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New York went through the same transformation. It's a "general" culture shift, suburbs went out of fashion for generation X. No sure what the exact underlying d

New York went through the same transformation. It's a "general" culture shift, suburbs went out of fashion for generation X. No sure what the exact underlying dynamic driving it was, but it's happened, as you note, more or less in tandem across Europe and US during the 90s and into the 00s.

woodpanel 9y ago
Maybe the 1980s Bronx was comparable in terms of deterioration but the "general cultural shift" definitely didn't affect any inner city of Western Europe in the ways which can be seen in the aforementioned videos there. Quite the opposite: Yes, suburbs flourished, but the appalling differences between East and West prove it has nothing to do with suburbanization. And the pictures of East German inner cities prove something else: That class differences still existed. Like only government-loyal members of society get to live in Pyongyang, all the Eastern German "white trash" would be found in those inner cities. People with connections had an easier time getting into new High-Rises being built at the city outskirts.
- hellofunk 9y ago
  A lot more than the Bronx. Most of NYC, including many parts of downtown Manhattan, the East and West villages, huge swaths of Brooklyn, all have gone through extraordinary changes since their grim, gritty days of the 1980s.
ghaff 9y ago
It’s not so much that suburbs went out of fashion. There’s been plenty of growth in suburbs surrounding affluent and growing cities. It’s more that some cities became cool again, many of which were shrinking as late as the 1990s. This is true even of cities like Boston.
- mseebach 9y ago
  I have no sources or data, so big grain of salt, but the dynamic as I heard it referenced was basically that Gen X developed "suburban angst" and sought out the rougher/more authentic life in the cities. This is not incompatible with suburbs remaining popular in general, they just fell a bit out of favour with a certain culturally influential group.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    Five Thirty Eight has run some pieces on this. [1] It's difficult because the best data doesn't track relatively rapidly changing behavior very well. However, one conclusion seems to be that it's mostly a fairly narrow demographic (college-educated Millennials) who are "flocking" (but that's an exaggeration) to a handful of mostly coastal dense urban cores. Most of the overall urban growth from the census is, in fact, in the suburbs. My 7,000 person town where my neighbors and I split about 100 acres is considered urban by the census. [1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-millennials-are-less-urban-than-you-think/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-millennials-are-les...

woodpanel 9y ago

Maybe the 1980s Bronx was comparable in terms of deterioration but the "general cultural shift" definitely didn't affect any inner city of Western Europe in the ways which can be seen in the aforementioned videos there. Quite the opposite: Yes, suburbs flourished, but the appalling differences between East and West prove it has nothing to do with suburbanization. And the pictures of East German inner cities prove something else: That class differences still existed. Like only government-loyal members of society get to live in Pyongyang, all the Eastern German "white trash" would be found in those inner cities. People with connections had an easier time getting into new High-Rises being built at the city outskirts.

hellofunk 9y ago
A lot more than the Bronx. Most of NYC, including many parts of downtown Manhattan, the East and West villages, huge swaths of Brooklyn, all have gone through extraordinary changes since their grim, gritty days of the 1980s.

ghaff 9y ago

It’s not so much that suburbs went out of fashion. There’s been plenty of growth in suburbs surrounding affluent and growing cities. It’s more that some cities became cool again, many of which were shrinking as late as the 1990s. This is true even of cities like Boston.

mseebach 9y ago
I have no sources or data, so big grain of salt, but the dynamic as I heard it referenced was basically that Gen X developed "suburban angst" and sought out the rougher/more authentic life in the cities. This is not incompatible with suburbs remaining popular in general, they just fell a bit out of favour with a certain culturally influential group.
- ghaff 9y ago
  Five Thirty Eight has run some pieces on this. [1] It's difficult because the best data doesn't track relatively rapidly changing behavior very well. However, one conclusion seems to be that it's mostly a fairly narrow demographic (college-educated Millennials) who are "flocking" (but that's an exaggeration) to a handful of mostly coastal dense urban cores. Most of the overall urban growth from the census is, in fact, in the suburbs. My 7,000 person town where my neighbors and I split about 100 acres is considered urban by the census. [1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-millennials-are-less-urban-than-you-think/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-millennials-are-les...