How and Why American Cities Are Coming Back

[Valin]

The Atlantic:

Richard Florida

May 17, 2012

 

The previous century's great shift in people and economic activity to the suburbs is starting to reverse itself. In his new book, The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City, Alan Ehrenhalt, the former editor of Governing magazine, outlines the key trends that are powering this shift in the way we live. "The truth is that we are living at a moment in which the massive outward migration that characterized the second half of the twentieth century is coming to an end," he writes. "And we need to adjust our perceptions of cities, suburbs, and urban mobility as a result."

 

Ehrenhalt took some time to chat with Atlantic Cities about the "great inversion" and what it means for communities across America.

 

(Snip)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpiO5692BAU

 

The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City

Alan Ehrenhalt

 

Booklist

In the future, American cities could look like late-nineteenth-century Vienna, with lively, affluent metropolitan core areas and the lower classes consigned to life in peripheral suburbs. Such cities will go well beyond gentrification and involve the displacement of the poor in inner-city areas by the wealthy, according to urbanologist Ehrenhalt. He details how the trend toward such cities is already apparent in Chicago, Atlanta, Washington, Houston, and other metropolitan areas. Drawing on census data and economic research, he examines the factors behind the trend, including mass transit, retail and housing development in downtown locations, and the declining appeal of long commutes to distant suburbs. Ehrenhalt also offers detailed portraits of the future of suburban sprawl in areas struggling to re-create the appeal of cities by developing more accessible commercial zones. This is an engaging look at demographic changes that promise a very different future for cities and suburbs. --Vanessa Bush

 

H/T Commentary

[clearvision]

Time to buy some land in Detroit?

[Valin]

Time to buy some land in Detroit?

 

 

Well now, if you can afford to wait, that might be a good investment.

 

One of the reasons why this is happening is the suburbs are where the "unskilled jobs" are. In days gone bye the inner cities were where olaces like Warehouses, Light manufacturing, etc were, now they are in the Burbs.