SF Chronicle: Is Suburbia Turning Into Slumburbia?

[marmar]

Is Suburbia Turning Into Slumburbia?
By Carol Lloyd, Special to SF Gate

Friday, March 14, 2008

Every coin has its flip side. Last week, I explored how San Francisco and other centers of innovation around the globe are resisting the downward vortex of the housing market. These fabled super cities, Richard Florida contends in his new book, "Who's Your City," are attracting an increasingly disproportionate number of educated, creative knowledge workers who fuel the economy. In turn, these folks are keeping housing prices relatively high despite recurring appearances of the R-word on our front pages.

The dark side of this surreality is that the places far from these hallowed urban cores are experiencing unprecedented decline and, according to some experts, threaten to become tomorrow's slums.

We're not talking about mean inner city streets getting meaner, we're talking about the pristine, newly built developments of four-bedroom, three-bath dream homes produced in the last housing boom becoming ghettos for the poor and the disenfranchised.

Slumburbia? After decades of middle class flight from the cities in search of safe neighborhoods and good schools — a flight that continues today even from gentrified cities like San Francisco — it's hard to conjure the image of a truly derelict suburbia. Will all those manicured lawns sprout weeds and broken bottles like a Baltimore back alley? Will drug dealers take over the local cul-de-sac? Will squatters set up camp in the neighbor's McMansion?

All this seems unfathomable, but it's the prediction du jour for some urban planners who make it their business to track the larger sociological implications of our land use. ....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/03/14/carollloyd.DTL

[FredStembottom]

1. Maybe it's different in San Fran.........

But here in Minneapolis, the 1st-ring 1950's suburbs became the new slums somewhere in the 80's-90's. The inner city is increasingly spiffed-up (gentrified) and the crime stats and peeling paint increasing surround the city.

[gristy]

2. Substantial article in The Altantic on this phenomenon last month

Very credible.

on edit: Indeed, the author of this article draws mostly from the article in The Atlantic.