The Western US has long been an innovator in developing the urban form, notably in the creation of suburbanized, multipolar cities. Yet now that model is showing strain, and there’s a fierce debate about how western cities should grow. Watch as the panel explores these issues, from homelessness to high housing prices and the impact of regulation. Read more
As COVID-19 begins to wane and become endemic, the question for policymakers, theorists, and Americans at large is: What is in store for our nation’s big cities? Please return weekly to read each chapter as it is published.
This chapter describes general urbanization trends in the United States and around the world, from 1950 to the present. This book is being published as a series, with permission of the American Enterprise Institute. Please return weekly to read each chapter as it is published.
Irvine provides a solution for transportation, energy and diversity issues bedeviling the country. The master-planned city represents the modern version of a 19th-century garden city – a largely self-contained and environmentally sustainable community.
Critically, Irvine is not an outlier, but a role model for other communities – from The Woodlands outside Houston to New Albany in central Ohio – that are creating a new and more sustainable reality for households and families. Indeed, in discussions with other developers and planners in my research, Irvine is repeatedly cited as an example of the kind of community they want to create.
Welcome to the future of American politics. The US population is changing in major ways that will likely alter the balance in politics and economics to the advantage of Republican-leaning red states, as well as suburbs and exurbs across the country.
By: Tim Hains
On: Real Clear Politics
New York. Los Angeles. Boston. San Francisco. Call them America’s “superstars.” With mega populations, these urban hubs have long reigned as the nation’s economic, social, and cultural capitals. But big cities have also been the hardest hit by the pandemic. Read more
By: June Williamson
At: Three Sixty City
Two of the world’s sharpest thinkers in design and demography discuss ways to make suburbs better: Joel Kotkin joins June Williamson to discuss some of the challenges of the sprawling suburbs, and how the thoughtful design and retrofit of low density neighborhoods could lead to more connected, equitable and environmentally sustainable futures.
Land ownership has shaped civilizations from their beginnings, with a constant interplay between great powers—the aristocracy, the state, the Church, the emperor—and those below them. History has oscillated between periods of greater dispersion of ownership, and those that favored greater concentration.
As the centers of media and political discourse, large cities, notably New York, have a unique ability to promote themselves, asserting that dense, core urban areas own the future. Yet in reality, even during good times, and well before the pandemic, Americans have been headed, in increasing numbers, to suburbs, exurbs and to smaller cities. Romantic illusions to past urban recoveries may make people feel better, but they ignore both long-lasting trends and new realities.
People vote with their feet, and today, only a small percentage of Americans live in or around the core urban counties. In 1950, the core cities accounted for nearly 24% of the U.S. population; today the share is under 15%. In contrast, the suburbs and exurbs grew from housing 13% of the metropolitan population in 1940 to 86% in 2017, a gradual increase of 2% a year. Despite all the talk of young people and families and others coming “back to the city,” suburbs accounted for about 90% of all U.S. metropolitan growth since 2010; over that time, suburbs and exurbs of the major metropolitan areas gained 2 million net domestic migrants, while the urban core counties lost 2.7 million.
Much the same can be said about the economy. During the last decade, roughly 80% of all job growth has been in the suburbs. Suburbs also generate the bulk of patents; in fact, three-quarters come from areas with less 3,500 people per square mile, less than half the density associated with urban centers.
The pandemic accelerated these already existing trends. New census numbers show that San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles led the population loss sweepstakes over the past year, while people headed to the Sunbelt, suburbs, exurbs or even small towns.
But the real issue now is not so much the pandemic per se but the rise of dispersed work. Midtown offices are still more than half empty — and that’s not just the pessimist’s way of seeing the glass. While they will recover some, they will likely not replace a large portion of what was lost. Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom suggests that remote workers will ultimately constitute at least 20% of the workforce, more than three times the pre-pandemic rate.
This leaves the large central business districts such as Midtown particularly exposed. As long-time urban booster Richard Florida notes, central business districts represent “the last gasp of the old Industrial age.” He adds, “This idea that you have to pack and stack these office workers and they have to commute in at 9 and leave at 5 and work in cubicle farms— it’s just silly. It is completely out of touch with the way people work.”
Read the rest of this piece at NY Daily News.
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and Executive Director for Urban Reform Institute. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.
Photo:Steve Guttman via Flickr under CC 2.0 License.
Housing is rapidly becoming the key economic issue facing America’s beleaguered middle class. Even as interest rates rise, rents are on a wild binge, up near 20 percent in the past year or more in some cities. Meanwhile, home prices have hit a high and appear to be climbing further still. Higher prices are emerging even in what have long been relative bargain communities in the southeast, as refugees from the high-priced Northeast pour in with their greater resources.
The property gold rush has been made more problematic by the growing role of professional, well-funded investors and speculators, to whom the housing market is more attractive than a sometimes unsteady stock market. Read more
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Fred Murphy, used under CC 2.0 License