Is It the Beginning of the End for Suburbia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why the new neighborhoods are in the cities...

Surprise an urbanist thinks that urban neighborhoods are the hot thing.

If it were 1950, you'd be sitting in a cramped NY apartment, bitching and moaning about how all those middle-class folks moving into the suburbs will come to nothing but ruin.

It's always sad to see people fighting the last war. Buying a McMansion in anticipation of the next great century of cul-de-sac living is like watching the French building the Maginot Line in anticipation of WWII.

Funny, that's what I think when another family with school aged children pays over $1mm for a tiny house in NWDC with a crummy school system. The houses have already run up in value and are over-inflated and the neighbors aren't willing to tell newcomers that their ES is a disappointment. Those are the buyers who will be stuck: hard to build equity in an inflated house; hard to pay private tuition w/o tapping into equity. And with interest rates about to hit generational highs, please, there is your new battle ground. It's called stuck - wig your kids paying the price.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many of these kids belong to poor families pushed out into the 'burbs? Not the same kind of issue.

No, the wards with the poor kids did not see the same effect. There are lots of children there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mock, but it's true. The city has a problem, and that problem is that it can't hold onto the middle class families.

Correction: the city had a problem holding on to middle class families. Ten years ago it had a problem holding on to middle-class families period. It now has significantly less of a problem holding onto middle class families with primary grade children. It's having less and less of a problem holding on to middle-class families with middle-school children. The trends are quite clear.

Add to that the fact that fewer and fewer people are choosing to have children, and the fact that as the massive number of baby boomers age, many are divesting themselves of suburban mcmansions. The demographic change is accelerating. We often here from folks who felt they had to move out of the city when their kids became of school age. Sorry the change didn't come about soon enough for you. But we're talking about the future here, not the past.

Unfortunately the numbers tell a different story. Here are the population statistics for <20 population for key wards and Fairfax County.
Fairfax County: 27%

DC Ward 1: 16.0 (21.9) (parentheses are from 2000)
DC Ward 2: 13.3 (16.5)
DC Ward 3: 17.2 (15.6%)
DC Ward 6: 14.6 (18.7%)

This is a huge discrepancy. On top of it, most wards (except for ward 3) actually went down. And I'm not going to calculate the absolute population numbers by ward, which you can do on DC's census site, but overall the District lost a total of 12,000 kids 19 and under. There was a startling 26% drop among 5-9 year olds, and a 16.6% drop of 10-14 year olds.

Wake up. Your impression of what is going on in your city is not borne out by the data. The relative population of kids is way lower than the counties. And the absolute numbers of children are going down in the critical age groups that you cite.

You urbanists can look up statistics once in a while, too. Not everything has to come from your imagination. You spin stories but they don't match reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why, in the short-term they'll have to move. And DINKs, empty-nesters, and wealthy people with kids will continue to pour into the city. Of course, as pressure builds on suburbia, there'll be less incentive to move out, and more incentive to stay put leading to an incremental improvement in individual schools. As we've already seen at the elementary school level.

Come on, I know someone can name a general-enrollment DCPS middle and high they'll send their kids to aside from Deal/Wilson. Surely one of these affluent families will be sending their kid to Anacostia or Eastern in the next year or two, right? (Cardozo might be ok if you're African-American but it would take a braver soul than me to re-integrate it -- and sadly if you've got a dozen or so kids out of the 100s that think they're the black Orval Faubus, that's the end of that idea.)

I'm also not sure where these wealthy people with kids are coming from. Because things sure as hell ain't slowing down here in Loudoun, and I understand western PWC is doing just fine too ... where are all these poor people going? (Hopefully not to PGC, cause that'd make the PGC boosters here feel bad.)

[Anonymous]

In answer to 9:05, Banneker, Latin, and perhaps the new Basis. You also obviously have no clue about Cardoza or Anacostia and are just throwing out school names. Why would anyone with choices send their children to those schools. But I bet their are high schools in the burbs that you would not send your children given the choice. So what's your point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why, in the short-term they'll have to move. And DINKs, empty-nesters, and wealthy people with kids will continue to pour into the city. Of course, as pressure builds on suburbia, there'll be less incentive to move out, and more incentive to stay put leading to an incremental improvement in individual schools. As we've already seen at the elementary school level.

