{"id":16349,"date":"2013-05-01T09:02:25","date_gmt":"2013-05-01T16:02:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=16349"},"modified":"2013-05-01T09:02:25","modified_gmt":"2013-05-01T16:02:25","slug":"joel-kotkin-on-the-triumph-of-suburbia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/16349\/joel-kotkin-on-the-triumph-of-suburbia\/","title":{"rendered":"Joel Kotkin on the triumph of suburbia."},"content":{"rendered":"

New Geography:<\/a><\/p>\n

The \u201csilver lining\u201d in our five-years-and-running Great Recession, we\u2019re told, is that Americans have finally taken heed of their betters and are finally rejecting the empty allure of suburban space and returning to the urban core.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve reached the limits of suburban development,\u201d HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan declared in 2010. \u201cPeople are beginning to vote with their feet and come back to the central cities.\u201d Ed Glaeser\u2019s Triumph of the City and Alan Ehrenhalt\u2019s The Great Inversion\u2014widely praised and accepted by the highest echelons of academia, press, business, and government\u2014have advanced much the same claim, and just last week a report on jobs during the downturn garnered headlines like \u201cCity Centers in U.S. Gain Share of Jobs as Suburbs Lose.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s just one problem with this narrative: none of it is true. A funny thing happened on the way to the long-trumpeted triumph of the city: the suburbs not only survived but have begun to regain their allure as Americans have continued aspiring to single-family homes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More:<\/p>\n

While they\u2019ve weaved a compelling narrative, the numbers make it clear that the retro-urbanists only chance of prevailing is a disaster, say if the dynamics associated with the Great Recession\u2014a rise in renting, declining home ownership and plunging birthrates\u2014become our new, ongoing normal. Left to their own devices, Americans will continue to make the \u201cwrong\u201d choices about how to live.<\/p>\n

And in the end, it boils down to where people choose to live. Despite the dystopian portrays of suburbs, suburbanites seem to win the argument over place and geography, with far higher percentages rating their communities as \u201cexcellent\u201d compared to urban core dwellers.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s suburban families, it should be stressed, are hardly replicas of 1950s normality; as Stephanie Coontz has noted, that period was itself an anomaly. But however they are constituted\u2014as blended families, ones headed up by single parents or gay couples\u2014they still tend to congregate in these kinds of dispersed cities, or in the suburban hinterlands of traditional cities. Ultimately life style, affordability and preference seem to trump social views when people decide where they would like to live.<\/p>\n

We already see these preferences establishing themselves, again, among Read more<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Geography: The \u201csilver lining\u201d in our five-years-and-running Great Recession, we\u2019re told, is that Americans have finally taken heed of their betters and are finally rejecting the empty allure of suburban space and returning to the urban core. \u201cWe\u2019ve reached the limits of suburban development,\u201d HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan declared in 2010. \u201cPeople are beginning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[251,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16349","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-big-mother","7":"category-real-estate","9":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":18221,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/18221\/overnight-news-the-office-building-of-the-future-is-suburban-low-rise-gated-guarded-video-monitored-and-patrolled\/","url_meta":{"origin":16349,"position":0},"title":"Overnight News: The office building of the future is suburban, low-rise, gated, guarded, video-monitored and\u00a0patrolled.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 11, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"If you pursue the comments on Pedro Robinson's article, linked below, you'll see me prophesying on every rooted thing. If you read me here, you know my take: The Ants who can work from home are fleeing everything Grasshopper as fast as they can. 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What is happening to real estate values in the core \u2013 not the ring suburbs \u2013 of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Group Therapy"","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ya think it's easy?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/BHBNewTopImage-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13252,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/13252\/joel-kotkin-why-housing-will-come-back\/","url_meta":{"origin":16349,"position":2},"title":"Joel Kotkin: Why housing will come back.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Urban savant Joel Kotkin in Forbes magazine:What we are going through now is not a sea change but a correction from insane government and business practices. The rise in homeownership from 44% in 1944 to nearly 70% at the height of the bubble reflected a great social democratic achievement. But\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flourishing"","block_context":{"text":"Flourishing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/flourishing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16314,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/16314\/kotkin-why-the-next-great-american-cities-arent-what-you-think\/","url_meta":{"origin":16349,"position":3},"title":"Kotkin: “Why the next great American cities aren\u2019t what you think.”","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 9, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Joel Kotkin at The Daily Beast:Once considered backwaters, these Sunbelt cities are quietly achieving a critical mass of well-educated residents. They are also becoming major magnets for immigrants. Over the past decade, the largest percentage growth in foreign-born population has occurred in sunbelt cities, led by Nashville, which has doubled\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Mother"","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8692,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/8692\/reds\/","url_meta":{"origin":16349,"position":4},"title":"Reds","author":"Greg Swann","date":"May 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"[Brian Brady asks for advice. This ain't it. I wrote a book in 1988 about human civilization, a condition I believe human beings can but so far have not attained. 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In the words of Austin Powers' smarter brother: \"Why not?\"","rel":"","context":"In "Flourishing"","block_context":{"text":"Flourishing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/flourishing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16350,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16349\/revisions\/16350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}