Public Transportation and Smart Growth

We are talking about people from the East Coast or even Europe who has the education desired AND have traveled aboard and have experience aboard. Most US residents who had never been aboard, do not even make the final cut to be interviewed.

On top of that, this is mostly a East Coast Phenomenon. Most people look at those suburbs as nothing but urban areas without mass transit. Thus why move to such an area when you can live in an area where mass transit is available. I remember in the 1960s hearing my father talking to a man on his Post Office Route about then recent development, that just a few years before he had gone dove hunting in the area which then had housing. A "True" Suburb always retain some rural characteristics, but when those are gone, it is nothing but an urban area, through it retains the name of being a Suburb. That is the problem a lot of these managers and finding out, they are NOT in a suburban community any more, but an Urban community without mass transit. Worse an Urban area designed that business and residential areas are MILES apart. Thus it is the worse of the Urban Area, a lot of people and traffic and lots of red lights, and the worse suburbia, you have to travel MILES to get anywhere, including from home to work in addition to school, shop , gym etc.

This is compounded by gentrification of Urban Areas. The housing closest to old urban centers are getting to be around 150 years old. That is the age, unless extensive work is done on them, it is cheaper to tear down and build new. In many ways these older neighborhoods are like the green country fields of the 1950, cheap to buy in mass, then build high end homes on that cheap land and sell at a huge profit. These tend to be in what 40 years ago were considered "Bad Neighborhoods" but today are mostly empty shacks. These areas tend to have excellent mass transit and very good Police patrols. They are close to urban centers and with the expansion of bike ways along old railroad right of ways, can be seen as bicycle friendly. These areas still have a lot of red lights and crime, but the crime is about the same as in the suburbs so NOT that much of a factor today. The big question for most buyers are the schools, If the buyer have no children not an issue for them (Singles, young adults and older adults whose children are in collage). Schools are still a HUGE factor for most people with children (and thus the push for "Charter Schools" to give these parents the option of taking their children out of the Public Schools and into a better school and still stay in the City).

Back to urban areas and away from Schools. Housing in urban areas are getting to the age they have to be rebuilt or torn down. That makes them cheap. Thus housing can not longer be rented out for that is how bad a condition it is in. My Father delivered mail in one such area 30 years ago, and in whole neighborhoods you had one house rented out, the rest were not occupied. That is an idea area for someone to come in, tear out the old housing and build new.

In my area I have seen this in older neighborhoods, starting with the old abandoned steel mills. The area right next to the old Steel Mill in the 1940s that area was known to be a bad neighborhood, it remained bad till the 1990s when it was redeveloped along with the old steel mill site into a shopping complex (the old Steel Mill) and high end housing (the old bad neighborhood). A new Rails to Trail route was built in the area. This also helped the older section of town around that development, as people moved into that area and rebuilt most of the homes to modern standards. Most of these older homes just needed a face lift outside, but inside were gutted and rewired and new plumbing to meet modern living standards.

In larger cities these are near Universities and thus a lot of young graduates are use to these areas, that helps the gentrification. These areas are attractive to them and so they go into these areas.

Thus gentrification is also part of this movement, as homes in what use to be called slums become so cheap, it is almost like building on virgin ground. Why move to the suburbs when all you want is in the city and the suburbs are nothing more then an extension of that city AND with none of the advantages of the city. Thus you see young adults without children, older adults without children moving into these urban areas. Families with School Age Children tend to still want the Suburbs, but only do to better schools and if that issue is addressed, they would be moving into the Urban core.

Please note, the older Trolley Suburbs of the 1890s to the 1920s are becoming the new slums. These homes have some life left into them, and thus have some value. These home are still inhabitable without major repair. Thus the poor are slowly moving into these older trolley suburbs as the are push out of the urban core. The poor can NOT afford to upgrade their homes, so they have to abandon them when the house because uninhabitable. With minimum care a home lasts about 150 years, and the older inner city homes that made the slums of most cities from the 1930s till abut 1990 have past that life expectancy. Those homes built from the 1830s till the 1890s are the homes either being torn down and replaced OR Gutted and updated today. The poor can not PAID for that type of work, so they moved into homes that has some life left in them and today that is the older trolley suburbs of the 1890 to 1930 period. The Trolley Suburbs homes have 30 to 50 years life left in them but need a lot of care, thus low valued and thus low rent. On the other hand they have SOME value and thus not like buying vacant land for development as is the case with homes in the older areas of urban areas.

Homes tend to have a set life span:

1. Original owners and builders. These tend to be high wage earners and build they homes to what they want and then stay in them from 20 to 50 years.

2. Second buyers. These tend to be more working class as opposed to upper middle class people (and that goes for homes built for Upper Middle Class AND for working class people). They tend to stay in them 20-50 years.

3. Third buyers, if a home is lived in by the previous two owners less then 50 years, these tend to be working class people who also live in the home 20 to 50 years.

The above three groups overlap to a great degree, with many homes being lived by one of them 50 years then by someone else for 20 years. In recent decades you have seen a greater movement of people and thus a shorter stay, but the tendency is about 25 years each for the above three generations.

4. The Fourth Generation, this group tends to stay in the home 20 to 25 years. They WANT to stay in the home the rest of their lives, but do NOT have the financial security to do so. They are working class, but the lower end of the working class, thus move more often then the above three groups. In many homes this is the third generation, for the first two group stay in the home 75 years or longer combined together. This tends to be the last generation that does any real work on the home to update it or improve it.

5, At about 100 years old, the home starts to enter the age of more frequent residents, it tends to become rental property as the tenants have an even worse financial security then the fourth generation. Residents try to stay for five or more years, but you have residents who stay in the unit one year or less. Updating of the house stops. Repairs are made just to keep the house habitable. After about 50 years, the house has declined so much it is either torn down OR sold for almost nothing to someone who guts it and rebuilt it almost to new standard and the above process re-starts.

There are variation of the above, early homes in a neighborhood will not see their price decline till the later built homes in their area see a price decline (i.e. an Old Farm house built 50 years before the surrounding new suburban housing was built, would only see the above when the rest of the housing around it enters that decline). This does not apply to Public Housing, for such housing has its own rules, including it was built for low income people (and before 1974 Low Income was the only FEDERAL restriction, thus most Public Housing required steady income and refused to rent to people on welfare, thus Public Housing has a good reputation before Congress told them they had to rent to people on Welfare and other "Low Low Low Income people", "Low Low Low income" was a term invented in 1974 to help defined who could get into public housing for "low Income" included anyone making less the about $50,00).

Low-Low-Low Income is now called "Extremely low income" and the limit is $11,950 in Cambria County PA ($23,250 in San Francisco CA)

Low Low Income is now called "Very Low Income" and the limit is $19,950 in Cambria County PA ($38,759 in San Francisco CA)

Low Income is $31,850 ($62,050 in San Francisco)

https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/il/il2014/2014summary.odn

To look up the amount in your county:

https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/il/il2014/select_Geography.odn

https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/il/fmr98/sect8.html

Yes, Very Low income in San Francisco is higher then "Low Income" In Johnstown PA (the largest city in Cambria County PA).