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There are some Asian families scattered around suburban Detroit that migrated to the U.S. before the immigration policies were opened up to Asians in the 1960s, but there aren't really enough of them to form an ethnic community. |
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Here's a broad rule of thumb for observing real estate markets nationwide: If the economics are such that new construction is justifiable, then the overall fundamentals are pretty healthy. https://www.redfin.com/IL/Barrington.../home/77441161 https://www.redfin.com/IL/Barrington.../home/13905613 https://www.redfin.com/IL/Barrington...home/161125642 https://www.redfin.com/IL/Barrington...home/146324514 ^^Gee what a death spiral! You are of course correct that the suburban office market is very unhealthy indeed but it was grossly overbuilt in the first place. Even there, the new Zurich office tower suggests things are not nearly as dire as you would make them seem. I don't think we'll see substantial suburban office construction for a few more decades (and it will probably look much different when we do) but eventually, given enough growth and rising prices in the CBD, it will come back too. |
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South Asians are almost as numerous as Blacks in NW Toronto, Etobicoke North is actually South Asian plurality, while Humber River-Black Creek and York South-Weston are White plurality (with Blacks 2nd and South Asians 3rd). There's a fairly significant Vietnamese presence around Jane-Finch as well. |
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I looked at the household income compared to the state wide average in 1990, 2000 and 2016 (100% = same income as statewide average). Ferndale 1990: 93.8% 2000: 101.9% 2016: 102.4% So Ferndale improved a bit, but mostly 20-30 years ago and then just remained stable. Birmingham 1990: 207.1% 2000: 211.2% 2016: 214.5% If it's become the most expensive suburb, that's mostly due to the competition declining from extremely desirable to just very desirable rather that Birmingham itself becoming much more desirable since the relative income only slightly increased. Bloomfield Hills 1990: 483.6% 2000: 382.4% 2016: 306.8% Extremely desirable to just very desirable. Berkley 1990: 120.2% 2000: 129.8% 2016: 137.6% It's indeed been steadily more desirable. Pleasant Ridge 1990: 172.7% 2000: 180.6% 2016: 195.1% Similar to Berkley but from a higher point. Huntington Woods 1990: 196.8% 2000: 195.4% 2016: 219.8% Very desirable in the past, a bit more now. Royal Oak 1990: 119.5% 2000: 117.7% 2016: 125.3% It improved, but not that much, and basically just in the southern half close to downtown Royal Oak South of Twelve Mile 1990: 114.5% 2000: 117.4% 2016: 130.7% Royal Oak North of Twelve Mile actually hasn't recovered from the decline it experienced in the 90s. 1990: 124.4% 2000: 117.9% 2016: 120.0% If you're wondering if the more suburban nature of northern Royal Oak hints that Clawson might have done more poorly, you'd be right. Clawson 1990: 119.6% 2000: 114.1% 2016: 107.3% 119.6% to 107.3% is a relatively modest decline though, of only 10.3%. I also looked at Southfield (26.7% decline), Harper Woods (17.9% decline) and Dearborn east of the Southfield Fwy (35.7% decline). And with Bloomfield Hills, it experienced a 36.6% decline. |
York Region is to a large extent the suburban extension of North York, Durham of "non-Chinese" Scarborough.
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If a suburb is able to maintain its relative income, that's actually really good by the way. Typically what happens is something like this.
Inner City Before: $40,000 income, 1.0 million people After: $30,000 income, 0.7 million people Inner suburbs Before: $80,000 income, 2.0 million people After: $65,000 income, 2.0 million people Outer suburbs Before: $100,000 income, 0.31 million people After: $80,000 income, 1.0 million people Overall Before: $69,789 income, 3.31 million people After: $69,789 income, 3.70 million people So that's an example of how it's possible for every part of the metro area to be declining in income but the metro area as a whole is still has a stable overall average income, because the population growth is in the highest income area and the population decline is in the lowest income area. |
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And does it make a difference if it's the lowest income parts of the metro area losing people by moving to the high income areas? Or if migration is out of the metro area entirely? |
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Population loss in low income areas makes sense. You have issues with crime and schools, high taxes and absentee landlords that leads to housing getting run-down. The housing is simply not desirable enough (in terms of rent or resale value) to warrant much investment in maintenance, and gets gradually more and more run down as it ages until it's no longer really livable. Maybe there's a period when the landlord is unable to find tenants, or in case of foreclosure, where the bank is unable to find a buyer, and while the house is vacant, it gets damaged by squatters or scrappers to the point where it's unsalvageable. Population growth in high income areas also makes sense. Good services, low crime, good schools, people want to live there, so new housing gets built. The new housing can also have the advantage of being more in line with what modern society wants a house to be like, whether that's no lead or asbestos, energy efficiency, granite counter tops and hardwood floors, 2 car garages... The upper middle class who can afford new construction would probably prefer that to an outdated house from the early to mid 1900s. However, as a neighbourhood ages, it's housing stock gets out-dated, and starts to lose it's shiny and new lustre. It gets a little less desirable, and the point of entry gets lower, so more working class households can afford to move in. Often, they move into the more modest homes, like the multi-family garden apartments. The garden apartments and higher density homes often get built a little later, as the suburb starts to run out of land, but the local government wants to increase the tax base by allowing more units on the smaller remaining pieces of land, or perhaps to provide housing for the service sector workers that are required to support the upper-middle class population. Then the more elitist people start to avoid the suburb because they don't want to live in suburbs and