The question perhaps we should consider is why sprawl accelerated after 1980, since the country had just come through a moment when all of the reasons for a denser lifestyle were in play and yet the next thirty years would see greater and greater sprawl rather than less.

 

I don't have good answers, but figuring that out is probably more important than the issues surrounding the post-war era suburbanization.

Easy access to credit was a big factor, I think. We all use credit cards today like crazy. We could never have imagined such spending practices before 1980 when we saved more of our money to buy big-ticket items and borrowed less than we do now. How many of us can actually afford our big homes and three cars in the newest suburban estate named after the wilderness or farm it erased??

Easy access to credit was a big factor, I think. We all use credit cards today like crazy. We could never have imagined such spending practices before 1980 when we saved more of our money to buy big-ticket items and borrowed less than we do now.

 

KJP you hit it on the head.  Maybe people use credit as a bridge.  Especially with the credit card marketing programs out there.  Disney, Airlines, hotels, Amtrak, etc.

 

I rarely carry cash, like I did in the 80's, today I just charge everything and pay the bill at the end of the month.  At the same time, I'm not going to the ATM machine, to withdraw money, as much as I did then either.

 

Another problem is people don't have budgets these days.  How many UO's actually have a household budget and stick to it?

That's what I'm talking about.  You can see past spending and budget for future.  I know so many people that have no clue what they've spent this yesterday, the week, let alone last month or last year.

I could find the citation, but it would take awhile. Anyway, some historians have crunched the numbers and have shown that what is new isn't the fact that we are in debt, but rather what kind of debt we have. Before the 1970s, people went into debt for individual items and carried lines of credit with local merchants. What happened after the 1970s, is that debt shifted away from a particular item, except for cars and maybe a couple other items, toward general debt held by credit card companies. This also shifted power away from the local merchant to the national chains. Many people had a line of credit at the local grocer, which obviously they aren't going to get at Walmart or Kroger.

The question perhaps we should consider is why sprawl accelerated after 1980, since the country had just come through a moment when all of the reasons for a denser lifestyle were in play and yet the next thirty years would see greater and greater sprawl rather than less.

 

You are talking about the 1970s? 

 

I recall some what is discussed today was part the discussion back then (such as alternative forms of transit, energy conservation, and so forth).  I'm not sure how this played out in land use planning, but during that era Oregon was in the news due to their growth control initiatives.

 

I don't have good answers, but figuring that out is probably more important than the issues surrounding the post-war era suburbanization.

 

If sprawl is in part driven by some form of housing demand, the demand would come from new household formation, not necessarily population growth.  So in an environment where population growth levels off, and also household formation levels off, there should still be "development" but less of it.

 

Could it be that a metropolitan real estate/development/construction industry didn't shrink, or shrink as much as expected, with this leveling off, but used sprawl as the solution to continued economic viabilty?  Just a hypothesis.

 

 

 

The question perhaps we should consider is why sprawl accelerated after 1980, since the country had just come through a moment when all of the reasons for a denser lifestyle were in play and yet the next thirty years would see greater and greater sprawl rather than less.

 

I don't have good answers, but figuring that out is probably more important than the issues surrounding the post-war era suburbanization.

 

Easier credit certainly played a role, but I'm not sure it wasn't also a reaction to the demand.

 

In Cleveland, one of the big factors was school busing.  There was a clamor among city residents with kids (mostly white, but some black as well) to get the hell out of the district.  Inner ring homeowners saw their chance to sell and move out further into bigger houses.  The departing parents often sold their houses to landlords, and some even became landlords themselves.  Absentee landlords plus often apathetic tenants sent more people bailing towards the suburbs.

 

As we've discussed, Section 8 is also a later factor.

 

The increased number of divorces meant that divorced parents might each have a house.  Yes, some would remarry, but not all.

 

During the 1980s, the price of gas dropped in real dollars, especially in 1986 when Reagan got the Saudis to open the spigots.

 

Industrial sprawl is another factor.  When factories locate in the suburbs and exurbs rather than in the city, why not live nearby?

 

Finally, Cleveland had pre-existing freeways to Akron, Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Toledo along which car-friendly sprawl could develop.

