For the hip home seeker who longs to be near great food and culture, neighborhoods in a city’s downtown area hold a nearly irresistible attraction. The “urban core” typically has a higher crime rate and less favorable schools than the suburbs, but many downtown areas across the country are undergoing a revitalization of sorts, as cities invest in projects and amenities to attract new residents. And as more people look for alternatives to long commutes and urban sprawl, homebuyers are flocking to the urban core. Homes in urban core neighborhoods come in a variety of styles, such as these brownstones in Boston.
Advantages of Urban Core
Professional writer Toni Kamins has owned a co-op in Manhattan’s trendy West Village for 16 years. “What I most appreciate is the constant availability of just about anything you want,” she says. “I know I miss that when I go out of town.” In a centrally located urban neighborhood, you can typically walk or take a bus, taxi or subway to restaurants, bars, shops, museums, libraries and parks — not to mention use public transportation or your own two feet to get to work each day.
About the Neighborhoods
Homes in the urban core can be skyscraper apartments, converted lofts in old warehouses, spaces above operating businesses, row houses, brownstones — if someone can build it, someone else will figure out a way to live in it. Neighborhoods often vary widely in demographic and socioeconomic development, sometimes even from block to block. Bob Eychner, a real estate broker and owner of Eychner Associates, Inc., in Greenwich Village, remembers trying to sell homes in a very different West Village in the early 1980s. “I can vividly remember the last block of West 12th Street,” he says. “I’d drag customers over there to try to sell them something. There was a banner up that read, ‘Hookers and johns beware! We are taking your license plate number.’ So I trumpeted the strong neighborhood watch system. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.”
But the West Village experienced a fairly common phenomenon for cities: a series of historical landmark designations began to prohibit old buildings from being torn down and new high-rises from going up, preserving the neighborhood’s architectural character. This move eventually attracted buyers and crime rates fell. “We moved to the West Village because it’s charming,” Kamins says. “It’s sort of got a small-town feel within Manhattan. It was, at one point, a lot quieter than other parts of the city.”
Climbing Popularity — and Prices
Trouble is, urban core neighborhoods by nature have defined geographic limits, so it’s difficult to keep a great little spot all to yourself. “In the last eight to 10 years, this area has become white-hot,” Kamins says. “It’s absolutely ridiculous. We get a lot of TV and movie crews — Sex and the City was always filming here.” Demand for such unique space can attract crowds and everything that comes with them: noise, congestion and skyrocketing prices.
“Prices are nuts,” Kamins admits. “We paid high prices 16 years ago for this place but nowhere near what they’re paying now.”
Cost of living in the urban core is a major issue to consider, because the real estate market there may not reflect what’s going on in other parts of the country — or even other parts of the same city. “The average number of days on the market for homes in Manhattan has increased in the last year,” Eychner says, “but our inventory has not increased.” Translation: prices aren’t rising as fast as they were, but they’re rising. In vibrant cities, someone will always covet access to great spaces.
Living downtown can sometimes mean getting rid of your car and all the expenses it entails, but the savings can be more than offset by steep mortgages, monthly condo or co-op fees, and increased living expenses. “Co-op and condo fees in Manhattan generally run anywhere from $1 to $4 per square foot per month, depending on the level of service provided by your building,” Eychner says. (In smaller cities, fees tend to be less than $1 per square foot.) “You should also budget for more expensive restaurants. And if you do have a car, parking can be insane.”
In smaller metropolitan areas, core neighborhoods often feature a diverse selection of properties with a wide price range. But be advised that in a given neighborhood, converted lofts and condominiums may arrive long before the amenities do; you may buy into the urban aesthetic but end up waiting a few years for jobs, restaurants and shops to follow your lead.

High fuel prices and walkability are key factors in many downtown buyers’ decision.

