5 ms·

It's a decent article but at the end I found it glaringly silent on the current state of the "lure of the suburbs." Isn't that waning? That seems important here

It's a decent article but at the end I found it glaringly silent on the current state of the "lure of the suburbs." Isn't that waning? That seems important here. To summarize, the article is premised on "three broad lines of history": - lure of the suburbs - battles over control - deferred maintenance costs It concludes by noting how battles and costs are still big factors, but nothing on the "lure of the suburbs." It just mentions in passing that the city population is growing, but doesn't connect any dots. The diagram makes it seem like that yellow "line of history" is still sky high off the charts. But there is in fact a big migration back into the cities. People don't want McMansions in the burbs as much. Empty nester baby boomers are moving back too. This is undoubtably why the article is written in the first place and what is placing more pressure on overcoming the other two problems.

majormajor 9y ago
Everyone slices the numbers differently, but it's pretty hard to say the suburbs are dying out based on the data. https://www.vox.com/2015/1/22/7871687/death-suburbs-myth https://www.vox.com/2015/1/22/7871687/death-suburbs-myth "This shows that at almost every age level, the country continued to de-urbanize from 2000 to 2013. Various trend pieces about empty nesters moving to the big city simply aren't reflected in the data." My experience is that people are overall more willing to trade space for urban convenience than they used to be, but still not so willing/able to trade both space and affordability for it. In places where the suburbs are also stupidly expensive - NY and CA - you don't see it as much. Everywhere else in the US - where property in the suburbs gets dramatically cheaper once you're five, ten, fifteen miles outside the city center - that's hard to resist.
- abalone 9y ago
  Didn't say that. I said that lure of the suburbs is waning. Skyrocketing costs in cities are a symptom of that and the Vox article concedes as much.
  - majormajor 9y ago
    You said "there is in fact a big migration back into the cities" and that's the part that the numbers disagree with. Instead, there has been a slowdown in the continuing move to the suburbs. And a suburb-centered population is one that still won't move so quickly on transit and the like, at a state and national level.
    - abalone 9y ago
      No, population growth in the burbs alone does not disprove migration into the cities. As I said, skyrocketing costs in the cities are evidence of this. With respect to city transportation infrastructure, wealthier people moving in and developers building up capacity are significant forces in affecting policy.
InclinedPlane 9y ago
Indeed, a somewhat underappreciated story from the mid to late 20th century in America is that cities were dying. I grew up near the tail end of that era so I well remember it. If you look at the population peaks for a lot of big cities in America in the 20th century (New York, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Detroit, etc.) you'll see a peak in the early to mid 20th century followed by a long decline. There are many reasons for this phenomenon, not the least of which is rampant racism, but a major consequence of it was that shrinking big city populations led to economic decline, rising crime, diminished tax base, diminished spending on core city infrastructure, and overall a feeling of helplessness and crisis in those cities. It was only with changing demographics and a transformed economy where urban centers became desirable places to live again and economically vital again (starting around the '80s and really taking off through the '90s and early 2000s) that big cities rebounded and started growing again. But the infrastructure debt from all those years of decay still looms, and cities will be paying that off for decades to come.

majormajor 9y ago

Everyone slices the numbers differently, but it's pretty hard to say the suburbs are dying out based on the data. https://www.vox.com/2015/1/22/7871687/death-suburbs-myth https://www.vox.com/2015/1/22/7871687/death-suburbs-myth "This shows that at almost every age level, the country continued to de-urbanize from 2000 to 2013. Various trend pieces about empty nesters moving to the big city simply aren't reflected in the data." My experience is that people are overall more willing to trade space for urban convenience than they used to be, but still not so willing/able to trade both space and affordability for it. In places where the suburbs are also stupidly expensive - NY and CA - you don't see it as much. Everywhere else in the US - where property in the suburbs gets dramatically cheaper once you're five, ten, fifteen miles outside the city center - that's hard to resist.

abalone 9y ago
Didn't say that. I said that lure of the suburbs is waning. Skyrocketing costs in cities are a symptom of that and the Vox article concedes as much.
- majormajor 9y ago
  You said "there is in fact a big migration back into the cities" and that's the part that the numbers disagree with. Instead, there has been a slowdown in the continuing move to the suburbs. And a suburb-centered population is one that still won't move so quickly on transit and the like, at a state and national level.
  - abalone 9y ago
    No, population growth in the burbs alone does not disprove migration into the cities. As I said, skyrocketing costs in the cities are evidence of this. With respect to city transportation infrastructure, wealthier people moving in and developers building up capacity are significant forces in affecting policy.

InclinedPlane 9y ago

Indeed, a somewhat underappreciated story from the mid to late 20th century in America is that cities were dying. I grew up near the tail end of that era so I well remember it. If you look at the population peaks for a lot of big cities in America in the 20th century (New York, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Detroit, etc.) you'll see a peak in the early to mid 20th century followed by a long decline. There are many reasons for this phenomenon, not the least of which is rampant racism, but a major consequence of it was that shrinking big city populations led to economic decline, rising crime, diminished tax base, diminished spending on core city infrastructure, and overall a feeling of helplessness and crisis in those cities. It was only with changing demographics and a transformed economy where urban centers became desirable places to live again and economically vital again (starting around the '80s and really taking off through the '90s and early 2000s) that big cities rebounded and started growing again. But the infrastructure debt from all those years of decay still looms, and cities will be paying that off for decades to come.