A few months ago, we noted a Brookings Institution report on the rise of poverty in the suburbs. That report has now started to generate some chatter, with the Wall Street Journal taking the data and speculating breathlessly that the rise of suburban poverty is associated with the startling idea that young, upwardly mobile people are starting to choose to move to cities: “In a historic first, many young, prosperous Americans are moving from the suburbs to the city.”
Similarly, the Huffington Post reported a Brookings demographer saying that “what used to be white flight to the suburbs is turning into ‘bright flight’ to cities that have become magnets for aspiring young adults who see access to knowledge-based jobs, public transportation and a new city ambience as an attraction.”
For a second, I was starting to wonder about whether I’m on the wrong end of the trend — that the suburbs are winding down and everyone’s moving to the cities. But here’s the thing: young, prosperous Americans HAVE ALWAYS MOVED FROM THE SUBURBS TO THE CITY. That’s actually the WHOLE POINT of having cities, so young people can go and get educated and get cool jobs and drink fancy drinks and dance in clubs and meet other young people and fall in love and get married, at which point many of them MOVE BACK TO THE SUBURBS.
That is, I have absolutely no doubt that young people are moving into the city. That’s what I did, back 20 years ago when apparently the suburbs weren’t a haven for poverty and ruin. I was DYING to move to the city after growing up in the New York City suburbs. I loved the city so much that when I got a job clerking for a judge in Uniondale, I commuted an hour each way just so I wouldn’t have to live in Long Island (no offense, guys…). That’s what young people do.
So I’m not so sure what news people think they’re breaking. Maybe next week we’ll have a “trend” report that old people are FLEEING THE NORTH and moving to Florida!
Yes, young people are moving to the suburbs. Like they always have. The bigger question is whether they’ll stay there once they’re not so young anymore, or, like me, they’ll give in to reality and exile themselves back to the suburbs. At the very least, if they start moving back, they might help that poverty situation that seems to be generating so much buzz.
