Where Did All the Children Go? ( Costs Drive Out Middle-Class Families)

[cal04]

In San Francisco and Other Big Cities, Costs Drive Out Middle-Class Families
Monica Burton did not want to leave San Francisco. Born and raised in the city and a train driver for the Muni transit system for the past 16 years, she loves her home town, volunteers in its women's jail and prays weekly at her church in the Hunter's Point section along the San Francisco Bay.

But as the main breadwinner for her family, which includes a 22-year-old daughter and two granddaughters, she faced some hard choices. Stay in San Francisco and abandon the dream of owning her own home because of skyrocketing housing prices, or leave. In 2004, Burton left with her grandchildren, buying a three-bedroom house in what she calls a "Leave It to Beaver" neighborhood in Sacramento, a 158-mile round-trip commute from her job in the city of her birth.

People like Burton have been leaving U.S. cities because of high-priced housing for some time. But according to researchers and urban leaders, the trend has accelerated in recent years and is threatening to reshape many of the nation's major cities. Between 2000 and 2004, all eight metropolitan regions from Seattle to San Diego lost middle-class families.

On the East Coast, a similar trend is underway, with middle-class families fleeing the New York region and Boston for the South. The District has been in the buffer zone, losing middle-class families with children to the Sun Belt but gaining some from the Northeast, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. "There's a middle-class flight on both sides of the country," said Frey, who has analyzed county-level census data on both coasts. He has found that real estate costs more than schools are what is driving the migration. The trend has city officials worried about what the loss of these middle-class families will do to the vitality of their communities and they are trying to find ways to stem the flow.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/18/AR2006031801034.html

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

1. NOBODY is "trying to find ways to stem the flow"...NOBODY.

What a PANTSLOAD.

The only thing that has kept the economy afloat os the housing market...the speculators, the "house flippers"...

The median home price in Silicon Valley CA is $700,000...and FOURTEEN PERCENT of the families in this area can afford one.

NOBODY is "trying to find ways to stem the flow"...NOBODY.

[Burried News]

4. Absolutely. This was the case in NY City 50 years ago.

If you were newly married with kids you had to leave.

[Warpy]

2. I knew people doing a 120 mile round trip commute 30 years ago

from southern New Hampshire and parts of Cape Cod, where housing was cheaper and the scenery better than that in Boston.

People fleeing to the exurbs had better start voting in favor of light rail initiatives, though, because those huge commutes are going to start to drive them into the poorhouse in the next few years.

Here in central NM, my shabby inner city house has appreciated 50% in the last three years; house prices in the exurbs have stayed flat. Take that as a caution if you're planning a move to the exurbs to flee crime and give the rug rats a back yard instead of taking them to the park.

[Porcupine]

3. Well Duh!! We invite disaster where actual working people

cannot afford to live anywhere close to their workplaces. Even a minor blip in the supply of gasoline or diesel fuel could have thousands of San Franscicans standing outside of closed resteraunts slowly starving to death.

A person who works an actual, hands-on materials, job absolutely cannot afford to live in San Francisco, most of Marin County, Berkely or the penninsula. Who they think is going to feed them in an emergency is anyone's guess.

I can't wait for Peak Oil effects when I can watch the rich screw themselves.

[depakid]

7. It will get interesting as gas prices rise

People aren't going to be making long commutes at $5-$8 a gallon gas.

Hope that woman has job opportunities near her new "leave it to beaver" neighborhood.

[yurbud]

5. I can't afford to have kids, I'm in my forties and teach college

[AnnieBW]

6. I'd Move To SF or San Jose In A Heartbeat

Except that the housing prices are worse than in my part of Maryland.

[shrike]

8. We're starting to see that in Indiana

Chicagoans cashing out of their expensive neighborhoods and moving south, and east. I'm always amazed at how far people are willing to drive; they keep moving further and further. There is, however, the South Shore rail line along the lake; one can park for the day at a rail station and ride into the city.