Suburbs - General Topics

Twin Cities Suburbs
Mdcastle
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Re: Suburbs - General Topics

Postby Mdcastle » April 17th, 2021, 3:04 pm

It would seem to me the explosion of absentee investors is a big factor in wealth leaving a region. If someone sells their $250K house in Brooklyn Center because they're scared of crime, or if they have a third kid (I'd imagine more than three bedroom houses are uncommon in the area as they are where I live) or because their job moved or because they want to be close to family, or their empty nesters and are choosing to downsize, or even because they're racists and don't like all the black families moving in, then someone else that can afford a $250K house buys it and moves in. If a property management company buys it, while I understand that renters by choice exist, odds are better the people that move in are too poor to afford to buy.

I'm don't really see another round of "white flight" as we've traditionally known it. It happened all at once before because of the unmet demand for housing was suddenly provided all at once in the post-war period and the economics of the time made possible the American dream of single family detached homeownership. But the slow churn of people wanting bigger and better continues as a trickle rather than a a wave. I've witmessed people move for all of the reasons except racism listed above, with having a third kid or just wanting a bigger, better newer house being the most common. But considering my house has been going on the entire close to 50 years I've lived in the neighborhood, and my house has gone up $125K since I bought it in the real estate nadir in the early 2010s, I'm not really worried about being trapped in an impoverished neighborhood because I didn't leave fast enough.

EOst
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Re: Suburbs - General Topics

Postby EOst » April 19th, 2021, 7:49 am

There is absolutely old-style white flight continuing to happen throughout the Twin Cities metro. It's not as explicit as it used to be, but it happens all the time.

SurlyLHT
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Re: Suburbs - General Topics

Postby SurlyLHT » April 19th, 2021, 8:34 am

I could see people leaving Brooklyn Center and inner-ring suburbs with their small homes while some neighborhoods in North Minneapolis regain white people due to their location to Downtown and amenities and quality homes. (especially areas like Harrison) Also I have friends who live in Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center. They bought a few years ago and part of the reason they moved there was to be in a "good" neighborhood. Well these families are starting to have kids and already looking to expand their homes or move. Those little ramblers are almost too small as first time homes. Part of that is by the time young people can afford a home they're also ready to have kids.

There have been 3 shootings in Brooklyn Park in the past week. When people start seeing their roads blocked off for a shooting when they paid a bunch of money for a tiny home so they could be in a safe neighborhood they are likely to look elsewhere.

Mdcastle
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Re: Suburbs - General Topics

Postby Mdcastle » April 19th, 2021, 11:26 am

Also, a home office or computer room is kind of mandatory nowadays and none of these houses were designed with that in mind. Unless you want to shove the computer in a nook or cranny in the living room or down in the basement or something the home office swallows up a bedroom, meaning you only have one left over for kids in a typical three bedroom house. So even with two kids you're looking for a bigger house and I'd imagine 4+ bedroom houses are uncommon there as they are in my neighborhood.

SurlyLHT
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Re: Suburbs - General Topics

Postby SurlyLHT » April 19th, 2021, 1:52 pm

Also, a home officer or computer room is kind of mandatory nowadays and none of these houses were designed with that in mind. Unless you want to shove the computer in a nook or cranny in the living room or down in the basement or something the home office swallows up a bedroom, meaning you only have one left over for kids in a typical three bedroom house. So even with two kids you're looking for a bigger house and I'd imagine 4+ bedroom houses are uncommon there as they are in my neighborhood.
These are good points. Some of these first ring suburbs have homes that require additions or etc to make them capable to modern demands. Also you're retired or aging you're also better off in an apartment or condo building in a dense area without the upkeep and lack of transportation options.

The question of how folks who can't drive and live in the same suburban house for the last 40 years are going to get around in the future is a question the suburbs are going to have to answer. I can't imagine dial-a-ride is going to be that helpful.

My Grandmother aged in place in a first ring suburb and if she sold her home before she passed away she could have been somewhere where she could have gotten around or had neighbors to talk to or etc. Instead she was pretty isolate and reliant on others.

At the same time it's sad to see houses that have been in the family for awhile be sold...but people don't live forever.

DanPatchToget
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Re: Suburbs - General Topics

Postby DanPatchToget » May 20th, 2021, 9:56 pm

Anyone know if there are development plans yet for the site between I-35 and the train tracks in Lakeville? I see it's zoned as medium density residential, and I know eventually the city wants to connect the north and south segments of Kenrick Avenue.

QuietBlue
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Re: Suburbs - General Topics

Postby QuietBlue » May 26th, 2021, 7:25 am

Anyone know if there are development plans yet for the site between I-35 and the train tracks in Lakeville? I see it's zoned as medium density residential, and I know eventually the city wants to connect the north and south segments of Kenrick Avenue.
Do you mean the area near the Target and the former Best Buy?

