I'd have to agree with the Beige findings when it comes to Minneapolis (like I have a choice!)
So much retail space has been built around here... I'm starting to see a lot of areas with lots of vacancies.
The most striking (to me anyway):
One suburb (Brooklyn Center) has a large mall and a bunch of surrounding strip malls. The Mall is I'd guess 1/4th of the stores are vacant and what is there doesn't look vibrant. There is an entire EMPTY stripmall just a few blocks away.
You can see the "Circuit City" imprint where they took the letters off of the building.
Then, just down the road (in Brooklyn Park) there is a MASSIVE new suburban development that has been put up rapidly in the last few years.
until recently, that was always packed and full... now Krispy Kreme just closed
Mall of America is doing well (as always).
Minneapolis is a forgotten metro. we're not that small, not that big... but the amount of CRE put up here has been astounding.
we also have some places that were slated as RRE (condos) that sold nothing, so converted to (apartments). Does that count as RRE or CRE?. Does that show up in the CRE statistics?
Well, there is no visible pull-back in the Seattle area. In fact, the stores and restaurants seem to be packed, making shopping trips a pain in the neck.
Of course, the masses of cranes putting up forests of condo towers throughout the Puget Sound are an ominous sign of things to come...
Here in Phoenix the painful reality is beginning to set in.
We shall see how long it takes for a recovery to start, but first the mortgage mess needs to be liquidified, one way or another.
I do see that metals will unfortunately settle into a higher trading range over the summer, but hey, the Chinese can buy all they want on the world market as fast as those bonds can be sold;-}
High gas prices will make the exurbs stagnate beyond all belief.
Commuting costs are greater for the exurbs and rural areas. Housing prices significantly stagnated in rural areas due to these factors in the 70s show. Also I am a bit of a Kunstler fan for the amusement factor. He has great rants. Not always right by any means, but great rants.
As commuting costs begin to eat more and more of a budget, folks look to cut back. Same with food/energy. This is soooo boring, it is 1973 folks!! Not 1981, but 1973. First big energy shock hitting the system, complete with folks going- there is no problem!
Yeah, problem. If I have to blow $300 a month more to drive out to exurbia from my job, my house payment had better be $300 a month cheaper, or I might just move.
All of this eternal cruising around the block for short errands is going bye bye.
we also have some places that were slated as RRE (condos) that sold nothing, so converted to (apartments). Does that count as RRE or CRE?. Does that show up in the CRE statistics?
I live very close to Central and Broadway. If I face south, towards the river, I can't throw a rock without hitting an empty townhouse or condominium building.
AKA Correspondent asks:
Dawg-
So you're saying the exurbs wouldn't benefit from cheap gas?
Nope, not disproportionately. Energy is increasingly fungible and there is no clear cenurb v exurb total energy difference. For but one interesting and unobvious impact; lower gasoline prices would serve to slow the trend of jobs leaving the cenurbs.
Yeah, problem. If I have to blow $300 a month more to drive out to exurbia from my job, my house payment had better be $300 a month cheaper, or I might just move.
But its more efficient to live in the exurbs! This is why people in Bangladesh live 50 miles from their sweatshops and drive to them in Ford Expeditions. It uses less energy than any other mode of living.
Yesterday, I could not even find a parking space at the little strip mall where I go for lunch. And the rush hour traffic has become steadily worse during the past 2+ years. If we are in a recession, there is zero evidence for it near me.
But then, my local businesses have names like "Apple", "Google", and "Cisco"...
Near broadway is that huge mixed-income development that they built. Last I heard, the affluent weren't buying in there (big surprise... rich people don't want to move into a razed ghetto)
Near the Guthrie... ditto
I live near Lake Harriet and Calhoun. When I walk to Uptown, there are complexes after complexes... Today I drove and saw "Le Parisien" on Lyndale... it was condos... now its rentals.
but the worst IMO is in the warehouse district.
the real problem: this sort of stuff is EVERYWHERE. who knew that so many people wanted to live in condos?
but it does leave my question:
do these buildings (that were planned as residential condos but then converted last minute to apartments) count as RRE or CRE?
To me, the major problem with the suburbs/exurbs isn't the drive
it's the size of the houses.
If I recall you live in California... so you may not understand this...
but here in Minneapolis most houses in the city would be around 1600sq ft. Many people live in condos/apartments (500-1000 sq ft)
but in the suburbs and exurbs... most of the houses START at 2000sq ft... and further out you see these 2000-6000 sq ft behemoths.
I'd hate to heat that!
And I have friends in inland empire who were paying over a THOUSAND dollars a month on energy in summer.
if energy goes up, it may not be the end of exurbs/suburbs per se... but they'll have to reorganize and consolidate...
(for example: chopping up those 6000 sq ft homes into 5-6 person dwellings...)
Yeah, problem. If I have to blow $300 a month more to drive out to exurbia from my job, my house payment had better be $300 a month cheaper, or I might just move.
I live right in the heart of Minneapolis. Working downtown would mean walking three blocks to a bus stop, and getting off of it 10-15 minutes later.
So, what am I doing? Interviewing for a job in Wayzata.
"Yesterday, I could not even find a parking space at the little strip mall where I go for lunch. And the rush hour traffic has become steadily worse during the past 2+ years. If we are in a recession, there is zero evidence for it near me.
But then, my local businesses have names like "Apple", "Google", and "Cisco"..."
Well, that's the problem with first-person anecdotal data. No one spot we can report from is "typical."
Over the hill in Santa Cruz, I'm working in a half-empty building that was thrown up for the dot-com boom and never fully occupied. Thing never came back from the dot-com boom here; or if they did, they came back overseas. We've lot a lot of other industry to globalization, too.
Things always look rosiest next to corporate HQ; lots of nice cars in the lot. That's where you live.
Yeah, problem. If I have to blow $300 a month more to drive out to exurbia from my job, my house payment had better be $300 a month cheaper, or I might just move.
First Bank of Beverly Hills 23901 Calabasas Road, Suite 1050 Calabasas CA 91302-1502 SN
SN=Substantial Non-compliance
Beverly Hills Bancorp Inc., is a diversified financial services company and conducts its banking and lending operations through its primary subsidiary, First Bank of Beverly Hills. The Bank focuses on niche products, including the origination and acquisition of commercial and multi-family real estate loans. (copied and pasted from their website)
I live in Los Angeles, home of the exurb. A while back, pre-$3-gas, I moved closer to my office in the city, going from an exurb-esque commute down to a 10-minute surface street drive. No pay raise, no other financial changes.
The gasoline savings alone were a huge boon to my personal saving rate.
My understanding of Rob's underlying theory is: if you live in the exurbs, don't drive to the "big city" that often and your commute costs won't be that much higher. That may be true, but in real life, we want to go to the Staples Center, or to Sunset Blvd, or to Disney Concert Hall, or to the beach. The extra fuel costs add up from the exurbs. Quickly.
The best benefit, though, was the overall time saved in my weekday life. Coworkers were extremely jealous that I wasn't getting up at 6am and out the door at 7 in order to get to the office at a decent hour, and then back home at 7pm.
I guess the moral of the story is: live close to where you work. It makes a huge difference.
We do the same thing but a bit tighter. We bike to work (could walk if we had to) and the store, precisely because I expect peak oil theory to pan out (it will just take alonggggggg time but hell I'm always early to the party).
I don't know what you mean by "close suburbs" so let's say I live in LA proper. I would strongly advise you to live near where you work; if you're working downtown, I would suggest Silverlake rather than living in downtown proper, but if your job is anywhere on the westside, just live a few blocks away. Century City, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, West LA, even Culver City, Venice, etc, are all fine places, and (imho) way preferable to driving in from Rancho Del Exurb.
Mark writes:
I don't subscribe to Rob Dawg's newsletter.
I live in Los Angeles, home of the exurb.
If you subscribed to my newsletter you'd have known Los angeles is the antithesis of the exurb. number one with a bullet by far the densest Urban Area in the US.
I guess the moral of the story is: live close to where you work. It makes a huge difference.
That's an excellent strategy. Now look at the last 30 years of job growth and tell me where most people should live.
That's an excellent strategy. Now look at the last 30 years of job growth and tell me where most people should live.
Rob toss in $4 gas, $4 a gallon heating oil and tell me where you should live. Around these parts, I suggest you look at property values in and around the city, and property values as you stretch further out. That tells the whole story. And the first job slashing occurs out in these areas too, not at corporate headquarters in the city.
I know you're an evangelist for this, but I don't see it here. In fact, I do believe the hits to property are worst in CA in exburbia and dropping further. Not in SF, LA and close in.
Nemo - just wait. Tech hasnt taken a dump yet, but it's coming. And the timing will be exquisite, because it will line up with the beginning of the realization that your little part of the world also had a ton of junk loans. Except they are the particularly nasty type that havent even really begun to recast - I/O neg am, and assorted crap. It's going to be a big ol mess there, but for now, enjoy the happy days while they last.
When we lived in DC, both spouse and I worked downtown and did the DC metro. It eliminated the sheer hassle and cost of not only gas, but also parking. Good news was that I was also able to get work done on the system so that could have evenings more free than if I'd driven.
"That's an excellent strategy. Now look at the last 30 years of job growth and tell me where most people should live."
The next 30 years of the economy will work on the same assumptions as the last? That sort of thinking gets people in trouble.
Having driven through a fair number of exurbs lately (in Stanislaus County, Ventura, and whatever the hell that thing is along 101 from Paso Robles to SM, no immediate growth potential strikes me. For sale signs -- do.
Rob, I think you missed my point: Los Angeles proper is not an exurb.
Monrovia is an exurb.
Azusa is an exurb.
Diamond Bar is an exurb.
Rancho Cucamonga is an exurb.
Brea is an exurb.
Camarillo is an exurb.
If there is more job growth in Camarillo, that is undoubtably due to the opening of another Applebees. Not the sort of job growth we're looking for, no?
Yearning to Learn writes:
Rob:
we've had this argument many times before.
