Are the Fringe Suburbs Really Dying? The Brookings Institute Weighs in Again

December 1, 2011 by

We’ve written before about the “great debate” about whether the American love affair with the suburbs is dying. Basically, it’s a debate about where people SAY they want to live, and where they are actually choosing to live.  That is, people keep saying that they want to live in dense, diverse, urban environments, but Census data keeps showing migration from cities to the suburbs.

The Brookings Institution has been the loudest banger of the drum in favor of the argument that the suburbs are dying, that people don’t want to live in that sprawl anymore.  We see this again in a New York Times op-ed from Christian B. Leinberger, a senior fellow at Brookings, who contends  that planners need to recognize the need to develop walkable environments:

Simply put, there has been a profound structural shift — a reversal of what took place in the 1950s, when drivable suburbs boomed and flourished as center cities emptied and withered.

The shift is durable and lasting because of a major demographic event: the convergence of the two largest generations in American history, the baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) and the millennials (born between 1979 and 1996), which today represent half of the total population.

Many boomers are now empty nesters and approaching retirement. Generally this means that they will downsize their housing in the near future. Boomers want to live in a walkable urban downtown, a suburban town center or a small town, according to a recent survey by the National Association of Realtors.

The millennials are just now beginning to emerge from the nest — at least those who can afford to live on their own. This coming-of-age cohort also favors urban downtowns and suburban town centers — for lifestyle reasons and the convenience of not having to own cars.

Over all, only 12 percent of future homebuyers want the drivable suburban-fringe houses that are in such oversupply, according to the Realtors survey. This lack of demand all but guarantees continued price declines. Boomers selling their fringe housing will only add to the glut. Nothing the federal government can do will reverse this.

I don’t disagree with any of that, but neither do I buy that the fringe suburbs are dying.  I agree that we need to create more density in the suburbs — as someone who works in suburban real estate, I can attest that walkable village downtown areas command a premium on the market, precisely because people love the idea of living in the suburbs while still being able to get a cup of coffee without having to drive.

But I still think that there’s a whiff of “we want this to be true, so it is true” in these arguments. Certainly, census data does not support the idea that people are migrating to dense urban environments, and my experience of both working in the suburbs and now living in the suburbs suggests that there’s still a lot of interest in traditional suburban neighborhoods: big lots, picket fences, back yards, cul-de-sacs, the whole thing.  Would those people like to see more public transportation options, and more walkable downtowns?  Yes, of course.  The question is whether they’d be willing to pay for them.  That, I’m not so sure about.

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Suburbs in the News: Brookings Demographer William H. Frey on the “Great Suburban Demographic Shift”

February 12, 2011 by

We’ve written before about the “great debate” regarding whether the great American love affair with the suburbs is ending: whether the historic migration pattern of city-to-suburb has started to reverse (no), whether young people are prefer to live in the city over the suburbs (duh!), and whether it’s environmentally ethical to raise kids in the city (it depends).  A major part of this argument comes from the Brookings Institute, which has analyzed census data to argue that the nature of the suburbs is changing.

With that in mind, here’s a link to an interview with Brookings demographer William H. Frey, who talks about his findings and what he thinks of the new suburbia.  Some of the key points:

  • The demographics of the suburbs are changing: less white, more hispanic and African-American.
  • Accordingly, the racial and ethnic makeup of the suburbs is becoming more like society as a whole.
  • Many of the “original” suburbanites are now seniors, making way for much of this demographic change.
  • With the demographic evolving, we might see systematic changes in the character and makeup of the suburbs.

Lots of interesting stuff. Take a look.

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In the News: Are the Suburbs Dying? Not quite yet.

August 5, 2010 by

As part of keeping this blog, I’ve been following some recent debates about whether the suburbs have started to lose their appeal.  This, as a newly minted suburban, is kind of important to me for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which is that I’m pretty sure I’d like to sell my condo someday, and I’m hoping that there will still be people who want to buy it.

Essentially, what’s going on is that some urbanphiles (academics, pundits, politicians, urban planners) have been seizing on census data to argue that the historical migration pattern from the cities to the suburbs has started to reverse itself as people begin to resent “suburban sprawl” and opt instead for more densely populated urban centers.  I’ve noted a few times, for example, the Brookings Institute report this year that coined the term “bright flight” to reflect how young, ambitious people are becoming more attracted to living in cities, which, as I’ve argued before, doesn’t seem like a particularly new development to me.

