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April 11, 2007

Downward mobility

Time to rethink the suburbs. Again.

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Topics: Mossback, Suburbia

By Knute Berger of Crosscut

An article in The Nation points out that our perceptions about the suburbs need some revising. New studies show dramatic change:

[A] historic milestone ... has gone strangely ignored: For the first time ever, more poor Americans live in the suburbs than in all our cities combined.

It's a funny phenomenon: increasingly dense, diverse and poor, the suburbs are becoming the new "city," while increasingly affluent downtowns loaded with veritcal sprawl are becoming the new 'burbs.

Knute Berger is Mossback, Crosscut's chief Northwest native. He also writes the monthly Grey Matters column for Seattle magazine and is a weekly Friday guest on Weekday on KUOW-FM (94.9). His newest book is Pugetopolis: A Mossback Takes On Growth Addicts, Weather Wimps, and the Myth of Seattle Nice, published by Sasquatch Books. In 2011, he was named Writer-in-Residence at the Space Needle and is writing the Needle's official 50th anniversary history. You can e-mail him at mossback@crosscut.com.

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Topics: Mossback, Suburbia

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Comments:

Posted Mon, Apr 16, 9:54 p.m. Inappropriate

its' gentrification: Since about 1980, the affluent professionals have been reclaiming desirable parts of central cities. There is a good sized literature on what is generally called "gentrification". While this is originally market-driven, cities have come to encourage it by zoning (densification), transportation investments, etc. as it vastly increases city tax revenues, and conveniently displaces pooer families out to the older less attractive suburbs.

— Richard Morrill

Posted Tue, Apr 24, 4:32 p.m. Inappropriate

In with the Rich, Out with the Poor!:

— Stuka