The quintessential American dream used to include a suburban house with big yard, but homebuyers are increasingly dreaming of a walkable urban lifestyle along with their dog and two kids.
Flight from urban areas began after World War II, when thousands of returning soldiers and their young families needed inexpensive housing. In Leviitown, an early Long Island, N.Y., suburb, developers built more than 17,000 virtually identical Cape Cods. The development served as a model for later ‘burbs, and the middle class migration out of the city continued until a peak in the 1980s.
A decade ago, downtown dwellers were rare outside metropolitan hubs like Philadelphia, New York and Chicago. Today, even in a struggling real estate market, property values are high for downtown listings — and so is buyer demand.
“The housing market collapse really hasn’t impacted Denver urban buyers. Inventory is low, and lots of buyers are sitting on the sidelines waiting for a property,” says John Skrabec, owner of Live Urban Real Estate in Denver, Colo. “If a downtown home is priced right and shows well, it sells quickly.”
So what’s driving buyers towards the city? Changing demographics are part of the puzzle. The children of the first generation of suburbanites are now aging empty-nesters, and they’re increasingly trading in their plot of land in the suburbs for sleek downtown condos. The birth rate dropped by almost 50 percent between 1950 and 2000, so there are fewer families with children to fill the spots in suburbia.
Rising fuel costs are another major factor. After payments on mortgages or rent, owning and driving vehicles is the second-biggest expense for most households.
Housing costs tend to fall as you move further from urban employment centers, but transportation costs rise. Once you reach a certain distance, typically 12 to 15 miles from the city center, the increase in transportation costs outweigh the housing savings, according to a report from the Center for Neighborhood Technology. As fuel costs rise, living in the suburbs gets more and more costly.
Living in a walkable area with access to public transit also decreases the total number of miles you drive per year. According to the Housing and Transportation Index, an average downtown dweller in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood drives average 7,000 miles per year. Though Dedham, Mass. is still in “greater Boston,” drivers there log almost three times as many miles on the odometer — an average of 20,500 per year. Urban living can save you thousands of dollars per year in fuel costs and vehicle maintenance.
The price difference makes the old real estate adage “drive till you qualify” seem as “outdated as buying a gas-guzzling SUV,” quipped a recent article from the Congress on New Urbansim. In a June 2008 Coldwell Banker survey, 78 percent of sales associates said that rising gas prices are increasing their clients’ desire to live in an urban setting. The agents also said clients had increased interest in walkable communities with access to public transit.
For the same reasons — walkability, shorter commutes and access to amenities — new urbanist towns and mixed-use suburban developments are becoming another attractive option for buyers. Throughout the United States, small neighborhoods that combine residential, retail, cultural and educational spaces, like Kentlands, Md.; Celebration, Fla. and Stapleton, Colo. are gaining in popularity.
“If gasoline and heating costs continue to rise, conventional suburban living may not be much of a bargain in the future, said Christopher B. Leinberger, an urban land use expert and real estate developer, in a recent article in The Atlantic Monthly. “And as more Americans, particularly affluent Americans, move into urban communities, families may find that some of the suburbs’ other big advantages — better schools and safer communities — have eroded.”
Over the next 20 years, developers will likely produce many millions of new and renovated townhouses, condos and small-lot houses — as well as modify current large-lot suburbs — to meet changing demands.

Urban living

Sea views, wide-open spaces spread over 8,000 sq. ft, a private lift connecting first and second floors: life in the city doesn’t get much better than this

The wall, in a sense, sets the design dictum that has been followed throughout the house—visual connectivity.The double-height (22ft.) central hall has two wings, one on each side. There are no doors between the family entertainment space, the dining and breakfast corner and the kitchen. Sliding glass doors separate the balcony from this central space. Only the grandparents’ room on the ground floor and the guest bedroom have have doors

Bedrooms for the children are luxurious too, and there is also a pantry area for that impromptu midnight party.

Even though the first level functions as a separate entity, the architects have ensured that it isn’t completely cut off from the main house. Both the master suite and the children’s suite look into the central hall. This ensures both visual connectivity and cross ventilation.