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.

The observations starkly reverse assumptions by some scientists that fast-growing urbanization and the efficiencies of global trade might eventually slow or reverse tropical deforestation. The study, which covers most of the world’s tropical land area, appears in this week’s early edition of the journal Nature Geoscience.
Strong cpa network

Deforestation has been a rising concern in recent decades, especially with the recognition that it may exacerbate climate change. Studies in the late 20th century generally matched it with growing rural populations, as new roads were built into forests and land was cleared for subsistence agriculture. Since then, rural dwellers have been flooding into cities, seeking better living standards; 2009 was recorded as the first year in history when half of human lived in urban areas. Large industrial farms have, in turn, taken over rural areas and expanded further into remaining forests, in order to supply both domestic urban populations and growing international agricultural markets, the study suggests.

“The main drivers of tropical deforestation have shifted from small-scale landholders to domestic and international markets that are distant from the forests,” said lead author Ruth DeFries, a professor at the Earth Institute’s Center for Environmental Research and Conservation. “One line of thinking was that concentrating people in cities would leave a lot more room for nature. But those people in cities and the rest of the world need to be fed. That creates a demand for industrial-scale clearing.”

DeFries and her colleagues analyzed remote-sensing images of forest cover across 41 nations in Latin America, Africa and Asia from 2000-2005, and combined these with population and economic trends. They showed that the highest forest losses were correlated with two factors: urban growth within countries; and, mainly in Asia, growth of agricultural exports to other countries. Rural population growth was not related.

In recent years, tropical countries have been supplying growing amounts of palm oil, soybeans, sugar, meat and other processed products to distant markets abroad. Not all the products are used for food; palm oil and sugar in particular are also being converted into biofuels. Furthermore, said DeFries, as small farmers within tropical nations move away to become city dwellers, they may actually use more resources from the countryside, not less. This is because those living in cities have higher incomes—the reason most moved there to begin with—and thus tend to consume more processed foods and animal products. Pastures needed to produce meat, and large plantations and other facilities that turn out other products, in turn, require land. “Collectively, these results indicate a shift from state-run road building and colonization in the 1970s and 1980s to enterprise-driven deforestation,” says the study.

Hot spots of industrial-scale clearing include Brazil, Indonesia and Cambodia—countries that, unlike many others, still have considerable forests left to clear. The trend has not reached some forested parts of Latin America, such as Surinam or Guyana, which also have large tracts of remaining forest. Almost 60% of remaining forests occur in areas where net agricultural trade, percent of products exported, and urban growth are all relatively low. But as demand for products grows, these areas are likely to see increased pressure, the study says. According to projections by the United Nations, nearly all population growth in the next 40 years will take place in cities, and some two-thirds of people will live there by 2050.

DeFries said that some initiatives aimed at halting deforestation need to be quickly shifted. For instance, some policies that focus on getting small landowners to conserve forests—a popular mechanism among governments and nonprofits at the moment—“may not be all that productive without a focus on large-scale clearing as well,” she said. “Governments will have to look at policies that intensify yields on existing high-yield fields—not clear more land,” she said.

The other authors of the study are Columbia University ecologist Maria Uriarte; ecologist Thomas Rudel of Rutgers University; and Matthew Hansen of South Dakota State University.

But never fear, there are ways to make the most of a small space. You just have to be a little creative with the space you have. Here a few tips to help you make the most of a small space:

1. Buy storage-friendly furniture. There are many items you can buy that have hidden storage in them. Coffee tables that open up into a trunk, beds with drawers underneath, end-tables with drawers and shelves, TV consoles with DVD storage underneath. These types of furniture will provide a home for your things while keeping them hidden from view so you don’t have to look at a lot of clutter.

2. Make use of the space under your bed. If you don’t have built in drawers under your bed, you can pick up some cheap plastic containers that are made to fit under beds. You can store out of season clothing here to make room in your closets, or store other things that you don’t use every day.

3. Use your closet space. Closet space may seem limited, but you can optimize your closets. Make good use of the space above and below your clothes by adding a shelf for your shoes. Fold your sweaters and put them on the top shelf or simply use it as storage. The floor of your closet can also be used to store boxes.

