18 Cities Where the Suburbs are Rapidly Turning Into Slums

[mean]

http://www.businessinsider.com/american-slums-2011-4

Article claims that in St. Louis metro, 75% of the poor live in suburbs. Really? Huh...

[KCMax]

Not nearly on the same level, but there was an article in the Star last week about how JoCo social services are stretched to the limit because of an unprecedented number of low income families in the area now.

[phuqueue]

I dream of the day Ladue becomes a slum.

[chrizow]

http://www.businessinsider.com/american-slums-2011-4

Article claims that in St. Louis metro, 75% of the poor live in suburbs. Really? Huh...

i don't doubt it at all.  the IL side, a lot of north STL County, and parts of south STL County are pretty rough.  i imagine the "metro" goes out really far into the sticks too, and there are lots of poor folks out there.  KC would probably be on this list too if, like STL, our city limits stopped at about 55th street.  north STL county is basically like SKC/ruskin/grandview x 2.

[mean]

Yeah, I guess that makes sense if you consider ESL suburban, which I kinda wasn't.

[AJoD]

Doesn't seem like a huge surprise, given the revitalization of so many urban areas. It keeps getting more expensive to live in the city.

[KCMax]

Doesn't seem like a huge surprise, given the revitalization of so many urban areas. It keeps getting more expensive to live in the city.

This is a good point. Other contributing factors I would think are (a) crumbling school districts in urban areas leading some urban low income families to move to the burbs; (b) more affordable apartment housing in the burbs than before (not sure if that's true, but it seems like it); (c) inner-ring suburb population are increasingly made up of low income senior citizens; and (d) sprawl - the upper income households continue to move further out, abandoning the inner ring burbs.

[mlind]

I've read that too.  And the fact that there are so many foreclosed & unoccupied houses makes it worse.  

[brewcrew1000]

I've had some work done by a guy who buys and sell homes, he has a large surplus of homes and what he is doing with all the homes he can't sell or rent is turning them into section 8 properties so he can make something off of them, i think he said he was going to end up getting like 800 a month from the gov't to turn them into section 8.  He mentioned that he was doing this in Independence off of Winner Rd or something

[chrizow]

I've had some work done by a guy who buys and sell homes, he has a large surplus of homes and what he is doing with all the homes he can't sell or rent is turning them into section 8 properties so he can make something off of them, i think he said he was going to end up getting like 800 a month from the gov't to turn them into section 8.  He mentioned that he was doing this in Independence off of Winner Rd or something

lots of section 8 in independence already, although i assume with the economic downturn there has been an increase.  the area off winner rd. in western independence is fairly indistinguishable from KCMO just across 435. 

what is weird is when you read about these brand new subdivisions with $600K (pre-bubble) homes in california that now have 30 poor people living in each of them. 

[DanCa]

You see a lot of this in Denver where the older, "inner ring" suburbs, and especially apartment complexes built in the '70 and '80s are now kind of "ghetto-fied", meaning mosly poor, recent immigrants from all over the planet live in these areas and crime is higher than in urban Denver.  I've heard this referred to as the "brown donut" in cities where the inner city has been "gentrified" and home values in the oldest neighborhoods have priced out people who traditionally lived in the inner city. 

[FangKC]

Drive around Ruskin Heights someday and you will see this is true.

[Highlander]

Drive around Ruskin Heights someday and you will see this is true.

Yea, and that's not a recent phenomenon.  I think the downhill slide of parts of northern Johnson County are more indicative of the trend. 

People should really study Houston in this regard.  The rapidity of ghettofication will send shivers down any homeowners spine.  Places that were thriving top-notch zip codes 10-15 years ago are faltering quickly today.  The burbs grow so fast that there is a constant movement further and further out followed by a wave of poverty just behind it.  I just bought in a suburban community, brand new, and section 8 housing is proposed within a half mile of my house.  Of course, that will make new buyers avoid the area and go further out.  Gentrification occurs in close because the city has become too sprawled to effectively commute downtown from the outer burbs. 

[brewcrew1000]

Aren't people in the outer burbs more vulnerable as well?  Lets say you bought in South OP and work in South OP, just like that your company could move up by the airport. That would wreck havoc on commuting, family, etc.

