Affordable housing follies
Cue the violin, Eric Cartman, because the real estate developers in Massachusetts are hurting.
The Boston’ Globe’s solid biz columnist Charles Stein writes about how Peter Francese, some industry mouthpiece, bemoans the lack of what he calls “affordable housing” - although he doesn’t seem to be talking about the tax-subsidized absurdities pushed by socialist lobbies like Vida Urbana - and how it hurts the Commonwealth:
Writes Stein:
Specifically, [Francese] doesn’t see enough young people in our future — especially young adults with children. We drive them away, said Francese, with our high housing prices, which are high, in part, because we refuse to build affordable housing suitable for young families. ”Our wounds are self-inflicted,” he said.
A few relevant facts. With a median age of 38 — the US average is 36 — New England is the nation’s oldest region. Maine, median age 40.6, is the oldest state in the country. Over the next 10 years, according to Census Bureau projections, the number of people between the ages of 35 and 44 in the three southern New England states will fall 18 percent, compared to a 6 percent decline in the nation as a whole.
Young families leave New England for a variety of reasons. The weather isn’t great and the past two recessions have been brutal. But housing prices are a factor. A.D. Makepeace, a developer based in Wareham, recently conducted a poll that asked people in Massachusetts how difficult they thought it was for young families to buy a house. More than 40 percent answered ”very difficult;” another 27 percent said ”nearly impossible.”
Get this simple fact, people: The median age for whites is higher than the median age for any non-white group. Since New England is whiter than the rest of the Republic, it is quite logical that our median age is higher than the U.S. at large. Whites are older because they have fewer children than non-whites, and also because they have children later in life.
Stein continues:
Francese blames lack of new housing construction on towns that don’t want a lot of new families and the increased density and burdens on public services they bring with them.
Francese saw the story play out recently in his own backyard. A developer in Newfields, N.H., (population 1,650) proposed putting up 89 homes on a 340-acre parcel of land. Alarmed, the town raised $7.5 million, a blend of town money and government funds, to buy the land from the developer and preserve it as open space. The town was delighted with the outcome. Francese had a different reaction. ”It’s nuts,” he said. ”Outside of New England this never would happen.”
Let me tell you why young families leave Massachusetts: Yes, it does have something to do with housing prices, but not in the way Francese thinks or cares about. No, white families look at the cost of buying a decent house in a town with “good” schools and they realize they can get a bigger house for less money in a town with “good” schools in another state.
If you look at the Census numbers for 1990 - 2000, you’ll see that Massachusetts’ dominant population group increased in size in the very towns Francese derides, while it decreased in the cities and what we might call certain other areas.
The desire of small towns to preserve a small-town atmosphere is hardly the problem here.
Stein is appropriately skeptic to Francese’s claim:
Are these folks painting too bleak a picture? My hunch is they are. New England has long been expensive, slow-growing, and not terribly welcoming to newcomers. But it is also rich. Connecticut has the highest per capita income in the nation. Massachusetts last year passed New Jersey to move into second place. The region has a critical mass of knowledge industries — technology, healthcare, education — that pay above-average salaries. It is a formula that has allowed New England to prosper, despite its many handicaps.