Come on, I know someone can name a general-enrollment DCPS middle and high they'll send their kids to aside from Deal/Wilson. Surely one of these affluent families will be sending their kid to Anacostia or Eastern in the next year or two, right? (Cardozo might be ok if you're African-American but it would take a braver soul than me to re-integrate it -- and sadly if you've got a dozen or so kids out of the 100s that think they're the black Orval Faubus, that's the end of that idea.)

I'm also not sure where these wealthy people with kids are coming from. Because things sure as hell ain't slowing down here in Loudoun, and I understand western PWC is doing just fine too ... where are all these poor people going? (Hopefully not to PGC, cause that'd make the PGC boosters here feel bad.)

If living in PWC works for you, fine. Why do you knock those who do not want to live so far out. If I worked in Virginia, I would try to live closer to where I worked and played. However, there is no way in hell I would live that far out and sit in a parking lot for ninety minutes coming and going. So, it works for you. It does not work for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In answer to 9:05, Banneker, Latin, and perhaps the new Basis. You also obviously have no clue about Cardoza or Anacostia and are just throwing out school names. Why would anyone with choices send their children to those schools. But I bet their are high schools in the burbs that you would not send your children given the choice. So what's your point.

"there are"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In answer to 9:05, Banneker, Latin, and perhaps the new Basis. You also obviously have no clue about Cardoza or Anacostia and are just throwing out school names. Why would anyone with choices send their children to those schools. But I bet their are high schools in the burbs that you would not send your children given the choice. So what's your point.

Well Banneker takes 100 students a year. Latin is five years old and takes what, 60 kids a year? And Basis isn't even open yet.

So you think you think this is a good plan for educating your children?

*Hope to get one of sixty slots in the Latin school lottery
*if not, hang on for a few years, then apply for one of 100 slots at Banneker
*and/or pray that Basis works out.

In the county, you can be pretty much guaranteed a good to excellent primary, middle school, and high school just by moving into a decent neighborhood. On top of that, you have the overlay schools.

[Anonymous]

12:20, I said "general enrollment", i.e. neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In answer to 9:05, Banneker, Latin, and perhaps the new Basis. You also obviously have no clue about Cardoza or Anacostia and are just throwing out school names. Why would anyone with choices send their children to those schools. But I bet their are high schools in the burbs that you would not send your children given the choice. So what's your point.

Well Banneker takes 100 students a year. Latin is five years old and takes what, 60 kids a year? And Basis isn't even open yet.

So you think you think this is a good plan for educating your children?

*Hope to get one of sixty slots in the Latin school lottery
*if not, hang on for a few years, then apply for one of 100 slots at Banneker
*and/or pray that Basis works out.

In the county, you can be pretty much guaranteed a good to excellent primary, middle school, and high school just by moving into a decent neighborhood. On top of that, you have the overlay schools.

If that works for your family, why do you care. You made choices There is no need to defend them. We've made ours, and we like our chances. And all county schools are not good to excellent. Some are bad to middling to good. Hey, but that is the beauty for those with choices.

[Anonymous]

Uh read the post. The point of the thread is to forecast our demise and provide a forum for a few cranky urbanists to taunt us while they enjoy their smug superiority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mock, but it's true. The city has a problem, and that problem is that it can't hold onto the middle class families.

Correction: the city had a problem holding on to middle class families. Ten years ago it had a problem holding on to middle-class families period. It now has significantly less of a problem holding onto middle class families with primary grade children. It's having less and less of a problem holding on to middle-class families with middle-school children. The trends are quite clear.

Add to that the fact that fewer and fewer people are choosing to have children, and the fact that as the massive number of baby boomers age, many are divesting themselves of suburban mcmansions. The demographic change is accelerating. We often here from folks who felt they had to move out of the city when their kids became of school age. Sorry the change didn't come about soon enough for you. But we're talking about the future here, not the past.

