The Quality of Life Is Not Strained
“Most Democratic council representatives have been affordable-housing advocates, and Republicans have been business and development supporters,” the Observer says in a story about competing visions for downtown. “But the Ann Arbor public has consistently voted for quality of life.” Unlike many other cities, where shoddiness of life is more politically popular.
Affordability is a major factor in quality of life.
I have a hard time understanding how people can conclude parks=quality of life, while economic and social diversity (and even just sustaining the city’s vibrance) =/ quality of life.
posted by Dale on December 1st, 2005 at 2:25 pmDale: They base their urban planning on SimCity, that’s how.
posted by js on December 1st, 2005 at 2:41 pmMost of them have everything they could ever really need already, so parks make them feel even more gracious and genteel.
posted by Michael McC. on December 1st, 2005 at 3:31 pm(And is this post title a Shakespear or Mekons reference?)
posted by js on December 1st, 2005 at 3:43 pmParks are like cake - something that the elite can feel generous about bestowing upon the unfortunate masses. After all, families who can’t afford the going rate of an Ann Arbor home are going to end up crammed into tiny apartments and condos without yards of their own, the poor things, and the best thing we can do for them is provide them with beautiful parks, to provide them with a little bit of comfort during their nasty, brutish, short lives.
posted by Murph on December 1st, 2005 at 4:13 pmActually, I think the issue here is big buildings. Affordable housing advocates (a few Dems) want them. Developers (mostly Republicans) want them. Rank-and-file voters, who are neither affordable housing advocates nor developers, don’t.
Armentrout’s article is worth *careful* study. Definitely something to clip and save. Unfortunately, I think it’s only available in hard copy.
posted by DaveCahill on December 1st, 2005 at 6:05 pm“Actually, I think the issue here is big buildings. Affordable housing advocates (a few Dems) want them. Developers (mostly Republicans) want them. Rank-and-file voters, who are neither affordable housing advocates nor developers, don’t.”
So what does it take to get into the “rank-and-file-voters” club, anyway?
I’m not necessarily an affordable housing advocate in particular, I just want to be able to live within walking distance of both work and the grocery store.
posted by Bruce Fields on December 2nd, 2005 at 3:35 pmI’m not even sure what is meant by the term “affordable housing” anyway, since what constitutes affordable is necessarily subjective, depending on the income level and cost/benefit analysis of the person doing the affording. Is there an actual definition for this term in urban policy circles, or is it just nicey-sounding verbiage to toss around for class-warfare type purposes? I’m just asking, not judging. I really, honestly don’t know what it means, so I don’t know if it’s something I should be in favor of or against or indifferent to.
posted by Dave on December 2nd, 2005 at 3:49 pmI’m guessing that posting a query on AAIO is not a step toward becoming a rank and file voter.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on December 2nd, 2005 at 4:09 pmDave, the HUD definition for affordable housing is “Housing for which the occupant is paying no more than 30 percent of his or her income for gross housing costs, including utilities” - and it can be subsidized or not.
I don’t know if affordable would be defined by the median income ($46K as of last census, so $1,150 per month including taxes + heating + electric + water would be considered affordable here) or the per capita income ($26K, $650 per month). Perhaps the planner types could clarify…
posted by FAA on December 2nd, 2005 at 4:18 pm“I’m guessing that posting a query on AAIO is not a step toward becoming a rank and file voter.”
But, but, but…. the laptop I posted from has no less than three “I voted” stickers on it.
(Peter’s picture is out of date:
http://peter.honeyman.org/pix/2005-04/20/20050420110304.jpg)
Surely that counts for something? Someone just tell me which rank and which file to stand in….
posted by Bruce Fields on December 2nd, 2005 at 4:20 pmDave,
Affordability has a slanderous definition and a technical definition.
The slanderous definition that gets thrown about is “when you subsidize developers to wreck the neighborhood with big buildings.”
The technical definition of affordability is close to what FAA stated: as set by HUD, households should be able to spend about 30% of their income on housing expenses. To clarify FAA’s statement, _every_ household should be able to find _some_ housing at their level. It won’t all be identical - an 30-year-old single lawyer or investment banker with an income of $100,000/year. is going to be looking for much different housing, on all sorts of levels, than a family of three with an income of $40,000/year. In order for the condition of “affordability” to be met, the housing supply should include options for both.
Some amount of trade-offs and sacrifice on the part of the housing-seeker are appropriate - “affordability” does not mean that anybody can pick their ideal place and name their price. (Marc R. and others have noted in the past that the local rental market has recently seen an increase in students doubling up in single apartments to save on rent.) Policy choices, however, have a large effect on what variety of housing is available where, and there’s a question of values to be asked - how much sacrifice do we expect out of people with less money? What should we expect them to give up? The history of planning and urban policy over the last century-and-a-little-bit has had a major theme of raising the bar on what we as a society think is minimally acceptable housing.
