Almost two years ago I speculated about whether a bad economy might lead to rising crime in 24-hour cities and lead to quality of life declines, possibly even a return to the scary bad old days of unsafe streets—mugging and murder mayhem. Aside from modest upticks in murder rates off rock bottom generational lows in some cities like New York and Washington DC, we’re a far cry from “Death Wish” and “Mean Streets” days. In the last year violent crime has even dipped in Chicago.
But how long can that last if the poverty rate continues to rise, states continue to shut down prisons to save costs, cities shave police forces to stanch red ink, and demographics propels a bulge in young adult echo boomer males, the most likely age cohort to commit violent crimes?
Intuitively, you would expect these forces and realities to take hold—just not yet. Or are policing techniques so improved that we don’t have to worry?
Some investors grow anxious about cities raising taxes and cutting services beyond policing like fire and sanitation. The prime places get even more expensive and can’t keep up with repairs of crumbling infrastructure. At some point taxes get so high without the cost benefit that people start moving out to the suburbs again.
But the suburbs have their own budget issues, including the need to increase property and sales taxes to maintain their quality of life too. The federal government no longer subsidizes road or sewage system costs the way it did in the past. Now repair and refurbishment falls squarely on the locals. The bills for school systems and town and county police departments also keep going up, up, up. And more poverty and crime shows up in suburbs today along with plenty of city like congestion. It’s not as if the suburbs offer the same kind of refuge that they did a generation ago.
And many once green field suburbs now look more urban—mid and even high rise apartments rise around some regional malls. Streetscapes take shape in and around more vertical nodes. Old town centers take on the aspect of mini-cities. Finding the old style suburban idyll requires paying up for vernal bastions in the densifying morass or moving further away from metro centers where commuting distances, inconvenience, and transport costs take a toll on wallets and psyches.
In addition, suburban public schools now present a varied mix of good, bad and indifferent. Once the raison d’etre for parents leaving urban environs, the school issue no longer looks so cut and dried. Cities make small gains with new approaches including breaking up large schools into smaller units, and allowing more charter schools. School taxes in the best suburban districts stretch many homeowner budgets, while lesser districts trend down in teacher quality and test score results as taxes nevertheless continue to escalate.
In short, it won’t be as easy to run away from big city problems as it used to be.
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Jonathan D. Miller
A marketing communication strategist who turned to real estate analysis, Jonathan D. Miller is a foremost interpreter of 21st citistate futures – cities and suburbs alike – seen through the lens of lifestyles and market realities. For more than 20 years (1992-2013), Miller authored Emerging Trends in Real Estate, the leading commercial real estate industry outlook report, published annually by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute (ULI). He has lectures frequently on trends in real estate, including the future of America's major 24-hour urban centers and sprawling suburbs. He also has been author of ULI’s annual forecasts on infrastructure and its What’s Next? series of forecasts. On a weekly basis, he writes the Trendczar blog for GlobeStreet.com, the real estate news website. Outside his published forecasting work, Miller is a prominent communications/institutional investor-marketing strategist and partner in Miller Ryan LLC, helping corporate clients develop and execute branding and communications programs. He led the re-branding of GMAC Commercial Mortgage to Capmark Financial Group Inc. and he was part of the management team that helped build Equitable Real Estate Investment Management, Inc. (subsequently Lend Lease Real Estate Investments, Inc.) into the leading real estate advisor to pension funds and other real institutional investors. He joined the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the U.S. in 1981, moving to Equitable Real Estate in 1984 as head of Corporate/Marketing Communications. In the 1980's he managed relations for several of the country's most prominent real estate developments including New York's Trump Tower and the Equitable Center. Earlier in his career, Miller was a reporter for Gannett Newspapers. He is a member of the Citistates Group and a board member of NYC Outward Bound Schools and the Center for Employment Opportunities.