4. Think small. Many stores sell storage units that are made to go in small spaces. You can buy narrow shelves that are meant to go in tight spaces in kitchens. These are good for storing canned or dried foods.

5. Use the walls. One place that many people don’t think of to use as storage is the wall space. You can easily mount a spice rack to the wall in the kitchen. You can also mount shelves to the wall to store books or family photos.

6. Feng Shui. It might sound cheesy, but this ancient Chinese practice can really make a huge difference in the way a small space feels. By using feng shui principles to arrange the furniture in each room, you can make a small space seem larger and more homey.

Keep in mind that in order to make your new home feel spacious and clean, it’s important not to have a lot of clutter around. Using these ideas will help improve the amount of storage space you have and help make your new home be a pleasant place to live. With a little creativity you can easily make your new home a clutter-free place and organized place to be.

If you want a traditional small-town feel without moving to the middle of nowhere, consider a place like Promenade in the city of Hercules, Calif.

Built near the waterfront of the San Francisco Bay and about 20 miles northeast of San Francisco, the houses have a historical look with Victorian, Craftsman or Italianate design. All have front porches to encourage neighborliness, are built close together and garages are, in many cases, located in the back of the houses or accessible by alleyways. Streets are narrow to slow down traffic.
“In contrast to many suburban towns, we know our neighbors. And we feel it’s a very safe place for children,” says Robert Reber, a city planner for Hercules who lives in Promenade with his wife and 4-year-old.
The New Urbanism Movement
Promenade is an example of a type of city planning called the new urbanism, which seeks to build or restore suburban towns to resemble small towns of the late 19th and early 20th century. A reaction against the suburban sprawl common today, new urbanist towns are planned communities near large urban centers. They have historical architecture, front porches and picket fences and are reminiscent of a time long gone. Built to encourage walking and biking rather than driving, they often have parks or a town plaza in the center of town and restaurants and small businesses within easy walking distance.
“New urbanist towns are gaining in popularity,” says David Kooris, director of the Connecticut office of the Regional Plan Association, a nonprofit that promotes improved community design in the New York metropolitan area. “The philosophy goes back to the historical patterns of development of the 1920s and 1930s — before the automobile dominated — and it was possible to walk and bike to see your neighbors and do your daily chores.”
When Promenade was completed in 2000, homebuyers snatched up the available 217 houses. In fact, all the houses in the community sold within 18 months for prices ranging from the low 400s to the mid-600s. While the pace of buying for two similar neighborhoods in Hercules has slowed a bit, the houses still have an appeal for homebuyers who want to live within commuting distance of San Francisco but also appreciate the advantages of a small town.
How It Began
The first new urbanist development in the United States was founded in 1979 by builder/developer Robert Davis on 80 acres in the planned community of Seaside, Fla., a town on the Florida Panhandle between Fort Walton Beach and Panama City. Many of the houses in Seaside are built in a bungalow style with wraparound porches and picket fences. The town has a central square surrounded by a post office, an amphitheater that hosts everything from yoga classes to theater performances and small businesses such as restaurants, ice cream shops and retail clothing shops.
“There is a certain character to houses in Seaside. But the idea of Seaside is more than cute houses; it’s also a pleasurable place to inhabit, where any resident can find things happening within a quarter-mile radius of their home,” says town architect Leo Casas, who notes that the commute from his Seaside home to his office is “150 yards with dog in tow.”
A Growing Trend
New urbanist towns are more common in the West and Midwest, where land is more plentiful, but there are examples of small towns on the East Coast that have rebuilt themselves based on new urbanist values. In towns such as Connecticut’s New Canaan, East Rutherford, N.J., and Newton, Mass., city planners have tried to revitalize their historic downtowns to provide a sense of community and more walkable neighborhoods, Korris says.
Seaside and Hercules are planning further development. In Hercules, a network of small neighborhoods interconnected by nature paths, parks and a transit center is in the works. Seaside’s plan calls for slowly increasing the size of the town in a series of buildouts. But the character of the place won’t be sacrificed, Casas said. “We’ll continue growing, but at a slow pace. Like many small towns, nothing happens too quickly here,” he said.