Inner City Housing Alternatives Growing Attractive for Young Professionals

[FarCenter]

by AUSTIN KILGORE

Monday, March 8th, 2010, 5:37 pm

Speaking to a crowd of more than 100 at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, keynote speaker Carol Coletta, president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, said there is a shift occurring in the housing demands of young professionals and other city dwellers away from suburban lifestyles and a renewed interest in urban living.

She, as part of her firm’s national network of urban leaders specializes in identifying trends and mobilizing activists for metropolitan development, added the cities and communities that adapt to those changing demands will be best positioned to grow and prosper.

“We have to give Americans a concrete picture of the future,” she said. ‘And we have to figure out how to deliver it.”

The 11th annual event was hosted by the North Texas Housing Coalition, a low- to moderate-income housing coalition that serves the 16-county North Texas regions, which includes the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth.

Coletta said college graduates are a city’s primary economic driver, and younger generations continue to become more mobile and desire to live in urban, inner city communities. This creates communities with a more diverse income spectrum, which boosts poor or disenfranchised individuals’ ability to move up economically, creating neighborhood stability.

But that stability doesn’t necessarily come in the form of homeownership, once considered a bedrock to community development. Coletta said the financial and banking systems haven’t caught up to what consumers and citizens want out of their housing options. The millennial generation is more likely to want to rent or own urban apartments and condominiums rather than single-family houses

<SNIP>http://www.housingwire.com/2010/03/08/inner-city-housing-alternatives-grow-attractive-for-young-professionals/

[kestrel91316]

1. If living where you work ever catches on, in the US, half our battles

will be won.

I live 2 miles from where I work, and have for 19 years. I use mass transit or a bike or my own 2 feet of late. Feels good.

[tammywammy]

2. I live 5 miles from work

It goes through a not-so good neighborhood and I'm usually headed to work and from work in the dark, otherwise a bike wouldn't be too bad. No mass transit though. :(