        Regarding the years of cheap oil in the eighties/nineties, it's also worth noting that the Alaskan North Slope and British North Sea fields were at peak production by then, helping to flood the world market with oil, depressing the price so much that many domestic drillers in the US (west Texas and La are prime examples) went under and also contributed mightily to the downfall and breakup of the USSR, as their prime source of revenue at the time (and now) was oil.

    The popular myth is that the US got the Soviets caught up in our "Star Wars" arms race and bankrupted them when they couldn't keep up. Not really true. We bankrupted them by flooding the market with oil (ours and OPEC's) and strangling them with shriveled oil revenue and an unsustainable empire and foreign wars (Afghanistan). Sound familiar?

Ok, back on topic.

Easy access to credit was a big factor, I think. We all use credit cards today like crazy. We could never have imagined such spending practices before 1980 when we saved more of our money to buy big-ticket items and borrowed less than we do now.

 

KJP you hit it on the head.  Maybe people use credit as a bridge.  Especially with the credit card marketing programs out there.  Disney, Airlines, hotels, Amtrak, etc.

 

I rarely carry cash, like I did in the 80's, today I just charge everything and pay the bill at the end of the month.  At the same time, I'm not going to the ATM machine, to withdraw money, as much as I did then either.

 

Another problem is people don't have budgets these days.  How many UO's actually have a household budget and stick to it?

 

I'm a project Manager... I budget like a mother f*cker, and always make sure I come in under budget.  And I love cards as cash, give me the points! Teaching my future wife these practices, however...  not as easy.:wink:

I'm a project Manager... I budget like a mother f*cker, and always make sure I come in under budget.  And I love cards as cash, give me the points! Teaching my future wife these practices, however...  not as easy.:wink:

 

You and me both.  I can tell you every nickel I've spent and to what vendor it's gone to for the past 17 years.  I love my airline miles.

 

My father says, after they bought the house my mother selectively forgot what a "budget" was.  He continuously says, "A happy wife equals a happy life".  He and I think money is the biggest reason for couples to fight and he would rather avoid an argument with my mom.

I like to think more Americans have budgets, but I fear many may not. Assuming the latter, the proposed 30¢/day gas tax holiday reaches levels of high-hilarity.

Ah, budgeting.....a lost art. I put myself somewhere in between the 2 extremes, but more towards "not tracking my every expenditure" crowd, though I'm probably better than a lot of people,IMO.  I will add that I only use credit cards in an emergency (I rely on my debit card day-to-day) and really don't carry much cash, except on weekends and special shopping trips. My fiance is much better at sticking to a budget and keeping track of expenditures.

I like to think more Americans have budgets, but I fear many may not. Assuming the latter, the proposed 30¢/day gas tax holiday reaches levels of high-hilarity.

KOOW, this is one of the worst ideas I've heard come out of any of the candidates so far, and there's been quite a few. James Howard Kunstler has a great rant on it over on his blog: www.kunstler.com

 

Hmm, let's artificially lower the price of gas for the summer driving season, increasing demand (and price) and taking the focus off of the big problem that underlies the increasing prices, than re-instate the tax sometime in the fall in time for the election? Who thought of that? Thinking like this is why the US is just screwed down the road.

Industrial/manufacturing has been located primarily on the fringes of cities since cities first developed.  The idea that we hold now that industry is or should be at the center of our cities is the aberration.

I like to think more Americans have budgets, but I fear many may not. Assuming the latter, the proposed 30¢/day gas tax holiday reaches levels of high-hilarity.

KOOW, this is one of the worst ideas I've heard come out of any of the candidates so far, and there's been quite a few. James Howard Kunstler has a great rant on it over on his blog: www.kunstler.com

 

Hmm, let's artificially lower the price of gas for the summer driving season, increasing demand (and price) and taking the focus off of the big problem that underlies the increasing prices, than re-instate the tax sometime in the fall in time for the election? Who thought of that? Thinking like this is why the US is just screwed down the road.

 

Should the idea take hold, heaven help the candidate who championed it when the tax is reinstated in the fall. $4.50/gallon gas on election day? Say hello to President Obama. 

