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This article was very interesting, and it just makes you think about what life in our great country will be like in 10 years. Will the majority of the wealth return to the city, and the lower-income residents pushed further and further away from the city center? This is very possible if gas prices keep rising..
I expect some suburban areas to do well no matter what the trend (Beverly Hills, The Hamptons, etc) But it's just weird to think the place that once defined the American Dream may be coming to an end.
City centers have been making a comeback all over the US, but exurbs are still the fastest growing areas in the country. The fact that poor people are moving to inner ring suburbs from inner city areas isn't going to change that.
american dream almost over not exactly. remember 1929 was still america and it was a dream but a bad one. guna have another. cities will grow, poor and rich will go there. cheap gas meant cheap housing far away, them days are over. dont buy anything not on a public commute line or far away. we will see 7 buck gas very soon. get that bike out of the garage it is no longer a toy.
I live in a suburb and there really isnt too much here as in work or entertainment since the our suburb is still kinda new but I am moving back in to Albuquerque hopefully next month and save some gas.
The link appears to be broken, but nevertheless I would take any article that predicts the demise of the suburbs with a grain of salt. This may be wishful thinking on the part of urbanists who would like this to become a self fullfilling prophecy for whatever their reasons are.
I've lived in the Chicago suburbs for 30 years throughout my entire IT career and every position I've held has been in the suburbs. Not once did I have to commute to a job in the city. I would bet that in a large metropolitan area like Chicago, that half the professional jobs are located in the suburbs. Moving to the city would put many people further from their jobs.
Some inner-ring suburbs will become low-income areas,as many have already done. However, the outer-ring suburbs do not show any indication as becoming places for poor people. It makes you wonder how much research the person who wrote this piece gathered.
Here in Atlanta, there are parts of the city proper that are dirt poor, and places that are extremely wealthy. Also, there are inner suburbs that are lower class, but there are inner suburbs that are upscale. As far as the outer suburbs go, most are at minimum middle middle class, and a lot of them are upper middle class.
I'll have to give these pontificating bozos a little tour around the suburban counties of Ct.,NY,NJ,SE Pa.,N.Va,MD where 15 of the wealthiest 20 US counties are located.
As others have already said the poor will find their place in the inner ring suburbs.If in fact full gentrification of places like Queens,Bronx,Philadelphia,Baltimore and DC takes place we will not be around to see it.
Rainrock is right ... the suburbs are the wealthiest areas of our country. They have the nicest cleanest homes for the most part - and a lot of corporations. There is really nothing wrong with that because the downtowns are being revitalized everywhere too. The area in between is and always has been where poor people live. That shift isn't possible.
This article was very interesting, and it just makes you think about what life in our great country will be like in 10 years. Will the majority of the wealth return to the city, and the lower-income residents pushed further and further away from the city center? This is very possible if gas prices keep rising..
I expect some suburban areas to do well no matter what the trend (Beverly Hills, The Hamptons, etc) But it's just weird to think the place that once defined the American Dream may be coming to an end.
Well, I think the assumptions of this article are somewhat faulty. Americans didn't begin their lemming-like move to the suburbs because they wanted their half-acre of heaven. They moved because of two important factors: The exponential increase in crime and the federal government's bizarro school busing scheme.
Let's tackle these one at a time. Lyndon Johnson (who was five times the buffoon that Bush is, no mean feat) and his War on Poverty and a host of other programs created the virtual equivalent of combat zones in the inner city by concentrating all the poor people into public housing. Essentially, this led to gigantic, lawless areas in the inner cities. The result? Crime skyrocketed by the late 60s, and working class suburbs began to empty out.
Then, of course, there was court ordered school busing to achieve racial balance. To be sure, the goal was laudable. But what it boiled down to was forcing kids to get on buses and ride and hour to another school that was almost always substandard, and usually dangerous to boot. No sane parent would have stood for that, so they started hammering the For Sale signs in their yards and began moving to the burbs. It's interesting to note that, several years ago, middle class blacks started doing exactly the same thing.
So the emptying out of the inner cities had little to do with some dream of suburbia. It was a direct consequence of Federal policy.
Home Prices Drop Most in Areas with Long Commute
by Kathleen Schalch
Morning Edition, April 21, 2008 · Median home prices across the nation continue to decline, but some experts are noting a link between falling housing prices and commuting distances. Suburbs where commuters drive an hour or more to work are seeing some of the sharpest drops in prices.
I think those who say all the suburbs will shrivel up and die are massively overstating their case. It seems that the ones most at risk are the newest suburbs, those marketed toward lower-middle income buyers. These burbs are typically located in less desirably locations (far from job centers) and lack the amenities found in wealthier, more established burbs (rail transit, historic centers, etc).
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