It isn't an argument, it is a fundamental misdirection on the part of urban advocates to appeal to emotion rather than deal with the FActs.
To me, the major problem with the suburbs/exurbs isn't the drive it's the size of the houses.
That's a good point but understand that is a location independent variable not particularly exurban correlated.
If I recall you live in California... so you may not understand this...
I haven't always been from California. Lot's of old urban Massachusetts exposure as well.
but here in Minneapolis most houses in the city would be around 1600sq ft. Many people live in condos/apartments (500-1000 sq ft)
but in the suburbs and exurbs... most of the houses START at 2000sq ft... and further out you see these 2000-6000 sq ft behemoths.
We see them everywhere.
I'd hate to heat that!
Yeah, kinda like a Boston brownstone or Worcester three story.
And I have friends in inland empire who were paying over a THOUSAND dollars a month on energy in summer.
Ummmm yeah? You won't get an argument from me except to note that they have those high bills be of the intense urbanization of the built environment where they live. Used to be a swamp cooler and careful design and low density made it cheap to live in the desert.
if energy goes up, it may not be the end of exurbs/suburbs per se... but they'll have to reorganize and consolidate...
(for example: chopping up those 6000 sq ft homes into 5-6 person dwellings...)
And if energy goes up what are transit agencies going to do? What happens to cities when the ability to subsidize transit diminishes? Total energy footprint isn't just gas in the tank.
Let's do a little peering into the future. If electricity doubles I've got about 3000 sf of unobstructed roof and in prime sunny days territory. How many solar panels can you fit on the roof of a TOD condo in Portland?
Rob Dawg - LA is more DENSE than NYC? I find that hard to believe.
LA takes up more area, but NYC has to be more dense.
LA is much more dense. Los Angeles crams 13,829,000 into 2,244sq mi. New York spreads out their 19,712,000 over a sprawling 4,349sq mi. Some 40% denser. Welcome to the world of urban planners and the lies they tell.
How many jobs are actually downtown these days anyway? I've lived in SoCal for over 20 years, and I've worked downtown exactly once for less than a year.
Venice currently has seen the greatest rise in price appreciati0on per sq. ft. in LA area over the past year or so. If I'd only bought on Abbot Kinney when I had the chance in '91...
Monrovia is an exurb. 2,685.8/sq mi
Azusa is an exurb. 5,023.7/sq mi
Diamond Bar is an exurb. 3,813.2/sq mi
Rancho Cucamonga is an exurb. 3,411.4/sq mi
Brea is an exurb. 3,273.5/sq mi
Camarillo is an exurb. 3,015.3/sq mi
Los Angeles 8,205/sq mi
Sorry but there's nothing about 3000 persons per square mile that is exurban in nature.
isamu writes:
Rob Dawg is just playing games with arbitrary boundaries. yawn.
Sir, you are welcome to disagree with the CENSUS but don't try to put the blame for Urban Area definitions on my shoulders. Get back to us with the reply when you rake them over the coals for their use of "arbitrary boundaries."
Let's do a little peering into the future. If electricity doubles I've got about 3000 sf of unobstructed roof and in prime sunny days territory. How many solar panels can you fit on the roof of a TOD condo in Portland?
Yeah, I'm with the Dawg on this one. The fact is, the cost of gasoline is very cheap on an inflation-adjusted basis. The reason most people buy in exurbs isn't to buy a giant house per se, but to buy anything at all. Urban cores tend to be either prohibitively expensive, dangerous, or both. It's much cheaper to drive in than buy in.
We could always return to the levels of North Philadelphia in 1901- up to 25,000 persons per square mile.
Tenement slums, but lordy were they densely packed, and most folks walked to work. The horse manure stench was magnificent. We do tend to forget that a lot of urban density was the result of 19th century transportation problems and not 20th century.
Funny thing was the City of Philadelphia peaked in 1917, just as the subways were being constructed, and well before the automobile really hit it's stride.
Urban growth and decay has so many chimerical properties that are ignored by planners.
I've got to go with Rob on exurbia.
Old cities have dense cores of people and jobs. Newer cities have distributed houses and jobs. They have very little of a core.
In the future, office workers will be more likely to tele-commute. Exurbs will give way to people living where-the-hell-they-want and making a living.
I've got to go with Rob on exurbia.
Old cities have dense cores of people and jobs. Newer cities have distributed houses and jobs. They have very little of a core.
In the future, office workers will be more likely to tele-commute. Exurbs will give way to people living where-the-hell-they-want and making a living.
And robots running off nuclear fusion will do all the labour.
You are using the worse set of boundaries. The data in the Wikipedia article is the Census MSA density which includes vast tracts of desert over 100 miles from anything that a reasonable person would consider L.A. For example, Blythe, CA (on the Nevada state line, 150 miles from the outermost edges of L.A.) is considered as part of the L.A. metro area by the census. Rob is using the more realistic Urbanized area data which counts census tracts with a population of over 1000 people per square mile as part of the city.
Yeah, it must be a bummer to report on an 'economy' where in recent years a lot of what passed for 'prosperity' was actually a debt fuelled asset bubble that is now unravelling.
isamu writes:
RD: Sir, you are welcome to disagree with the CENSUS
Numbers quoted were from CENSUS data you fukcing drunk.
Ahhh a little projection goes a long way. You made a mistake to attribute the Urban Area definition to some manipulation on my part.
I don't need to respond because you have made my point in a way and to an extent I never could have hoped to achieve. All that remains is for you to step forward and take the credit.
By the way, for the sober it is spelled "fucking drunk" not "fukcing drunk" but the explanation is probably self evident to the casual observer.
Thanks for Beige Book comparison, CR. You should have emphasized the "Prices and Wages" section, because 2008's overwhelmingly negative compared to 1990's.
If energy goes up, it may not be the end of exurbs/suburbs per se... but they'll have to reorganize and consolidate...
(for example: chopping up those 6000 sq ft homes into 5-6 person dwellings...)
I'd like it if somebody did an overlay of median housing size and school district quality in the US.
Housing square footage has become the defacto dividing line between the lower and middle classes. If you want your kids to attend a high quality public school, well, you have to buy a house of at least X square feet.
And, if you don't want to build a house of X square feet we're going to force it with zoning laws and covenants.
See, living in a house of X square feet means that you probably have at least Y in income. And Y in income means your less likely to be a Z (crack addict, illegal immigrant, drop-out, take your pick).
Since property taxes provide most of the support for our public schools a whole county of X square feet housing means better facilities. Better facilities and less Z and we'll be able to attract better teachers.
You'll pay it long as the cost of X is even close to the cost of private tuition at a decent cenburb school. You'll pay it because during the day both you and your spouse are 40-60 miles away from your kids. If there is a problem, there isn't a D#%$ thing you can do about it.
How dare you provide data not in the party line? This blog is to prove we're in a recession, regardless of reality . Reminds me sometimes of the eastern part of my country of origin some time ago.
Rob, if your definition of an exurb is based upon population density, then the average commute from an LA exurb to downtown will be about 5 hours one way.
Just to be clear about what's meant by "Los Angeles" - it refers to both a city and a county. Most people when they say "LA" are actually referring to the greater LA area. If they say they live in "LA", more than likely probably live in a neighborhood or district with another name. Those communities used to be small cities or towns in their own right before getting gobbled up into Los Angeles county.
The actual geographic area and neighborhood of the city that is known as "Los Angeles" has a population of only 40,000.
Why do you think the exurbs will suffer disproportionately due to higher energy prices?
This might be something that dryfly can answer, but since energy costs associated with goods (in both production and delivery) can be distributed to all consumers, they will affect exurbs and urban areas equally. However energy costs related to personal consumption (heating and individual transportation) depend entirely on the person and their location, so if you live in a small apartment sharing walls with neighbors, you're heating bill will be less, and if you live in an area with efficient mass transit (or you can commute/do chores by bike/foot) your transportation costs will be less.
It is important to look at the YoY numbers. Otherwise one just trips into the deep traps that O-simply Joe loves to drop into:
"ATAÂ’s truck tonnage index fell 1.5 percent in 2007 from the previous year. ATA originally reported a 1.4 percent drop. DecemberÂ’s tonnage level, meanwhile, increased a modest 1.5 percent; down from the previously reported 4.1 percent gain. "
Question I am interested in dumping some US dollars...and would like to consider Bonds or treasury's...which is a better rate of return...thank you..and is treasurydirect.com a good site to start."
Borkafatty - You don't "dump US dollars" to buy US treasuries. Basically - a smaller investor has to buy treasuries with dollars. And if you're talking about US bonds - it's the same deal.
So I'm not sure what you're trying to do. Perhaps you could explain a bit more. Roby
Well, if you can kiss a lot of the exurbs goodbye, then don't you also have to kiss goodbye a lot of the municipal revenue bonds that paid for the exurban infrastructure?
What percent of a town has to become a ghost town before the financial burdens overwhelm the ability of the ghosts to pay for services?
If there's no need for so many schools in exurban ghost towns, who will pay off the school bonds?
"Except all those towns listed are in the middle of GD nowhere.
Alec"
Stupid comment from someone who knows nothing about LA, I presume. Every city mentioned is suburb. Exurb might be Vacaville. And Simi Valley, but Camarillo is even a suburb of Ventura, believe it or not.
Leave the LA discussions to those who know the area. Did you know that Long Beach is nearly half a million strong? You non-SoCal folks have no clue. I suppose you'd say Oakland was exurb, too, hey, genius? Shit, it's smaller than Long Beach, AND across a huge bay. Ooops, SF is less than a million, must be a suburb of San Jose.
Rob Dawg, give up, you can't teach the clueless when they don't know when they're given clues.
New York is more than three times as dense. The fact that it's adjacent to endless surburban sprawl doesn't reduce its density.
