US growth of distant suburbs falls to historic low
 

How I would love to see a cultural shift back to the cities/inner suburbs on a scale of this magnitude.

That's great news! Thanks for sharing. :cheers:

Here's what I don't understand:

They are redefining MSA's/CSA's to be ENORMOUS so areas like San Antonio/Austin; Cincinnati/Dayton, or Chicago/Milwaukee can be one giant conglomerate -- supposedly to best represent the "true" size of the city/region -- while at the same time, people are spreading out less and less and instead moving back into the core.

So even though the current migration pattern of Americans is inwards to the core, we are measuring cities and metro areas on an even sprawlier scale? I don't get it!

It's called the XSSA: The Extended Commuter Statistical Area.

All you need is 1% of a jurisdiction to commute to the metropolis for it to be counted.

Therefore Edmonton's XSSA extends to Okotoks and Slave Lake; Jasper and Lloydminster; Grande Prairie and Drumheller; and Canmore and Fort McKay.

I don't know that the exurbs ever actually "boomed" like the actual suburbs did. They grew, but exurbs are usually so far away from the benefits of the city that they don't attract the hoards of people that suburbs attract. Around the cities that I'm familiar with, the exurbs have mostly remained small but prosperous towns.

Their report shows a decline in the growth of suburbs as well, and an increase in the growth of urban and high-density suburbs:

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Fil..._frey/fig1.jpg

In thirty years or so I think many US cities are going to be similar to metropolises in developing nations, in that the cores will be the thriving part of the region and the slums will be mostly on the outskirts, which really makes more sense when you think about it.

Don't get too excited. I am reading a book about the growth of American suburbia, and the book has a historic look at this. And everytime there is an economic downturn, the suburbs temporary stop growing as fast in the outer reaches. But once the economy comes back, the outer parts start growing fast again.

^ Ding ding ding!

I agree. We have revisited this concept over and over, and as I grow wiser I come to realize that the dream of "back to the city" will probably never come true. Most people in the US just prefer low-density, suburban life. And as long as we are in a democratic society where we can live where we choose, suburbs will continue to be built to accommodate that demand.

Lets not make too much of all of this.

Idk, I think the newest generation, in certain areas, prefers city life over suburbia. I'm basing this off of myself and my friends, and classmates, and a lot of us say we will live in some city when we are older. I think we could see a bigger increase in city populations in the next 10-20years. Personally, i know im going to live in a city if i can, i hate the suburbs.

Because most Americans preferred the suburbs postwar, a lot of people left the inner city and most of those who lived there were left behind rather than choosing to live there. An image of the city thirty years ago was one of decay and dangerous crime ridden hoods. Fortunately, a lot of cities have really cleaned up the past couple decades and have become very desireable more than any other time since the postwar era. This generation, younger people prefer the inner city and most are actually priced out, almost the opposite of the past generation. The tide is turning, even if at a crawling pace and adding all of the advantages of living in the city like walkability, high paying jobs, convenience, entertainment and shopping options, safer neighborhoods (compared to the past) versus disadvantages of the suburbs/exurbs like high gas prices, more traffic/commute, dropping house values, it's becoming more favorable. The expansion of suburbs and exurbs still outnumber infill developments in cities but it's reaching saturation point while the inner city is just beginning to pick up momentum. The one key component to increasing the livability in a city is mass transit, and as more transit options expand, cities will begin to look like the better option for a lot of people and once that mindset sinks it for the rest of the country, suburbs will start to look like a thing of the past.

Education too. For far too many urban centers (especially here in the Midwest, where our big cities fell farther than most), the state of the public schools means your kids either get private education or as soon as they're old enough for school, you bolt to the burbs. If city schools were to drastically improve -- unfortunately a far more complex and unsolvable problem than transit or even crime -- the number of families in cities would boom. When I was in New York, I was surprised by how many children were being raised in the city. Out here, only low-income children are still in the city; everyone who can goes to safer, quieter neighborhoods "for the kids."

It's got nothing to do with a "newer generation". We are no different than our parents. They lived in inner-city apartments in their 20s too, and moved to the suburbs when they had kids. I've seen several of my friends just in the last few years move to the burbs when they've had kids as well.

I guess it depends on how old your parents are/were. Many cities were in decline when our parents were living there after having boomed during in their parents day, which is different from what's taking place now. Many parents moved out of the city jaded, which coincides with the respective city's trajectory.

Of course many people are still moving out of the cities due to reasons related to value for them, but I don't think as many are into exurban communities these days. What used to be exurban is now suburban in a lot of places, so to really emulate what our folks did, you have to move even farther out. Getting a new and roomy place in a quiet neighborhood only 20 minutes from downtown is not as easy to find or affordable these days.

Yes, you are right. That seems to be the Achilles heel of inner cities when when attracting families. That's the reason cities have had no problems attracting young bachelors and young couples but once there's a kid on the way, they start looking at the suburbs. That is something that needs to be addressed in order to keep young couples from moving to the burbs.

The inner city is not dead and there is no doubt that people are moving back in. There are issues in American inner cities which do need to be addressed in order to gain more residents other than single people or couples without kids.

But the idea that people are also not moving to the extreme outer reaches of metro areas is just not the case. And it is not a case of people fleeing inner city life. It is a case of people moving from suburbs to even more distant suburbs.

That being said, a great read on the issue of suburbia in America is
Crabgrass Frontier. It is an amazing read, and it actually charts how even during the glory days of American cities, American's were still fleeing to the outskirts (what are now inner city neighbourhoods).

I actually found it interesting to read that even as early as the early 1800's, Americans were leaving nice homes close to their jobs, for homes just that little farther out. And the trend continued. So at first, it might have only been a mile or two from the centre of downtown. But then it became a couple more miles, and a couple more. There was an effort to always go further out than build roots in the urban core.

So yes the Wall Street area used to have residents. Yes some were pushed out for more commercial development. But the interesting fact is that many choose to leave on their own for what were then suburbs, like Brooklyn Heights, etc.

This is in contrast to say other world cities where the rich stayed close to downtown, be it apartment houses or single family streetcar suburb homes. But they (the rich) coveted being close to the centre. Where in America the rich just kept wanting to move further and further out.

Anyway its a great read, and it is packed with tons of interesting stats. Like as early as 1970, 78% of suburban New Yorkers did not work in New York City, but rather in the suburbs. And it also has great information on how the suburban explosion also had a lot to do with government home loan programs (which we already knew, but it has more detail about that issue), and the public housing programs. And more importantly how suburbs kept out the troubles of inner cities, creating even more of a divide between suburbia and the inner cities.

Good point. The only upside is that the middle or upper middle class can afford private inner city education in the midwest, and it's not hard to be upper middle class in the midwest. The downside is that maybe a lot of midwestern cities don't have lots of private school options.

I'm not ready to declare that the age of the exurb has passed.

What happened over the last few years is that new for-sale housing construction virtually ceased, which obviously killed new growth-dependent exurbs, while having little effect on established communities.

Once the for-sale market recovers, and new construction commences, I think we'll see a return to sprawltopia.