Area Growth: Housing and Jobs and Population

Growing Numbers Not Able To Live Near Work

Housing and jobs increasingly are in different parts of the region, with growing numbers of people unable to afford to live near work, according to a new report by the Fannie Mae Foundation.

And with population growth in the metropolitan area expected to increase exponentially in the next 25 years, it will be a challenge to balance density with geographical space.

Read today's story:Home Prices Outpace Area Wages, Study Says (Post, Dec. 9)

Washington Post staff writers D'Vera Cohn and Peter Whoriskey were online Thursday, Dec. 9, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss the growing distance between housing and jobs and how the region can prepare for continued population growth.

A transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

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Arlington, Va.: How will housing prices and affordability be effected with this population growth?

How will people be able to afford housing in the DC metro area unless prices drop?

Peter Whoriskey: The arrival of 2 million people in the next 25 years - the anticipated population growth in Washington - could potentially drive home prices ever farther out of reach.

Economists say that one of the best ways to keep housing affordable is to build more homes. The tough question is: where?

D'Vera Cohn: I was reading through some newspaper stories from two decades ago, and one politician was quoted as saying that he'd rather have a caption under his picture in the paper reading "Indicted" than one that said "affordable housing advocate." Today, it's just as controversial to try to put affordable housing in many neighborhoods.

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Fairfax, Va.: I've been in the D.C. for close to 40 years and it is getting so crowded and the roads so clogged that quality of life is taking a nose dive. Fortunately I can retire shortly and get out, but I only see it getting worse.

D'Vera Cohn: Good morning! This is what many people are saying, even some who have not lived here as long as you have. There is growing discussion about this, and an increasing stack of reports about it. It remains to be seen whether anything can be done about it. There is some momentum for regional discussions, including the one that Peter wrote about today. But the Fannie Mae Foundation-Urban Institute report I wrote about this morning says that no other metropolis has tackled this range of problems successfully.

Peter Whoriskey: The other good news is that if you own a home, you'll probably make a killing when you sell.

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Toosnug: H, prepare for more growth ... where, up and down? I am anti-growth. Practice saying it. I'd like to undo much of what's been done. Calling it smart growth fooled me for a while. Could somebody explain someday how the majority of people do not desire more 'clogging' (growth implies a positive), particularly in their jurisdiction, but the cancer just keeps inexorably spreading? Thank you.

Peter Whoriskey: I meet lots of people who say they wish the Washington area wouldn't grow anymore.

Trouble is, the economy keeps growing, drawing people here with job opportunities, and parents keep having kids.

D'Vera Cohn: It's impossible to undo what has been done, but it might be possible to plan better for the future. And some places are trying to "retrofit" - if that's the right word - to ease the consequences of growth. I'm thinking here about techniques to keep commuter traffic off neighborhood streets, for example.

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Waynesboro, Va.: Not long ago, I picked up a brochure from 1970 issued by what eventually became the WMATA, and the Metrorail map shown there had future projections to Germantown and Bowie in Maryland and Centreville in Virginia. Are we now in a situation where future Metrorail extensions other than the Dulles route are impossible to accomplish? As an alternative, might it be possible to increase service on MARC and VRE to middays and weekends (especially if government work times could be more staggered), making those systems more like commuter rail service on SEPTA, N.J. Transit and LIRR/Metro-North and less strictly rush-hour runs like Metrolink in Los Angeles?

Peter Whoriskey: Good questions.

People who study the transportation mess in Washington like to go back to the old maps of the '60s and '70s, which show a much more extensive network of rail lines and highways. The reason we're in a bind, they argue, is that we haven't followed through.

It seems to me we've gone through three eras of transportation thinking since World War II. First, we built highways to move people around. Then we turned to new rail systems, such as Metro. Now we've entered what seems like the Malaise Era, where there is no consensus on how best to address the problems.

D'Vera Cohn: There are growing numbers of people who are working weekends, evenings and other non-traditional hours, so it seems to me that anything that expands public transit would be a good thing.

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Arlington, Va.: I'm a federal employee, making $55k a year, gross. I currently share a rented house with others, but would like to purchase my own residence sometime. I find that even some places in Prince William County, where I grew up, are getting out of my price reach, and when new condos -- which have been usually the least expensive housing going -- are starting at $300k, how can I possibly find some place? I realize we have jobs and a stable local economy compared to many places in the U.S., but where are we headed? Do you foresee rent control or the like that we see in NYC down the road for us?

