As indicated by an article written by Adam Bednar of the Daily Record, the impending death of America’s suburbs may have been greatly exaggerated. For years, urbanists have trumpeted the prospective rebound of the American city after decades of out-migration.
Much of this belief in urban renaissance is rooted in the Millennial generation, a youthful generation that is America’s largest and most educated. Indeed, there has been a move back to the cities, with downtown populations surging in cities like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and San Francisco.
According to a recent Urban Land Institute report, Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia have at least 23 percent of their population living in their urban zones, among the highest proportions in the nation. But the same report indicates that it is in the suburbs where most Americans live and work and suburbia’s dominant status is unlikely to change anytime soon.
The report determined that 75 percent of 25 to 34-year-olds in the nation’s metropolitan areas live in suburbs. In metropolitan areas like Kansas City, Memphis, and Indianapolis, urban zones account for less than 10 percent of population.