Unfortunately the numbers tell a different story. Here are the population statistics for <20 population for key wards and Fairfax County.
Fairfax County: 27%

DC Ward 1: 16.0 (21.9) (parentheses are from 2000)
DC Ward 2: 13.3 (16.5)
DC Ward 3: 17.2 (15.6%)
DC Ward 6: 14.6 (18.7%)

This is a huge discrepancy. On top of it, most wards (except for ward 3) actually went down. And I'm not going to calculate the absolute population numbers by ward, which you can do on DC's census site, but overall the District lost a total of 12,000 kids 19 and under. There was a startling 26% drop among 5-9 year olds, and a 16.6% drop of 10-14 year olds.

Wake up. Your impression of what is going on in your city is not borne out by the data. The relative population of kids is way lower than the counties. And the absolute numbers of children are going down in the critical age groups that you cite.

Of course the total number of children is falling in DC, silly. Poor families with lots of kids are moving to the suburbs. Large poor families are being replaced by single adults, DINKs, empty nesters, and, yes, one- or two-child families. That's the well-documented dynamic, and it's only going to accelerate over the next 10-20 years, as tastes continue to change and as the region's poverty load continues to diffuse from the urban core out to the suburbs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why the new neighborhoods are in the cities...

Surprise an urbanist thinks that urban neighborhoods are the hot thing.

If it were 1950, you'd be sitting in a cramped NY apartment, bitching and moaning about how all those middle-class folks moving into the suburbs will come to nothing but ruin.

It's always sad to see people fighting the last war. Buying a McMansion in anticipation of the next great century of cul-de-sac living is like watching the French building the Maginot Line in anticipation of WWII.

Funny, that's what I think when another family with school aged children pays over $1mm for a tiny house in NWDC with a crummy school system. The houses have already run up in value and are over-inflated and the neighbors aren't willing to tell newcomers that their ES is a disappointment. Those are the buyers who will be stuck: hard to build equity in an inflated house; hard to pay private tuition w/o tapping into equity. And with interest rates about to hit generational highs, please, there is your new battle ground. It's called stuck - wig your kids paying the price.

Given the total collapse of exurban housing prices across the country, and the relatively solid SFH prices in close-in suburbs and the city proper, this is a laughably wrong observation. Yep, whereas the value of exurban houses were in free-fall a few years ago, and never recovered, houses in DC and close-in "already ran up in value and are over-inflated" in the sense that they went up and held that increased value as well as any other metropolitan area in the country. And they're still selling.

Hopefully they'll fall 30-40% like they did in PWC a few years ago. It's the only thing that can save us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course the total number of children is falling in DC, silly. Poor families with lots of kids are moving to the suburbs. Large poor families are being replaced by single adults, DINKs, empty nesters, and, yes, one- or two-child families. That's the well-documented dynamic, and it's only going to accelerate over the next 10-20 years, as tastes continue to change and as the region's poverty load continues to diffuse from the urban core out to the suburbs.

Do you have any proof that large, poor families are in fact moving to the suburbs, or that they're eschewing traditionally poor areas like Prince George's, South Arlington, Alexandria, Annandale, etc.?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course the total number of children is falling in DC, silly. Poor families with lots of kids are moving to the suburbs. Large poor families are being replaced by single adults, DINKs, empty nesters, and, yes, one- or two-child families. That's the well-documented dynamic, and it's only going to accelerate over the next 10-20 years, as tastes continue to change and as the region's poverty load continues to diffuse from the urban core out to the suburbs.

Do you have any proof that large, poor families are in fact moving to the suburbs, or that they're eschewing traditionally poor areas like Prince George's, South Arlington, Alexandria, Annandale, etc.?

This is an interesting overview:

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/speeches/2010/1208_suburban_washington_poverty_ross/1208_suburban_washington_poverty_ross.pdf

I like your moving the goalposts there, though. "Traditionally poor areas" indeed. In any case, the same factors at work in DC proper are happening in close-in suburbs. Take the example of Hyattsville, Mt Rainier, etc... Actually, the jurisdiction with the greatest number of poor right now is Montgomery County. As infrastructure ages, and as the population trends poorer, that's still money that comes out of the general budget for MD or VA. That's money that is going to be spent on special education, security, and other poverty alleviation measures rather than middle-class amenities and road improvements. It's a downward spiral from there.