DanPatchToget
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Re: Suburbs - General Topics

Postby DanPatchToget » May 26th, 2021, 8:47 am

Anyone know if there are development plans yet for the site between I-35 and the train tracks in Lakeville? I see it's zoned as medium density residential, and I know eventually the city wants to connect the north and south segments of Kenrick Avenue.
Do you mean the area near the Target and the former Best Buy?
Yeah, just north of there. It's a triangle-shaped area bounded by I-35, the railroad tracks, and 181st Street.

alexschief
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Re: Suburbs - General Topics

Postby alexschief » August 8th, 2021, 8:21 am

The Strib has published a major front-page attack on surburban exclusionary zoning. It's at the middle of A1, a spread from A8-9, and finishes on A10. The online version has a multi-media component.

Check it out: https://www.startribune.com/how-twin-ci ... 600081529/

I'm thrilled to see the Strib making a significant reporting investment to put this issue into the mainstream. I'm especially happy that they don't treat the overwhelming consensus of housing economists, historians, and planners as a controversy, because it's not. I hope they continue to closely cover the issue, and I hope some people learn something from their Sunday paper.

QuietBlue
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Re: Suburbs - General Topics

Postby QuietBlue » August 9th, 2021, 3:29 pm

A lot of research and work went into that article, but...I don't know. Something about it sits weird with me. There's almost an unwritten assumption there that POC don't get to own single family homes, and have to live in apartments or condos. There's nothing wrong with multifamily housing -- we need more of it, and zoning needs to be changed to allow it in more places. But what about POC who want to own houses? The woman they interviewed in SLP sounded like she wanted a house for her and her son.

It just feels like they've already decided for people what they should want, instead of asking them what they want.

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mister.shoes
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Re: Suburbs - General Topics

Postby mister.shoes » August 9th, 2021, 9:07 pm

I didn’t take the article at all to imply the suburbs need more multi family housing specifically for PoC. The message I got was the suburbs need more multi family housing so the single family housing isn’t so expensive and unattainable. The woman from SLP can’t find an affordable SF house because SLP needs more housing, period.
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candycaneforestelf
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Re: Suburbs - General Topics

Postby candycaneforestelf » August 10th, 2021, 9:20 am

I wonder what the political will would be for legislation that incentivizes housing starts that target buyers whose buying range is sub-$300k in the suburbs (and of course Minneapolis and Saint Paul proper)? Every new start seems to be north of $300k no matter if it's single family or multifamily until you're deep into the exurbs, and there's only so much existing housing stock that's sub-$300k that is even on the market within an hour of Downtown Minneapolis.

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VacantLuxuries
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Re: Suburbs - General Topics

Postby VacantLuxuries » August 10th, 2021, 9:39 am

SLP is a built out suburb. If your goal is more ownership (and more specifically, ownership of single family homes versus condos), only way you're adding that housing stock is by tearing down existing single family homes and subdividing the lots.

In theory that would make sense. In practice there isn't enough political capital in the world.

alexschief
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Re: Suburbs - General Topics

Postby alexschief » August 10th, 2021, 9:59 am

The implication isn't that POC don't want to live in single family homes, the implication is that they can't afford them because their grandparents and parents were prevented from building generational wealth through homeownership. Now, a large majority of white families are floating on the ever-rising tide of home values (underpinned by tight supply) while the majority of POC families struggle to stay afloat.

There are multiple rounds of this. (1) African-Americans were denied access to early American suburbs through racial covenants. (2) They were then denied financial assistance in the post-war period through direct government policy. (3) Throughout this period, attempts to integrate white neighborhoods were beaten back by mob violence, and the value of white areas were artificially inflated by virtue of them not being a part of black ghettos. (4) As the federal government began to change its policy, attempts (by George Romney!) to integrate the suburbs in a major way were politically defeated, and attempts to subsidize widespread homeownership among African Americans were destroyed by insufficient segregation and insufficient protection against organized scams. (5) More recent efforts to increase home ownership among African Americans were again undermined by fraud, and those gains and more were entirely wiped out in the Great Recession.

Good books on all of this: Crabgrass Frontier, The Color Of Law, Origins Of The Urban Crisis, Making The Second Ghetto, and Race For Profit.

If Minnesota wants to close the homeownership gap, it needs to also permit more housing overall to drive down the cost of housing overall. It should also allow more homes, including single family attached and detached homes on less land. For instance, if Minneapolis loosened its minimum lot size requirement from 5k square feet to 3k square feet, that would open up a lot of opportunities for subdivision and the construction of not just triplexes and duplexes, but also smaller affordable single family homes. Other suburbs could do the same thing.