There's not much exurb in the sense of low-density development anywhere in Southern California. There are areas with severe deficits of jobs with long commutes to anyplace that has excess jobs. I think it's fair to call places like that "exurbs" since for some time we've seen similar large-scale medium-density bedroom communities all over the country referred to as exurbs. However, I don't think of San Gabriel Valley towns like Azusa as "exurbs". They're fairly well established with decent job availability. I think of places like Beaumont and Apple Valley, and with more lax definitions places like Palmdale, South Orange County, and the McMansion farms near Corona. (Not intended to be an exclusive list - just some places I've seen.)
Exurbanites absolutely do commute more than suburbanites, BTW - according to Fannie Mae. I'm sure they commute further than urbanites, too - do I actually need to find a ref for that?
Well, if you can kiss a lot of the exurbs goodbye, then don't you also have to kiss goodbye a lot of the municipal revenue bonds that paid for the exurban infrastructure?
That's an interesting question. The Exurbs are flexible. The buzzphrase will be "adaptive reuse." The Cenurbs are ossified and intransigent. They'll cut off their nose to spite their face. I also suspect the big oldburbs will not be able to whine to Uncle Sugar for another quick fix this time as Uncle Sugar is feeding his own habit.
Remember also that exurban infrastructure is very very cheap compared to what equivalent mechanisms in the big city cost.
Rob Dawg, give up, you can't teach the clueless when they don't know when they're given clues.
Anonymous
I hear ya but for every Michael D. Setty trying to score nasty points with his poor math skillz there's 20 silent eager learners who may take away something of value.
Rob Dawg - Respectfully - I don't think you understand what's going on in the muni market. Small retail investors took 75% of the California issue. Institutional investors took up more. The issue was oversubscribed - and the yields were repriced down (I get email alerts on these new issues).
Many issuers who were in the auction rate market are pre-refunding or calling or buying back issues and issuing new long term fixed rate debt. I have some lawyer friends who do this kind of work. They are working 24/7 these days.
The muni market has had its problems. But there was exactly one day of big disruption recently - Friday (when hedge funds got margin calls and dumped a lot of munis on the market) - with some excess mopped up Monday morning. If you chart the Bond Buyer Index (which I chart now since the demise of the muni bond futures contract) - things have settled down. Last time this happened was for a couple of days last August. I wish I could count on a minor market disruption every six months to do some buying - kind of like the semi-annual sales Bloomingdale's has on towels (smile).
I really don't lose any sleep over the muni market in general. OTOH - the problems in mortgage and other asset backed securities markets are - IMO - huge - and will be very difficult to solve.
Major Tom - The earnings yield on the SP500 was 5.39% at the close Friday. I get this particular piece of data from Barron's and chart it (have been charting it for years). Sebastian is I guess subscribing to Greenspan's SP500 valuation model - which works as a pretty good long term trading model (it's still on a buy from 2002 - it has only had 3 buys since 1995).
BTW - I do not agree about the secular bear market. Sideways for a long time is more like it (up and down and eventually going nowhere). Good for traders - even long term position traders. Bad for really long term buy and hold guys. Roby
The Exurbs are flexible. The buzzphrase will be "adaptive reuse."
Reuse as what? We seem to be heading towards a period of excess supply of both residential and commercial real estate, so what exactly will an exurb be able to offer? Their distance from the hustle and bustle of the city might be a nice selling point, but I can't think of many things that can both use that element and would not be hammered by a recession.
Mark writes:
By "adaptive reuse" I think Rob means turning an Applebees into a Chilis.
[LoL, good one.]
No, i was thinking more about turning Countrywide loan origination offices into loss mitigation workout centers and Amgen research facilities into designer drug labs.
Well, if we going to go OT, how about Thornburg Mortgage ( TMA).
Here's their 8K filed after hours: Expired
The Company received a letter from JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. ("JPMorgan"), dated February 28, 2008, after failing to meet a margin call of approximately $28 million. The letter states that an Event of Default as defined under that certain Master Repurchase Agreement, dated as of August 3, 2006, as amended on February 7, 2007 by and between the Company and JPMorgan (the "Agreement") exists. The letter also notified the Company that JPMorgan will exercise its rights under the Agreement. The aggregate amount of proceeds lent to the Company under the Agreement was approximately $320 million.
The Company's receipt of the notice of an event of default has triggered cross-defaults under all of the Company's other reverse repurchase agreements and its secured loan agreements. The Company's obligations under those agreements are material.
Stock down 50% after hour but that's only down 1.50 odd since percentages of nothing are kinda nothing.
Their CEO always looked so forthright and believable on Cramer when he talked of the temporary nature of his difficulties - thank god I read the 10Qs.
I guess the moral of the story is: live close to where you work. It makes a huge difference.
Mark | 03.05.08 - 3:43 pm
Or in my case, select a job close to where you live. I tried the commute in the Sacramento area, even back in the 80s, when traffic moved at something close to the speed limit, it was tedious, now the time cost would far exceed the value added to the family economy. My brother is strongly considering dumping his state job when they move the office 35 miles further from his home and taking something much closer. Even a 30% pay cut would be worth keeping his paid for home and more time with his family.
"How dare you provide data not in the party line? This blog is to prove we're in a recession, regardless of reality . "
This defense reminds of the defense by wife-beaters who try to point out that the number of days they DON'T beat their wife far outnumbers the days they do....so what's all the fuss?
"Cal writes:
Interesting that truck tonnage is up significantly"
.
don't know if this explains part of it but in construction these days we're seeing greater distances competing for parts of projects. Steel is now coming from Michigan for a project in Utah (when it usually comes from Utah). Serious competition is occuring.
Relating to previous thread - TIPS spread. Silly concept. The TIPS market is thin and fairly illiquid. I bought some in 2001 (real yield over 3%) - IBonds too. Good investments. Not trading vehicles.
A "spread" you look at to try to find meaningful market/trading info doesn't make sense when one part of the spread isn't an actively traded very liquid market (compare the "TIPS spread" with the "TED spread").
BTW - I started to lose interest in TIPS when real yields went under 3% and I couldn't buy them with a credit card and get FF miles. I've read that the treasury may discontinue their issuance at some point down the road. Roby
any competent insulation company can help with those $1000/month energy bills.
Unfortunately the urban planners got there first. The insisted upon massive rights-of-way for even tertiary streets and outsized public dedications that do nothing but increase humidity and decrease community. the costs made developers make bad decisions such as more hardscape and higher densities. Thus we have 2 and 2 1/2 story stucco boxes with no overhang and zero lot line alignments and no room for trees compounded by slump wall fences and no open space allotments.
The Inland Empire is chock full of thin walled narrow corridor hardscape surrounded rabbit warrens that cannot be made energy efficient without the rooflines touching or tree roots clogging.
The trucking increase is in tons, which indicates it could be more commodities moving by truck.
If truckers aren't that busy, their rates drop, which makes it more economical to ship higher weight, lower value goods by truck.
When commodities prices are high, you can afford to pay truck rates vs. bulk rates to get goods to markets faster. Also, there are a lot of excess commodities and finished goods piling up in one area that need to be transported to others. Think: Home Depot can't move lumber in Florida so they truck it to North Carolina.
The biggest long-term problem is going to be that high diesel prices and toll-road price gouging (e.g., NJ) will push a lot of indy truckers off the road permanently. The economics of running your own rig just stinks. Ultimately, the U.S. govt. will have to subsidize trucking to keep the nation's wheels turning.
Other Jim - I think some states - like California - have more temperate climates than others (like Florida). We have about 3000 sf under A/C and an average power bill of about $275-350/month. Average house in our community is about 4-5000 sf - and they go up to 12000 sf. Haven't really parsed it out - but just about all of our days here in NE Florida are either A/C or heat days (probably fewer than 50-75 with neither - and some days we have heat at night and A/C during the day). We have good insulation (fairly new house) - but there are limits - particularly if you don't like the house to be warmer than 76 or colder than 70.
Anyway - I do agree - especially with older houses with high utilities bills - that an "energy survey" is in order. FWIW - the biggest energy waster here in Florida is A/C ductwork that isn't sealed properly and leaks. Roby
regarding those data sets that lump Barstow in with LA. Somebody was certainly drunk when they did that, LA is mediterrainen(sp?) climate and Barstow is Mohave desert. Completely different ecosystems besides being hundreds of miles apart. Nicer people in Barstow as well if you like the desert rat lifestyle...
N.Y.C. = New York city. 322 square miles. Low, comparatively, carbon footprint per person,
Daniel
Is that because your local steaks come from nearby Jersey City? Urban hubris worthy of a New Yorker cover.
Meanwhile, in Guam, there is growing fear of a slowdown. From yesterday's Pacific Daily News, number of tourists is declining, due to economic slowdown in Japan and Korea and high fuel prices. My contacts in the adult services industry confirm this; fewer horny Japanese men splurging on the VIP room or a "massage".
About energy and housing... it's not merely the price. It's the availability, too. That's about to become an issue. Matt Simmons ( Simmons ) thinks US spot shortages in gasoline will likely happen soon, perhaps a year or two. He expects panic then, but not before. He believe that Americans will bear any prices, stoically until then.
Can an exurban manse in SoCal fit more solar panels than a condo in downtown Portland. Perhaps.
But here we still have quite a bit of hydropower, have quite a lot of open farmland, and fairly dense cities and small towns. And we have trees, and water. Plus some of our cities and towns are still 'human scale'.
As for prices? I predict we'll see pictures of those exurban LA Mcmansions in museums. We'll be impressed by the few that had solar panels before they were raided for scrap. We'll be amazed at how many were just left to the desert, after Lake Mead dried up. Oh, forgot about that water thing, didn't we?
Then, people in Portland will ride electrified public transit or our bikes to our jobs in downtown Portland.
No mistake, we're also in for a lot of economic pain up here. But we'll still be viable in 20 years.
Rob Dawg - Big overhangs and trees close to houses are kind of a no-no here in Florida (they're storm risks). OTOH - we can use things like low E glass - smaller windows (especially when it comes to those facing south or west) - window treatments - etc. to keep out the searing afternoon sun. The windows in our house have a slight gray tint - like sunglasses. I work on some housing and design websites (design is more fun than mortgage crises) - and it seems to me that developers just give people what they want (e.g., the jacuzzi for 2 instead of energy efficient windows).