D'Vera Cohn: I cannot imagine that most local officials would support rent control -- even D.C. has more or less ended it.
There is less expensive housing available in this area, in both Prince George's County and some parts of the District, but both jurisdictions have problems to overcome to persuade more people to move there. The D.C. school system is a big obstacle, for many people.

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Silver Spring, Md.: I grew up in the D.C. area and have noticed how congested it has become, even since I returned from college in 1990. It's absurd. I understand that this is a popular area with jobs but not everyone who wants to can live here. We just don't have the space/land/infrastructure. Why aren't there more jobs in underpopulated places, like Montana or W. Virginia? Why can't defense or biotech, or IT employers locate there? Why doesn't the fed. gov't give incentives for employers to locate in areas that really need the boost? I bought a townhouse in 1999, expecting to move up in 5 years or so. Well, with prices the way they are my husband and I are waiting to see what happens. We're grateful that we have something but don't want to live in a townhouse for the rest of our lives. But at least we have equity. I feel so sorry for 1st time buyers. The D.C. area is becoming a huge mess and local govts better do something now to stop it before there's a mass exodus from here. I've thought about leaving and I LOVE D.C.
Thanks for letting me vent.

Peter Whoriskey: You're welcome.

Unfortunately, wishing that Washington will stop growing doesn't seem likely to work - at least given current trends. Developers and many planners often point out that this is the capital of the nation and that other major Western capitals are much larger in comparison.

D'Vera Cohn: I will add one point that was brought up yesterday by the authors of the Fannie Mae Foundation-Urban Institute report that I wrote about today. They suggested that more of the region's jobs, especially high-paying ones, should be located east of D.C., especially in Prince George's County. They said that would take some of the housing price pressure off of other places. So maybe those jobs don't need to be in Montana, but across the river.

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Washington, D.C.: Regarding the idea presented of trying to move more high-end jobs to "low-end" areas of our housing market: Do experts really think this is a viable solution? My gut feeling is that the people taking these high-end jobs in supposedly less desirable locations will just move to the established neighborhoods, taking on long commutes and adding to the overall congestion. Proximity to job may be important, but people look at other factors like schools, crime, etc. Your thoughts on this proposal?

D'Vera Cohn: There is no question that people will do everything they can to avoid neighborhoods that are not safe or do not have good schools. Housing price is only part of what people are looking for. The head of the Fannie Mae Foundation said yesterday that housing affordability ranked fifth among people's priorities in a recent survey they did. Safety and schools ranked higher. But one indication of how much people hate commuting is that living close to jobs ranked first.

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Washington, D.C.: Isn't part of the solution to the rising housing costs simply to encourage denser close-in growth, as opposed to slow growth. Understandably, there are issues such as transportation and services ..., but if the population is continuing to boom, we can't just keep building developments further away from Washington.

Peter Whoriskey: I think this is one of the most interesting dilemmas in Washington planning circles.

Lots of current growth problems could be ameliorated, if only people could find an affordable and desirable place to live nearer their jobs.

Most of our jobs, however, are around or within the Beltway, and there is little appetite among residents of the close-in suburbs for higher-density housing.

So the region can either grow as it has been growing - ever outward, to West Virginia and Pennsylvania - without aggravating existing neighborhoods too much. Or it can grow more densely closer in, which seems more workable in terms of the regional challenges of traffic and pollution, but likely create lots of friction in local politics.

The most recent example was the fight over more homes near the Vienna Metro station. Fairfax County approved building lots more homes there, but many neighbors continue to object.

D'Vera Cohn: On the demand side, there is a growing market for housing that's densely built and in urban neighborhoods. Some of this is driven by demographics -- there are more couples with grown children, or single people of all ages, who do not want acreage, but do want convenience.

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Ann Arbor, Midh.: Hi D'Vera and Peter,
I live in Ann Arbor and the situation you're facing in D.C. is undeniably similar: A2 is a great place to work, but housing prices are astronomical. Now the city budget is in crisis, so all the amenities that used to cushion the real estate shock may be up for cutting. Furthermore, while high real estate prices doom many to 20-30 mile commuters and limit housing choices within the city itself, that's how the city gets its money: property tax.

I bought my 1100' house for $185k three years ago and could probably get $300k for it now. If I hadn't bought it when I did, there'd be 'no way' I'd get something today.

Good luck to all of us.

D'Vera Cohn: Yes, an interesting comment.

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McLean, Va.: With the extreme price of housing in metro D.C. area, why aren't more people considering Baltimore as an alternative? Driving every day would be tough but what about the train?