We’ve decided that everybody can reasonably expect heated housing, can expect to have a certain level of safety from fire, can expect a certain amount of privacy, can expect a window, and so on and so on. (Those are kind of the 1880s reforms…) To threadhop, I think that’s kind of the topic that Dale’s trying to keep front and center. What sacrifices should we ask people to make to find reasonable housing? Is “leave Ann Arbor” the best codification of our values?
posted by Murph. on December 2nd, 2005 at 5:23 pmMurph,
I’m surprised that you haven’t yet addressed quality of schools (or more specifically, disparity between schools) as a driving force for housing prices. Most prospective home buyers have children and take this into consideration when deciding how much to pay for a certain house in a certain area. Looking around the area, I can expect to pay a 15-30% premium for a house located in the Ann Arbor school district compared to a similar house in a similar neighborhood in a neighboring school district, such as Dexter, Ypisilanti, Milan, or Lincoln. There is even a preference within the Ann Arbor school district, with 3rd grade MEAP scores being correlated with some difference in houseing prices. Note the premium paid for Logan and King districts over that of Bryant-Pattengill. I think that no matter one may do promote construction of “affordable” housing, those units will be a small percentage of total available units, and as long as parents seek superior public schools (or what they perceive as being superior), the market will drive up prices in the better school districts compared to those in lesser school districts. Of course, one way to quickly make Ann Arbor housing affordable is to reduce the quality of the school district to that of the adjacent areas, and perhaps worse. Of course, the better way is to bring up the quality of the adjacent schools to that of Ann Arbor, but that really isn’t in the control of Ann Arbor residents. Parenthetically speaking, while Brandon’s random statistic that Ann Arbor is the most segregated metropolitan area between whites and Asians may be true, I doubt that it is because Asians are located in some sort of Ann Arbor ghetto. Rather, if you look closely, they are mostly concentrated in the Logan and King school districts and choosing not to live in other areas of Ann Arbor or adjacent school districts.
posted by JCP2 on December 2nd, 2005 at 8:58 pmI have mixed feelings about “affordable” housing.
On the one hand, I find one position really obnoxious: “Affordable housing should exist in places that are affordable; there’s no reason for our town to absorb people who can’t afford it. You can see that type of attitude a lot in Ann Arbor (and many other affluent communities).
On the other hand, I think it’s a little unrealistic to think that anyone and everyone should be able to spend just 30% of their income on housing — hell, even rich people don’t do that anymore. The average house size has what? Tripled? Quadroupled? in the last 30 years. And by today’s standards, you are in substandard housing if you don’t have a bedroom for every person, a sizeable kitchen, several TVs, cable, etc. etc. etc. (not that I think that’s the way it should be; but it’s the way it is). So, something has to give — if our standards for housing are going to continue to be high, we are going to have to expect to pay a lot for it. I’ve been at all sorts of different income levels, and I have never paid less than 40% for housing, usually it ends up being more like 50% (when I was a student, even more than that at least one year). So, maybe we need to work on a more realistic definition of “affordable” and then really go after having options for people at a more realistic goal.
posted by Anna on December 2nd, 2005 at 9:15 pmWhen I started doing demographics, the standard was 25%. Since then, they raised it to 30%.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on December 2nd, 2005 at 10:09 pmThough a large number of people (in some cases, it seems, the majority) choose to pay more than 30% of their gross income for housing, we need not eliminate that option for those who do not want to spend more. Particularly important is the obvious fact that the remaining 60% of a, say, 100k gross income can handle basics like a balanced diet, adequate clothing, and even health care much more easily than the remaining 60% of a 20k gross income.
Federal statistics also CLEARLY illustrate that fewer homeowners pay 30%+ than renters. Not only are renters generally a lower income, more vulnerable population, many cities have exacerbated this situation (with the aid of neighborhood groups) by decrying and blocking strategies to increase affordable rents and focusing resources on homeownership , existing neighborhoods, and the people “already there.”
posted by Dale on December 3rd, 2005 at 11:28 amI’m assuming the 30% is off of net income and not gross. And the basics include water, gas, electricity — anything else? I’m trying to see how “affordable” my housing is. (I think it is, relatively speaking, a good deal for the area.)
I think governmental attempts to manipulate the housing market allegedly for the benefit of lower-income folks often just backfire and make things worse. That’s been my impression anyway. I realize what we’re talking about is eliminating some barriers to the creation of new housing, though, which presumably would increase the supply and in theory help lower rents by meeting more of the demand.
One thing I took away from the meeting with the mayor is that there sure are a lot of competing interests in any sort of policy, and what you end up with is always going to be some kind of trade-off or compromise that displeases somebody. Listening to some of that discussion made my head hurt. But it was interesting and informative, at least the parts I could hear.
P.S. Murph et al. Thanks for the crash course in urban policy jargon.
posted by Dave on December 5th, 2005 at 10:07 amIt’s actually gross income. HUD.
There are a number of strategies that all contribute in part to the creation of affordable housing and the maintenance of affordability. The creation of market-rate affordable housing is the best, most durable strategy by allowing supply to keep up with demand, as AAiO was advocating. However, the public sector does need to intervene in the market (as it already does in a number of ways) to remediate market failures. A problem with Ann Arbor is that we are having to push government intervention (subsidies) to correct for other government intervention (neighborhood vetos and a generally unfavorable development climate).
posted by Dale on December 5th, 2005 at 10:53 am