Regentrification and the Suburban Doughnut
Posted by Sonja Ebron
With the price of oil going through the roof, it’s been interesting to catalog the links to transportation, consumer goods and food. With the credit crunch in full swing, we see there are also links to housing patterns. From blackEnergy’s archives, April 2005:
I had an interesting conversation this morning with a brotha in St. Louis. He’s concerned about the regentrification of our inner cities and sees it happening all over the country. Upper middle-class White people are buying up depressed properties neighborhood by neighborhood, investing tons of money in them, and moving in. Property values rise and Black folks can’t hang on.
At the same time, I’m seeing middle-class Blacks taking over the suburbs. In my neck of the woods just south of Atlanta, the first majority-Black county commission has been elected, accompanied by a Black mayor, district attorney and sheriff. As an indication of the new attitude, the sheriff has been brash enough to try to fire (at gunpoint, y’all) most of the White deputies. As Blacks spread even farther south, White flight can’t fly fast enough. I’m left to wonder where those attempting to fly will land. On the outskirts of the metro area, there’s the natural beauty of real country but no development and no jobs. People in the suburbs already commute an hour each way into north Atlanta. And it’s getting way too expensive to move in-town. Are they trapped in the middle? Are they finally stuck with having to live next to Blacks?
Don’t get it twisted. There are plenty of suburban White people living in integrated neighborhoods with no problem. But there are also plenty of “for sale” signs. Some folks are moving to cramped locations in regentrified neighborhoods in town, while others are hoping the job commute won’t double once they move into their new country mansions. What will happen when the U.S. housing bubble finally pops and all flights out of suburbia are grounded? Watch out for that powder keg!
Anyway, I was struck on the phone this morning by the notion that energy prices might be driving (no pun intended) the regentrification of cities. For sure, we’re only just now seeing the price of gasoline get scary, but the demand/supply crunch that’s causing it has been forecast for years. We will soon reach a limit on how much oil we can get out of the ground each day. If oil prices continue to rise as they have for the past year — and all indications are that they will — then commuting to work will become less viable economically. Most of us didn’t get the memo. So we didn’t factor into our mortgages the potential for sharp increases in gasoline (and utilities) five years out. And that means we paid too much for our suburban castles.
The middle class is being slowly wiped out, with most households getting poorer and a few leaping into real wealth. So we may see in the next decade a housing pattern with a diverse and upwardly mobile class in the inner cities, wealthy and poor Whites on the outskirts, and middle-class Blacks and Whites in a tension-filled middle. (Keeping it real, poor Blacks will be in jail.) You want my advice? If you have some space in-town, put every dime into it and stay put! Those property taxes will be nothing compared to the cost of commuting and the stress of living “out there” in the suburban doughnut.
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2 Responses to “Regentrification and the Suburban Doughnut”
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July 4th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
I agree that living in town is the best bet. First of all it minimizes the need for urban sprawl, saves gas money, reduces pollution in the air and become more of a neighborhood when you find yourself walking to work, grocery store, etc. instead of shutting yourself off in your car.
Dagny
http://www.onnotextiles.com
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July 4th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Dagny, there are lots of economic benefits to living in the city these days, but the neighborhood connection you mentioned has the be the most important. We’re all going to have to learn from each other how to get things that will be increasingly more difficult to get.
Thanx for commenting!