BTW - am I the only person here shaking my head watching the extreme left coast people (California) fight with the extreme right coast people (New York)? Gosh - you'd think that no other part of the country mattered. Roby
Yossarian - Are you old enough to remember gas rationing in the 70's - odd and even days? Stuff like that? I am. It was a real PITA but the world didn't come to an end. Roby
Yesterday, I could not even find a parking space at the little strip mall where I go for lunch. And the rush hour traffic has become steadily worse during the past 2+ years. If we are in a recession, there is zero evidence for it near me.
Cisco corporate campus is half empty, been that way since the dot.com bust, Applied Materials is 3/4 empty, lots of commerical buildings unused in SV. My company just moved from Santa Clara to Stockton, rent has been reduced by 60% and the warehouse guys were very happy to move out of SV expensive Apt's and rent for a fraction of the cost in Central Valley. Signs of the times.
daveNYC,
Everyone is familiar with the much vaunted NYC claims of massive energy efficiencies. The problem is no one can account for the discrepancies. How is it that NYC uses a third of Chicago or Boston or Philly or Hartford's energy per capita when they are all within a few percent of each other?
I cannot prove it yet but I suspect it is much like Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's oft touted NYC balance of payments claims where because many Federal tax payments were drawn from NY based banks that NYC was some theoretical store of international profits and national productivity. energywise NYC owns lots of their own generating capacity and remote hydro and the like and I suspect those are not counted in their energy importation.
Cannot agree with you regarding PDX. Traffic has greatly increased since even 1995-1996. When I go there for meetings/hearings (by train) the streets are packed with people commuting by car--& it's generally 1 person/car. SUVs are not uncommon. Of the native Portlanders I know, I don't think any of them have taken the bus since they were 18 or 19. I think one takes the MAX to the airport because there's a stop not far from his house. That's the only time he uses mass transit. None of them ride bikes or walk anywhere, although two of them live within what I consider to be easy walking distance of a "neighborhood" center w/lots of shops & restaurants (but they do drive there). They pretty much drive everywhere although they have no physical impairments that limit their ability to walk or ride a bicycle.
I think the only reason PDX has not increased its "emissions" since 1990 (or so it alleges) is because all of its industry has fled, so now all the emissions are from the growing number of vehicles, instead of factories--that employed people who could take mass transit or walk to work because they made enough to live in a city whose greatly increased RE prices are now pushing nurses, (among others) out of the PDX housing market.
Sherwood & (I think) Troutdale were the fastest growing parts of that part of western OR. Sherwood is not particularly close to downtown PDX ( the express bus from Sherwood takes at least 45 minutes or so to get to downtown PDX--that's if it's running on time). A significant amount of the agricultural land in western OR is disappearing or is already gone. One of the interesting aspects of OR's vaunted land use planning is that urban growth boundaries are unlimited in how much they can be expanded over time. You just have to put it into a "plan."
Both Eugene & Corvallis have seen a huge amount of expansion--& it's not "dense." Good small farm/orchard/dairy, etc., land is disappearing rapidly. Replaced by housing developments, big box stores, strip malls. Not real different than CA, maybe the lots are smaller in OR, I haven't been to CA to look.
When I moved to OR (1982), I noticed that OR had a "century" farm program: any farm that had lasted for 100 years, got a sign in recognition from the state of OR, don't know if they got a tax break too or not. Many of those farms are gone now.
I give PDX alot of credit for trying to keep its various neighborhoods intact & working to keep its mass transit system growing as the city expands. But that doesn't change its problems or that something has been lost as it's become a "hot" place to live and its RE prices & increased traffic & noise have pushed people out.
Get in touch with 1000 Friends of Oregon, ask for some of their materials about what's happening to OR.
azurite:
Been donating to 1000 Friends for years. Thanks for the sentiment, though.
Like I've said, Oregon has a lot in its favor. Sherwood was a farm town, with a train line. Woodburn, same thing. Lots of towns like this in Oregon.
People commute by car in Oregon? What a surprise. But what will happen when there are spot shortages of gasoline? At least a far higher percentage of Oregonians will be served by electrified transit, and bike paths.
There's even still a lot of hydro run of river projects possible. Google recently moved a service center up here because of the cheap and abundant electricity. And, there's not even that many people who live there.
What about an LA exurb? Not only will they also have spot shortages of gasoline soon, like all of us... fairly soon after that, they may have extremely limited water. Reference tree ring studies, doncha know.
Lake Mead is not so slowly drying up. How are you going to replace the power generated by Hoover Dam? It'd take a ton of money, a ton of energy to build a new nuke or even a huge dirty coal plant to even think about replacing it. And the water? Come on.
The point is, Oregon ain't perfect in this post housing bubble world.. but... it is survivable. Without consistent supplies of gasoline or water, goodbye LA exurbs. Period.
Robyn: I remember gas rationing quite well. I urge you to read the link to Matt Simmons' site. He's an investment banker, but you might find his stuff alarming. But since he's an oil industry guy, he can be taken far more seriously than I. He makes all his speeches and Powerpoint presentations available online.
BTW, I grew up in Arizona. I know dry. I know desert. That's why I live 100 yards from the Willamette river.
And no, the world isn't coming to an end. We're just going back to 'life in the 40s or 50s... fewer cars, more small town life, more rail travel, less flying, no exurbs. It's just that the road there will be rocky and paved with Mcmansions.
mook,
Good one but there really has been job growth in the US as well. The problem is all the urbanist advocates here are running on 50 year old assumptions. The truth is that they are right, it is efficient to live close to work. The problem is that means the suburbs and not the old core cities.
Compare this from the last one - rather negative shifts
But the markets seem to like the report. Stocks have recovered significantly from the initial disappointment of the Ambak bail-out.
I'd have to agree with the Beige findings when it comes to Minneapolis (like I have a choice!)
So much retail space has been built around here... I'm starting to see a lot of areas with lots of vacancies.
The most striking (to me anyway):
One suburb (Brooklyn Center) has a large mall and a bunch of surrounding strip malls. The Mall is I'd guess 1/4th of the stores are vacant and what is there doesn't look vibrant. There is an entire EMPTY stripmall just a few blocks away.
You can see the "Circuit City" imprint where they took the letters off of the building.
Then, just down the road (in Brooklyn Park) there is a MASSIVE new suburban development that has been put up rapidly in the last few years.
until recently, that was always packed and full... now Krispy Kreme just closed
Mall of America is doing well (as always).
Minneapolis is a forgotten metro. we're not that small, not that big... but the amount of CRE put up here has been astounding.
we also have some places that were slated as RRE (condos) that sold nothing, so converted to (apartments). Does that count as RRE or CRE?. Does that show up in the CRE statistics?
Well, there is no visible pull-back in the Seattle area. In fact, the stores and restaurants seem to be packed, making shopping trips a pain in the neck.
Of course, the masses of cranes putting up forests of condo towers throughout the Puget Sound are an ominous sign of things to come...
U.S. total Gasoline Deliveries in December 2007 were the lowest december amount since 1983. High prices are curbing demand.
Natural Gas and Petroleum Navigator Error Page
I feel like I'm in a store with only bruised apples, brown limes, and squished donuts.
Sorry mr market, I'm just not that hungry.
Here in Phoenix the painful reality is beginning to set in.
We shall see how long it takes for a recovery to start, but first the mortgage mess needs to be liquidified, one way or another.
I do see that metals will unfortunately settle into a higher trading range over the summer, but hey, the Chinese can buy all they want on the world market as fast as those bonds can be sold;-}
High gas prices will make the exurbs stagnate beyond all belief.
Someday this war's gonna end...
High gas prices will make the exurbs stagnate beyond all belief.
Why do you think the exurbs will suffer disproportionately due to higher energy prices?
Who would have thought that it would take exactly as many dollars to buy a barrel of oil as it takes yen to buy a dollar? 103.8
Dawg-
So you're saying the exurbs wouldn't benefit from cheap gas?
Commuting costs are greater for the exurbs and rural areas. Housing prices significantly stagnated in rural areas due to these factors in the 70s show. Also I am a bit of a Kunstler fan for the amusement factor. He has great rants. Not always right by any means, but great rants.
As commuting costs begin to eat more and more of a budget, folks look to cut back. Same with food/energy. This is soooo boring, it is 1973 folks!! Not 1981, but 1973. First big energy shock hitting the system, complete with folks going- there is no problem!
Yeah, problem. If I have to blow $300 a month more to drive out to exurbia from my job, my house payment had better be $300 a month cheaper, or I might just move.
All of this eternal cruising around the block for short errands is going bye bye.
Someday this war's gonna end...
we also have some places that were slated as RRE (condos) that sold nothing, so converted to (apartments). Does that count as RRE or CRE?. Does that show up in the CRE statistics?
I live very close to Central and Broadway. If I face south, towards the river, I can't throw a rock without hitting an empty townhouse or condominium building.
KISIS,
Walk over by the Guthrie and throw a few more.
AKA Correspondent asks:
Dawg-
So you're saying the exurbs wouldn't benefit from cheap gas?
Nope, not disproportionately. Energy is increasingly fungible and there is no clear cenurb v exurb total energy difference. For but one interesting and unobvious impact; lower gasoline prices would serve to slow the trend of jobs leaving the cenurbs.
The 2:45 market rise is right in queue.
Yeah, problem. If I have to blow $300 a month more to drive out to exurbia from my job, my house payment had better be $300 a month cheaper, or I might just move.
But its more efficient to live in the exurbs! This is why people in Bangladesh live 50 miles from their sweatshops and drive to them in Ford Expeditions. It uses less energy than any other mode of living.
Are you crying yet, hippie?
Yesterday, I could not even find a parking space at the little strip mall where I go for lunch. And the rush hour traffic has become steadily worse during the past 2+ years. If we are in a recession, there is zero evidence for it near me.
But then, my local businesses have names like "Apple", "Google", and "Cisco"...
