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Or maybe with the gas prices... Suburbs will become denser... more urban.... more stores that you can walk to.
I anticipate both trends. Suburbs will become denser around transit stations (mimicking the original suburbs that were dense but remote from the metropole). Older suburbs that are already laid out along these lines will be seen as more attractive. But the downside of this idea is that distant transit oriented developments will be served by a single transit line, which limits commuting options. For this reason, closer to the city will be viewed as preferable if only for more varied and flexible transit access.
Cities will thrive, dense suburbs will cluster around transit corridors.
In response to the OP's question: yes and no. People, particularly younger professionals, are already moving back to cities in droves. An excellent example is Washington DC where the city is rapidly gentrifying. In less than 50 years the city wil probably be majority white if the current trend continues. The same thing is happening in Baltimore, but at a notably slower pace.
The thing is, many suburbs themselves are becoming self-sufficient with more jobs being located there, in addition to the fact that they are being tranformed into urban areas themselves. Perfect examples would be Reston, Tysons Corner, and Rockville in the DC suburbs (ignoring the even more heavily urban localities bordering DC such as Silver Spring, Bethesda, and Arlington).
Another point is that highways won't unbuild themselves. Before the interstate highway system and automobiles, people were forced to live in the city if they wanted to work there unless they wanted to take slow and limited train service. In addition to the highways, there are much more convenient transit options from the suburbs to the city than there were before. In the DC Area the Metro heavy rail/subway lines extend deep into the Maryland suburbs on 6 different branches, in addition to 3 MARC commuter rail lines branching out of DC (one with 125mph service on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor between DC and Balt.). Some of the more denser counties closer in to core cities are specifically focusing on developing exclusively around transit, such as Montgomery County here in Maryland.
The last point is that there will always be people who thinks its okay to commute nearly 2 hours each way in traffic from West Virginia or Pennsylvania to DC, just so they can buy a huge new house for a quarter of the price of a tiny, 100 year old, asbestos-infested, "fixer-upper" in DC.
So, while I do expect urban decay to come to a halt (especially in many post-industrial cities such as Philadelphia, Newark, and Baltimore) and cities that have been losing population to start gaining, I don't expect everyone to just abandon the suburbs, especially as this country's population grows. My prediction would be that the share of population in the suburbs will decline, but the absolute number will remain level or increase.
Everything in life is cyclical, that's to any inner city's or suburb's advantage and disadvantage.
Why were people escaping the cities in the first place? Same reason they'll be escaping the suburbs.
In some metro area's, the inner core suburbs have already declined. Then they escape them and build new suburbs furthur out. Like the Mpls.-St. Paul area.
And when they decline? Keep building new ones furthur out, with the fear of rising gas prices?
We have a huge graying population. And according to the recent AARP newsletter, a good many of them want to live somewhere where they're not dependent on a car, ideally in a location where there's no need for a car.
Our suburbs are our future slums, it's a no-brainer. What could halt their decline is for inner city high rise dwellers to buy any number of them and use them as weekend/2nd homes. Come out to on the weekends and garden to their heart's content, take the produce back with them to the city.
Last edited by tijlover; 10-30-2009 at 12:05 AM..
Reason: Add a line
Yes, I think people are already moving to the cities in droves. I read an article that talked about how today's young professionals are moving to the cities because they grew up watching Seinfeld and Friends on TV where you see the good side of the city. Before that, people knew the cities from shows like Cops lol! Just 1 reason of many. I moved to the city last year (DC) and love it. I'm moving to NYC next and have no car anymore. It's just great to be able to walk everywhere. It's healthier, better for your social life, and more convenient. Those are 3 things people are always going to be looking for. I think the move to the cities will improve the nation's health, lower crime, and increase happiness overall. However, with people leaving the suburbs, traffic will get better out there so I think it will level off at some point.
In Chicago this has been happening for awhile, with the tearing down of many of the projects and forcing many low-income families out to the suburbs.
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