The Future of Housing? It Could Be Brighton.

I spent a rainy, gloomy weekend indoors on the couch, catching up on my reading. One of the books I picked up was in the news a few months back, but I’ve been pretty busy, and just got around to it, so you’ll have to excuse me.

Basically, its about the future of housing — a future, I was surprised to learn, that looks a lot like Brighton.

According to Christopher B. Leinberger, author of “The Option of Urbanism,” social, demographic, environmental and economic trends are conspiring to dramatically change the type of housing we’re likely to see get built in coming years. The fundamental driving factor of the change will be the growth in households without children. The additional 28 million childless households by 2025 (compared to only an additional 4 million households with children) will not be looking for quality public schools or single-family homes on large lots, but instead for dense neighborhoods with shops, public transportation and other amenities, all within walking distance. Leinberger says an unacknowledged pent-up demand for this “walkable urbanism” already explains the current and growing price differential between a house or condo in neighborhoods like the South End or Back Bay and houses or condos further out in car-dependent suburbs like Dedham. Even with the economy tanking and the housing boom busting, this fundamental trend is likely to continue (perhaps even accelerate) which will likely bolster prices in key urban neighborhoods and towns.

You may have heard this before from sustainable housing advocates and the like, but what gives Leinberger’s position some weight is that he’s no pie-in-the-sky idealist. Yes, he’s Director of the Graduate Real Estate Program at the University of Michigan, but he’s also a real estate developer with his own real estate firm. He thinks in terms of cold hard numbers and what sells.

And what’s selling? Compact townhouses, condos and other multi-family homes in places that sound a lot like Brighton. Between now and 2030, he thinks it’s likely that prices in these urban areas will continue to hold steady or drift upward, simply because of high demand and short supply, while prices of large-lot suburban single-family homes will drift downward.

Given his emphasis on the growing segment of households without children, I would like to throw in a prediction of my own: affordable urban walkable neighborhoods like Brighton will grow in value relative to walkable but more expensive towns like Brookline, which have traditionally attracted residents largely because of a quality school district. There may simply be fewer folks able or willing to pay high housing prices and property taxes for walkability and a good school district if they can find essentially the same thing without the good schools in a cheaper neighborhood next door.

Interesting reading and food for thought on a rainy day.

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