The challenge for cities is always where to stick the stinky polluting unpleasant parts of civilization and the get people to those places so they have the jobs that keep the economy moving. It is relatively easy to locate residential, commercial, office space but much harder to find good spaces for industrial development.

    

The popular myth is that the US got the Soviets caught up in our "Star Wars" arms race and bankrupted them when they couldn't keep up. Not really true. We bankrupted them by flooding the market with oil (ours and OPEC's) and strangling them with shriveled oil revenue and an unsustainable empire and foreign wars (Afghanistan). Sound familiar?

Ok, back on topic.

 

That was intentional (and brilliant).  Indeed, it's how Reagan sold the Saudis on the idea. 

 

Also, their Middle Eastern client states felt the pinch and couldn't buy weapons systems from the Soviets, depriving them of another major cash source.

 

Industrial/manufacturing has been located primarily on the fringes of cities since cities first developed.  The idea that we hold now that industry is or should be at the center of our cities is the aberration.

 

If you want jobs for city residents and want them to use transit it's no aberration whatsoever.

Aberration = considered unusual.

Unusual != undesirable

I decided to do what KJP showed for Cuyahoga County, but for Dayton.

 

This is different that his as  I show more than Montgomery County, and I show the area subdivided around 1930 or so, which does miss some minor WWII-era plats, but is essentially the subivided era just before post-war suburbia kicks in.  This pre-suburbia city is in red tint.

 

Then I show development up to today, in orange (which could be tweaked a bit the base map doesnt show the most recent new subdivision development nor ribbon developement along country roads

 

 

The degree of suburban development is pretty amazing (especially since this cuts off a lot of Beavercreek to the east), as is the uneven development.  What's even more interesting is that Montgomery County pretty much had net minimal population growth since 1970 (near ZPG after 20 years), and Dayton lost half its population since it topped off in 1960.

 

What would be interesting is to show this in stages, with an intermediate stage for 1970, on the eve of the slow growth era.

 

 

 

 

I believe I have posted this on here before, but I figured it was relevant to what Jeff posted.

 

Something was incentivizing such outlandish growth patterns, and by accounts of this thread, racism, easy development, abundant credit, and some sort of "American" need for elbow room were key. 

 

Can somebody point out a rational cause for all this? No. We have to make up some sort of bushwa about "American Individualism."

 

I don't think these patterns have a single thing to do with any kind of individualism. Quite the opposite, in fact. I'd say it's something more akin to "materialist mutualism." People went to costly and extraordinary expense to live closer to people of their own "class," which was defined only by level of consumption.

 

It's keeping up with the Joneses all the way over the cliff.

 

 

More sprawl.

 

And no presidential candidates are saying anything about it.

 

To me, this is what's scariest about the 2008 election. How the hell are we supposed to survive if we don't start seriously putting an end to sprawl and low density, wasteful development? Everyone is talking about gas prices right now, and hardly anyone is talking about driving less and developing a lifestyle that doesn't rely on a car for every damn thing you do. The longer I live in America, the more likely the Mad Max scenario seems to me.

 

This is one of those topics that is political suicide to address.  But I think Obama's Urban America oriented agenda will certainly address this as soon as he gets into office.  I became concerned when his published "Blueprint for Change" didn't mention public transit once, but he's addressed this as part of his Urban Policy platform at numerous rallies. 

I always got a kick out of that animation Dffly posted as it shows Middletown and Frankling being urbanized by 1970, when we know those towns are older...I guess its how granular you get with the graphics.

 

I wonder why animation hasnt been used more for urban studies as I can see it ibeing a great way to illustrate change..or maybe it is being used more...

 

Anyway...

 

Yeah, one other thing about sprawl, none of this wouldn't have happened without water or sewers.  Well, maybe you could get away with septic tanks, but I'd wonder about an entire subdivision working off well water, individual wells for each split level or ranch on a plat?  (though I do know of an example of that in Beavercreek.

 

I think the decisions around infrastructure is really the hidden history of sprawl, decisions on when to build utilties, were to build them and especially decisions to extend and upsize systems, and maybe finance. I'd guess you'd call it the 'Chinatown' angle (after the movie).  Usually when folks talk sprawl + infrastructure the discussion is around highways and roads, but the underground stuff is probably equally important.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, one other thing about sprawl, none of this wouldn't have happened without water or sewers.  Well, maybe you could get away with septic tanks, but I'd wonder about an entire subdivision working off well water, individual wells for each split level or ranch on a plat?  (though I do know of an example of that in Beavercreek.

