Ms Becker cites a number of factors that are supposed to be coming together to cause an affordable housing crisis. Among them: > - A growing region which has developing suburban/ex-urban communities > perceiving that single family homes on large lots provide a better quality > of life, and thus being resistant to low income housing. This goes back to the late 1800s, at least. Read some of the commentary that backed the early movement of the working class out of the city, for their own health. > - A strong economy which has increased employment and increased wages, > allowing persons who formerly could not afford to buy a home to enter into > the home buying market, creating a large demand for starter homes and thus > increasing home values at the lower end of the range. This is also driving > rental property rents up. It's so terrible that people are making more money and want to spend it as they desire. > - At the same time that demand for starter homes is up, we have a > metropolitan area where land prices for un-built on property within > reasonable driving distance of the rest of the region are approaching > $100,000 per acre. Let's look at the expectations of these first-time buyers. A quick look online in Saint Paul shows 94 properties for sale for $120,000 or less. Mostly single-family, some duplexes, a few condos/townhouses. Maybe they shouldn't want those big rooms, separate bedrooms for the kids, etc., IF they want to buy a house. > - A growing region where private development housing growth is not > occurring as rapidly as population growth. > - A development philosophy which frowns on smaller, more diverse, more > compact development. > A fabulous book (I am shilling here Mr. Connolly - just thought I would > point it out) which everyone who is interested in this issue should read is > "Suburban Nation : The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream" > by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Jeff Speck. This book is much too > rich for me to paraphrase here but it talks about the things suburban-type > development does to make housing and life more costly. A book written from the viewpoint of the elite, espousing the attitudes of architects and planners. Try a more realistic book, written by local architect and planning consultant, Tom Martinson, "American Dreamscape", also available in the libraries. Duany had been mightily impressed by Portland, Oregon in the past, but he has discovered that on his first four visits, he was "handled" considerably, and when he escaped to explore the vaunted city on his own, he discovered that it sprawls just like everywhere else. Everybody likes to pick on Los Angeles as the epitome of sprawl, but let's look at just a few facts. The population density of the city of LA is more than 10,000 per square mile and the density of the rest of the metropolitan area is above 5,000. In comparison, the density of Minneapolis (or was it Minneapolis and Saint Paul combined) is about 6,700 and the density of the entire metro are is about 2,500 (might not be quite right). Don't offhand know what the density of the metro area without the cities is, but I expect it is less than 1,500. So, it can be seen that the city of LA is 50% more densely populated than Minneapolis, and that the density in the nnon-city part of the LA area is twice as high as the entire Twin Cities metro area. Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - Minnesota E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