Just to keep things in perspective here:
Las Vegas Sands Corp has a greater market Cap than Fannie
Bet on it!
Kisis and wally:
agreed.
Near broadway is that huge mixed-income development that they built. Last I heard, the affluent weren't buying in there (big surprise... rich people don't want to move into a razed ghetto)
Near the Guthrie... ditto
I live near Lake Harriet and Calhoun. When I walk to Uptown, there are complexes after complexes... Today I drove and saw "Le Parisien" on Lyndale... it was condos... now its rentals.
but the worst IMO is in the warehouse district.
the real problem: this sort of stuff is EVERYWHERE. who knew that so many people wanted to live in condos?
but it does leave my question:
do these buildings (that were planned as residential condos but then converted last minute to apartments) count as RRE or CRE?
...This is why people in Bangladesh live 50 miles from their sweatshops and drive to them in Ford Expeditions....
Rob Dork
Jeez - I was eating damnit - and nearly choked as I read that - LOL !
I'm staying out of this debate - I just found the imagery extremely amusing - no offense meant to anybody in Dacca.
-K
Rob:
we've had this argument many times before.
To me, the major problem with the suburbs/exurbs isn't the drive
it's the size of the houses.
If I recall you live in California... so you may not understand this...
but here in Minneapolis most houses in the city would be around 1600sq ft. Many people live in condos/apartments (500-1000 sq ft)
but in the suburbs and exurbs... most of the houses START at 2000sq ft... and further out you see these 2000-6000 sq ft behemoths.
I'd hate to heat that!
And I have friends in inland empire who were paying over a THOUSAND dollars a month on energy in summer.
if energy goes up, it may not be the end of exurbs/suburbs per se... but they'll have to reorganize and consolidate...
(for example: chopping up those 6000 sq ft homes into 5-6 person dwellings...)
Yeah, problem. If I have to blow $300 a month more to drive out to exurbia from my job, my house payment had better be $300 a month cheaper, or I might just move.
I live right in the heart of Minneapolis. Working downtown would mean walking three blocks to a bus stop, and getting off of it 10-15 minutes later.
So, what am I doing? Interviewing for a job in Wayzata.
"Yesterday, I could not even find a parking space at the little strip mall where I go for lunch. And the rush hour traffic has become steadily worse during the past 2+ years. If we are in a recession, there is zero evidence for it near me.
But then, my local businesses have names like "Apple", "Google", and "Cisco"..."
Well, that's the problem with first-person anecdotal data. No one spot we can report from is "typical."
Over the hill in Santa Cruz, I'm working in a half-empty building that was thrown up for the dot-com boom and never fully occupied. Thing never came back from the dot-com boom here; or if they did, they came back overseas. We've lot a lot of other industry to globalization, too.
Things always look rosiest next to corporate HQ; lots of nice cars in the lot. That's where you live.
Yeah, problem. If I have to blow $300 a month more to drive out to exurbia from my job, my house payment had better be $300 a month cheaper, or I might just move.
If you could sell your house.
will, as the equity drops, people will walk. from their house, and to work.
lol.
as for dork, go buy some CFC!
O/T
FDIC March Report.
Only one SN:
First Bank of Beverly Hills 23901 Calabasas Road, Suite 1050 Calabasas CA 91302-1502 SN
SN=Substantial Non-compliance
Beverly Hills Bancorp Inc., is a diversified financial services company and conducts its banking and lending operations through its primary subsidiary, First Bank of Beverly Hills. The Bank focuses on niche products, including the origination and acquisition of commercial and multi-family real estate loans. (copied and pasted from their website)
The page cannot be found
Allen M @ 2:55 -
"All of this eternal cruising around the block for short errands is going bye bye."
My kids thought that I'd lost my head when I started making them ride bike or walking to a friend's house.
And now that Spring's coming, they can ride bike to the store for me, too.
Cool...so there is an upside to high energy prices.
I don't subscribe to Rob Dawg's newsletter.
I live in Los Angeles, home of the exurb. A while back, pre-$3-gas, I moved closer to my office in the city, going from an exurb-esque commute down to a 10-minute surface street drive. No pay raise, no other financial changes.
The gasoline savings alone were a huge boon to my personal saving rate.
My understanding of Rob's underlying theory is: if you live in the exurbs, don't drive to the "big city" that often and your commute costs won't be that much higher. That may be true, but in real life, we want to go to the Staples Center, or to Sunset Blvd, or to Disney Concert Hall, or to the beach. The extra fuel costs add up from the exurbs. Quickly.
The best benefit, though, was the overall time saved in my weekday life. Coworkers were extremely jealous that I wasn't getting up at 6am and out the door at 7 in order to get to the office at a decent hour, and then back home at 7pm.
I guess the moral of the story is: live close to where you work. It makes a huge difference.
"I'm staying out of this debate - I just found the imagery extremely amusing - no offense meant to anybody in Dacca."
We in Bangladesh prefer Chryslers.
Food for thought on housing trends:
The Atlantic Online | March 2008 | The Next Slum? | Christopher B. Leinberger
Mark,
Do you live right in LA or in one of the close suburbs? I am contemplating a move to work in LA and I loath long commutes.
Anonymous writes:
I feel like I'm in a store with only bruised apples, brown limes, and squished donuts.
Sorry mr market, I'm just not that hungry.
Anon,
You're just looking at the wrong stuff.
Gold delicious looks great
oil looks great
silver queen corn is a winner.
The market always has good stuff, just need to change your tastes.
Mark,
We do the same thing but a bit tighter. We bike to work (could walk if we had to) and the store, precisely because I expect peak oil theory to pan out (it will just take alonggggggg time but hell I'm always early to the party).
Elk Grove, featured in the Atlantic story, just announced they were laying off 217 employees from the school district.
I don't know what you mean by "close suburbs" so let's say I live in LA proper. I would strongly advise you to live near where you work; if you're working downtown, I would suggest Silverlake rather than living in downtown proper, but if your job is anywhere on the westside, just live a few blocks away. Century City, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, West LA, even Culver City, Venice, etc, are all fine places, and (imho) way preferable to driving in from Rancho Del Exurb.
Market says the Beige Book is no big deal.....
WSJ - Mark to Meltdown?
Mark to Meltdown? - WSJ.com
In chicago you can live anywhere you want, despite high gas prices.
Metra Home
Mark writes:
I don't subscribe to Rob Dawg's newsletter.
I live in Los Angeles, home of the exurb.
If you subscribed to my newsletter you'd have known Los angeles is the antithesis of the exurb. number one with a bullet by far the densest Urban Area in the US.
I guess the moral of the story is: live close to where you work. It makes a huge difference.
That's an excellent strategy. Now look at the last 30 years of job growth and tell me where most people should live.
Rob Dawg - LA is more DENSE than NYC? I find that hard to believe.
LA takes up more area, but NYC has to be more dense.
"Now look at the last 30 years of job growth and tell me where most people should live."
The latter 2/3 of the 20th century was a failed experiment of auto-centric development. Cities are resurgent.
Exurbs, especially all of the new crap thrown up in the western states, will be the ghettos, if not the ghost towns of the future.
Not really worth arguing here who's right, but in 30 years we'll know.
That's an excellent strategy. Now look at the last 30 years of job growth and tell me where most people should live.
Rob toss in $4 gas, $4 a gallon heating oil and tell me where you should live. Around these parts, I suggest you look at property values in and around the city, and property values as you stretch further out. That tells the whole story. And the first job slashing occurs out in these areas too, not at corporate headquarters in the city.
I know you're an evangelist for this, but I don't see it here. In fact, I do believe the hits to property are worst in CA in exburbia and dropping further. Not in SF, LA and close in.
Nemo - just wait. Tech hasnt taken a dump yet, but it's coming. And the timing will be exquisite, because it will line up with the beginning of the realization that your little part of the world also had a ton of junk loans. Except they are the particularly nasty type that havent even really begun to recast - I/O neg am, and assorted crap. It's going to be a big ol mess there, but for now, enjoy the happy days while they last.
When we lived in DC, both spouse and I worked downtown and did the DC metro. It eliminated the sheer hassle and cost of not only gas, but also parking. Good news was that I was also able to get work done on the system so that could have evenings more free than if I'd driven.
"That's an excellent strategy. Now look at the last 30 years of job growth and tell me where most people should live."
The next 30 years of the economy will work on the same assumptions as the last? That sort of thinking gets people in trouble.
Having driven through a fair number of exurbs lately (in Stanislaus County, Ventura, and whatever the hell that thing is along 101 from Paso Robles to SM, no immediate growth potential strikes me. For sale signs -- do.
Rob, I think you missed my point: Los Angeles proper is not an exurb.
Monrovia is an exurb.
Azusa is an exurb.
Diamond Bar is an exurb.
Rancho Cucamonga is an exurb.
Brea is an exurb.
Camarillo is an exurb.
If there is more job growth in Camarillo, that is undoubtably due to the opening of another Applebees. Not the sort of job growth we're looking for, no?
Yearning to Learn writes:
Rob:
we've had this argument many times before.
It isn't an argument, it is a fundamental misdirection on the part of urban advocates to appeal to emotion rather than deal with the FActs.
To me, the major problem with the suburbs/exurbs isn't the drive it's the size of the houses.
That's a good point but understand that is a location independent variable not particularly exurban correlated.
If I recall you live in California... so you may not understand this...
I haven't always been from California. Lot's of old urban Massachusetts exposure as well.
but here in Minneapolis most houses in the city would be around 1600sq ft. Many people live in condos/apartments (500-1000 sq ft)
but in the suburbs and exurbs... most of the houses START at 2000sq ft... and further out you see these 2000-6000 sq ft behemoths.
We see them everywhere.
I'd hate to heat that!
Yeah, kinda like a Boston brownstone or Worcester three story.
And I have friends in inland empire who were paying over a THOUSAND dollars a month on energy in summer.