 

How about a 300-lot trailer park? My folks live across from one (near Rickenbacker), and the TP used wells until county water came in the early 2000s due to anticipated warehouse development. The trailer park was there for about 35 years before it sucked my folks' well dry (wells draw water from a 40-acre area). The park did have a woefully inadequate standalone sewer system for years until the EPA came in and made them upgrade.

 

Don't even get me started on how rural trailer parks with no services for miles are the absolute worst possible place to put low-income individuals.

 

Don't even get me started on how rural trailer parks with no services for miles are the absolute worst possible place to put low-income individuals.

 

It's a great place to put them if you don't want them living in your neighborhood.

Adam Rome is the historian on the septic system suburbs. They were real big right after the war, until most of them had to retrofit when the neighborhood literally turned to sh*t.

Can somebody point out a rational cause for all this? No. We have to make up some sort of bushwa about "American Individualism."

 

There's been plenty of causes spelled out.  Increasing city populations during the war, the spike in population due to the returning servicemen, their fatigue with the crowding and authoritarianism they'd been subjected to in the military, their desire for peace and quiet, and their comfort with motor vehicles are just a few.  Throw in available funds (the GIs had the GI bill, the erstwhile war workers had extra income without means to spend it during the war itself.

 

If you choose not to consider it rational, that's up to you.  :shrug:  

Can somebody point out a rational cause for all this? No. We have to make up some sort of bushwa about "American Individualism."

 

There's been plenty of causes spelled out.  Increasing city populations during the war, the spike in population due to the returning servicemen, their fatigue with the crowding and authoritarianism they'd been subjected to in the military, their desire for peace and quiet, and their comfort with motor vehicles are just a few.  Throw in available funds (the GIs had the GI bill, the erstwhile war workers had extra income without means to spend it during the war itself.

 

If you choose not to consider it rational, that's up to you.  :shrug:  

 

The impetus behind all choices of "where should I live" is "lifestyle I want to live".  Every single person here lives where they do because it provides them with the lifestyle they want.  Considering most of the people on this board are single men, living in an urban environment where school system is irrelevant and your perspective on safety is significantly different from that of a female or small child, I wouldn't expect you to want to live in a suburb.  But as soon as your priorities change, I imagine your desired location to call home changes as well.

 

Jobs moved to the suburbs, public education became better in the suburbs, the odds of not living next to a degenerate neighbor is better in the suburbs, the odds of your wife not getting harassed while walking the dog is better in the suburbs, and the odds of your kids getting solicited to buy drugs is less in the suburbs.

 

I find those all to be rational reasons to live there.  I know that's why my parents chose to live where they still live today - it was close to work, the school system was one of the best in the county, and they could raise their kids in a safe environment.  The quality of life was better than it was in Cleveland proper...and this was in 1972 when my dad bought his first house in the suburbs (well before there was any freeway going there).

Can somebody point out a rational cause for all this? No. We have to make up some sort of bushwa about "American Individualism."

 

There's been plenty of causes spelled out.  Increasing city populations during the war, the spike in population due to the returning servicemen, their fatigue with the crowding and authoritarianism they'd been subjected to in the military, their desire for peace and quiet, and their comfort with motor vehicles are just a few.  Throw in available funds (the GIs had the GI bill, the erstwhile war workers had extra income without means to spend it during the war itself.

 

If you choose not to consider it rational, that's up to you.  :shrug:  

 

Racism = Irrational

 

Draining population and money out of urban centers--and allowing infrastructure to crumble, transit systems to be ripped up and schools to falter--in favor of unsustainable auto-centric growth = Irrational

 

Equating post-war suburbs with uncrowded peace and quiet = Irrational

 

 

(Insert the din of 105dB power lawnmowers, two cars per household worth of leaded gas emissions, trillions of gallons of chemical fertilizers and weed killers, and the sound of your neighbor's toilet flushing)

 

...Considering most of the people on this board are single men, living in an urban environment where school system is irrelevant and your perspective on safety is significantly different from that of a female or small child, I wouldn't expect you to want to live in a suburb.  But as soon as your priorities change, I imagine your desired location to call home changes as well.