send their kids to school with people of lower classes. In the past, this also had a strong racial dimension, now there's less racism involved but probably still a bit with a certain percentage of the population. As a result, the pool of upper middle class people interested in living there decreases, and makes way for more working class people to live in the suburb. Then the more tolerant upper middle class people are starting to have mixed feelings about living there, as the impact on crime, resale value, schools and city services starts to get noticeable, and are less likely to consider moving to the neighbourhood. That's the thing to keep in mind, even if things aren't bad enough to make existing residents leave due to the conditions, a neighbourhood can still decline, because existing residents are going to leave in some numbers for other reasons, like getting a new job, or downsizing, or upsizing in the case of young professionals that might want to move out of the garden apartments as they start having kids. So if a suburb is seen as "still ok" but no longer the "hot new place", it might get passed over by a lot of upper middle class prospective homebuyers, which means that those upper middle class residents that inevitably move out get replaced by more working class residents who can't afford the "hot new place" and are willing to settle with "still ok". The main exception to the pattern of "everywhere is declining" these days is in core cities that have healthy downtowns and intact nearby neighbourhoods to gentrify. I suppose the reason why the Woodward Ave suburbs of Detroit were able to get more desirable is partly because they have many of the qualities people find desirable about downtown/inner city living like walkability, proximity to jobs, historic homes and mature trees, and Detroit is bombed out enough that it's not able to compete against the Woodward Ave suburbs as well as healthier urban cores are able to compete against their own streetcar suburbs. The other exception can occur when there are significant geographic or government limits to continued outward growth. In that case, more new housing gets built in the inner core, and lower income areas don't get abandoned because there's a tighter housing market. Also as the city gets denser, homes on large lots get more and more valuable, and a lot of those can be in suburbs relatively far from downtown, so for example with Toronto, that's parts of Oakville, Thornhill and Southern Mississauga are getting wealthier. However, for your typical sprawling city, like Nashville, Indianapolis, Detroit, Houston, Atlanta, Kansas City, Phoenix or Orlando, the vast majority of suburbs will be going down on the socioeconomic ladder and only a few inner city neighbourhoods will be going up. |
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I could see Clawson and Northern Royal Oak not faring as well, as they're the least walker friendly of the bunch and mostly just generic postwar bungalows. Also lots of aging 1960's apartment complexes that aren't particularly desirable. Areas like this: I grouped Clawson in with the rest because its downtown is kinda hot right now, and it seems to be a cheaper fallback to Royal Oak. Quote:
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Oops, forgot to include the Northern Royal Oak streetviews.
There are a ton of 1960's apartment complexes around Beaumont Hosptial (largest hospital in Metro Detroit). They're quite cheap and spartan, and are probably a drag on Northern Royal Oak/Clawson incomes: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.5179...7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@42.5357...7i16384!8i8192 In a metro where the barriers to homeownership are extremely low, older apartment complexes, even if very well-located, will never house particularly high earners. |
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West Dearborn 1990: 139.1% 2000: 129.9% 2016: 119.8% Eastpointe 1990: 110.0% 2000: 104.9% 2016: 79.8% So West Dearborn isn't as wealthy as it used to be but the decline wasn't as intense as in a place like Eastpointe which saw a pretty intense decline since 2000. As for Plymouth and Northville, the charter townships were already very wealthy in 1990, even moreso than now. Although Northville is building a lot of McMansions, maybe we've just figured out how to make those more affordable to the upper-middle class with modern construction practices and low interest rates? Or maybe it's being offset by multifamily? The cities of Plymouth and Northville seem to be doing better than the charter townships, they used to be more middle class than the affluent townships but now they're similar to wealthier. Looking at them on google maps, I do see quite a lot of teardown activity near the town centres. Within both cities, the census tracts closest to the town centre fared better. Plymouth 1990: 124.7% 2000: 116.9% 2016: 143.7% Plymouth Charter Township 1990: 184.6% 2000: 175.2% 2016: 153.2% Northville 1990: 162.8% 2000: 174.8% 2016: 179.3% Northville Charter Township 1990: 180.1% 2000: 188.6% 2016: 159.7% |
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Cities like Milwaukee, Kansas City, Columbus, Nashville, Orlando, Raleigh, San Antonio, etc are still going to have a few gentrifying and stabilizing neighbourhoods in the core, even if parts of the inner city are still declining. However, those kinds of cities will probably have very few suburbs that are getting wealthier, mostly just wealthy suburbs that are growing rapidly but also becoming more socio-economically diverse in the process. Even Toronto has few suburbs that are getting wealthier, unless you count areas like Central Etobicoke or Bedford Park or something, but to me, those are essentially just extensions of the core. Aside from that, I think only South Oakville and Thornhill and maybe a couple small pockets of Southern Mississauga have seen an increase in relative wealth, thanks to having very large lots that can't be subdivided, in a metro area where those are a scarce resource. Basically everywhere else saw a decline in relative wealth. Los Angeles is interesting though. It's a large city, that has basically run out of land for outward growth. But it's downtown isn't as dominant as a job center, there's also plenty of well paying jobs in West LA, Santa Monica, Hollywood, Glendale, Pasadena, Burbank, even Irvine. As a result, pretty much all of LA County is stable income wise (Lancaster-Palmdale is the main exception). |
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