Monday, July 21, 2008

The future of real estate?

Two interesting articles from the WSJ last week that talk about the way that real estate is heading. Both seem to indicate things are headed in the right direction.

The End of White Flight

and

The Newest Cottage Industry

3 comments:

Kim said...

I live in a more urban area of suburbia (if that makes any sense--a first ring suburb that's actually older than Atlanta) and the smaller houses and funky lofts within walking distance of the square are selling much better than the McMansions a little further out but still in city limits.

Elisa M said...

I have read about both of these things lately. Its not white flight, but gentrification. my question/wonder is if affluent white people raise the property values in cities, will the poorer folks be pushed out? That seems to be the case in San Fransisco and while that is a lovely city, that seems to be a casualty of this move to the cities. so what becomes of the suburbs-are they then the poor areas? Is there a way to have it both, or will be always be trading places? Just some random questions, thrown out there.

Kim said...

When they did "urban renewal" in Atlanta prior to the Olympics, all those in projects fanned out to the first tier suburbs with Section 8 housing vouchers and/or into existing housing projects in those smaller cities. Now a lot of the "urban suburbs" like where I live are tearing down their projects and those displaced people are fanning even further out, into what were starter suburban neighborhoods 25 years ago and have turned into rental slums, so to speak. The only thing I see is that it is no longer poverty concentrated in one place, there are pockets here and there. Like where I live, the line between neighborhoods and THE 'hood is only one or two streets, if that. And the squeaky clean white high schools in outer suburbia are becoming "rough".