[teleology]

This is a good point. Other contributing factors I would think are (a) crumbling school districts in urban areas leading some urban low income families to move to the burbs; (b) more affordable apartment housing in the burbs than before (not sure if that's true, but it seems like it); (c) inner-ring suburb population are increasingly made up of low income senior citizens; and (d) sprawl - the upper income households continue to move further out, abandoning the inner ring burbs.

And it's not super expensive to get a car anymore (and plenty of folks are willing to risk not having things registered or insured legally) and it was quite easy to get a home loan during that 2000-2008 period.

[warwickland]

i don't doubt it at all.  the IL side, a lot of north STL County, and parts of south STL County are pretty rough.  i imagine the "metro" goes out really far into the sticks too, and there are lots of poor folks out there.  KC would probably be on this list too if, like STL, our city limits stopped at about 55th street.  north STL county is basically like SKC/ruskin/grandview x 2.

sorta, south county doesnt have any rough areas that i'm aware of, though, just some white working class spots (extension of carondelet) where someone could easily enough find themselves impaled by another human being provided they are on mescaline and are unfortunate enough to fall through the front door of the local honky tonk, bingo hall, or vfw, the pre-cancerous areas around all the tramp stamps, and besides as well the local music preferences.

north county is quite varied and there is some leapfrogging of rough areas over more stable, leafy spots. considering it's reputation, you might be surprised by the more bucolic areas like Bel Nor, Pasadena Hills, Ferguson, etc., although some of these areas have bad days. They are a lot like parts of kc south of the plaza but with a chaotic street grid and a confusing economic geography. There is a strong black middle class in some of these pleasant areas and lots of age in place lower/mid middle class.

[phxcat]

Yea, and that's not a recent phenomenon.  I think the downhill slide of parts of northern Johnson County are more indicative of the trend. 

People should really study Houston in this regard.  The rapidity of ghettofication will send shivers down any homeowners spine.  Places that were thriving top-notch zip codes 10-15 years ago are faltering quickly today.  The burbs grow so fast that there is a constant movement further and further out followed by a wave of poverty just behind it.  I just bought in a suburban community, brand new, and section 8 housing is proposed within a half mile of my house.  Of course, that will make new buyers avoid the area and go further out.  Gentrification occurs in close because the city has become too sprawled to effectively commute downtown from the outer burbs.   

We have that in Phoenix too,I think that the housing stock here is not of the same quality as comparable housing stock in KC, and then the rate of growth, added to the white flight causes a quick transformation of neighborhoods (though in this regard these neighborhoods aren't getting bad, just lower income).  Also, the lack of boundaries- almost the entire metro is in Maricopa County- prevent the barriers to growth that KC has.  Of course, the housing crisis hasn't helped either, in the newer neighborhoods.

[ComandanteCero]

Not nearly on the same level, but there was an article in the Star last week about how JoCo social services are stretched to the limit because of an unprecedented number of low income families in the area now.

According to the Sun (the JOCO local paper) it's second only to Sedgwick county in the state:

http://www.kccommunitynews.com/johnson- ... etail.html

The county now has about 38,000 residents, or 7.1 percent of the total population, living below the poverty level. A family of three is considered at poverty level if it has annual income of less than $19,000.

While its rate of poverty is higher, Wyandotte County now has fewer impoverished residents than does Johnson County. Statewide, only Sedgwick County, which includes Wichita, has more citizens who are in poverty.

Both the poverty rate and raw number of poor people in the county tripled during the 2000s, said Karen Wulfkuhle, executive director of United Community Services of Johnson County. Ten percent of the county?s children lived in poverty in 2009.

Numbers on poverty are not yet available from the 2010 census.

?If we had more current data today, we?d probably see numbers even larger,? Wulfkuhle said.

[FangKC]

Middle class incomes have been going down or have been stagnant since the 1980s.

Wealth is becoming more concentrated among the top 1-5 percent. It's at a level not seen since the 1920s.

I find it amusing to see conservative Tea Party people accusing Obama of wanting wealth redistribution, since that has been happening since the Reagan era.  Only more of the wealth has been transferred into fewer hands.

[phuqueue]

Middle class incomes have been going down or have been stagnant since the 1980s.

Wealth is becoming more concentrated among the top 1-5 percent. It's at a level not seen since the 1920s.

I find it amusing to see conservative Tea Party people accusing Obama of wanting wealth redistribution, since that has been happening since the Reagan era.  Only more of the wealth has been transferred into fewer hands.

Yup.  Supply-side economics is a total joke.  http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-1 ... taxes.html