Posted on 06/19/2008 2:35:55 PM PDT by blam
Americans migrate back to the cities
By Tom Leonard in New York
Last Updated: 2:23AM BST 19/06/2008
Americans are choosing to abandon the suburban sprawl in favour of a more comfortable, cheaper and greener life in the city centre.
Americans flocked to the suburbs after the WWII. Soaring energy prices and the sub-prime crisis are driving them back to the cities
The mass migration of America's middle classes from urban areas to the suburbs amounted to a demographic revolution in the years after the Second World War.
But the so-called "driveable suburb" is becoming increasingly unfeasible as soaring fuel costs make a long commute too expensive for many.
Higher energy prices are also having a disproportionate impact on bigger homes, such as those found in the suburbs, as they inevitably cost much more to heat in winter and cool in America's often fiercely hot summers.
The sub-prime mortgage crisis has accelerated this flight to the cities – experts have christened it New Urbanism – as property prices have particularly collapsed in more remote areas.
According to a poll for Reuters, about 10 per cent of Americans said they were considering moving closer to work while roughly the same percentage said they were thinking about getting a job closer to home.
John Zogby, a political pollster, said the findings added up to a "broad cultural change" which translated into millions of people considering a major transformation in their lives.
He said: "Low energy costs and the availability of autos helped fuel suburbanisation."
But as people concluded that high energy prices were here to stay, "this is now one of those big changes in our lives that requires nothing short of dramatic lifestyle changes," he said.
Even before the latest economic downturn, demand for urban living had been rekindled among two generations – the so-called "baby boomers" in their fifties and "millenials", the latter born between the late 1970s and mid-1990s.
Both are already drifting away from the suburbs, the baby boomers because they want smaller homes and more accessible amenities, and the millenials to rebel against their cul-de-sac upbringing.
Transportation is now the second biggest household expense in the US after housing. Much of the new demand for city homes is in neighbourhoods close to light railway stations, hastening the move away from a car culture.
Some towns around cities have responded to this exodus by rejecting suburban status and working hard to reinvent their own centres.
Americans are not just reconsidering their living arrangements because of the latest economic downturn.
Nearly 39 per cent of those surveyed in the Reuters/Zogby poll said they were considering changing holiday plans, while 31 per cent plan fewer restaurant visits.
Well, Seattle population has grown tremendously, in all colors. Interestingly, while the population has ballooned the number of children that are registered in the public school system has declined significantly (I want to say 20%, but I’m not sure of the numbers).
I wonder how do they explain that?
Rochester, NY...They’re building big condos right in the heart of the town for business people...but turn the corner...And it’s a slum and VERY scarey.
That’s alright by me,as long as I can keep my little piece of the country.
Once the work day is over I flee the city and I’m glad to leave.As far as i’m concerned there’s nothing there except pain,High taxes and misery.
Media hype. Downtowns are ‘popular’ in some cities, but gross population numbers will tell you that large urban core cities are not growing as much as smaller ex-urban areas.
"According to a poll for Reuters, about 10 per cent of Americans said they were considering moving closer to work while roughly the same percentage said they were thinking about getting a job closer to home." (article)
Blam, 'considering' and 'thinking about' constitute a stampede for today's urinalists, if it's something they favor. If it's something they don't favor, it'll never see print.
Of course, the housing prices in the city are far, far lower than those in the ‘burbs, thereby making the savings on gas so worth it. (For libs, that’s a Kerryesque misinterpretation of reality.) I figure the payback will be in - say - about 500 years or so. Dream on, oh left-wing journalists.
1. Gays
2. Cost of housing in Seattle makes it prohibitive to have both a house and kids.
radiohead (former Seattlelite)
You won’t see any evidence of people migrating back to the cities, since most of the jobs moved out to the suburbs along with the people.
bodes poorly for conservatives
state loving young liberals flocking to cool areas where they can be activists like they were taught in school and expect the state to look out for them
their only pitfall are the goblins that await such delicious pickings on their perimeter
Yeah, here in Atlanta several major projects and our notoriously bad traffic are creating a boom in intown living. Some of it very encouraging and I was amazed when I was in some areas recently that used to be just useless. Tearing out one of the worst housing projects certainly helped.
I call it BS.
Lots of cities are building more condos within.
Wouldn’t call it a massive influx back. I don’t want to live
in the concrete jungle....want to go more rural if anything.
Which means 80%+ are not. Do we have nothing but "green" PR agents in our "Journalist" organizations now? This story is so much absurd wishful thinking.
What did they do let the Summer Intern from the Journalist school write this? This story is so bad not even most college newspapers would run it. Note to Rotters. MOST jobs in the USA are no longer in the Urban areas. They too have moved to the suburbs. So "moving closer to work" does not necessarily mean moving into an Urban area.
F for the author for writing such drivel, F to the Editors for publishing this garbage.
If I had my choice of housing, it would be further away from the city with a few acres of land.
MoronMedia and Zogby poll have the credibility of ZERO.
It will take a lot more than high gas prices for any large no. of Americans to move back into the hellholes that are blue cities! Thanks to the lying Libs.
That is like my neighborhood. houses range from $350,000 up to above a million and more. But go just a short distance and you are near the projects.
Nobody has moved anywhere in this town. Everybody is sitting tight while putting up ‘For Sale by Owner’ signs. Nobody buying, nobody selling. 100,000 population spread out over 50 mile radius.
*"Sanforized" is an old process to keep one's clothing from shrinking in the wash. I'm not even sure it's still around... guess I'll have to Google that, too!!!
The only thing these self-annointed EnvironMentalists have ever accomplished is to make everything cost prohibitive!!!
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