One theme that flares up every so often is the problem of unaffordable housing in cities. While this is a challenge to fix, it’s not a ‘wicked problem.’ There two things we can do: building more housing, and reduce the economic power of the gentry class and the wealthy through progressive taxation (you can’t have gentrification without a gentry). While these might not be politically easy, at least there are solutions.

But there’s a much more difficult, if not intractable, problem–the economic unsustainability of the suburbs. It’s a much broader problem, as the rebirth of cities has been driven largely by the gentry and upper classes, which just aren’t that numerous (though they are overrepresented in media coverage). As we’ve discussed before, the suburban model is based on population growth–and at some point the music stops:

Something that’s lurking in the background of the U.S. economy, and which will erupt with a fury in ten years or so is the need to replace suburban infrastructure: underground wires, pipes, and so on. This is something new that most suburbs, unlike cities, haven’t had to confront. A suburb that was built in 1970 is long in the tooth today, and time only makes things worse. No suburbs that I’m aware of ever decided to amortize the future cost of repairs over a forty year period–that would require an increase in property taxes. In fact, many suburbs never even covered the expenses of building new subdivisions, never mind worried about expenses decades down the road.

Worse, there’s a tax base problem. That is, the value of property per unit of infrastructure (e.g., the property tax base per square foot of water main) is much lower in the suburbs than it is in cities. Relatives who live in a wealthy suburb close to D.C. (homes go for $900,000 give or take) are in a subdivision with about 40 homes on 25 acres, with a rough property value of $45 million. In D.C., I live in a building assessed at a little over $50 million that covers a quarter of an acre (the population of these two groups is about the same). Once suburbs start having to repair their infrastructure, it’s going to get very expensive to live there (and that doesn’t even include the transportation ‘tax’ of suburban living). Keep in mind, the suburban development I’ve described is definitely on the high end of things–many places will be worse off.

Well, that “wealthy suburb” I mentioned, Fairfax County, VA, one of the perennially wealthiest counties in the U.S., is starting to feel the effects of this process (boldface mine):

For decades, Fairfax County has been a national model for suburban living, a place of good governance and elite schools that educate children from some of the country’s richest neighborhoods.

But Virginia’s largest municipality is fraying around the edges.

A population that is growing older, poorer and more diverse is sharpening the need for basic services in what is still the nation’s second-wealthiest county, even as a sluggish local economy maintains a chokehold on the revenue stream.

Since the 2008 recession, local officials have whittled away at programs to the tune of $300 million. They now say that there is no fat left to trim.

Instead, they are searching for ways to raise taxes, draw new businesses and revitalize worn neighborhoods. Their effort mirrors the struggle of aging suburban communities nationwide, as a turn-of-the century economic boom settles into a sluggish post-recession status quo….

Such worries were unthinkable 20 years ago, when Fairfax was completing its transformation from a sleepy suburb near Washington’s federal jobs to an economic powerhouse that now includes eight Fortune 500 companies.

Since 1980, the county’s population has nearly doubled to 1.1 million residents, with palatial new residences in such areas as Great Falls and Lorton pushing up the median price of a single-family home to $492,000 last year. And household income has climbed from a median of about $54,000 in the mid-1980s to $111,000 today.

With that growth came sparkling new schools, recreational facilities and an expanded park system that boasts 324 miles of pedestrian trails….

Since 2008, the county has eliminated 700 jobs. Libraries operate on shorter schedules and with fewer books, class sizes have swelled past 32 students in some schools and so many educators have left for better-paid positions elsewhere that the system was short 200 teachers last fall.

County agencies are stretching out vehicle maintenance — including for school buses and fire engines — and officials say aging athletic courts and deteriorating playgrounds await nearly $20 million in repairs.

The gift shop closed in 2010. The children’s festival died the next year, as did a $1.2 million college tuition-assistance program for school employees. The county slashed $3.8 million in summer school funding in 2015 and is trying to use $374,000 less in paper this year.

“There is a tipping point, and I think we’re reaching it,” said Jane K. Strauss (Dranesville), a school board member since the early 1990s who chairs the panel’s budget committee. “You don’t collapse overnight. It’s a little cut here, a little here, a little here, and, then, people start to walk away.”

…Meanwhile, as is happening across the country, more baby boomers are reaching retirement age. Since 2010, Fairfax’s elderly population has grown by 21 percent to 129,000. That means more people are eligible for disability services, free bus trips and other county programs. And officials attribute a steady increase in 911 calls to having more patients older than 65. They represent 40 percent of calls handled.

While this is a good description, what it doesn’t get at is that the underlying model never accounted for maintenance of existing infrastructure. As long as the tax base was growing, the expanding infrastructure needs could be met, but now, after forty years or so, there are a lot of repairs that need to happen–the ‘new’ infrastructure isn’t new anymore. And it’s really expensive to fix, relative to denser communities. This was never even accounted for, let alone budgeted for–these communities were the housing equivalent of deluxe classroom trailers for overburdened schools.

Keep in mind, Fairfax County is not only wealthy, but, by virtue of being adjacent to Washington, D.C., has a built-in ‘counter-cyclical stimulus’: the federal government isn’t going out of business any time soon.

If you think the Trump phenomenon is ugly, wait ten or twenty years, when a lot of middle-class, upper-middle class, and even some gentry class people see their nest eggs (in the form of housing) turn to shit. That’s going to be really ugly. And I’m not sure how this can be fixed without massive–and constant–infusions of federal spending.