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News & ArtsMonday, October 1, 2012
Architecture The Death and the Death of the Suburbs
Posted by Charles Mudede on Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 8:26 AM
It's happening in Chicago:
Suburban landlords have more unwanted office space than any major metro area in the country, concludes New York-based tenant brokerage Studley Inc. Preliminary third-quarter statistics show 24.3 percent of suburban space is available, the highest level of the 12 U.S. suburban markets it tracks. That volume of unwanted space could fill the 110-story Willis Tower 7½ times.This is such music to my ears. I can hear it on and on and on till the break of dawn—and even after that. I can also hear those wonderful machines demolishing those awful, dream-empty boxes.Downtown has held up relatively well through a recession. Availability peaked at 18.9 percent in fourth-quarter 2010, after asking rents bottomed out at $30.31 per square foot in third-quarter 2009. Suburban availability peaked at 26.4 percent in last year's third quarter, with rents at a post-crash low point of $19.96 in the most recent quarter.
High-tech companies have flocked to the city, with Mountain View, Calif.-based Google Inc. signing a 572,000-square-foot lease to move its Motorola Mobility Inc. unit to the Merchandise Mart from Libertyville.
In South Barrington, Allstate Corp. is demolishing a 516,000-square-foot building it no longer needed.What is needed, what capitalism is really dying for is some serious destruction of wealth. It is only this that can add new life to the tired system. And where is there lots of (environmentally and aesthetically) ugly wealth to be done away with? The suburbs. The 20th century built them; the 21st century should destroy them, return the outskirts to nature, and build densely and upward in the core of the city.
2
Good Morning Charles,
A welcome to autumn to you and yours.
Your last sentence is fascinating. My understanding is that is exactly what hard depressed Flint, MI is doing. Evidently, there so many abandoned/boarded up houses and/or vacant lots in the city that the local government has decided to raze them and plant indigenous trees that were there BEFORE human develpoment cut down those trees/forests. I see that protending the future of landscape in abandoned areas of formally industrialized America. I'm actually for it. It's Nature's solemn return.
A welcome to autumn to you and yours.
Your last sentence is fascinating. My understanding is that is exactly what hard depressed Flint, MI is doing. Evidently, there so many abandoned/boarded up houses and/or vacant lots in the city that the local government has decided to raze them and plant indigenous trees that were there BEFORE human develpoment cut down those trees/forests. I see that protending the future of landscape in abandoned areas of formally industrialized America. I'm actually for it. It's Nature's solemn return.
3
This isn't surprising. It's simple economics. Smaller companies who previously couldn't afford to locate in a downtown core prior to the recession were likely able to take advantage of significant deals in downtown because of it. And regardless of how much suburban landlords slashed prices and offered amenities, there's really no competing with prime downtown location. I imagine things will start to level out as the economy improves.
5
@2 I'm with you on returning unused human space to nature. However, I wish they wouldn't tear the building down. Ruins are amazing. More so, existing structures provide shade, which in turns helps the ecosystem return. For a complex ecosystem to come back to full strength there needs to be a lot of factors in play. There are many species of plants that need shade to grow and these plants are often the source for a rich soil that allows trees to grow (the first providers of shade). Returning a space to its 'natural' state is full of chicken/egg issues and dependencies.
7
It's tempting to make generalizations like this -- I share your desire -- but different cities work differently. The lessons of Flint, MI hardly apply to cities that aren't dying on the vine. If you look at the cities where economic growth is occurring, you don't always see decaying suburbs -- and if you do, it's not ALL of them.
Seattle, for instance, is not seeing the withering of suburbs; quite the opposite. Our suburbs are booming. They're growing much faster than the central city. Not just the older suburbs, but the newer ones, further out, the ones that barely have names yet. Covington, Mill Creek, South Hill, even as far as Smokey Point (which is getting another new overpass and ramp, I see, to handle the ridiculous traffic they get now, since the commercial development is stupidly all on the opposite side of the freeway from the houses -- a quarter-mile away but almost impassable.)
People who live here hate to admit it, and refuse to see it in front of their eyes, but the Seattle metropolitan area is turning into LA -- not even the real LA but the horror image of LA we all have in our minds. LA is actually growing into a more usable urban environment than we have. When you're all trying to figure out how to get to your jobs in Factoria or the Kent Valley from your home in Burien or Alderwood Manor, maybe this will start to sink in.
Seattle, for instance, is not seeing the withering of suburbs; quite the opposite. Our suburbs are booming. They're growing much faster than the central city. Not just the older suburbs, but the newer ones, further out, the ones that barely have names yet. Covington, Mill Creek, South Hill, even as far as Smokey Point (which is getting another new overpass and ramp, I see, to handle the ridiculous traffic they get now, since the commercial development is stupidly all on the opposite side of the freeway from the houses -- a quarter-mile away but almost impassable.)
