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The U.S. has become a nation of suburbs

https://www.hcn.org/articles/growth-...ion-of-suburbs

Quote:

Since 1970, more Americans have lived in the suburbs than central cities. In 2010, suburbanites outnumbered city and rural dwellers combined for the first time. We Americans live in a suburban nation.

Despite several concerted efforts by city governments to lure residents, suburbanization continues largely unabated. Census figures from earlier this year show that suburbs of warm climate “Sun Belt” cities in the South and West continue to grow, while cities in the cold climate “Snow Belt” of the Midwest and Northeast decline.

Smaller metropolitan areas with fewer than 500,000 people have also grown, related to an improving economy and job creation in smaller urban centers. This ongoing shift toward the suburbs has significant environmental repercussions.

Since cities and suburbs are home for 8 of every 10 Americans, views of the country are often distorted. Most travel occurs within or between cities. Although rural areas have more than three times the miles of roadways as urban areas, more than two-thirds of the 3 trillion miles that vehicles travel each year in the U.S. are in urban and suburban areas.

Jobs, too, are overwhelmingly centered around cities. Less than 2 percent of the American labor force is employed in agriculture.

Many of my students are surprised that the land area occupied by cities is only 3 percent of the nation’s territory. However, they are correct in that cities have an outsized impact on the economy. In 2016, metropolitan areas contributed $16.8 trillion to the nation’s gross domestic product, more than 90 percent of the country’s economy.

With this economic activity comes a high use of natural resources and concentrated pollution production. Although density can be more efficient when it comes to energy use, the sheer number of urban dwellers means that cities, despite a small physical footprint, have a big energy and pollution footprint.

Rising suburbanization undermines some of the energy efficiency gained by high density living in urban cores. Manhattan has lower per capita greenhouse gas emissions than the suburbs of New York, thanks to factors like apartment living, high costs of car ownership and extensive public transit. Of course, not everyone can afford to live in Manhattan even if they want to. Low-density suburbs are an affordable alternative.

Even so, suburban life can look less desirable. As the U.S. population ages, elderly people may end up “stranded in the suburbs,” far from adequate public transit and unable or unwilling to drive. At my urban university, a mixed use retirement facility was sold out before ground was broken. In the U.S., there are more than 100 university-based retirement communities and the number is growing.

The trend toward suburban life could soon come to an end. Millennials — the generation born between 1981 and 1997 — appear to prefer urban life. They are happier in cities, especially large metropolitan areas, than older generations. The millennial population is growing fastest in metro areas in the Sun Belt and western states, and slowest in the Snow Belt. Topping the list of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas for millennials are Colorado Springs, San Antonio, Denver and Orlando.

Will millennials follow older generations to the suburbs as they marry, have children, recover from the shocks of the Great Recession and find affordable housing? The jury is still out.

Whatever happens, it’s unlikely that people will start to move out of cities and suburbs and back into rural areas. Even though increased connectivity and the internet of things will make remote work more possible than before, businesses will continue to concentrate in urban cores, because they profit from being close to one another. (Futurists once thought the telephone would make crowded cities unnecessary.)

I believe that it’s likely the U.S. will remain a nation of suburbs for some time to come. That will pose a continuing environmental challenge. But it will also bring a new set of opportunities for millennials, who are predicted to overtake baby boomers by next year as the largest generation in the country. How will that generation remake the suburbs to suit their needs and desires without exacerbating current environmental challenges? The answer has profound implications for the nature of cities and urban life in the U.S.

Quote:

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17 (Post 8338523)

https://www.hcn.org/articles/growth-...ion-of-suburbs

I dont think this is surprising to anyone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Obadno (Post 8338542)

I dont think this is surprising to anyone.

Some believe there's this mass migration from the suburbs back to urban neighborhoods of inner cities.

What the article shows is while there's been some renewed interest in reclaiming urban environments for the perks they offer, the desire for suburban living still remains extremely high. The suburbs are hardly in decline, which is different from when the mass migration to the suburb took place last century and urban neighborhoods of inner cities were in a terminal decline.

It'll be interesting to see what happens with millennials over the next decade as they get older (thus desire a slower pace of life as well as more space/privacy) and have children. There will also be an increasingly significant amount of cheap housing available for grabs in the suburbs.

Millennials will often move out to the suburbs, but many will stay in urban areas. The percentages will of course be higher for those without kids.

