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 The road to recovery for the
real estate market may actually be.. a sidewalk. The latest trend in real estate is "walkability";
areas where people can live and work within walking distance of a train or
bus stop. In these highly walkable areas, people can commute
to work by mass transit and walk to shopping and entertainment venues. In areas
such as these, you might not even need to own a car, therefore reducing
congestion and pollution in neighborhoods.
Real estate has caused two of
the last three recessions, says Christopher
Leinberger for the Brookings Institute, including the one we've just gone
through.
"That is because real estate (housing, commercial, and industrial)
and the infrastructure that supports real estate (transportation, sewer,
electricity, and so on) represent 35 percent of the economy's asset base." he says.
"When real estate crashes, the economy
goes into a tailspin." Therefore, real
estate plays a big role in the economic recovery now slowly underway.
"We're unlikely, however, to see
a real estate recovery based on a continuation of the type of development that
has driven the industry for the past few generations: low-density,
car-dependent suburbs growing out of cornfields at the edge of metropolitan
areas." says Leinberger.
"That's because there is now a massive oversupply of such suburban fringe
development, brought on by decades of (government) policy favoring it." Many large, suburban homes are now priced
below the cost of the materials that went into building them, some owners are
upside down on their mortgages and have no financial incentive to invest in
their upkeep.
Suburban houses on the fringe of
large metro areas have seen huge price drops as demand for smaller,
pedestrian and transit-friendly homes are on the rise.
Suburban Redevelopment
It's
not all bad news for the 'burbs, however.
A recent study of
Walkable
Urban Places by the Brookings Institute noted that "while there has
been much attention on the revival of American downtowns over the past 10
years, the revival of suburban downtowns and the recent emergence of lifestyle
centers appear to be an equally dynamic trend. Today, walkable urban places are just as likely to be found in the
suburbs as in center cities."
Suburban
Redevelopment is breathing new life into areas with failed, drivable suburban commercial strips or regional malls. "Drive through any number of
outer-ring suburbs in America and you'll see boarded-up and vacant strip malls,
surrounded by vast seas of empty parking spaces." says Leinberger.
The Denver metro area has seen a
number of new suburban developments bringing "walkable urbanism" to once
automobile-dependent sub-urban areas. Of note are Belmar, Cherry Creek, Southglenn and Aspen Grove. All these areas have seen great success in
their redevelopment.
 photo credit: TheFlunn
Posted on February 21, 2013 10:26:17 by  IPTV.Boyz
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