The underlying perspective behind this analysis is simple: suburban sprawl is bad, dense walkable downtown areas are good.  Driving bad, public transportation good. Stuff like that.  For example, New York Times columnist David Brooks was recently quoted saying that he had changed his previously positive view of suburbia, which he actually wrote a WHOLE BOOK ABOUT, and is now more “skeptical” on the theory that the disconnect people have when living at such remove to each other has potentially negative neuroscientific — okay, forget it, I can’t follow whatever he is trying to say.  It’s David Brooks.  Assume he had a cup of coffee in a diner and overheard a waitress say something to a trucker, and now he’s going to write a whole new book that entirely refutes his last book.

Anyway, the general point is that suburban sprawl is a bad thing, and that more people should live in walkable, ecofriendly, interconnected communities.  Even as a suburbanite, I don’t disagree with any of that.  Indeed, when I moved from the city, I was particularly looking for an area that provided a walkable downtown, which I found in Nyack.  No one likes sprawl.

But that said, I’m not so sure I buy the idea that Americans have turned their backs on the suburbs, at least not yet.   Indeed, we’re starting to see some pushback, including two interesting pieces from NewGeography.  In “The Myth of the Back-to-The-City Migration”, Joel Kotkin, NewGeography’s executive editor, argues that urbanphiles are engaging in wishful thinking to believe that “America’s love affair with the suburbs will soon be over,” and that the “great migration back to the city hasn’t occurred.”

Kotkin points to a special report in NewGeography by demographer Wendell Cox, a former LA transportation commissioner and visiting professor in Paris, who analyzed recent Census data to conclude:

In short, the nation’s urban cores continue to lose domestic migrants with a vengeance, however are doing quite well at attracting international migration. Thus, core growth is not resulting from migration from suburbs or any other part of the nation, but is driven by international migration.

For example, ccording to the data, the New York Metropolitan area lost about 1.9 million people from 2000 to 2009, with the “core” area of the city losing about 1.2 million and the suburbs losing about 700,000.  All told, for almost 50 metropolitan areas, the core city areas lost about 4.5 million people, while suburban counties gained more than 2.6 million domestic migrants.  Cox concluded that “the trends of the past decade indicate a further dispersal of America’s metropolitan population,” and that “the more urban the core county, the greater are the domestic migration losses.”  So there’s really no data to support the idea that historical urban-to-suburban migration patterns are reversing themselves.

Finally, with regard to the “bright flight” argument made by Brookings, the “revelation” that young people want to live in cities, Kotkin points to survey data showing that even they recognize that they probably won’t stay in the city forever:

Research by analysts Morley Winograd and Mike Hais, authors of the ground-breaking “Millennial Makeover,” indicates this group is even more suburban-centric than their boomer parents. Urban areas do exercise great allure to well-educated younger people, particularly in their 20s and early 30s. But what about when they marry and have families, as four in five intend? A recent survey of millennials by Frank Magid and Associates, a major survey research firm, found that although roughly 18% consider the city “an ideal place to live,” some 43% envision the suburbs as their preferred long-term destination.

In other words: people live in the suburbs when they’re kids, move to the city when they’re young, and move back to the suburbs when they have kids of their own.  I’m one of those people, so I guess it’s nice to know that I’m not alone.

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In the News: The Brookings Institution Reports that Poverty is Rising in the Suburbs

March 30, 2010 by

This is not such good news for us suburbanites.  The Brookings Institution released a paper recently entitled “The Suburbanization of Poverty: Trends in Metropolitan America, 2000 to 2008.”  The gist  is that poverty in the suburbs is on the rise, particularly due to the recent economic downturns of the past few years —  by 2008, suburbs were home to the largest and fastest-growing poor population in the country, particularly in midwester cities.

This is an interesting development, insofar as it bucks the stereotype of “cities =poor, suburbs=wealthy”, which is obviously a legacy from the original development of the suburbs as a place where wealthier cityfolk went if they wanted to escape from urban problems– particularly the “white flight” of about 40 or 50 years ago.

I’m not so sure this is such a big deal.  It makes sense that as the suburbs got more fully developed, they developed the same economic stratification that evolved in the cities.  And it’s probably more a reflection of the economic difficulties in general than anything intrinsic to the suburban life.

Interesting, though.

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