[Chicago103]

I have always challenged the notion that suburbs are cheaper than the city. Most of the time when people like Kotkin make their arguments they take extreme examples like the cost of housing in Manhattan versus exurban Texas. In Chicago the cost of housing per square foot is higher in the city than in the suburbs but the suburbs have a higher cost of living when it comes to transportation (dominated by the automobile), property taxes are higher, utility costs are usually higher, not to mention property maintence costs are higher due to the average property size being larger.

Honestly if anything its the suburbs that are elitest, most of the suburbs cater to a homogeneous upper middle class with the same values and spending habits. I mean to me a place like Naperville is much more elitest than the city of Chicago. Most new exurban developments in Chicagoland cater to the top 50% of the income spectrum only, sure the rich usually dont clamer to fresh mass produced sprawl but the poor and also lower middle class are also shut out of most of suburbia. The city of Chicago has neighborhoods that cater to everything from the dirt poor to the super rich.