Ummmm yeah? You won't get an argument from me except to note that they have those high bills be of the intense urbanization of the built environment where they live. Used to be a swamp cooler and careful design and low density made it cheap to live in the desert.
if energy goes up, it may not be the end of exurbs/suburbs per se... but they'll have to reorganize and consolidate...
(for example: chopping up those 6000 sq ft homes into 5-6 person dwellings...)
And if energy goes up what are transit agencies going to do? What happens to cities when the ability to subsidize transit diminishes? Total energy footprint isn't just gas in the tank.
Let's do a little peering into the future. If electricity doubles I've got about 3000 sf of unobstructed roof and in prime sunny days territory. How many solar panels can you fit on the roof of a TOD condo in Portland?
Rob Dawg - LA is more DENSE than NYC? I find that hard to believe.
LA takes up more area, but NYC has to be more dense.
LA is much more dense. Los Angeles crams 13,829,000 into 2,244sq mi. New York spreads out their 19,712,000 over a sprawling 4,349sq mi. Some 40% denser. Welcome to the world of urban planners and the lies they tell.
How many jobs are actually downtown these days anyway? I've lived in SoCal for over 20 years, and I've worked downtown exactly once for less than a year.
Venice currently has seen the greatest rise in price appreciati0on per sq. ft. in LA area over the past year or so. If I'd only bought on Abbot Kinney when I had the chance in '91...
That's a silly comparison, RD. What about density patterns WITHIN the MSA?
Rob Dawg is just playing games with arbitrary boundaries. yawn.
By another measure:
Greater Los Angeles Area - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
New York metropolitan area - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
LA metro area: 2,665/sq. mi.
NYC metro area: 2,790/sq. mi.
Whoop dee doo.
People still commute?
I use to live in NJ. That sure cured me of the idea of driving to work. I also visited LA a few times. That sure cured me of the idea of living in LA.
Monrovia is an exurb. 2,685.8/sq mi
Azusa is an exurb. 5,023.7/sq mi
Diamond Bar is an exurb. 3,813.2/sq mi
Rancho Cucamonga is an exurb. 3,411.4/sq mi
Brea is an exurb. 3,273.5/sq mi
Camarillo is an exurb. 3,015.3/sq mi
Los Angeles 8,205/sq mi
Sorry but there's nothing about 3000 persons per square mile that is exurban in nature.
isamu writes:
Rob Dawg is just playing games with arbitrary boundaries. yawn.
Sir, you are welcome to disagree with the CENSUS but don't try to put the blame for Urban Area definitions on my shoulders. Get back to us with the reply when you rake them over the coals for their use of "arbitrary boundaries."
Let's do a little peering into the future. If electricity doubles I've got about 3000 sf of unobstructed roof and in prime sunny days territory. How many solar panels can you fit on the roof of a TOD condo in Portland?
Yeah, I'm with the Dawg on this one. The fact is, the cost of gasoline is very cheap on an inflation-adjusted basis. The reason most people buy in exurbs isn't to buy a giant house per se, but to buy anything at all. Urban cores tend to be either prohibitively expensive, dangerous, or both. It's much cheaper to drive in than buy in.
Except all those towns listed are in the middle of GD nowhere.
Pretty funny stuff: Helicopter Ben's innermost thoughts:
The Atlantic Online | March 2008 | The Next Slum? | Christopher B. Leinberger
We could always return to the levels of North Philadelphia in 1901- up to 25,000 persons per square mile.
Tenement slums, but lordy were they densely packed, and most folks walked to work. The horse manure stench was magnificent. We do tend to forget that a lot of urban density was the result of 19th century transportation problems and not 20th century.
Funny thing was the City of Philadelphia peaked in 1917, just as the subways were being constructed, and well before the automobile really hit it's stride.
Urban growth and decay has so many chimerical properties that are ignored by planners.
Someday this war's gonna end...
NYC proper: 27,203/sq mi
Chicago proper: 12,470/sq mi
Bedroom communities will have inflated densities because its mostly residential.
YAWN.
I've got to go with Rob on exurbia.
Old cities have dense cores of people and jobs. Newer cities have distributed houses and jobs. They have very little of a core.
In the future, office workers will be more likely to tele-commute. Exurbs will give way to people living where-the-hell-they-want and making a living.
Interesting that truck tonnage is up significantly..
http://www.truckline.com/NR/exeres/826D5632-1A60-4E0A-90AF-D7CC8E151D54.htm
I've got to go with Rob on exurbia.
Old cities have dense cores of people and jobs. Newer cities have distributed houses and jobs. They have very little of a core.
In the future, office workers will be more likely to tele-commute. Exurbs will give way to people living where-the-hell-they-want and making a living.
And robots running off nuclear fusion will do all the labour.
and flying cars.
NYC is the most energy efficient location per capita in the country, for heating as well as transportation.
The funny thing about telecommuting, you can do it a lot cheaper from Mumbai than from exurbia. I am not the first person to notice this.
isamu,
You are using the worse set of boundaries. The data in the Wikipedia article is the Census MSA density which includes vast tracts of desert over 100 miles from anything that a reasonable person would consider L.A. For example, Blythe, CA (on the Nevada state line, 150 miles from the outermost edges of L.A.) is considered as part of the L.A. metro area by the census. Rob is using the more realistic Urbanized area data which counts census tracts with a population of over 1000 people per square mile as part of the city.
Sir, you are welcome to disagree with the CENSUS
Numbers quoted were from CENSUS data you fukcing drunk.
Cal,they are monkeying with their SA numbers, as they freely admit.
I don't see growth from where I sit.
Someday this war's gonna end...
Yeah, it must be a bummer to report on an 'economy' where in recent years a lot of what passed for 'prosperity' was actually a debt fuelled asset bubble that is now unravelling.
If I remember correctly, the last census determined Westlake (LA area) has one the highest population densities in the US.
NYC - 26403 people per square mile
Westlake - 36,095 people per square mile
Numbers quoted were from CENSUS data you fukcing drunk.
The only place on the web where people come to blows over the definition of a data set.
Good people, good times.
isamu writes:
RD: Sir, you are welcome to disagree with the CENSUS
Numbers quoted were from CENSUS data you fukcing drunk.
Ahhh a little projection goes a long way. You made a mistake to attribute the Urban Area definition to some manipulation on my part.
I don't need to respond because you have made my point in a way and to an extent I never could have hoped to achieve. All that remains is for you to step forward and take the credit.
By the way, for the sober it is spelled "fucking drunk" not "fukcing drunk" but the explanation is probably self evident to the casual observer.
Thanks for Beige Book comparison, CR. You should have emphasized the "Prices and Wages" section, because 2008's overwhelmingly negative compared to 1990's.
If energy goes up, it may not be the end of exurbs/suburbs per se... but they'll have to reorganize and consolidate...
(for example: chopping up those 6000 sq ft homes into 5-6 person dwellings...)
I'd like it if somebody did an overlay of median housing size and school district quality in the US.
Housing square footage has become the defacto dividing line between the lower and middle classes. If you want your kids to attend a high quality public school, well, you have to buy a house of at least X square feet.
And, if you don't want to build a house of X square feet we're going to force it with zoning laws and covenants.
See, living in a house of X square feet means that you probably have at least Y in income. And Y in income means your less likely to be a Z (crack addict, illegal immigrant, drop-out, take your pick).
Since property taxes provide most of the support for our public schools a whole county of X square feet housing means better facilities. Better facilities and less Z and we'll be able to attract better teachers.
You'll pay it long as the cost of X is even close to the cost of private tuition at a decent cenburb school. You'll pay it because during the day both you and your spouse are 40-60 miles away from your kids. If there is a problem, there isn't a D#%$ thing you can do about it.
Interesting that truck tonnage is up significantly..
http://www.truckline.com/NR/ exer...7CC8E151D54.htm
Cal
Cal,
How dare you provide data not in the party line? This blog is to prove we're in a recession, regardless of reality
. Reminds me sometimes of the eastern part of my country of origin some time ago.
O-Joe
O-Joe, popping in at the height of tension to provide comic relief!
I agree with O-Joe, let's get back to gloom and doom, you are allowing my panic to ease.
"Interesting that truck tonnage is up significantly.."
The link didn't work. In terms of actual tonnage or in terms of value?
Any chance this is related to the current commodity bubble?
Rob, if your definition of an exurb is based upon population density, then the average commute from an LA exurb to downtown will be about 5 hours one way.
No thanks.
Just to be clear about what's meant by "Los Angeles" - it refers to both a city and a county. Most people when they say "LA" are actually referring to the greater LA area. If they say they live in "LA", more than likely probably live in a neighborhood or district with another name. Those communities used to be small cities or towns in their own right before getting gobbled up into Los Angeles county.
The actual geographic area and neighborhood of the city that is known as "Los Angeles" has a population of only 40,000.
Why do you think the exurbs will suffer disproportionately due to higher energy prices?
This might be something that dryfly can answer, but since energy costs associated with goods (in both production and delivery) can be distributed to all consumers, they will affect exurbs and urban areas equally. However energy costs related to personal consumption (heating and individual transportation) depend entirely on the person and their location, so if you live in a small apartment sharing walls with neighbors, you're heating bill will be less, and if you live in an area with efficient mass transit (or you can commute/do chores by bike/foot) your transportation costs will be less.
It is important to look at the YoY numbers. Otherwise one just trips into the deep traps that O-simply Joe loves to drop into:
"ATAÂ’s truck tonnage index fell 1.5 percent in 2007 from the previous year. ATA originally reported a 1.4 percent drop. DecemberÂ’s tonnage level, meanwhile, increased a modest 1.5 percent; down from the previously reported 4.1 percent gain. "
From prevoius thread:
"borkafatty writes:
Question I am interested in dumping some US dollars...and would like to consider Bonds or treasury's...which is a better rate of return...thank you..and is treasurydirect.com a good site to start."
Borkafatty - You don't "dump US dollars" to buy US treasuries. Basically - a smaller investor has to buy treasuries with dollars. And if you're talking about US bonds - it's the same deal.
