An Upside Down Housing Market

jsalera — Sun, 11 May 2008 15:35:29 GMT

Any new building, no matter how much green technology it incorporates, represents a new impact on the environment. An older building represents a heavy prior investment of resources and energy. If you tear that building down, that investment is wasted – but if you keep the building in use, you're saving energy and conserving resources. That's what people mean when they call preservation the ultimate recycling. Richard Moe, President of the National Trust.

Old is Green

New developments in the historic housing preservation movement and the merging of it with environmentalism is giving rise to a shift in housing patterns. These new developments are already apparent in big cities as old housing stock, which is considered well built by today's standards, is now a sought after commodity. This is already happening in Detroit where NPR has reported that out of state buyers consider older homes an absolute value and are snapping them up to live in or rent. The prices of these well-built homes have fallen to almost unheard of prices as a consequence of the subprime mortgage crisis and high energy prices.

The January / February issue of Preservation, the Magazine of the National Trust for Historic Preservation gives a great view of the new trends. In the past, building preservation was seen as saving well known historical landmarks (coincidentally, the paper issue lists Tiger Stadium in the threatened category) as a history or cultural project, like Lincoln's cottage, which is featured in the issue . High profile buildings like these are the usual suspects when historical building preservation comes to mind.

Because the economics of the new home preservation work on a small scale it has now moved to local residential areas. The issue spotlights an 80,000 home neighborhood in Chicago called the bungalow belt. These homes, mass produced in the 1920's for the working class, have emerged from years of “apathy and neglect” and are now “going green - and enjoying a massive revival” with middle-class families moving in and restoring them with ecofriendly features.”

These home are not unlike the neighborhood of homes you find in Detroit, Pontiac, Flint or many other old metropolitan cities across the country. You'll also find a smattering of these older homes throughout the older parts of the suburbs and in rural areas across the country. The superb materials and craftsmanship of these homes are becoming an irresistible lure and an option to the cheaply built McMansion homes and condominiums. In a twist of fate this trend could make Detroit and other urban communities, with their abundance of old homes, neighborhoods of choice.

Slumburbia?

The subprime crisis is just the tip of the iceberg. Fundamental changes in American life may turn today's McMansions into tomorrow’s tenements.

An Atlanatic.com article by Christoper Leinberger titled “The Next Slum” chronicles the fall of McMansion neighborhoods where foreclosures, empty houses in disrepair and gang activity are the trend. The new term for these neighborhoods is “slumburbia”. The trends for McMansion suburbs look long term. A study by the Metropolitan Institute of Virginia Tech showing demographic, construction, house prices, and consumer preferences trends all moving against McMansion neighborhoods. The study forecasts “ likely surplus of 22 million large-lot homes (homes built on a sixth of an acre or more ) by 2025 – that's roughly 40 percent of the large-lot homes in existence today.”

With high energy prices forcing people to take a second look at their driving patterns, they are choosing to live closer to where they work. And with the rediscovery of the well-built housing stock in in urban areas, suburban sprawl is under siege.

***As I was putting this together over the last couple of days news broke that GM has purchased it's headquarters in Detroit and and some office buildings in Pontiac, both of which it was previously renting, which reinforces the notion that urban properties are a good bargain.

***Preservation Magazine is asking for help in saving Whittier Elementary School in Royal Oak. It's planned to be demolished in July. It would be nice to see the state step in and save it.

Whittier Elementary School is one of the remaining examples of a Frederick Madison-designed Royal Oak elementary school. Built in 1922 and named for American poet John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), Madison designed the building in the Collegiate Gothic style. Whittier was built by Norman A. Starr, a prominent Royal Oak builder.

An Introduction

jsalera — Sun, 11 May 2008 06:15:08 GMT

My Name is John Salera and I have been writing here under the ID left of liberal. For a variety of reasons I've decided to write here under my own name.

What's in a name. A summation of a persons life. I'm a fifty-plus white guy who lives in suburban Detroit. I'm a father of two kids and I come from a family of life long Democrats. I worked for more than twenty years in a UAW shop which was closed because of NAFTA in 1998. It was interesting, to say the least, to see a thirty and out pension evaporate before my eyes. I'm not complaining (who would listen), I've done well by my standards since. Certainly not rich and certainly not poor.
I've been voting for third parties since the early nineties. The only Democrat I've voted for in the last 15 years was Jeff Fieger in his run for governor. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, I didn't leave the Democrats they left me in a massive shift to corporate economic, domestic and foreign policy.

This year I will be voting for Barack Obama. I'm not an Obama cultist. I'm a realist about politics. I know Obama really does take lots of money from lobbyists and has many lobbyists connected to his campaign. I do see enough difference in him to give him a chance. I'm drawn to his views on the criminal justice system, social security (which he is not talking enough about), his views on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (which he seems to be backtracking from under pressure - Jimmy Carters position is fine with me), and his openness to people of different stripes.

I won't be voting for Carl Levin because of his support for the Iraq war and vote for the latest free trade treaty. I don't believe a congressman should hold the same office for fifty years. Jennifer Granholm is surely a cut above John Engler but in some ways she has squandered much of her term. I'm hoping her recent utility reform legislation dies in the senate. With the tremendous surge in alternate energy technology the last thing Michigan needs is to turn over its energy future to the old guard utilities in the form of monopolies. I hope to write more about that later.

That's all, you wanna know more - ask.

Michigan Liberal: - Recommended Diaries

An Upside Down Housing Market

An Introduction