Peter Whoriskey: Sure. Think of it this way: from the perspective of people commuting to Washington from Pennsylvania and West Virginia, Baltimore might even be considered one of Washington's "close-in" suburbs...

D'Vera Cohn: And Baltimore is marketing itself as a less expensive place to live, where you can get a bigger house for the money than in the Washington area.

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Bowie, Md.: There's tons of space in my general area for companies to set up shop. Why aren't there more companies (not more retail, but more white collar) coming to my area, since there are plenty of homes and unclogged roads, which is a rarity in this region.

D'Vera Cohn: This is one of the recommendations of the report I wrote about today, to steer more job growth to your area and take the pressure off other parts of the region. One explanation I've gotten is that business people often want to play it safe by locating where other companies already are, and where they know there is a work force. I'm sure that's not the whole story, but it's part of it.

Peter Whoriskey: You raise a good point about bringing the jobs farther out. But I think some planners would argue that adding more employment farther out - in Bowie or Gainesville - only allows workers to live even further away from the region's core, creating more sprawl.

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Leesburg, Va.: I realize that nobody wants more development, but the sad fact is that the standards of living in this country and all over the world are rising meaning more demand for homes, cars, energy, etc. It was so ironic that the story about this growth forum on Feb. 2 was run on the flip side of a story about the lack of housing in the D.C. area. I'm curious who is running this forum Feb. 2? Is it the slow growthers? Is this some effort to dupe local planners into believing we can slow development?

Peter Whoriskey: I think the simple answer is No. The effort has largely been led by the Urban Land Institute. The chairman of the ULI's Washington group is a developer.

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Arlington, Va.: I don't know why more locales around the area haven't followed Arlington's model of clustering development around metro stops. There is a fair amount of traffic in Arlington, but the trick is you never need to go more than 2 or 3 miles to do everything you need to do -- except work and I take the Metro downtown. I think those in Fairfax who objected to the new development around Vienna Metro need to look at Arlington and be more hopeful. As an aside, when I lived in St. Louis many of the neighborhoods actually had gates blocking off neighborhood roads leaving only a few exits. At first I thought it was crazy, but it made the roads so safe and people really got out and talked to their neighbors, knowing they weren't going to be mowed down by traffic. And the police and fire depts could open the gates so it wasn't a hazard.

Peter Whoriskey: Good point. In fact, elected leaders in other suburban jurisdictions hear that all the time: Why can't you be more like Arlington?

The answer that people like Fairfax Board Chairman Gerry Connolly and others give is that Arlington is a small inner county shot through with Metro stops. By comparison, the 400 square miles of Fairfax County are served by just a handful of Metro stops.

Driving, they argue, must be a part of daily life in such places.

D'Vera Cohn: I won't even try to add to anything Peter says about Northern Virginia development patterns...he's the expert!

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Anonymous: Some economists say that we are currently experiencing a housing price "bubble," that our country's cumulative personal and national debt is undermining the real estate equity gains of the past few years. As the dollar slides and buying of U.S. bonds overseas becomes less attractive, interest rates could rise sharply causing larger mortgages to be unaffordable and the "bubble" to burst. What is your take on the perceived "bubble"?

Peter Whoriskey: Ah, the dreaded housing bubble.

I don't have a take on this - except that I know different economists have different reads on what effects those macroeconomic forces will have on housing prices.

One thing that may come as some comfort to Washington area homeowners is that most economists agree that if there is some kind of housing bubble, its effects on Washington likely will be softened because the local economy seems so strong - at least for now. There are simply too many home buyers seeking too few homes.

D'Vera Cohn: As I said in another answer, I will not try to play economist here. I can only note that past experience is that prices always recover, though it could take time.

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Clifton, Va.: Most people who live in this area do not want to live in denser developments. They want a house and some land and will pay for it with a commute and a mortgage. The govt should not have any part in this decision. Let the market control it. Keep local and state govt's out of the decision where I choose to live. Stay out of it!

D'Vera Cohn: You raise two good points. I don't think everyone wants a house with a big yard, but many people do, especially if they have children.
But these days even the Greater Washington Board of Trade and the D.C. Chamber of Commerce are talking about how more central planning is needed to fix some of the problems that our market-driven system has produced.

Peter Whoriskey: Right, but I should point out that it seems a little strange that someone from Clifton would recommend keeping the government out of it. To a large extent, the government, through zoning restrictions, created much of Clifton's large lot ambience.

