America's Emptiest Cities

I have an insane backlog of stuff I want to talk about, so forgive me for posting some older news items over the next few days. This recent Forbes article about America's Emptiest Cities obviously caught my eye and it contains some fascinating data. Check out this Yahoo article summary, if you don't feel like going through the annoying slideshow. Looking at apartment and home vacancy rates, it details the cities that are being hit the hardest by the real estate bubble bursting and subsequent economic depression.

What interests me is what the type of cities that seem to be suffering the most, especially the new, Western/Southwester/Southern cities that everyone saw as the future. Cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix have been annexing land and adding people at a prodigious rate and it was assumed that they were the future great cities. Not so fast, it would seem. I've been talking a lot about how different I think New York City will be in 5 years, as we go through this economic depression. But, the effect on these boom cities might be even more interesting and pronounced, as they were built so much on the real estate bubble that it's hard to tell just how many people the cities will lose. We are no where near the bottom of this real estate market, I think there is far more pain ahead. Does Las Vegas have much else going for it? What happens when the casinos start suffering because of the lack of discretionary income for most people? Does the city have any real support systems for those people, like older, East Coast cities have built up over the decades? For that matter, do all of these newcomers to these Sun Belt and Southern cities have any real connection to their new homes? Will they stick around? For all of the talk about Philly's decline, it has held steady over the past decade, despite being considered a relic for years.

It'll be interesting to see the Census list that comes out in a few years and who stands in the top 5 when all is said and done. Always bet on the tortoise.

New York City Development Freeze

There's a really interesting article in Saturday's New York Times, chronicling the freeze on building development in NYC. It mirrors the earlier post I did about hard times coming to New York town in the next few years. The numbers are pretty staggering:

Nearly $5 billion in development projects in New York City have been delayed or canceled because of the economic crisis, an extraordinary body blow to an industry that last year provided 130,000 unionized jobs, according to numbers tracked by a local trade group.

I'm not sure which number is more depressing. That's an enormous amount of well-paying jobs that will be lost in the city, ones that may not be as glamorous or as high-spending as the investment bankers, but just as horrible for the local economy. Like I've been saying for more than a year and a half, this city is in for some tough times, still not sure people have come to accept how bleak the next few years could be and how fundamentally different NYC is going to be.

I am the furthest thing from an optimist, but I do see a real silver lining to this halt. There has been so much shitty development in this city over the past decade, so many pre-fab debacles that were built to capitalize on the market, such a feel of an unstoppable momentum with it all, this marks a moment when the pendulum has to swing back. The insane amounts of capital available are not anymore, which should limit the scope of projects, putting big ones like the Atlantic Yards one on the rocks. This break provides an opportunity for citizen and neighborhood groups to mobilize without that feeling of hopelessness. If I were an optimist, I would hope that local leaders would stand up and take this opportunity to challenge the last three decades of neo-capitalist development and question what it has done for New York City and its residents.

Perhaps more importantly, the real estate bubble bursting and the economy tanking means you will have a lot less speculation and people buying properties purely to flip. Does this mean that the city can once again be a place where you don't have to be super-rich to live here? Will buying prices return to Earth? I can't say that for sure, but it's hard for me to believe that huge hits that the banking and legal industries are taking, along with European and Asian economies, that the money will be thrown around in the same sky's the limit manner.

Change We Can Believe In - Obama and Cities

Okay, I totally didn't want to start on such a bummer of a note here. Yes, we're heading into a New Great Depression and Bush is still President for another month and it's winter and it's cold and the Eagles are weak. However, there has been one amazingly bright spot in the past few months (besides the Phillies winning the World Series): Barack Obama is our President-elect! Yeah! Yes, we can! Even now, memories of the crowds on Rivington and Ludlow cheering and hugging give me chills.

Not surprisingly, my first thoughts about his victory (and main reason I was an ardent supporter) focused on the potential impact for the cities of this country. And it seems possible that this could be a huge moment for American cities, where they finally get the attention they so desperately need and deserve. This is the moment when the country gets beyond its antiquated notion that we are a rural country and that real Americans can only be found in Iowa and Wyoming. We not only have a new President who has lived and worked in a big city, but someone who is, as Peter Brown wrote, "a city guy." I mean, if you had told me a year ago that we would have a President who spent a few years as a community organizer in Chicago, I would have laughed in your face.

These are just superficial things, as even Richard Nixon spent some time living in New York City. The actually exciting news is that we elected a President who actually ran his campaign with a clear urban policy agenda! I mean, dude talked about smart development, affordable housing, public transportation and sustainability when he didn't have to. Bestill my heart. Pols in Philadelphia have a similar level excitement; they unsurprisingly highlight his goal of providing money for cash-strapped cities and states. I highly recommend reading his list of policy proposals, but just wanted to inject some optimism into the mix in these dark times. Get excited!

Hard Times in New York Town

A bread line in 1932 at 42nd Street and 6th Avenue

"Just a little glimpse of a story I'll tell
Bout an East Coast city that you all know well.
It's hard times in the city,
Livin' down in New York town."

- Bob Dylan

One of the major themes that I will discuss here at the blog is the future of New York City, the city I live in and love. The city has always held a mythical place for me, as you can see at my other blog, where I constantly talk about the days of disco and no wave and downtown jazz and post-punk and that period in the late 70s and early 80s when the city was being abandoned and burned. It's ironic that I moved here at a time of peak decadence, when the city was flush with money and the bankers and lawyers ran the daylife and nightlife here.

Well, times are a-changing fast, as this recent report by New York State Comptroller Thomas Napoli clearly shows. The city and state could lose up to 225,000 Wall Street jobs and 6.8 billion in tax revenue, staggering figures that will change the face of this city in the next few years. These fears were validated today, as Bank of America announced it would be cutting 10,000 investment banking jobs. All of the clubs and restaurants and condos that have taken over Manhattan (and parts of Brooklyn and Queens) were fueled by the bonuses of these workers. All of the development that has boomed over the past decade would not have been possible without this booming Wall Street. I can't help but think that we are now at the end of this most recent Gilded Age, as those obscene bonuses go along with thousands of jobs, and are heading into an unknown period here that will alter the city and its outlook. It's frightening, as many of the people who need the city just to get by are going to be hurt the worst.

The silver lining is chance for a reevaluation of what the city should look like and who it should look out for. What will things look like? What should they look like? I don't know, but I plan to use this space to figure those questions out. Hopefully, anyone reading will chime in with their predictions, hopes and fears.