It's important to remember that none of these changes are going to make a huge difference overnight. Regulations are not a dam holding back some huge untapped demand for housing in the Twin Cities. This is not California, the housing market in the Twin Cities isn't as tight. But they will make a bigger difference over time at the margins, especially if state law were to impose changes across the entire metro/state.

candycaneforestelf
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Re: Suburbs - General Topics

Postby candycaneforestelf » August 10th, 2021, 10:12 am

I definitely was not eyeing exclusively single family homes with my postulated idea, the inner ring suburbs are in too short of developable land to limit the focus on SFH.

I envisioned it more as a program incentivizing future redevelopment and the limited greenfield developments left in the inner ring suburbs and the core cities to target the lower end of the market, rather than having them be higher end units and pricing out the lower end of the market from the start. And also to incentivize the edge suburbs that do have ample greenfield still left relatively close to the core to end the charade of "multifamily" developments that are almost exclusively those 2000+ square feet 3 story townhome monstrosities that start at $300k because of the square footage they have. Encouraging the smaller townhome stock in the outer ring suburbs can ease the pressure on the limited supply of housing within in the inner ring suburbs.

bubzki2
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Re: Suburbs - General Topics

Postby bubzki2 » August 10th, 2021, 10:15 am

Did that Strib expose even mention condominiums? That seems like the "half-measure" that could be affordable to more people at entry level, and might allow eventual SFH ownership (once equity is accumulated) if so desired.

Mdcastle
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Re: Suburbs - General Topics

Postby Mdcastle » August 10th, 2021, 11:59 am

Besides minimum lot sized zoning, there's also that MUSA line thing that's driving the cost of houses into the stratosphere by artificially limiting supply.

I don't think the lack of multi-family housing is driving up the cost of detached housing. That would imply there's people that want but can't find or afford a condo are settling for a detached house instead. If anything I'd speculate the opposite is happening.

If people want single family detached housing but can't afford it, the thing is to build more of that rather than build more of something else- eliminate the MUSA line and minimum lot sized zoning, provide incentives for developers to start building 1100 square foot houses like mine again. maybe more government assistance to first time buyers.

candycaneforestelf
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Re: Suburbs - General Topics

Postby candycaneforestelf » August 10th, 2021, 1:14 pm

Besides minimum lot sized zoning, there's also that MUSA line thing that's driving the cost of houses into the stratosphere by artificially limiting supply.

I don't think the lack of multi-family housing is driving up the cost of detached housing. That would imply there's people that want but can't find or afford a condo are settling for a detached house instead. If anything I'd speculate the opposite is happening.

If people want single family detached housing but can't afford it, the thing is to build more of that rather than build more of something else- eliminate the MUSA line and minimum lot sized zoning, provide incentives for developers to start building 1100 square foot houses like mine again. maybe more government assistance to first time buyers.
The MUSA line serves a planning purpose by forcing communities to better plan their new growth relative to the whole region, as well as for not overwhelming the sewer services that are managed regionally by the Met Council. We can encourage or authorize cities to come up with larger Undesignated MUSA reserve territories relative to their current size, but we cannot eliminate this designation as long as sewer services continue to be provided by the Met Council for most communities in the 7 counties that are Met Council designated.

The only issue I have with focusing on detached housing is how much less of it can be fit in a given area even with minimum lot sizes and minimum building footprints eliminated or drastically reduced. I'd take a focus on encouraging smaller single family homes over the current trends, however.

Mdcastle
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Re: Suburbs - General Topics

Postby Mdcastle » August 10th, 2021, 2:00 pm

So, the relative merits of single family detached housing vs whatever has been discussed elsewhere. The point I'm getting from the article is:

"Minorities haven't been able to afford single family detached housing to the extent whites have"

So, short of cooking up some sort of affirmative action program to buying houses, it seems people responding to the article are coming across in two ways:

"It's a fait accompli that blacks can't afford single family detached housing, so we need to build more of everything but that for them."
"We have a shortage of single family detached housing, so the best way to change that is to build more of everything but single family detached housing.

The first has elements of the "minorities don't drive cars so we'll take away their street and give them a bike trail" take I got from the Northside Greenway controversy. as for the second I'm not convinced that there's that many buyers out there that are totally in love with the idea of living in a condo, triplex, ADU, or whatever, but are forced to live in a single family detached house (and take one away from someone else that wants one) because there's none of those alternatives available. If you're short of something whether toilet paper or single family detached houses, it seems the best way is to make more of them rather than to pour resources into imperfect substitutes like paper towels or condos.
Last edited by Mdcastle on August 10th, 2021, 2:05 pm, edited 2 times in total.

seanrichardryan
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Re: Suburbs - General Topics

Postby seanrichardryan » August 10th, 2021, 2:01 pm

'Rep. Steve Elkins, DFL-Bloomington, outlined a comprehensive housing affordability plan on Monday that tackles three of the L’s — land, lots and laws — that constrict housing development and reinforce racial and economic segregation.'

https://minnesotareformer.com/2021/08/1 ... ning-laws/
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