homeless people. Using a case study of a local zoning battle over a proposed housing development for homeless people, the author argues that recent changes in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s governance over Fair Housing Law enforcement and administration of Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance funding, coupled with the agency’s more aggressive position on housing discrimination, may already have changed the balance of power on this issue. By examining the process by which a non‐profit organization in Albany, New York, was able to reach a settlement with the city concerning a zoning denial by mobilizing federal resources, the author attempts to highlight a possible emerging federal role in facilitating local mobilization against NIMBYism as it applies to housing for homeless individuals.     

STILL PAYING THE RACE TAX? ANALYZING PROPERTY VALUES IN HOMOGENEOUS AND MIXED‐RACE SUBURBS

ABSTRACT:  Racial and ethnic inequality has manifested itself in wealth ownership and access to quality housing. Home ownership is considered a good basis on which to build equity. Whereas property values and their appreciation have been analyzed in those inner city neighborhoods that have high proportions of racially and ethnically underrepresented groups, not much systematic research has been undertaken on these issues in homogeneous versus mixed-race suburbs. By analyzing census tracts within select counties across the United States with weighted least squares (WLS) regressions, this article investigates differences among suburban census tracts in terms of several factors, including property values and their appreciation rates and factors, that have influenced property values. Based on the results, it is concluded that the assumption that home ownership in the suburbs leads to the building of housing wealth needs to be differentiated.     

Property rights,urban land markets and the contradictions of redevelopment in centrally located informal settlements in Bogotá, Colombia,and Buenos Aires,Argentina

Following rapid urban growth over the past four decades, informal settlements originally located in peripheral areas of large Latin American cities are now occupying increasingly valuable land in the central city. As a result, these communities are facing intense redevelopment pressures with important implications for housing accessibility. Although this situation is common in the region, central city redevelopment assumes a variety of forms depending on shifting approaches to land titling under different urban governance regimes, resulting in variegated, formal, and informal land markets. This comparative historical case study of Bogotá, Colombia, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, suggests that urban redevelopment planning has drawn on two contrasting discourses of property rights: one privileging private market approaches based in the economic theory of Libertarianism; the other favouring state authority and redistribution building on the ethics of Utilitarianism. In both Bogotá and Buenos Aires, however, de facto land-titling policies have shifted between the principles of Libertarianism and Utilitarianism under different political regimes, and neither market- nor state-oriented approaches have served to safeguard low-income residents’ access to housing. Instead, the shifting influence of each discourse has structured formal and informal land markets in ways that complicate long-standing debates surrounding land titling in informal settlements.