Who wants to live in the city?

New billboard at the Uplands development site in Baltimore

Only 28.5% of Baltimore's households have children. This is a a lot less than the national average (37%) but still more than, Say Seattle, where less under 20% of all households have kids. And what is the trend? The trend is smaller households (average number of people in a Baltimore household is 2.38) and fewer and fewer kids.

So then, why is the above poster so silly?

It is silly because it tries to sell houses and lots in a redevelopment area of the city by appealing to those who actually think the suburbs and their "charm" are great. You know, cul de sacs, large yards, big driveways and garages? The whole Brady Bunch appeal? And for whom was all this suburban charm supposedly designed? For the people with kids!
So why in 2012, when the number of people without children nationwide is bigger than the number with kids, when singles and gays and lesbians form small non-conventional, non-"nuclear" family households in record numbers, when cities need young, creative and educated residents to fill jobs in "eds and meds",  when an ever larger group of elderly is tired of lawns and gutter cleaning, why in this time appeal to the cohort that likes the suburbs?

Because cities have an inferiority complex, that is why. Because since the sixties and seventies people fled them in record numbers to live in the suburbs, so they feel unloved.(Between 1970 and 1980 Baltimore lost about a 1000 residents each month and this trend subsided only about 5 years ago). Thus, planners have learned for decades that the thing to do is to make the city more like the suburb.

Baltimore made a big move in that direction when it planned Coldspring new town to counteract suburban Columbia that rose in the greenfield then. Although Coldpring new town fizzled after a architecturally promising start (Moshe Safdie's houses are attractive but were expensive and had upkeep problems plus they were still too urban) the suburbanization of Baltimore trend continued with the implosion of four public housing highrise complexes and their substitution with tiny rowhouse and duplexes with porches and even lawns, although all being located in spitting distance from downtown. And it found its current end in the Uplands redevelopment. Although the original masterplan was designed by the renowned Boston planning firm of Goody Clancy who understands everything about urbanity (Boston!), density benefits and transit oriented development (the Uplands sits right next to the planned Red Line), the stakeholders, the surrounding communities and the powers to be did not allow density for the redevelopment and so it came that the planned 1000 households are exactly replacing 1000 households of public housing that sat there before. But the redevelopment area is larger since the land of a mega church was added to the development plan and thus, the density actually decreased.

Planners and politicians need to rethink. We don't need to make the cities more like the suburbs. Instead, we need to market cities for what they can be best, urban! We need to add density and, gasp!, congestion. Yes, it is messiness, density and congestion where urbanity has a chance to emerge. That is what the young, creative and upwardly mobile people are looking for whom Richard Florida calls the "creative class". That is what keeps San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Boston, New York and lately also Washington growing. That is what you see in Harbor East, in Mount Vernon and in the budding Station North Arts and Entertainment District.

This is why the densest cities always come out as the most attractive and livable. Hardly ever do you see Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix or LA top those lists although all those cities have been working hard and successfully on becoming more urban and might soon top the lists.
And by the way: The suburbs need to become more urban to avoid becoming the ghettos of the future. But that would be a topic for another blog entry.

The Uplands masterplan. Edmondson Ave (US 40) in the foreground from left (east) to right (west). The plan
shows increased density towards the planned Red Line corridor on Edmondson Avenue

From Outlook 2012, a 6 year old study of the Downtown Partnership Baltimore. The rosy outlook was somewhat dampened by the implosion of the real estate bubble but the basic trends decsribed there still exist:

The market for urban housing, particularly within downtowns, is now being fueled by the

convergence of the two largest generations in the history of America: the 79 million Baby

Boomers born between 1946 and 1964, and the 77 million Millennials, who were born

from 1977 to 1996.

Boomer households have been moving from the full-nest to the empty-nest life stage at an

accelerating pace that will peak sometime in the next decade and continue beyond 2020.

Since the first Boomer turned 50 in 1996, empty-nesters have had a substantial impact on

urban, particularly downtown, housing. After fueling the dramatic diffusion of the

population into ever-lower-density exurbs for nearly three decades, Boomers, particularly

affluent Boomers, are rediscovering the merits and pleasures of urban living.

At the same time, Millennials are just leaving the nest. The Millennials are the first

generation to have been largely raised in the post-’70s world of the cul-de-sac as

neighborhood, the mall as village center, and the driver’s license as a necessity of life. As

has been the case with predecessor generations, significant numbers of Millennials are

heading for the city. They are not just moving to New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and

the other large American cities. Often priced out of these larger cities, Millennials are

discovering second-, third-, and fourth-tier urban centers.

The convergence of two generations of this size simultaneously reaching a point when

urban housing matches their life stage is unprecedented. In 2006, there were about 41

million Americans between the ages of 20 and 29, forecast to grow to over 44 million by

2015. In that same year, the population aged 50 to 59 will have reached 44 million, up

from 38 million today. The synchronization of these two demographic waves will mean

that there will be an additional eight million potential urban housing consumers nine years

from now. Among these potential urban housing consumers will be an increasingly larger

segment of urban families.

Outside of Manhattan, Chicago, and the largest American cities, multi-family housing has

not recently been the choice of families with children. This is changing as the structure of

families in the United States evolves from the “traditional” nuclear unit (containing two

parents and children) into more diverse household configurations. Non-traditional families

(e.g., single head of household, non-parental caregivers, same-sex couples raising

children) are more likely to choose to live in urban neighborhoods.