Combine the ones who stay with a constant influx of new 20-somethings, and that spells continued growth of central cities, at least the healthy ones.

“We Americans live in a suburban nation.”

funnily, my original username on here was suburban nation, ten years ago or whatever. i think that was an old DPZ book or something, i can’t remember anything.

In other news, the sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning.

70 million people are coming in a few decades. They’re not going to settle in overpriced urban enclaves. Some will, which will be a net benefit to our urban areas but probably 90+% will not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sun Belt (Post 8338661)

the less explored aspect of this (on this forum) is the fact that the countryside is STILL emptying out, and the u.s. is continuing to become more metropolitan whether through internal or external migration.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Centropolis (Post 8338667)

Companies who create jobs go to where they can find a huge pipeline of labor and their employees can find amenities to entertain/support themselves when not working.

People go to where the jobs are.

This is pretty much the reality. I keep hearing from other formers in these threads that cities are somehow going to overcome suburbs as a better alternative. Maybe if you’re a rich young millennial professional. But if you’re not ( and most people, including myself, are not), the suburbs will always be the next best thing, especially if they are dense enough to maintain both a walkable and car centric lifestyle like we see in the Sunbelt.

Cities like SF, Seattle, Boston, much of core NYC and much of core LA are beautiful and urban, but they are still overpriced to the point that there’s no use living there when you can live in a nearby suburb or cheaper neighborhood that has connections to those cities. I could care less about the social life that I would barely experience with my work hours or the cultural offerings that I could just attend to once a month or a year. I just need a place that works with my budget and if that means living in an older suburb that has connections to the city, why not?

I've never understood the idea that social life and cultural offerings were the big reasons to live in a central city. How about proximity? My 8-10-minute walk to work is a HUGE reason to live where I do, in addition to liking cities. Same for getting anywhere else.

As for my point about liking cities...a lot of people seem to like cities, even if it's not the masses.

Proximity works too, but you have to be able to afford that. I would love to live in Manhattan or San Francisco, but I can’t afford that unless I work with an employer that can pay me enough to sustain me there. If not, I’m just going to settle in Long Island/ NJ or the Central Valley, work there, then take a train to car ride to town whenever I want. That probably makes the city more special in my opinion. I’ve only been to LA once during the few months I’ve been in SoCal but once I go again, it will be a more unique experience than if I lived in LA proper all the time.

But will it be mostly shitty suburbia with its box stores and seas of asphalt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mhays (Post 8338713)

The fact that so many people are still choosing the suburbs suggests they don't value "proximity" in the same way you describe.

If you live just a little further out, you won't have to shelll out at ton of extra money for private school and won't be packed in like sardines with a bunch of strangers in apartments / condos. You're still just a quick 30 minute or so drive from these offerings in the central city when you want to enjoy them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17 (Post 8338742)

30 minutes isn’t really a quick drive for enjoying “amenities”. It’s not bad for a commute. But no one is traveling an hour round trip to go to dinner on a regular basis.

Many people obviously value space over amenities, but to say that suburbanites have the same access to central city amenities is complete nonsense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 10023 (Post 8338745)

30 minutes isn’t really a quick drive for enjoying “amenities”.

A ton of americans obviously disagree.

Quote:

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17 (Post 8338749)

A ton of americans obviously disagree.

No. A ton of Americans don’t actually enjoy those amenities. Suburbanites get space, but they do not get the perks of living in a dynamic major city.

These stats are meaningless anyways, because city limits always contained a lot of suburban areas anyways. There is no difference between Mesa and neighboring parts of Phoenix. When that threshold was crossed in 2010, nothing really changed.

I don't think anyone had the illusion that a handful of city centers would be able to contain the majority of people. That doesn't mean cities are somehow unimportant or that urban policy should be ignored.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 10023 (Post 8338765)

No. A ton of Americans don’t actually enjoy those amenities. Suburbanites get space, but they do not get the perks of living in a dynamic major city.

Sure they do. I live in a soul sucking stepford suburb but I still absolutely do enjoy the perks of what Houston has to offer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JManc (Post 8338794)

Sure they do. I live in a soul sucking stepford suburb but I still absolutely do enjoy the perks of what Houston has to offer.

Take into consideration the person you responded isn't even an American, and thus they likely don't know what they're talking about (out of ignorance).

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