Remote Learnings, or Covid’s Sprawling Legacy
This is Shutdown Corners, a newsletter about how coronavirus is reshaping urbanism
So, um, it’s been a while…. seeing as how I haven’t sent a newsletter since (gasp) last September. It’s been a little busy over here. In January, I was overjoyed to welcome another child into the world (Mateo), and have also been doing a lot of writing; I’m now contributing to Bloomberg CityLab (recent stories include a look at Albuquerque’s courting of Netflix and the supply shortage in child care) and have written a few pieces for the New York Times’s Square Feet column, including a look at eyes-in-the-sky office tech and the battery boom in commercial real estate.
As we enter a summer with half of American adults vaccinated and a massive infrastructure bill still in the works, it’s a pivotal moment to examine the theme of this newsletter, how Covid will impact urbanism. And while there’s great examples of adapting and prioritizing walking, biking, and transit—mostly in Europe—I’ve been struck lately by the long-term impacts of short-termism, and our nation’s generally poor policy responses. I’m mostly thinking about housing.
Two timely articles, Ben Casselman and Conor Dougherty’s New York Times piece on exurban growth and Jerusalem Demsas’s Vox story on how letters to sellers perpetuate discrimination, have gotten me thinking about the many ways we continue to avoid tackling the housing shortage. The stories of everyday buyers are striking: in one, a couple waits breathlessly to win a lottery to purchase a home many miles from work, and in another, a homebuyer pledged to name their first-born child after the seller (“Meet my son Compass Redfin!”). I have a friend in Chicago who, while touring a house he loved that was slightly out of his price range, spotted some socialist literature on the shelves. He wrote a “buyer love letter” that started with “Dear Comrade” and ended up getting the home.
Part of me thinks we’ve lost our chance to take advantage of this moment. We had a moment to recalibrate, with the pandemic, the terrible reality of evictions, economic stress, and the rapidly rising price of new homes, yet we continue to let the housing market accelerate into an even more expensive, priviledged system full of supply limits, gatekeepers, and racial disparities. While the cottage industry of takes on cities failing turned out to be spectacularly false, it is true that there has been more movement within metro areas (and to resort/vacation towns), and booming markets like Boise are still booming. None, it seems, have kept up with construction, especially now with material prices soaring (constructions firms are now hiring less workers because the shortage of materials has slowed down projects so much). Buyers, and renters sick of being cooped up during the pandemic, are looking for the “exurban lifestyle.”
Dougherty’s pieces especially makes me think of a story I did for Curbed on farm-focused subdivisions, called agrihoods, specifically one on the exurban fringe in West Palm Beach, Florida, called Arden that included a simalcrum of rural life at the center of winding roads and single-family homes. Sure, farm-fresh herbs are great. But selling this lifestyle means we’re still locking in massive sprawl for those who can afford the mortgage and commute, that means longer drives for everything, even if remote working takes hold. More of this kind of development ruins habitat and raises the risk of wildfire damage to homes. How little did we really focus on rethinking our surroundings, or business as usual?
From the Arden story:
At the grand opening celebration in November—where I visited model homes on streets with names like Wheelbarrow Bend, Tree Stand Terrace, and Heirloom Drive—I learned the farm, new homes, and manicured lakes stand on what was once entirely farmland. Arden was keeping alive the tradition of American suburbs being named after that which they bulldozed.
The nation is still reeling from a long-term crisis of inequality that’s only widened, as well as a lack of shared realities, which to me signals we should focus all the more on shared spaces and shared commons. It’s hard not to look at the incredible deluge of news coverage over the supposed problem of American workers getting too much support, and demanding better wages, and not notice that there isn’t a corresponding focus on the rising percentage of all of our incomes going towards housing, an anchor pulling down economic growth.
Reading List
What Happened When Evanston Became America’s First City to Promise Reparations
Tulsa, Ferguson, and so many of our nation’s stories of race are intertwined with our rules and regulations around housing. And this story does an excellent job at pulling on all those knotted threads. The opening is incredible, and makes me think so much about the meaning inscribed in one stalwart elm tree.
Coil to the soil. This isn’t urbanism related, necessarily, but Alexandra Marvar’s engrossing story about metal detecting is itself a rare, valuable find. It’s another edition to a small but rewarding sub-genre of writing, the in-depth exploration of a niche subculture.
I’m also very interested in what this summer has in store for Uber and Lyft. Their challenges are manifold, including a labor shortage (perhaps spending bags of money on an anti-labor referendum isn’t a great way to woo workers). I’m especially intrigued about the future of The Drivers Cooperative, which launched Sunday. I previously wrote about a moment in 2016 when Uber and Lyft left Austin, and a bunch of homemade apps emerged to fill the void; these tech companies don’t have the technological edge they think they do, so a good story and great service can go pretty far.
Thanks for checking out Shutdown Corners, a newsletter written by me, Patrick Sisson, a freelance writer in Los Angeles covering the trends, tech, and policy shaping our cities. Please consider referring to a friend, and if you were sent this, please subscribe yourself. Send any tips, feedback, suggestions, or questions to patsisson@gmail.com.