Reos and the Challenges of Neighborhood Stabilization in Suburban Cities
Shuttered Subdivisions: REOs and the Challenges of Neighborhood Stabilization in Suburban Cities by Carolina K. Reid Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Driving along California’s Interstate 580, Since 1990, subdivisions such as these have the freeway that connects San Francisco to sprung up all over urban America, but nowhere Stockton, the landscape of newly built subdivi- more rapidly than in California, Nevada, and sions is hard to miss. Neat rows of clay-colored Arizona. In Boomburbs: The Rise of America’s roofs, all of which are the same size, the same Accidental Cities, authors Lang and LeFurgy shape, and extend just to the edge of the prop- point out that areas that were once small subdi- erty line, flank both sides of the road. A huge visions with obscure names such as Henderson, sign hanging from the concrete wall that Chandler, and Santa Ana have grown larger encircles one development reads, “If you lived than many better-known cities, including here, you’d be home already,” beckoning new Miami, Providence, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh, buyers with the promise of a three-bedroom and house an ever-increasing share of the home with a two-car garage. At the exit ramp, nation’s urban population. By 2000, nearly 15 there’s a Target, a Home Depot, a few gas million people lived in boomburbs and “baby stations, and a fast food restaurant or two. And boomburbs.”1 That number has likely grown, as a drive-through Starbucks, providing much- new construction fueled by the recent housing needed caffeine to early morning commuters boom has led, in just a few years, to a doubling headed toward the distant labor markets of San of population in communities such as Avondale, Francisco and San Jose.
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