 

This is not me.

 

Jobs moved to the suburbs, public education became better in the suburbs, the odds of not living next to a degenerate neighbor is better in the suburbs, the odds of your wife not getting harassed while walking the dog is better in the suburbs, and the odds of your kids getting solicited to buy drugs is less in the suburbs.

 

I find those all to be rational reasons to live there.  I know that's why my parents chose to live where they still live today - it was close to work, the school system was one of the best in the county, and they could raise their kids in a safe environment.  The quality of life was better than it was in Cleveland proper...and this was in 1972 when my dad bought his first house in the suburbs (well before there was any freeway going there).

 

Drugs, crime and degenerate behavior will go where there's a market for it. I grew up in what is now one of the most desirable zip codes in the US; drugs were plentiful in the schools, the majority of commuters headed downtown every morning (or worse yet, into 30-55 minute cross-town slogs), and on one notable occasion, my mother was mugged in her driveway.

 

The inner-city schools suffered at the hands of abandonment and government-subsidized redistribution of population and little else.

 

Are inner-city schools perfect? Hardly. But the idea that schools are always better in the suburbs is an enduring component of the suburban myth, and policy like No Child Left Behind is one if its chief underwriters. No Child measures a lowered bar, and the inhabitants of a homogenized middle-class bubble are great at meeting that expectation. It’s not the inner-city schools that are single-handedly dragging down our national educational standards; they’re getting a lot of help from the ‘burbs. 

 

Further, suburban schools are left exposed to costly overcrowding and undercrowding as their populations move in and move on. As kids are jammed into trailers one year, and then half a generation later, consolidated with other students from across the district into single buildings, the quality of education absolutely suffers.

 

Me? I live near downtown and my wife and I are sending the kids to Columbus Public Schools. We have our pick (okay, pick of the draw) of outstanding alternative schools. Most urban schools get dinged on the standardized schools report cards, but that is largely a result of the schools not offering a teach-the-test standardized curriculum.

 

Even the schools in my precious childhood suburb back home are suffering. They're consistently near the top of the heap report card-wise, but they’re dying a slow death at the hands of No Child Left Behind. The only way for this already exceptional public school district to display annual yearly improvement is to lower the bar little by little.

 

And one more ironic twist: in Columbus, the schools everybody moves to the suburbs for--New Albany, Worthington, et al--are struggling with funding. Why? Because the residents who moved in to take advantage of the Excellent Schools refuse to pass millages to fund them.

 

Folks not willing to pay their fair share? Sounds pretty un-American to me.

 

KOOW, that was one of the best post on UO.  :clap:

 

And surprisingly it came from you with no comedy.  Is KOOW getting serious on us?! :?

If anyone wants to argue that the Cleveland School district is equvalent (or "good enough") and has less drugs/crime/safety issues compared to any suburban school...well, unless something drastically changes, I am never going to think that.

 

But there's a difference between wanting to live in a walkable urban environment and needing to make some sacrifices to do what's best for your family.  People don't live in the suburbs because they hate being able to walk everywhere and love driving their car around.  They live there because their suburban city provides them a quality of life Cleveland can't. 

 

Drugs, crime and degenerate behavior will go where there's a market for it. I grew up in what is now one of the most desirable zip codes in the US; drugs were plentiful in the schools, the majority of commuters headed downtown every morning (or worse yet, into 30-55 minute cross-town slogs), and on one notable occasion, my mother was mugged in her driveway.

 

The inner-city schools suffered at the hands of abandonment and government-subsidized redistribution of population and little else.

 

Are inner-city schools perfect? Hardly. But the idea that schools are always better in the suburbs is an enduring component of the suburban myth, and policy like No Child Left Behind is one if its chief underwriters. No Child measures a lowered bar, and the inhabitants of a homogenized middle-class bubble are great at meeting that expectation. It’s not the inner-city schools that are single-handedly dragging down our national educational standards; they’re getting a lot of help from the ‘burbs. 

