Howard Glaser, a Clinton-administration housing official and consultant whose clients include the National Association of Realtors, offers this cheery note to the New York Times:
The administration made a bet that a rising economy would solve the housing problem and now they are out of chips. They are deeply worried and don’t really know what to do.
If home prices begin to fall again with any serious velocity, borrowers may stay away in such numbers that the market never recovers
NEVER, is a long time.
The general “housing market” will recover at some point. What that point is I can’t say.
When it happens few will notice until it’s readily apparent.
It’s likely that some specific markets are recovering as I type.
In the mid to long term the American population will continue to increase and more people means more need for housing.
Now don’t ask me when that general recovery will occur. I dunno.
IrishPirate,
America’s population will grow. Will Chicago’s reverse its downward trend?
I dunno, Joseph.
I’m waiting for the 2010 census data to come out to cloud my opinions with some data.
It’s clear that there’s a massive movement of the working class/middle class black population from the city proper to the burbs and beyond. They’re largely leaving neighborhoods on the south and west sides and not being replaced by others of any race or ethnicity. We’re looking at a number somewhere between 150,000-200,000 people in that category and that will likely account for most or all of the population loss from 2000-2010.
They’re leaving neighborhoods where there is no short or mid term realistic hope for any serious development or positive change. There are entire sections of Lawndale and Englewood where only two or three buildings remain per block. It’s a horrible site to behold.
After Chicago Police Officer Thomas Wortham was gunned down in front of his childhood home in May, former Police Superintendent Terry Hilliard said “if we lose Chatham, we’re in trouble.” Well Chicago is losing the middle class of all races and “we’re in trouble”. Hell we’re in our 7th decade of losing the middle class right now. First, it was the white middle class and now the black middle class is following similar paths out.
The gentrification that’s happened in or near downtown and on the north side is great, but it can’t make up for the loss of population elsewhere.
I actually consider the emptying out of the cities and inner ring suburbs to be part of a national security problem. We’re funding both sides of the terror wars through our tax dollars and oil purchases.
At this point it’s all an academic discussion because the social and political will doesn’t exist to rebuild Chicago in particular and cities in general.
At some point though there will be so much vacant land available in near empty communities that PERHAPS the middle class can be lured back into the city. The South Works site could be a perfect example, but I fully expect the politicians and their cronies to screw that one up.
My guess is that while most people clearly prefer a suburban lifestyle there is a substantial number that could be lured to an urban lifestyle if the problems with crime and schools could be addressed.
I don’t expect to live to see the day when Chicago’s population is again nearing 4 million.
Joe and Irish Pirate,
Chicago has been gaining population continuously since its existence. I think it’s time we move on from measuring it simply by its city borders and instead view it as a metropolitan area.
Chicago can’t compete with sunbelt cities like Houston and Dallas which incorporate vast tracts of low density land into their city proper and thus always post population growth. If you look at Chicago’s entire metropolitan area, it is growing, and has been doing so for a long time.
Irish Pirate,
Just wanted to add that I’m not trying to take away from your point. Your post above is spot on.
However, from 2008-2009 Chicago actually gained population. I’m not promising that Chicago is replacing all of its lost African American emigrants, but I do believe that the city is replacing MOST of them. I don’t think the 2010 census will show anything close to a 150-200,000 person population loss. The way things are looking, we will probably be a few tens of thousands lower than the 2000 census count.
tup,
Surprised to see you suggesting that metro Chicago’s growth – which badly lags overall US population growth – is somehow relevant to the health of the City of Chicago.
That suburban growth comes at the cost of extensive suburban sprawl, something you typicaly decry. There are still vast tracts of low-density land out there, but those tracts are not enabling Chicagoland to be competitive with Houston or Dallas.
If you add together all the vacant lots in the city, there are also vast amounts of vacant, low-density land within the city limits.
Joe, you continue to show a perverse joy in criticizing Chicago, so I have a suggestion:
Move to New York already.
You clearly hate this city–the seething hatred you have for Chicago has long been visible in the tone you’ve taken.
Just know this, I’d gladly take your place in a heartbeat.
I love Chicago. As far as your wet dream–New York–you can have it. You’d have to drag me kicking and screaming to ever live in that crap-hole again.
tup,
Your reaction takes me, as they say, aback.
What did I say that struck you as so critical of Chicago, a city that I love?
Joe,
Cabernet Savignon contributed greatly to that response last night.
Later on today I will attempt a more rational response.
Gotta drop the boy off to day care. Adios for now
Anyway,
Joe, I think Chicago certainly functions as a metropolitan area. I think the line between city and suburb has blurred in the last few decades. People living in the city work in the burbs, people living in the burbs work in the city, etc. Sometimes a one family member works in the city while their spouse works in the burbs. You get my drift.
Suburbanites visit the city to shop, entertain guests, etc. City dwellers go to the suburbs to do the same. Without a doubt I think it’s reasonable to include the suburbs when one evaluates the health of Chicago. I truly believe they are intertwined.
