In the center of our town, an abandoned auto dealership lies vacant. Developers want to build an apartment building in that space. It would cater to young people who want easy access to the train to Manhattan. And local homeowners want to stop it. They set up a “Preserve Our Village” Facebook page, put signs on their front lawns, and held meetings all over town. What’s the issue? They don’t want more kids in the schools. They are worried about their property values, too, but the biggest issue is diluting the quality of the schools with a big influx of newcomers.

The lack of affordable rental properties in this town and in other suburban areas could be leading to the greying of the suburbs. The New York Times reports on this problem.

Alexander Roberts, executive director of Community Housing Innovations, an advocacy group for affordable housing that released the report about the New York counties, attributed the declines in Westchester and on Long Island to the increasing cost of houses and the resistance by localities to building apartment buildings with modest rentals. The greatest population losses, he said, were in “the least diverse communities with the most expensive housing, which happen also to be those that have almost no affordable multifamily housing.”