 

Further, suburban schools are left exposed to costly overcrowding and undercrowding as their populations move in and move on. As kids are jammed into trailers one year, and then half a generation later, consolidated with other students from across the district into single buildings, the quality of education absolutely suffers.

 

Me? I live near downtown and my wife and I are sending the kids to Columbus Public Schools. We have our pick (okay, pick of the draw) of outstanding alternative schools. Most urban schools get dinged on the standardized schools report cards, but that is largely a result of the schools not offering a teach-the-test standardized curriculum.

 

Even the schools in my precious childhood suburb back home are suffering. They're consistently near the top of the heap report card-wise, but they’re dying a slow death at the hands of No Child Left Behind. The only way for this already exceptional public school district to display annual yearly improvement is to lower the bar little by little.

 

And one more ironic twist: in Columbus, the schools everybody moves to the suburbs for--New Albany, Worthington, et al--are struggling with funding. Why? Because the residents who moved in to take advantage of the Excellent Schools refuse to pass millages to fund them.

 

Folks not willing to pay their fair share? Sounds pretty un-American to me.

 

 

Drugs, crime and degernate behavior will go where there's a market for it...and there's a substantially bigger market for it in the city than in the suburbs.

 

Inner City schools were suffering long before No Child Left Behind (which I agree is horrible) and people moving to the suburbs.  I beleive people moved to the suburbs because inner city schools were deteriorating.  No school system is perfect and drug/incident free, but if you are going to argue Cleveland School district is equivalent (or "good enough") when compared to most suburban schools, what are you seeing that I am not?  Better graduation rates?  Percentage of graduates going to college?  Better attendance rates? That is not the case when comparing Cleveland to any suburb people move to for education purposes.  (I don't know anything about Columbus).

 

I haven't seen the same "abuse" of school districts that you have.  i know my hometown continuously passes school levys as do the neighboring school districts that have good schools.

 

And what is less American...moving your kids to a school system that they can thrive in yet not supporting tax increases or simply not caring about your kids education in the first place?

I'm a middle-aged married man with three kids in Columbus Public Schools and a wife who teaches there, and I'm a regular user of this forum. And I'm here to say that the suburbs do not offer better schools and teachers. The better suburban districts are the wealthier ones, and household income level, according to lots of studies, is the greatest predictor of academic achievement. The large urban districts are left with the larger percentage of lower-income students, the most difficult to educate, those with all the family problems related to poverty. And the state and federal governments label so many urban schools as "failing" schools. Show me a "failing" school that is not in a failing neighborhood filled with failing families.

 

These children are left behind because those who are well-to-do were better positioned to take advantage of the massive federal subsidization of the urban diaspora -- the home-loan guarantees that favored suburban new-builds over existing urban housing, federal subsidies to new sewer systems in new burbs, 90 years of federal road policies that were biased against cities from the start (read "20th Century Sprawl: Highways and the Reshaping of the American Landscape" by Barnard historian Owen Gutfreund), federal tax policies that accelerated the depreciation of suburban malls and enabled developers to more quickly recoup their investments and reward their planned obsolescence, etc., etc., etc. Not to mention the GI Bill.

 

The move the the suburbs, like past and present westward expansion, is rampant primarily because of federal subsidies that helped them run away from the urban problems they helped create. Suburban subsidy suckers, suckling at the teat of the feds and whining about taxes and claiming that they are so independent.

 

The urban diaspora was not a free-market thing. It was a hugely misguided series of federal policies. And those policies need to be reversed.

UrbanSurfin,

 

  Well said.  Thank you.

I don't wanna take a side in this so all I'm going to say is this. I think the main reason people move to the suburbs is because a lot of times it is cheaper but they aren't that far from downtown of a major city. I don't think it's always because of the education system or quality of living in the area. Perhaps, just perhaps, living in a major city isn't for everybody. That's just me though.

Of course not. But even for some of us who do want to live in an urbanized area cannot. I can't live downtown because I can't afford it. I would love to live in many areas of Cleveland because they have better transit access and some cool new housing. But many of these areas aren't as safe as I want, or it lacks grocery stores within walking distance or isn't as vibrant as I would want, or all of the above. So I live in a neighborhood that's just OK from an urban perspective, and is probably one of the best I could find for the money, that's safe and allows me to walk and take transit to many things. But it's still in a suburb, and about five miles from downtown. It's not what I want.....