Regarding Chicago Metro’s growth, I think it is a much more mature region that Houston or Dallas. Like most of America’s older big cities, Chicagoland is losing its middle class and is exporting people to places such as Arizona, Indianapolis, etc etc. However, there are other metrics to a region’s health than just population: we need to look at things such as average income growth, GDP, immigration, unemployment, etc. Chicago’s unemployment rate is horrible, but at least it is still doing better than Los Angeles. I’d like to see how things go over the next two or three years as we get out of this horrible recession.
Regarding your comment about suburban sprawl, I don’t know why you keep painting me as a Jane Jacobs urbanist. I really aren’t as dogmatic about that as I perhaps was 3 or 4 years ago. I have come to embrace the important role suburbia plays, even if I do not agree with its wastefulness. Do I agree with your notion that such development belongs everywhere? No. But clearly Americans want it, thus there will have to be a place for it.
I recommend you read this Crain’s article, which is about 2 months old, which analyzes Chicago’s performance in the past 2 decades under Daley.
I think it’s a fair analysis and points out some of Chicago’s challenges. But in general I come away from this encouraged that the city has come a long way in attracting the educated & professional class:
I’d also like to emphasize again that Irish Pirate’s observation is not consistent with reality. If population projections hold true, Chicago in 2010 will probably have about 50-60,000 fewer people than it had in 2000. If you assume that the city loses 150-200k African Americans, then it is inconsistent to say that these people are “not being replaced by others of any race or ethnicity”, as he put it. Even if the census data shows that Chicago has lost 100,000 people in the past 10 years, that is still only 50% of the 200,000 African Americans that have left. So even in this scenario, the city would have recovered half the number of people who have left, a far cry from Irish’s above statement.
tup,
You’ve distorted IrishPirate’s argument. His point was that the black middle / working class residents who are leavnig are not being replaced by working / middle class people.
The Crain’s article you cite approvigly inculdes the following:
“Worse, Chicago appears to be in the midst of an African-American middle-class flight in some ways similar to the devastating white exodus of the ’60s and ’70s.”
TUPster,
as for the 150-200,000 number I was specifically talking about the black south and west side areas. Those areas are largely emptying out with no one of any race or ethnicity replacing the people who have moved. The paltry development along the south lakefront and a few other such areas is not making a dent in the loss.
The overall population loss in the city proper will likely be much less. There’s been a tremendous population growth in and near the south and west loops areas and some of the lakefront and outlying areas have seen a mini baby boom.
It’s a certainty that the black population has dropped significantly. What is less certain is how much the hispanic and white populations have grown.
We’ll know soon.
Let’s be conservative and say the black population has dropped 150,000 people while the white and hispanic populations have added a total of 100,000 people.
From a societal standpoint I’m happy that more whites and hispanics are in the city, but I’m not happy about the outflow of the black population. Specifically, the black middle class.
My family lived in a series of neighborhoods on da sout side that went from white to black. My joke is Michelle Robinson Obama’s family moved in and my family moved out.
Now for years many of those neighborhoods we “white flighted” out of were decent neighborhoods for the new black residents. That is largely no longer true. I can go on google maps and check out a variety of addresses of property my family owned and I see vacant lots.
There is a hell of a lot more to the city than the downtown areas, north lakefront and adjoining areas. When there is a serious question whether Chatham will survive as a decent hood, then the city as a whole has some major issues.
Like it or not at some level we’re all in this together. The city needs Lincoln Park, but it also needs thriving retail and safe communities on the south and west sides. Right now we don’t have that and I suspect won’t for the foreseeable future.
The only thing that appeals to me about the loss of the black population is the fun I’m going to have watching the city council redistricting in a few years. It’s gonna be a bloodbath. Watching aldercritters fight among themselves is like manna from heaven for me.
Conservatively, we’re looking at 4 fewer black wards which means consolidations among other black wards and the resultant internecine fighting among black aldermen. Toss in the hispanics who will demand two or more majority hispanic wards and the lines on the new ward map will likely resemble something out of a Salvador Dali meets a cartographer on acid painting.
I prefer my politics rough and amusing. In some ways I think it makes for better government or at least more amusing government.
Think of the famous “Cuckoo Clock Speech” from “The Third Man”:
“You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
Irish and Joe,
I guess I misunderstood your point. My understanding was that you were saying that “nobody” is replacing the lost population of 150-200k African Americans leaving the city. I didn’t know you were referring to people actually reoccupying those specific neighborhoods that are emptying out.
Irish, I basically agree with you. One of my biggest laments about Chicago is how bad a shape much of its west and south sides are in. Nothing would make me happier than to see a true housing renaissance on the south side, but when or if that will happen is perhaps the biggest question that will loom before Chicago (and urban America) in the 21st century.
Despite how horrible the news is right now (shootings and killings pretty much every day), I still have some optimism. Nobody in 1950 could have imagined what the south side of Chicago would be like in the 1990’s and 2000’s. In the same fashion, this part of the city may be totally unrecognizable by 2050 or 2060.