So I'm not sure what you're trying to do. Perhaps you could explain a bit more. Roby
Good point RE, I'd love to see what the YoY increase/decrease chart looks like.
Well, if you can kiss a lot of the exurbs goodbye, then don't you also have to kiss goodbye a lot of the municipal revenue bonds that paid for the exurban infrastructure?
What percent of a town has to become a ghost town before the financial burdens overwhelm the ability of the ghosts to pay for services?
If there's no need for so many schools in exurban ghost towns, who will pay off the school bonds?
RE: When you bear - cherry-pick the data enough, you can indeed overlook the trend change and upturn in the last three months in ATA's index.
O-Joe
"Except all those towns listed are in the middle of GD nowhere.
Alec"
Stupid comment from someone who knows nothing about LA, I presume. Every city mentioned is suburb. Exurb might be Vacaville. And Simi Valley, but Camarillo is even a suburb of Ventura, believe it or not.
Leave the LA discussions to those who know the area. Did you know that Long Beach is nearly half a million strong? You non-SoCal folks have no clue. I suppose you'd say Oakland was exurb, too, hey, genius? Shit, it's smaller than Long Beach, AND across a huge bay. Ooops, SF is less than a million, must be a suburb of San Jose.
Rob Dawg, give up, you can't teach the clueless when they don't know when they're given clues.
New York City: 26,403/sq.mile
Los Angeles: 8,100/sq. mile
New York is more than three times as dense. The fact that it's adjacent to endless surburban sprawl doesn't reduce its density.
There's not much exurb in the sense of low-density development anywhere in Southern California. There are areas with severe deficits of jobs with long commutes to anyplace that has excess jobs. I think it's fair to call places like that "exurbs" since for some time we've seen similar large-scale medium-density bedroom communities all over the country referred to as exurbs. However, I don't think of San Gabriel Valley towns like Azusa as "exurbs". They're fairly well established with decent job availability. I think of places like Beaumont and Apple Valley, and with more lax definitions places like Palmdale, South Orange County, and the McMansion farms near Corona. (Not intended to be an exclusive list - just some places I've seen.)
Exurbanites absolutely do commute more than suburbanites, BTW - according to Fannie Mae. I'm sure they commute further than urbanites, too - do I actually need to find a ref for that?
Well, if you can kiss a lot of the exurbs goodbye, then don't you also have to kiss goodbye a lot of the municipal revenue bonds that paid for the exurban infrastructure?
That's an interesting question. The Exurbs are flexible. The buzzphrase will be "adaptive reuse." The Cenurbs are ossified and intransigent. They'll cut off their nose to spite their face. I also suspect the big oldburbs will not be able to whine to Uncle Sugar for another quick fix this time as Uncle Sugar is feeding his own habit.
Remember also that exurban infrastructure is very very cheap compared to what equivalent mechanisms in the big city cost.
And taxes. Ignore taxes at your peril.
Next trend- covenants that require prospective buyers to have 20% down so that they have an equity stake in the neighborhood.
Rob Dawg, give up, you can't teach the clueless when they don't know when they're given clues.
Anonymous
I hear ya but for every Michael D. Setty trying to score nasty points with his poor math skillz there's 20 silent eager learners who may take away something of value.
Rob Dawg - Respectfully - I don't think you understand what's going on in the muni market. Small retail investors took 75% of the California issue. Institutional investors took up more. The issue was oversubscribed - and the yields were repriced down (I get email alerts on these new issues).
Many issuers who were in the auction rate market are pre-refunding or calling or buying back issues and issuing new long term fixed rate debt. I have some lawyer friends who do this kind of work. They are working 24/7 these days.
The muni market has had its problems. But there was exactly one day of big disruption recently - Friday (when hedge funds got margin calls and dumped a lot of munis on the market) - with some excess mopped up Monday morning. If you chart the Bond Buyer Index (which I chart now since the demise of the muni bond futures contract) - things have settled down. Last time this happened was for a couple of days last August. I wish I could count on a minor market disruption every six months to do some buying - kind of like the semi-annual sales Bloomingdale's has on towels (smile).
I really don't lose any sleep over the muni market in general. OTOH - the problems in mortgage and other asset backed securities markets are - IMO - huge - and will be very difficult to solve.
Major Tom - The earnings yield on the SP500 was 5.39% at the close Friday. I get this particular piece of data from Barron's and chart it (have been charting it for years). Sebastian is I guess subscribing to Greenspan's SP500 valuation model - which works as a pretty good long term trading model (it's still on a buy from 2002 - it has only had 3 buys since 1995).
BTW - I do not agree about the secular bear market. Sideways for a long time is more like it (up and down and eventually going nowhere). Good for traders - even long term position traders. Bad for really long term buy and hold guys. Roby
The Exurbs are flexible. The buzzphrase will be "adaptive reuse."
Reuse as what? We seem to be heading towards a period of excess supply of both residential and commercial real estate, so what exactly will an exurb be able to offer? Their distance from the hustle and bustle of the city might be a nice selling point, but I can't think of many things that can both use that element and would not be hammered by a recession.
By "adaptive reuse" I think Rob means turning an Applebees into a Chilis.
Mark writes:
By "adaptive reuse" I think Rob means turning an Applebees into a Chilis.
[LoL, good one.]
No, i was thinking more about turning Countrywide loan origination offices into loss mitigation workout centers and Amgen research facilities into designer drug labs.
Meth is a designer drug?
Well, if we going to go OT, how about Thornburg Mortgage ( TMA).
Here's their 8K filed after hours:
Expired
The Company received a letter from JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. ("JPMorgan"), dated February 28, 2008, after failing to meet a margin call of approximately $28 million. The letter states that an Event of Default as defined under that certain Master Repurchase Agreement, dated as of August 3, 2006, as amended on February 7, 2007 by and between the Company and JPMorgan (the "Agreement") exists. The letter also notified the Company that JPMorgan will exercise its rights under the Agreement. The aggregate amount of proceeds lent to the Company under the Agreement was approximately $320 million.
The Company's receipt of the notice of an event of default has triggered cross-defaults under all of the Company's other reverse repurchase agreements and its secured loan agreements. The Company's obligations under those agreements are material.
Stock down 50% after hour but that's only down 1.50 odd since percentages of nothing are kinda nothing.
Their CEO always looked so forthright and believable on Cramer when he talked of the temporary nature of his difficulties - thank god I read the 10Qs.
-K
I guess the moral of the story is: live close to where you work. It makes a huge difference.
Mark | 03.05.08 - 3:43 pm
Or in my case, select a job close to where you live. I tried the commute in the Sacramento area, even back in the 80s, when traffic moved at something close to the speed limit, it was tedious, now the time cost would far exceed the value added to the family economy. My brother is strongly considering dumping his state job when they move the office 35 miles further from his home and taking something much closer. Even a 30% pay cut would be worth keeping his paid for home and more time with his family.
O-Joe wrote:
"How dare you provide data not in the party line? This blog is to prove we're in a recession, regardless of reality
. "
This defense reminds of the defense by wife-beaters who try to point out that the number of days they DON'T beat their wife far outnumbers the days they do....so what's all the fuss?
Hey didn't Siv buy some TMA too?
Hmm, great bad luck indicator.
Just another drop of rain in a monsoon.
Someday this war's gonna end...
Meth is a designer drug?
The next generation of product is going to make the stuff in Johnny Mnemonic look like middle-school oregano.
pesky work computers. that 6:10 annoymous was me.
by the way, any competent insulation company can help with those $1000/month energy bills.
O-Joe at a fatal traffic scene:
"What are you crying for lady, sure your passenger died...but I didn't. Don't try to pretend it's all bad!"
"Cal writes:
Interesting that truck tonnage is up significantly"
.
don't know if this explains part of it but in construction these days we're seeing greater distances competing for parts of projects. Steel is now coming from Michigan for a project in Utah (when it usually comes from Utah). Serious competition is occuring.
SK-
These two clowns were sucking each other so bad it was obvious Cramer had some stock to dump and the CEO had some loans to dump!
Relating to previous thread - TIPS spread. Silly concept. The TIPS market is thin and fairly illiquid. I bought some in 2001 (real yield over 3%) - IBonds too. Good investments. Not trading vehicles.
A "spread" you look at to try to find meaningful market/trading info doesn't make sense when one part of the spread isn't an actively traded very liquid market (compare the "TIPS spread" with the "TED spread").
BTW - I started to lose interest in TIPS when real yields went under 3% and I couldn't buy them with a credit card and get FF miles. I've read that the treasury may discontinue their issuance at some point down the road. Roby
Their CEO always looked so forthright and believable on Cramer when he talked of the temporary nature of his difficulties - thank god I read the 10Qs.
TMA's book is clean. It's unlikely that the ultimate losses on TMA's book are going to be greater than the TMA's equity.
It doesn't mean that TMA isn't done for but I don't know how investors could have believed that TMA's CEO could have anticipated a run-on-the-bank.
So, do you expect that the banks are going to hold these securities on their own books or auction them off?
Robyn "I" count - 4
any competent insulation company can help with those $1000/month energy bills.
Unfortunately the urban planners got there first. The insisted upon massive rights-of-way for even tertiary streets and outsized public dedications that do nothing but increase humidity and decrease community. the costs made developers make bad decisions such as more hardscape and higher densities. Thus we have 2 and 2 1/2 story stucco boxes with no overhang and zero lot line alignments and no room for trees compounded by slump wall fences and no open space allotments.
The Inland Empire is chock full of thin walled narrow corridor hardscape surrounded rabbit warrens that cannot be made energy efficient without the rooflines touching or tree roots clogging.
The trucking increase is in tons, which indicates it could be more commodities moving by truck.
If truckers aren't that busy, their rates drop, which makes it more economical to ship higher weight, lower value goods by truck.
When commodities prices are high, you can afford to pay truck rates vs. bulk rates to get goods to markets faster. Also, there are a lot of excess commodities and finished goods piling up in one area that need to be transported to others. Think: Home Depot can't move lumber in Florida so they truck it to North Carolina.
