Suburbs vs. Cities: A Story of Change

AUGUST 3, 2010

Are suburbs in decline? Generational patterns of neighborhood growth and change are worth watching.

In 1950s and ’60s postwar America, with a sizable generation seeking better lives and finding they had the means to do so, the suburbs blossomed. Acres of subdivisions within driving distance from cities—it was the golden age of the automobile—and satellite offices sprung up with an exploding consumer economy. This suburban idyll hummed along through the ’70s, when metropolitan areas were often dangerous places fairly unsuitable for most Americans’ economic and lifestyle choices.

With the dawn of a new century, cities have grown more livable, while companies have shuttered their suburban outposts. Wealth, growth and better management mean that city neighborhoods may offer what suburbs once did: good schools, community cohesiveness, safe streets and a new influx of families and affluent professionals—often the children of parents who left years ago, as discussed in this recent New York magazine article—who choose to live in them. A recent Brookings Institute analysis (via Gawker) shows that growing numbers of suburbanites are heading for big cities.

Suburbs may not be left in the dust, but the life they offer may become less desirable as city neighborhoods offer better opportunities for employment, culture, education and social life without the drive time.

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Suburbs vs. Cities: A Story of Change

AUGUST 3, 2010

ALSO IN NEW YORK CITY INSIDER

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