I'd love to live in one of the neighborhoods near downtown Columbus but my wife's job is in Westerville, so it just doesn't make sense (and its environmentally unsound) to live in the core when the job is at the periphery, even if the neighborhoods are so much more our style in the core.

This sprawl discussion has certainly got my attention...I've been digging more on this. 

 

I found out that the census, for 1970 and 1980 at least, actually has a count of people, by tract, that have moved from the center city of a metro area.  Im going to look into this for Dayton to see if there are any patterns.

 

But I got into the census stuff by looking for household numbers.  Here is some interesting charts. 

 

This is one for unit.  How many units in Montgomery County (Dayton and most of the suburbs..but not all...), by year.

 

 

1970 was the year Montgomery County started to level off in population, with minimal growth for the next 30 years, but the number of units continue to increase

 

So, lets look at housholds + plus units.  Two kinds of households...family (what it sounds like) and non-family...singles, divorces, widows/widowers, roommates, and people shacking up.  One can see a steady increase in non-family households while familys stay flat.  Its nonfamily households that lead to an increase in household numbers from 1970 to 2000, even if population is flat.

 

 

Also, the number of units always stays ahead of the number of households, so there is always a bit of a housing surplus, which is a good thing as a housing shortage would be problematic in terms of housing costs.  But note the surplus seems to be increasing since 1970. 

 

I did some numbers for Dayton city, and whats interesing is that the city consistently has 51%-56% +/_ of the county housing surplus, within that range for every census year since 1970.  Interestingly I think the year with the highest city % surplus was 1980

 

One thing the later numbers dont account for is sprawl in adjacent Greene and northern Warren County, which would be affecting Montgomery County numbers particularly in the 1990s, when growth across the county line really started to pick up (there always was some, but anecdotally the 1990s and esp the 2000s have been the decades when growth is finally leaving Montgomery for the "colllar countys".

 

 

 

    I couldn't help but notice the smooth, parabolic curve in housing numbers in Jeffrey's graph above. I went ahead and made a mathmatical projection, based on the average second derivative using Jeffrey's numbers.

 

   

 

    If this model reflects reality, it looks like housing will peak sometime this decade, if it hasn't already. Sound familiar?

Eigth and State, are you saying "oil's not well" in the housing market??

Drugs, crime and degernate behavior will go where there's a market for it...and there's a substantially bigger market for it in the city than in the suburbs.

 

Inner City schools were suffering long before No Child Left Behind (which I agree is horrible) and people moving to the suburbs.  I beleive people moved to the suburbs because inner city schools were deteriorating.  No school system is perfect and drug/incident free, but if you are going to argue Cleveland School district is equivalent (or "good enough") when compared to most suburban schools, what are you seeing that I am not?  Better graduation rates?  Percentage of graduates going to college?  Better attendance rates? That is not the case when comparing Cleveland to any suburb people move to for education purposes.  (I don't know anything about Columbus).

 

I haven't seen the same "abuse" of school districts that you have.  i know my hometown continuously passes school levys as do the neighboring school districts that have good schools.

 

And what is less American...moving your kids to a school system that they can thrive in yet not supporting tax increases or simply not caring about your kids education in the first place?

 

We're looking at a chicken/egg debate here with regard to the fall of urban public schools and the relative rise of suburban public schools. See Urban Surfin's eloquent framing of the issue, with which I heartily agree.

 

Incidentally, I just got back into town from a visit to Detroit, during which time I had separate discussions with a teacher and a two parents involved in highly desirable (middle-ring) suburban school districts. The consensus: in addition to No Child Left Behind gutting curricula everywhere, there's not nearly enough tax base to sustain older suburban school budgets, and there's no end in sight for the decline of Detroit's Public Schools, which are presently graduating 1 out of 4 seniors (makes Columbus' 85% graduation rate look pretty hot by comparison).

 

The moral: the public schools are in crisis everywhere, and chasing the newest and shiniest school district available isn't a winning strategy. Suburban or urban, parent or childless, we ALL have to stand and fight for our public schools.