The biggest long-term problem is going to be that high diesel prices and toll-road price gouging (e.g., NJ) will push a lot of indy truckers off the road permanently. The economics of running your own rig just stinks. Ultimately, the U.S. govt. will have to subsidize trucking to keep the nation's wheels turning.
Other Jim - I think some states - like California - have more temperate climates than others (like Florida). We have about 3000 sf under A/C and an average power bill of about $275-350/month. Average house in our community is about 4-5000 sf - and they go up to 12000 sf. Haven't really parsed it out - but just about all of our days here in NE Florida are either A/C or heat days (probably fewer than 50-75 with neither - and some days we have heat at night and A/C during the day). We have good insulation (fairly new house) - but there are limits - particularly if you don't like the house to be warmer than 76 or colder than 70.
Anyway - I do agree - especially with older houses with high utilities bills - that an "energy survey" is in order. FWIW - the biggest energy waster here in Florida is A/C ductwork that isn't sealed properly and leaks. Roby
Geez, slow day or what? CR must be out enjoying the sunshine. His right, of course.
N.Y.C. = New York city. 322 square miles. Low, comparatively, carbon footprint per person,
So urban planners are to blame for developers minimizing the lot size and maximizing the house size?
regarding those data sets that lump Barstow in with LA. Somebody was certainly drunk when they did that, LA is mediterrainen(sp?) climate and Barstow is Mohave desert. Completely different ecosystems besides being hundreds of miles apart. Nicer people in Barstow as well if you like the desert rat lifestyle...
"crispy&cole writes:
Robyn "I" count - 4"
Good job. Maybe next time you can show us you can count to 10 or maybe do some basic algebra
. Roby
N.Y.C. = New York city. 322 square miles. Low, comparatively, carbon footprint per person,
Daniel
Is that because your local steaks come from nearby Jersey City? Urban hubris worthy of a New Yorker cover.
Meanwhile, in Guam, there is growing fear of a slowdown. From yesterday's Pacific Daily News, number of tourists is declining, due to economic slowdown in Japan and Korea and high fuel prices. My contacts in the adult services industry confirm this; fewer horny Japanese men splurging on the VIP room or a "massage".
About energy and housing... it's not merely the price. It's the availability, too. That's about to become an issue. Matt Simmons ( Simmons
) thinks US spot shortages in gasoline will likely happen soon, perhaps a year or two. He expects panic then, but not before. He believe that Americans will bear any prices, stoically until then.
Can an exurban manse in SoCal fit more solar panels than a condo in downtown Portland. Perhaps.
But here we still have quite a bit of hydropower, have quite a lot of open farmland, and fairly dense cities and small towns. And we have trees, and water. Plus some of our cities and towns are still 'human scale'.
As for prices? I predict we'll see pictures of those exurban LA Mcmansions in museums. We'll be impressed by the few that had solar panels before they were raided for scrap. We'll be amazed at how many were just left to the desert, after Lake Mead dried up. Oh, forgot about that water thing, didn't we?
Then, people in Portland will ride electrified public transit or our bikes to our jobs in downtown Portland.
No mistake, we're also in for a lot of economic pain up here. But we'll still be viable in 20 years.
Rob Dawg - Big overhangs and trees close to houses are kind of a no-no here in Florida (they're storm risks). OTOH - we can use things like low E glass - smaller windows (especially when it comes to those facing south or west) - window treatments - etc. to keep out the searing afternoon sun. The windows in our house have a slight gray tint - like sunglasses. I work on some housing and design websites (design is more fun than mortgage crises) - and it seems to me that developers just give people what they want (e.g., the jacuzzi for 2 instead of energy efficient windows).
BTW - am I the only person here shaking my head watching the extreme left coast people (California) fight with the extreme right coast people (New York)? Gosh - you'd think that no other part of the country mattered. Roby
I work in facilities extremely similar to Amgen's. They are best repurposed to the production of beer.
"Duff, Duff Light, and new Duff Dry!"
We should leave the meth production to the experts in the inland empire.
Yossarian - Are you old enough to remember gas rationing in the 70's - odd and even days? Stuff like that? I am. It was a real PITA but the world didn't come to an end. Roby
Yesterday, I could not even find a parking space at the little strip mall where I go for lunch. And the rush hour traffic has become steadily worse during the past 2+ years. If we are in a recession, there is zero evidence for it near me.
Cisco corporate campus is half empty, been that way since the dot.com bust, Applied Materials is 3/4 empty, lots of commerical buildings unused in SV. My company just moved from Santa Clara to Stockton, rent has been reduced by 60% and the warehouse guys were very happy to move out of SV expensive Apt's and rent for a fraction of the cost in Central Valley. Signs of the times.
Robyn, I stand in awe of your absolute mastery of so many varied subjects. Ever consider your own blog and sharing there?
Is that because your local steaks come from nearby Jersey City? Urban hubris worthy of a New Yorker cover.
Damn man, you're like Homer in the episode of the Simpsons when they went to NYC... "And that's when the C.H.U.D.s came after me."
Here's a link I'm too lazy to embed to the city's report on CO2 emissions.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/om/pdf/ccp_report041007.pdf
daveNYC,
Everyone is familiar with the much vaunted NYC claims of massive energy efficiencies. The problem is no one can account for the discrepancies. How is it that NYC uses a third of Chicago or Boston or Philly or Hartford's energy per capita when they are all within a few percent of each other?
I cannot prove it yet but I suspect it is much like Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's oft touted NYC balance of payments claims where because many Federal tax payments were drawn from NY based banks that NYC was some theoretical store of international profits and national productivity. energywise NYC owns lots of their own generating capacity and remote hydro and the like and I suspect those are not counted in their energy importation.
Yossarian,
Cannot agree with you regarding PDX. Traffic has greatly increased since even 1995-1996. When I go there for meetings/hearings (by train) the streets are packed with people commuting by car--& it's generally 1 person/car. SUVs are not uncommon. Of the native Portlanders I know, I don't think any of them have taken the bus since they were 18 or 19. I think one takes the MAX to the airport because there's a stop not far from his house. That's the only time he uses mass transit. None of them ride bikes or walk anywhere, although two of them live within what I consider to be easy walking distance of a "neighborhood" center w/lots of shops & restaurants (but they do drive there). They pretty much drive everywhere although they have no physical impairments that limit their ability to walk or ride a bicycle.
I think the only reason PDX has not increased its "emissions" since 1990 (or so it alleges) is because all of its industry has fled, so now all the emissions are from the growing number of vehicles, instead of factories--that employed people who could take mass transit or walk to work because they made enough to live in a city whose greatly increased RE prices are now pushing nurses, (among others) out of the PDX housing market.
Sherwood & (I think) Troutdale were the fastest growing parts of that part of western OR. Sherwood is not particularly close to downtown PDX ( the express bus from Sherwood takes at least 45 minutes or so to get to downtown PDX--that's if it's running on time). A significant amount of the agricultural land in western OR is disappearing or is already gone. One of the interesting aspects of OR's vaunted land use planning is that urban growth boundaries are unlimited in how much they can be expanded over time. You just have to put it into a "plan."
Both Eugene & Corvallis have seen a huge amount of expansion--& it's not "dense." Good small farm/orchard/dairy, etc., land is disappearing rapidly. Replaced by housing developments, big box stores, strip malls. Not real different than CA, maybe the lots are smaller in OR, I haven't been to CA to look.
When I moved to OR (1982), I noticed that OR had a "century" farm program: any farm that had lasted for 100 years, got a sign in recognition from the state of OR, don't know if they got a tax break too or not. Many of those farms are gone now.
I give PDX alot of credit for trying to keep its various neighborhoods intact & working to keep its mass transit system growing as the city expands. But that doesn't change its problems or that something has been lost as it's become a "hot" place to live and its RE prices & increased traffic & noise have pushed people out.
Get in touch with 1000 Friends of Oregon, ask for some of their materials about what's happening to OR.
azurite:
Been donating to 1000 Friends for years. Thanks for the sentiment, though.
Like I've said, Oregon has a lot in its favor. Sherwood was a farm town, with a train line. Woodburn, same thing. Lots of towns like this in Oregon.
People commute by car in Oregon? What a surprise. But what will happen when there are spot shortages of gasoline? At least a far higher percentage of Oregonians will be served by electrified transit, and bike paths.
There's even still a lot of hydro run of river projects possible. Google recently moved a service center up here because of the cheap and abundant electricity. And, there's not even that many people who live there.
What about an LA exurb? Not only will they also have spot shortages of gasoline soon, like all of us... fairly soon after that, they may have extremely limited water. Reference tree ring studies, doncha know.
Lake Mead is not so slowly drying up. How are you going to replace the power generated by Hoover Dam? It'd take a ton of money, a ton of energy to build a new nuke or even a huge dirty coal plant to even think about replacing it. And the water? Come on.
The point is, Oregon ain't perfect in this post housing bubble world.. but... it is survivable. Without consistent supplies of gasoline or water, goodbye LA exurbs. Period.
Robyn: I remember gas rationing quite well. I urge you to read the link to Matt Simmons' site. He's an investment banker, but you might find his stuff alarming. But since he's an oil industry guy, he can be taken far more seriously than I. He makes all his speeches and Powerpoint presentations available online.
BTW, I grew up in Arizona. I know dry. I know desert. That's why I live 100 yards from the Willamette river.
And no, the world isn't coming to an end. We're just going back to 'life in the 40s or 50s... fewer cars, more small town life, more rail travel, less flying, no exurbs. It's just that the road there will be rocky and paved with Mcmansions.
That's an excellent strategy. Now look at the last 30 years of job growth and tell me where most people should live.
Umm ... Bangalore?
mook,
Good one but there really has been job growth in the US as well. The problem is all the urbanist advocates here are running on 50 year old assumptions. The truth is that they are right, it is efficient to live close to work. The problem is that means the suburbs and not the old core cities.
Excellent! Let's ramp up the stock market! Everything only goes up! No recession - not now, not ever!! And so on...