U.S. Cities Face Serious Challenges

Sources:

ABC News: 3 Most Desperate Cities

Brookings: What America’s Cities Need

Brookings: Tracking Economic Recession and Recovery in America’s 100 Largest Metropolitan Areas

Columbia University, The American Assembly: Rebuilding America’s Legacy Cities-New Directions for the Industrial Heartland

The Economist: Smaller is More Beautiful

The Economist: The Parable of Detroit, So Cheap, There’s Hope

Across the United States, cities large and small are confronting unprecedented social and economic challenges. Although the problems many cities face are similar, including loss of industry and population to rapidly increasing crime and unemployment rates, the approaches cities have taken to address these problems and the resulting outcomes have been varied.

In America’s rustbelt, cities like Detroit, Flint, Rochester, Cleveland, Pittsburg, Harrisburg, and Buffalo watched as companies such as Kodak and General Motors slashed jobs, closed facilities, and exited the urban centers often formed around their very existence. The result is that cities across the country such as Vellejo, California, Boise County, Idaho, Jefferson, Alabama, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania are on the verge of, or have filed for, bankruptcy protection. The causes of the economic woes are different for each city, but abandoned properties, lack of municipal services, increased drug and crime rates, high unemployment and social unrest seem to be universal outcomes. Despite the daunting obstacles, some cities have weathered the storm and found ways to reinvent themselves.

General Motors was founded in Flint, Michigan and was home to 80,000 employees in 1968. It now has 6,000 employees in Flint and, as a result, the population of Flint has fallen by nearly 50% since 1960. Abandoned properties littered with trash dotted every area of town and redevelopment appeared impossible until 2002 when Flint created a “Land Bank” with the purpose of taking control of and redeveloping vacant, abandoned, or tax-delinquent properties. Rather than selling abandoned or foreclosed property at auction to the highest bidder who may have no interest in redevelopment, the Land Bank purchases such properties. Some buildings are renovated and then sold while the worst are demolished and the land sold to nearby homeowners or developers. Lured by exceedingly cheap prices, entrepreneurs, small business owners, and local residents have purchased property from the Land Bank. Shops, bars, restaurants, farmers markets, and gardens are redefining the image of Flint where the vacant properties once were. Flint’s Land Bank is now used as a model for other cities and states facing similar circumstances. Although Flint is no longer an industrial stronghold, it has evolved into a smaller, more sustainable urban model.

Other cities that have turned the corner toward redevelopment by transitioning from manufacturing and industrial hubs to service-based economies include Detroit, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Rochester. Detroit has utilized its massive infrastructure and office space to create “Techtown;” luring young, forward thinking technological enterprises to the city through highly competitive pricing, tax abatements, and creating attractive urban lifestyle environments. Similarly, Philadelphia and Baltimore have used their existing educational and medical institutions as an anchor for promoting business development and creating attractive urban environments. Johns Hopkins Health Care System partnered with city officials and developers to revive East Baltimore by deeding hundreds of hospital owned properties to town developers and providing financial support for the resulting projects. Similarly, Philadelphia used the resources of its colleges, universities, and hospitals to revitalize and rebuild. The University of Pennsylvania, its associated medical center, and other academic institutions purchased surrounding properties, rehabilitated them, and leased or sold them to residents, businesses, students, faculty, and staff with cost incentives such as below-market mortgage financing and favorable lease terms. The common theme among these success stories appears to be a willingness to shed outdated ideas of economic opportunities in favor of innovative community partnerships able to recognize and revitalize existing urban assets.

A New Look at Mortgage Loan Modifications in the United States

Sources:

WSJ: States Push Banks to Fix Foreclosure Process

WSJ: Banks Face More Loan Write-Downs

BusinessWeek: States Test Mortgage Principal Write-Downs

More than 25 percent of all mortgages in the U.S. are "under water," which means that those mortgage holders owe more on their homes than what the homes are worth. A synonymous term is "negative equity." Some experts have identified negative equity as the biggest obstacle to the U.S. housing market’s recovery. Borrowers with negative equity in their homes have little incentive to stay current on their mortgage payments even if they are not experiencing financial hardship. Of course, it is much more difficult for homeowners experiencing financial hardship to justify their struggle to meet their monthly loan repayment obligations on their underwater mortgages. Some U.S. financial institutions have modified, though reluctantly, mortgage loans for homeowners in financial dire straits by reducing interest rates, increasing loan repayment periods, and even waiving overdue interest. The only thing most banks decline to do is write down the outstanding principal.

Banks advance several arguments in opposition to principal reduction. Doing so would force them to take losses, which would erode their capital reserves. Principal reductions would also result in lower profits. Most importantly, banks argue that principal write-downs would only encourage more defaults because borrowers would have an incentive to stop making their mortgage payments in hopes of negotiating better loan terms.

Not all experts, however, share the banks' concerns. On March 3, 2011, state attorneys general and several federal agencies sent a proposal to some of the major banks in the U.S. that may require the banks to reduce mortgage principals for distressed borrowers. This proposal does not impose any fines or penalties on the banks. Rather, it focuses on the ways banks should treat borrowers seeking loan modifications or facing foreclosure. Some of the features of the proposal would require banks to deny in writing loan modifications before referring homeowners to foreclosure, to provide distressed borrowers with contact information for a single employee assigned to their case, and to consider reducing the principal on underwater mortgages.

Up to this point, very few mortgage modifications have involved principal reductions. For example, the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency reported that only 4 percent of the loan modifications done in the third quarter of 2010 involved principal reductions. Since banks have tried, with little success, almost every other available tool for preventing foreclosures, some experts believe that reducing loan principals is the next logical step. Ocwen Financial, an Atlanta-based mortgage lender, estimates that homeowners whose mortgages have been modified without a principal reduction are almost twice as likely to re-default as homeowners whose modifications involved principal reductions.

Some of the states with the highest declines in home values, such as California, Nevada, and Arizona, are already experimenting with principal reductions. The U.S. Treasury and the banks that own the loans share the cost of these mortgage modifications. No more than 40,000 borrowers are expected to benefit from these pilot programs. Experts point out, however, that although the proposal may not help many borrowers, it will yield data to help banks and the Government evaluate the effectiveness of mortgage modifications involving principal reductions.