Bait and Switch

Yahoo Contributor Laura Quinn on regretting buying in the suburbs:

I feel as though I was the victim of a “bait and switch” by buying my cookie-cutter home in the suburbs. It’s not that I have anything against the cookie-cutter Florida-style homes. It’s that I didn’t expect the value of my home to dramatically decrease during the housing collapse. What’s even more surprising is the fact that everything I didn’t like about the cities is now happening to my suburbs.

According to a recent article by Fox Business, I’m experiencing the “death of the suburbs,” as more Americans flock to the cities. An article featured on Yahoo Homes illustrated the fact that there are now more poor people living in the suburbs than in cities. In fact, the number of poor people in suburbs rose by more than 63 percent between 2000 and 2011. It’s just an unfortunate reality that most poor people can’t afford to make improvements to the homes in which they live, which is bound to decrease property values.

Suburbia promises the best of both worlds but delivers an experience full of compromise. The suburban ideal is to be close to everything yet live on a private slice of nature – an amalgamation of urban and rural. The suburban reality is congestion, auto dependence, and falling home values.