At one of the recent Metropolitan Planning Commission meetings here in Savannah, commissioners were considering road access to an isolated but sizable lot adjacent to the proposed New Hampstead subdivision at the far west end of the county. The owners of the lot had been guaranteed permanent access from the New Hampstead developers — but virtually no development has happened.
In the midst of the hearing, one of the MPC staffers even referred to New Hampstead as “N.H.” for “No Houses”.
The city of Savannah annexed the New Hampstead property back during the boom years and spent $10 million or so on infrastructure. About the only development that the area has seen — and the only serious development it seems likely to see for years — is the new New Hampstead High School. I have suggested that the choice of a location so far from the homes of its students was one of the worst public policy decisions we’ve seen in years. It runs neck and neck with the decision to invest all those millions in infrastructure in a massive new development that will still not be needed for years, even under the most optimistic assumptions about population growth.
About the time there’s a true demand for homes at New Hampstead (assuming that time ever comes), we’ll likely be at a point when we’ll need to reinvest in all that infrastructure.
Of course, the costs of updating infrastructure are shared by pretty much every neighborhood, whether it is well-populated or not. The great suburbanization of America in the latter half of the 20th century has left us with sprawling roads, sewer systems, electric lines, water pipes and more that will all need repair, maintenance and replacement that will come at greater and greater cost.
The same problems confront private development, of course, and it’s common in American cities to see one or two or more rings of suburban development, once shining and new, that now are in desperate need of reinvestment.
Given the likelihood that energy costs will continue to increase and that taxpayers will balk at funding massive infrastructure upgrades for lightly populated suburban areas, America’s pattern of suburban and exurban development feels increasingly like a house of cards. Add in the changing tastes of younger Americans, who are opting for more walkable, more bikeable neighborhoods, and an increase in suburban blight seems almost inevitable.
The Strong Towns Blog has an excellent post this week about the “Second Life Cycle Blues” as they are playing out in the Minnesota towns of Baxter and Brainerd (neither of which I have visited, by the way). Author Charles Marohn moved years ago from being a professional encouraging sprawl and now gives “speeches around the country explaining the illusion of wealth created during the first life cycle of auto-oriented growth.”
From Marohn’s piece:
Baxter’s future growth, as with any purely auto-oriented community’s future growth, is predicated on being able to attract new residents (along with their first life cycle revenue) by offering low taxes and a high quality of life. What happens when taxes go up? Or what happens when services are trimmed back? How fragile is this house of cards?
[…] Detroit’s population is 706,585. Some simple math tells us that the average Detroit resident is financially supporting the maintenance of 5.1 feet of street, a burden they are not able to meet.
As reported, Baxter has 81.2 miles of street to maintain. Now the average Baxter resident is more affluent than the average Detroiter (though they also spend many multiples on housing and transportation), but with only 7,642 people, the typical Baxter resident is expected to sustain 56.1 feet of street. That is eleven times more than in Detroit. […]
Services will be cut. Taxes will go up. That’s the second life cycle blues. And in a self-reinforcing downward spiral, the things that once made Baxter officials look like geniuses will now make them look incompetent. Not only will those brand new strip malls that have been empty for six years not fill up but, as maintenance is deferred and things start to fall apart, the growth will continue to slow and move to the next hot place. They may try to reignite it with some aggressive subsidy scheme, but paying to lose money will only hasten the race to the bottom.
This is not just a story about Baxter and Brainerd, but one that taxpayers and public officials need to understand.