Dropping Out of Sight

According to the the Brookings Institution, exurban sprawl shows no sign of stopping. Matching data from the 2000 census with building permits issued since, the Brookings researchers found growth patterns, predictably, in the South and West, where new McMansions are eating up former farm and ranchlands.

The second-day story was more interesting, and perhaps more hopeful, despite the somber headlines than ran atop them: "U.S. Losing Its Middle-Class Neighborhoods" said The Washington Post. Buried in its tale of the rich getting richer and the poor poorer was this mysterious line: "The Brookings study says that much more research is needed to better understand why middle-income neighborhoods are vanishing faster than middle-income families." Could a clue be found in what the study called "increasing heterogeneity in some neighborhoods"? Is it possible that some of those missing middle-class families are ending up in marginal suburban neighborhoods?

The anecdotal evidence has been building for some time that younger homebuyers—and homebuyers are getting younger all the time—are ardent gentrifiers. Marketing studies from building supply companies like Andersen Windows and Doors say Gen Y is looking for homes with architectural character, avoiding McMansions and the pristine newer exurbs they grew up in. Gen Y might also be called Gen DIY: they like to remodel and refurbish, say the big box stores.

In many places, as the Post story notes, suburban buyers are undoubtedly running to far-off exurbs for more space and quiet. But as the experts, these abdicators might be better described as newly affluent, not solidly middle-class. It bears checking to see if young middle-earners might be dropping off the radar by dropping down a rung for a home they can afford to love.