People who live here hate to admit it, and refuse to see it in front of their eyes, but the Seattle metropolitan area is turning into LA -- not even the real LA but the horror image of LA we all have in our minds. LA is actually growing into a more usable urban environment than we have. When you're all trying to figure out how to get to your jobs in Factoria or the Kent Valley from your home in Burien or Alderwood Manor, maybe this will start to sink in.
8
@7 you're quite right about how quickly Seattle is becoming LA. I remember as a kid visiting my cousins in LA and telling about all their suburbs sucked and traffic was awful. Now, everytime I drive out of the city I'm blown away by how much it looks like LA but more green.
9
I look forward to the day when we're all packed like sardines into 10' x 10' apartments with communal kitchens and bathrooms. It sounds like heaven!
13
This article is slightly misleading.
[1.] Yes, Allstate is demolishing offices in South Barrington, but that doesn't mean they are going to the Loop. Allstate is relocating the employees to NORTHBROOK.
[2.] Chicago is unique because its train and highways all dump into the city. There's no equivalent of a "ring road" that a lot of other cities have. It's very hard to get from Southwest suburbs to Northern suburbs, hence the mentioned commute from Burr Ridge to Libertyville is a frickin' nightmare.
[3.] Barrington is a little unique because it was a railroad community before the highways were built and there's no major interstate (meaning the Kennedy, the Edens, or the Jane Adams) that goes to it. Northbrook is right off the Tri-State (294).
Is that Chi-specific enough? P.S. --How come Dan Savage lost his Chicago accent?
[1.] Yes, Allstate is demolishing offices in South Barrington, but that doesn't mean they are going to the Loop. Allstate is relocating the employees to NORTHBROOK.
[2.] Chicago is unique because its train and highways all dump into the city. There's no equivalent of a "ring road" that a lot of other cities have. It's very hard to get from Southwest suburbs to Northern suburbs, hence the mentioned commute from Burr Ridge to Libertyville is a frickin' nightmare.
[3.] Barrington is a little unique because it was a railroad community before the highways were built and there's no major interstate (meaning the Kennedy, the Edens, or the Jane Adams) that goes to it. Northbrook is right off the Tri-State (294).
Is that Chi-specific enough? P.S. --How come Dan Savage lost his Chicago accent?
14
The fastest-growing city from 2000-2010 was Las Vegas-Paradise, up almost 15%. Nothing about the Vegas area remotely resembles a dense urban core; they have towers, but they're hotels, outside the city limits, and they're extremely difficult to move between, especially on foot. The entire area is suburban and exurban, connected by a grid of dusty megastreets.
After that is Raleigh-Cary, NC; Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX; Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill, NC/SC; Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA; Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL; Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale, AZ; Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX; San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX; and Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA. Only a couple of traditional urban cores there, and even then the central city is even less significant in terms of population or population growth than it is here.
Atlanta is a good example. Atlanta barely grew at all during the decade, 1000 people; but the metro area grew by a million. Atlanta is a mere 10% of its metro area; the rest is all suburbs, as far as the eye can see (and of course, Atlanta, like Seattle, contains large areas of "city" that are completely suburban in design -- detached single-family houses on large grassed lots).
The bottom of the list, on the other hand, contains precisely those old-line cities that most resemble that "core of the city" you like so much: New Orleans, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Providence, Rochester, New York, Boston, Milwaukee. Not all of these metros are shrinking (only the first five), nor are they all economically sick -- but they're not in the vanguard of where Americans live and work. All of them have, in fact, shed jobs -- Detroit by a half million, almost a quarter of all jobs in the metro area. Some of that's come back since 2010, but still. It's nice that Detroit has cool things happening in it -- I'm rooting for them -- but it's no Las Vegas. History is not on your side.
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After that is Raleigh-Cary, NC; Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX; Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill, NC/SC; Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA; Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL; Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale, AZ; Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX; San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX; and Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA. Only a couple of traditional urban cores there, and even then the central city is even less significant in terms of population or population growth than it is here.
Atlanta is a good example. Atlanta barely grew at all during the decade, 1000 people; but the metro area grew by a million. Atlanta is a mere 10% of its metro area; the rest is all suburbs, as far as the eye can see (and of course, Atlanta, like Seattle, contains large areas of "city" that are completely suburban in design -- detached single-family houses on large grassed lots).
The bottom of the list, on the other hand, contains precisely those old-line cities that most resemble that "core of the city" you like so much: New Orleans, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Providence, Rochester, New York, Boston, Milwaukee. Not all of these metros are shrinking (only the first five), nor are they all economically sick -- but they're not in the vanguard of where Americans live and work. All of them have, in fact, shed jobs -- Detroit by a half million, almost a quarter of all jobs in the metro area. Some of that's come back since 2010, but still. It's nice that Detroit has cool things happening in it -- I'm rooting for them -- but it's no Las Vegas. History is not on your side.
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