The Fairfax Board of Supervisors essentially created the large lot neighborhoods around Clifton by forbidding developers to build any more than one home per acre. Had it been left to market forces, there would be many more homes there, and, for that matter, in Montgomery County's agricultural reserve.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Ah, quit your (typical Washington) whining. We're all adults and can make choices. I'd like to become a public school teacher and own a nice house in Tenleytown and enjoy the benefits of city living while maintaining low housing densities and less traffic and better mass transit. And a pony, I've always wanted a pony.

Peter Whoriskey: Tell Santa.

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Baltimore, Md.: Not to encourage a flood of people into Bawlamer, but I bought a 3- bedroom, 1 bath row house, decently rehabbed, for $89,900 four years ago, in an up and coming neighborhood. Sure, prices have climbed in Baltimore (my home has about doubled in value), but compared to D.C., prices are infinitesimal. Homes that would cost $900,000 in Chevy Chase are half that in the comparable neighborhood of Roland Park.

D'Vera Cohn: Here's a satisfied Baltimore resident. I'm glad you remain loyal to The Washington Post!

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Frederick, Md.: I live in Frederick County, Md., and I work in Montgomery County. The commute is horrible, but I must tolerate it because I have only one income coming in and I do not want to work two jobs. I certainly cannot afford to live in Montgomery County. A large two-bedroom apartment in Frederick rents for the same price as a small one bedroom apartment in G'burg. Mortgage payments are also double in Montgomery County compared to Frederick County.

Other than making lots of money quickly, why do developers not build smaller houses (small ranchers, simple townhouses, etc.) which would be much more affordable than huge houses? I know that cheaper housing would possibly attract the socially unwanted, but a strong community effort could handle that potential problem. It seems that the area has forgotten the lower-paid harder-working people.

D'Vera Cohn: Let me address your point that some neighbors fear that "socially unwanted people" might be attracted to smaller houses. Many of the people who cannot afford bigger houses are bookkeepers (average annual wage $32,365), firefighters ($42,494) or schoolteachers ($45,686). These income figures are for 2002 and come from the report I wrote about today. All these incomes are below the regional median.

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Crystal City, Va.: I think Ms. Cohn (and the Institute study) hit the nail on the head with the fact that commuting distance ranked #1 among surveyed respondents.

Arlington seems to focus on developing both job and home growth -- since it's unlikely our transportation capacity will increase, it's better to decrease commute times and have those who work in Arlington live in Arlington.

If every neighborhood closed down its streets to "protect" it from traffic, the gridlock would get worse, not better.

Also, housing costs will remain high as long as there is greater demand than supply at those higher prices. It's not just about the lack of homes, it's also that if people are willing to pay $350K for a small 1BR, no developer will reduce the price.

D'Vera Cohn: The report I wrote about today made the point that the ratio of new housing construction to population growth is heading in the wrong direction.
Thanks for all the great questions, folks.

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Fairfax County, Va.: Why do jurisdictions like Fairfax County (and I assume others) still have government departments whose assignment is to ACTIVELY RECRUIT new businesses to come settle there? It is one thing to say "the economy" will continue to grow locally and add to our woes, but another to make an effort to help that along.

Let's at least have "growth-neutral" policies from local jurisdictions, not policies feeding carcinogens to the problem.

Peter Whoriskey: Local governments typically assume that they can either grow - or die, and as a result, they often spend lots of money trying to attract desirable employers to their jurisdictions.

I think Fairfax may spend as much or more than any other single jurisdiction in the region, and they've been tremendously successful at bringing in business. Look at Tysons Corner and the Dulles Corridor.

What Fairfax leaders haven't been able to do, or have purposely refused to do, is make sure that the number of homes in Fairfax County has kept pace.

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Washington, D.C.: Why are 50-plus story residential buildings not considered to solve the housing problem.

Peter Whoriskey: That's a simple, direct solution. But I think because in most places, that kind of project would provoke a revolt.

Thanks for the chat.

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Bethesda, Md.: Over the past three decades, I've seen three major cycles in real estate prices. Each cycle has ended with a retraction in selling prices of 10 percent to 20 percent with some property types, such as condos, going flat for years and years. With mortgage interest rates having nowhere to go but up, how soon do you think the next correction will be? I believe the correction is starting now and home prices will have to fall no matter the buyer market demand as buyers cannot afford or be approved for higher mortgages.

D'Vera Cohn: We've gotten a bunch of questions asking about a potential crash in housing prices. I am not an economist, so cannot answer with any expertise. I've lived in this area for 24 years and been through the same cycles you have. The experience of the past is that prices do stall, and interest rates can play a role in that. But eventually prices have gone up again around here.

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