As they post-mortem the housing crisis, policy makers are increasingly putting transportation costs under the microscope. Blueprint America visits the car -dependent suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, to learn about how transportation costs are making it harder for families to hold on to the American Dream.
Producer Fae Moore, editor David Kreger and special correspondent John Larson for Blueprint America
JOHN LARSON:
Laura Grosso lives with her husband Tony and their two sons in Queen Creek, Arizona, a suburb on the outer fringes of Phoenix. They bought this three bedroom in 2006. Even though it was far from work and family, it was just what they were looking for
LAURA GROSSO:
We wanted Dominic and Franco to be happy here, and to have a nice childhood, like how we grew up. Because we grew up in the mid-west, where it was open and everyone had grass. So, this is kind of a little piece of how we wanted it to be for them.
JOHN LARSON:
Like millions of other young American families who bought during the last housing boom, the Grossos decided to trade more time behind the wheel for an opportunity to live their American dream.
LAURE GROSSO:
We understood that it was really far out, but we thought, well, this is– we can afford this house, it’s big enough for us. And, here we go, we like the area.
JOHN LARSON:
You might think this is a story about how the Grossos are coping with a looming foreclosure. But it’s not.
It’s about how families hit hard by the housing crisis are also getting slammed by rising transportation costs.
When they signed on the dotted line, the Grossos never thought about what they would spend for gas, insurance and car payments …but last spring, when the transmission on their second car died, the cost became all too clear. They had already taken paycuts and they could not afford a new car.
With no mass transit, the only option for both Grossos to get to work? They go together.
They rouse the babies and they’re out the door before sun up.
First stop: 25 minutes to Mesa, to unload the boys at grandma’s house
20 minutes later, they reach Scottsdale, where Laura lets Tony off in time for his six AM shift as a security guard in a hospital.
It’s another 15 minutes to Tempe, where Laura works in administration at Arizona State University. After a full day’s work, they’ll do the whole thing in reverse in the afternoon…round trip that’s about 120 miles a day.
And how many hours you figure?
TONY GROSSO:
Well, it’s at least about two and a half, two hours. Depending on traffic and stuff.
JOHN LARSON:
It sounds exhausting.
TONY GROSSO:
We don’t think about it. We do it.
JOHN LARSON:
There’s no question driving is a way of life for most of the 4 million people who call metro Phoenix home.
It’s hard to grasp just how spread out the region is. Phoenix and the surrounding valley cover over 2,000 square miles.
The population grew by more than 1 million people in the past decade alone. A sea of new homes went up almost overnight. When gas prices spiked between 2007 and 2008, people were suddenly paying twice as much to get around…..and that’s exactly when foreclosures peaked in neighborhoods like Queen Creek.
LAURA GROSSO:
It was a ghost town. The streets as you go down the street, it was just for sale signs, the houses were vacant…
JOHN LARSON:
Studies show this pattern – the farther out, the more foreclosures– held true in most major American sprawl towns…
As they post-mortem the housing crisis, policy makers are increasingly putting transportation costs under the microscope. Shaun Donovan is the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
SHAUN DONOVAN:
In some ways the foreclosure crisis has been a wakeup call on that front. What it said to folks is, “Hey, wait a second. Look at the houses that are on the periphery of these metropolitan areas. Those are the ones that have actually lost the most value.
The places that have retained the most value, where prices have dropped the least, are places that have access to transportation.”
JOHN LARSON:
It wasn’t just the marketplace that created sprawl, says Donovan.
ARCHIVAL FILM NARRATION:
This is the American dream of freedom on wheels….
JOHN LARSON:
The federal government has been in the business of promoting car dependent development for a long time… ever since President Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act back in 1956.
Over the decades Washington spent trillions building highways, and subsidizing the suburban housing industry. As long as gas was cheap and there was room to grow it seemed to work. But today the American dream is gridlocked, literally. Clogged roads pollute the air, gas prices are high, and many people are spending more time on the road than with their families.
SHAUN DONOVAN:
The average family in America today spends 52 percent of their income on housing and transportation combined. The single largest costs in the average American family’s budget.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
We can no longer afford to sit still. What we need is a smart system of infrastructure equal to the needs of the 21st century…
JOHN LARSON:
The Obama Administration is trying to sell Congress and the public on a new blueprint. One that changes the way we design communities and get around in them.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
A system that cuts congestion and ups productivity.
DONOVAN
What we’re trying to do is provide more choice. And by the way, that’s what I hear when I’m out in communities every day – we want more choices. “Look, I’m not going to get rid of my car,” is what I hear. “It’s not that I’m going to not have a car. It’s that I don’t want always have to get in my car. I want to be able to get on my bicycle sometimes. I want to be able to walk. I want to have transportation choices.”
JOHN LARSON:
Providing more affordable choices means first and foremost promoting public transportation, something car loving Arizonans have historically resisted.
Until the Phoenix light rail. The controversial 1.4 billion dollar light rail opened in 2008 after a narrow margin of local voters approved a half cent sales tax and Washington agreed to pay for 40 percent of the construction costs.
So far ridership has more than exceeded expectations. About 33,000 people a day, many of them students, ride the 20 mile rail which connects downtown to the university neighborhoods of Tempe and Mesa.
Right now the rail only reaches a small portion of the region, but there are plans to extend it 57 miles out into the valley.
Emily Talen is a professor of urban planning at Arizona State.
EMILY TALEN
The light rail has a certain sexiness to it that can really get people excited and energized.
It’s got to be seen as one step in an evolution of turning this ship around, this sprawling, unsustainable, place into a different kind of community.
JOHN LARSON:
The outlines of this community are starting to emerge. In the past five years developers have poured $5 billion worth of private investment into residential and commercial construction along the light rail
Most local and state politicians support plans to expand the system, but with the economy on life support few are willing to raise taxes to do so. Which means new trains will not be heading to the outskirts any time soon.
And for some developers on the outskirts, that’s just fine.
DENNIS WEBB:
They can get this 4,000 square foot house for $236,000.
JOHN LARSON:
Dennis Webb is the vice president of operations for Fulton Homes, one of Arizona’s largest home builders. Just a few miles down the road from where thousands of foreclosed houses sit empty, Fulton Homes is building brand new ones. Once the economy comes back, he says, so will the market for the exurban lifestyle that he’s selling.
DENNIS WEBB:
People want to live in a safe, family environment, where they can have their kids right nearby, have a pool, have a backyard and barbecue and things like that. That’s the way they want to live.
JOHN LARSON:
I took a little drive around the development and I was looking for the light rail station. Now where–
DENNIS WEBB:
Keep looking!
JOHN LARSON:
Webb doesn’t see people giving up their cars any time soon. And government efforts to fight sprawl rub him the wrong way.
DENNIS WEBB:
It’s the West, it’s the frontier. I think the government has very little– should have very little voice in dictating where people want to live.
JOHN LARSON:
Meanwhile, the Grossos just keep on driving. They aren’t expecting trains to help them out of their financial difficulties any time soon….they’re just trying to hold onto what they’ve got.
JOHN LARSON:
What would be the worst possible thing that could happen now.
TONY GROSSO:
Well, the car thing, I think, I mean, that’s… that car is our lifeline right now. So, everything we do revolves around that car. So, if that goes, we do.