 

And lest people think I've gone all serious, well, YAY BOOBIES!

Eigth and State, are you saying "oil's not well" in the housing market??

 

:)

^----"Are you saying oils not well in the housing market?"

 

    No, that's not what I'm saying. If you want to know about the housing market, ask a realtor.

 

    What I am saying is that the number of housing units in Montgomery County, from Jeff's graph, nearly follows a parabolic curve from 1950 to 2000, and I did a mathematical projection of that trend.

 

    An interesting thing is that the shape of the graph mimics the projected peak oil curve. Coincidence? It also mimics the population curve.  It is clear that the 1950's and 1960's were the high growth periods, and there is hardly any growth at all today, if any.

 

    There seems to be a system in place, and I'm trying to get a handle on it. The parabolic model matches the data from 1950 to 2000 pretty well. 

 

 

 

 

 

The moral: the public schools are in crisis everywhere, and chasing the newest and shiniest school district available isn't a winning strategy. Suburban or urban, parent or childless, we ALL have to stand and fight for our public schools.

 

And lest people think I've gone all serious, well, YAY BOOBIES!

 

I'm not a parent, but the school system seems to be one of the biggest concerns for families. My first gut reaction is that we need an enormously reinvigorated public school system. We need a system that puts more responsibility on the parents and holds them accountable for their child's actions and academic progress, even if the consequences are punitive on the parents. We need to get parents more involved in what is going on at the school. 

 

The moral: the public schools are in crisis everywhere, and chasing the newest and shiniest school district available isn't a winning strategy. Suburban or urban, parent or childless, we ALL have to stand and fight for our public schools.

 

And lest people think I've gone all serious, well, YAY BOOBIES!

 

I'm not a parent, but the school system seems to be one of the biggest concerns for families. My first gut reaction is that we need an enormously reinvigorated public school system. We need a system that puts more responsibility on the parents and holds them accountable for their child's actions and academic progress, even if the consequences are punitive on the parents. We need to get parents more involved in what is going on at the school. 

 

What did you do with the real David??  :?  That was the most thoughtful and spot on post you've written.

The parabola thingy is interesting, and it would be ironic as Dayton grew with the auto industry and may die with it?

 

I should note I did not post a population graph for Montgomery county yet (the household numbers are not population numbers).

 

But this is intriguing, isn't it?

 

(David is right about schools, too, I think).

 

 

 

I'm not a parent, but the school system seems to be one of the biggest concerns for families. My first gut reaction is that we need an enormously reinvigorated public school system. We need a system that puts more responsibility on the parents and holds them accountable for their child's actions and academic progress, even if the consequences are punitive on the parents. We need to get parents more involved in what is going on at the school. 

 

You're getting very close to the heart of the matter,which is: The challenge of urban schools/education is fundamentally a social problem, and not a schools problem. The best suburban schools cannot fix broken urban families -- as even the reviled No Child Left Behind is finding. Suburban schools are outraged that they're not getting the highest ratings when the authorities separate out the progress levels of students in their districts that come from disadvantaged families. They say they should not be held accountable for the problems of the groups most difficult to educate.

 

Bingo!

 

And those suburban school officials are actually right. They shouldn't be held accountable for the problems that kids from sad backgrounds bring to school. But then, neither should the urban districts, which have a far higher percentage of kids from sad backgrounds.

 

We need to fix the urban communities, the economies in those communities, the families left behind in those communities. And it's almost criminal that authorities at the local, state and federal levels insist on blaming schools for failing to educate kids with serious problems, while those same officials practically ignore the circumstances those kids come from.

 

And those suburban school officials are actually right. They shouldn't be held accountable for the problems that kids from sad backgrounds bring to school. But then, neither should the urban districts, which have a far higher percentage of kids from sad backgrounds.

 

My hometown school district has really been struggling with this of recent. Its a "district of choice" meaning anyone can enroll. And since its sits on the border of the Detroit School District, it gets a lot of Detroit students (around 25% of total enrollment if I recall.) Not all of them are bad, but some of the key indicators that the State board of Education looks at have been affected in a negative way, especially its graduation rate. (perhaps more so due to the transient nature of transferring students)