NewGeography.com blogs

This is the introduction to a new report published by the Chapman University Center for Demographics and Policy titled, “Fading Promise: Millennial Prospects in the Golden State.” Read the full report (pdf) here.

Along with the report, a new video from Chapman University and the California Association of Realtors talks about the housing crisis in California. Watch it here.

Throughout much of American history there was a common assumption that each generation would do better than the previous one. That assumption is now being undermined. The emerging millennial generation faces unprecedented economic challenges and, according to many predictions, diminished prospects.

These problems are magnified for California’s millennials. Their incomes are not higher than those in key competitive states, but the costs they must absorb, particularly for housing, are the highest in the country. Their prospects for homeownership are increasingly remote, given that the state’s housing prices have risen to 230 percent of the national average.

The long-term implications for California are profound. The lack of housing that can be afforded by middle-income households—particularly to buy—has driven substantial out-migration from the state. California has experienced a net loss in migrants for at least the last 15 years. This includes younger families—those in their late 30s and early 40s—which is the group most likely to leave the state. For every two home buyers who came to the state, five homeowners left, notes the research firm Core Logic.

Over the next decade, as the majority of millennials reach these ages, the long-term implications for employers and communities are profound. Rising house prices and rents are already impacting employers, including in Silicon Valley. High prices can also mean a rapidly aging population, something that is likely to sap the economic potential and innovation in our communities.

Many of California’s problems are self-inflicted, the result of misguided policies that have tended to inflate land prices and drive up the cost of all kinds of housing. Since housing is the largest household expenditure, this pushes up the cost of living.

California still has the landmass and the appeal to power opportunity for the next generation. It is up to us to reverse the course, and restore The California Dream for the next generation.

Read the full report here.

A Globe and Mail article on April 25 cites Ryerson University research found that Ontario's urban containment based growth controls have "spurred soaring increases in house prices in the Toronto region by limiting construction of new low-rise family homes..." This effect was predicted by a number of analysts when the program was being formulated more than a decade ago and has been associated with huge price increases relative to incomes in such widely distributed metropolitan areas as Vancouver, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Sydney, Auckland, Melbourne and others.

According to reporter Janet McFarland, the Centre for Urban Research and Land Development report identified “'a marked mismatch” between the types of units completed and the types demanded, according to the report from the Centre for Urban Research and Land Development at Ryerson University in Toronto." The report concludes that "The public discussion on the fundamental causes behind the rise in prices of ground-related housing (singles, semis and townhouses) in the GTA over the past decade by ignoring or downplaying the role played by the shortfall of serviced sites available to build new homes misses the only viable solution to dealing with deteriorating longer-term affordability – significantly increasing the number of new ground-related housing units built."

Over the 13 years of the Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey, Toronto's housing affordability has substantially worsened, with median prices at 3.8 times median incomes in 2004 (before the growth controls were fully implemented) to 7.7 times in 2016. This measure, the "median multiple," had changed little between 1970 and 2004, when land use regulations were more liberal in the Toronto area.

Without liberalization of the housing market to permit supply that meets demand (not only in numbers but also in preferred type of housing), Toronto can expect its house prices to rise even more. Already, Vancouver and Sydney, for example are more than 50 percent higher (at median multiples of 11.8 and 12.2 respectively).

A full page ad in today’s Washington Post (April 21, 2017) featured former Democratic Governor Benjamin J. Cayetano asking President Trump to stop further funding for the Honolulu rail project. The project has ballooned in cost from $5 billion to $10 billion, with most of the funding coming from local sources. There are serious concerns about the ability of Honolulu or Hawaii to afford completion of the project. Cayetano says that the line will be the most costly in the world. A proof of the ad is below and a pdf is available here.

Several Newgeography.com articles have followed this issue:

http://www.newgeography.com/content/005156-live-honolulu-hart-rail-a-megaproject-failure-making

http://www.newgeography.com/content/002316-honolulu-mega-rail-project-a-micro-city

http://www.newgeography.com/content/005410-honolulu-rail-from-46-b-86-b-eight-years-now-what

http://www.newgeography.com/content/005257-honolulu-rail-it-just-keeps-getting-worse

http://www.newgeography.com/content/002719-honolulu%E2%80%99s-money-train

http://www.newgeography.com/content/001912-honolulu-rail-costs-balloon-ridership-projections-called-high

Here is the L.A. Times noting that LA Metro ridership is still falling -- even though billions have been (mis)spent on extra capacity over the last 30+ years. By my count that's the second time this year that the Times has broached this tender topic. As a member in good standing of the LA "good government" (googoo) establishment, the paper had for many years chosen to tip-toe around the bad news.

Readers may know that some of us began flogging the dead horse in the mid-1970s. Go to the attached proceedings and read the contribution by the late UCLA Prof. George Hilton. He was among the first to write sensibly and clearly that LA is not NY -- and trying to make it so would be a phenomenal waste. But even LA Times coverage will be for naught. Billions more will be spent. Pouring good money after bad is what the great and the good in city hall do for a living.

We are in the the early years Uber/Lyft and all manner of ICT information sharing.  These are the game-changers. For the past two months, my wife and I have graduated from a two-car household to a one-car-plus-Uber-plus-walkable-neighborhood HH. The game-changers are here. Conventional transit was never a game-changer.

Population density may sound like the most mundane of metrics, a column heading in a city planner’s spreadsheet, but in cities across the U.S. it’s been a source of cultural controversy, guiding where people move and why.

To those seeking a more urban lifestyle, “density” implies walkability, car-free transit, and cosmopolitan culture. To others, “density” equates to crowds, cramped quarters, and the inability to find parking. The debate arises around nearly every planning decision under consideration in cities like Charlotte, often devolving into vicious debate.

Where these debates often breakdown is when it comes to the relative nature of population density: How dense is ‘dense’? Is Houston dense? We should all be able to agree that New York is dense, right? Well, not compared to Paris, let alone Manila.

In order to put Houston’s density in perspective, we put together a series of visualizations showing how large Houston would be if it were as dense as other cities.

If Houston’s population lived as close together as New York’s does, how much space would they take up? Compared to cities like Mumbai, or even Los Angeles, Houston is a sprawl, while compared with Jacksonville and Anchorage, Houston is practically Manhattan.

Note that Houston’s city limits were used for this visualization, not the metro area. While some readers may object to the exclusion of surrounding locales, metro areas are not as well defined as city limits and that is often a matter of debate itself.