More and more people are voting online in the Make It Your Own Awards… hopefully lots of them casting one vote for Front Porch Forum. If you tried and the site failed, please try again using this simpler voting site.
More comments from voters…
I’ve always been fascinated by grand old mansions in various U.S. cities that have fallen on hard times… whole neighborhoods that, over a couple generations, go from being the toniest side of town to the slum. And solid middle class homes too. How temporary it all is.
So Christopher B. Leinberger‘s current Atlantic article, “The Next Slum?” easily caught my attention…
Strange days are upon the residents of many a suburban cul-de-sac. Once-tidy yards have become overgrown, as the houses they front have gone vacant. Signs of physical and social disorder are spreading…
In the Franklin Reserve neighborhood of Elk Grove, California, south of Sacramento… many [of the houses] once sold for well over $500,000. At the height of the boom, 10,000 new homes were built there in just four years. Now many are empty; renters of dubious character occupy others. Graffiti, broken windows, and other markers of decay have multiplied. Susan McDonald, president of the local residents’ association and an executive at a local bank, told the Associated Press, “There’s been gang activity. Things have really been changing, the last few years.”
He lays out how the subprime mortgage mess, the increasing demand for urban living and resulting gentrification, and the inefficient design of suburban living will combine to vacuum the upper and middle class out of many suburbs, leading she ‘burbs toward chopped up rental housing, poor schools, etc. Over time, the suburbs will see similar decline to what our inner cities did in the 1960s and 70s.
In thinking about the thousands of neighborhoods that turned over or were emptied out due to “white flight” and wholesale demolition (a.k.a. “urban renewal”), I wonder about the people, the community, the relationships… so much lost. A much quicker version of this occurred in New Orleans with Katrina’s deadly arrival.
Well… I recommend the Atlantic article.
A couple pieces today make the case that well-to-do neighborhoods have a reduced sense of community vis-a-vis more middle-class and low-income neighborhoods. True?
From a Wall Street Journal blog (see the comments)…
I’m always amazed at how the richest neighborhoods are also among the most empty.
And from Playborhood…
The fact is that, overall, the owners of these 2+ million dollar homes are not very “neighborly,” at least when they’re compared to owners in other neighborhoods with much less expensive homes.
Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more