Last week, my colleague Chris Leinberger wrote a provocative op-ed in the New York Times titled “The Death of the Fringe Suburb.” Leinberger, who is president of LOCUS: Responsible Real Estate Developers and Investors, a project of Smart Growth America, highlighted the convergence of a number of factors in heralding the decline of far flung, auto-dependent exurbs. Rising gas prices, demographic changes, and shifting consumer preferences have all made these areas less attractive to homebuyers — a fact reflected in the financial troubles and foreclosure crises many of these communities face.
This gloomy portrait, however, is only the prelude to Leinberger’s discussion of an exciting new wave of demand for real estate. Today, the most valuable housing is in center city and inner suburb communities where shops, schools and homes are within walking distance of one another. More and more Americans want to live in these affordable and accessible neighborhoods — and the proof is in the prices of homes in these areas. Perhaps even more importantly, this type of development is where the knowledge economy thrives, helps support regional economies and promotes environmental sustainability.
As he often does, smart growth critic Joel Kotkin quickly weighed in to refute this version of events. Kotkin cites data from the 2010 Census to show that suburbs are growing faster than central cities, but includes in this definition of “suburbs” many dense, wakable cities (Jersey City is one such example.) This difficultly in defining what exactly constitutes a suburb illustrates why the urban/suburban divide proffered by Kotkin misses the mark. Indeed, the rise in walkable development that Leinberger describes is largely taking place outside of central cities in suburbs that were unwalkable not long ago.
