Are cities losing their value? (metro, suburb, market, landscape)

[jobaba]

Are cities losing their value?

The quick answer is that living in urban areas is more popular than ever and people are willing to pay more of a premium than ever. So, no.

However, I believe there is less value than ever in living in a city ... or even visiting a city. Of the things that I enjoy doing when I have lived in or visited cities, I find those things are slowly being eroded from the landscape.

1) Internet has taken away the need for things such as bookstores, record stores, comic book stores, and smut. Granted, not everybody is in to all of these things, but the market for these things was part of what made living in a city appealing. Back in the day, I couldn't just order these things online. I remember a number of times where I went to a bookstore or video store specifically in NYC so I could buy a movie I wanted to see.

2) Independent live music - the new format to get your music out is online. The live club was really more of a vehicle for blues and rock and jazz, which are dying genres.

3) Commercialization - Mom and pop restaurants, cafes, and retail stores have so much difficulty competing that they are often replaced Starbucks and Chipoltle.

4) Suburbs getting 'cooler' - suburbs now have Thai restaurants, sorta cool lounges and are more accepting. If you're marginalized you don't have to go live in the city anymore. The suburbs have Urban Outfitters and Marc Jacobs too.

So, obviously the high paying jobs, and bars and clubs, Broadway plays, and world class restaurants are still there, access to lots of different people, but I think previously, cities had a lot more to offer. It was the ONLY game in town for certain things.

Opinions?

[Redlionjr]

Possibly true for AMERICAN cities. But the city still offers things you can’t get in most suburbs or small towns.

[distracted85]

I'd say it depends on how much the premium to live there is. Some cities are cheaper than others.

[Phil P]

I think one really good example of what's changed in the last 20 years is restaurant options and quality. Pretty much every town, small city, or suburb in America now has very good cafes with a whole lot of international diversity.

I would say cities are losing value relatively for this reason: small town and suburb America have made much greater strides at providing amenities that used to be limited to cities while cities have struggled to improve offerings of what small towns and suburbs have, greenspace and floorspace.

[MrRational]

Originally Posted by jobaba

So, obviously ...

Obviously it's about having all of those things balance at some variable but still viable level.
City Centers and their metropolitan areas with residential and other zoning classes...
Some larger, some smaller... and some a whole lot smaller somewhere else.

Viable in the known history of the world has been about the ability of the tax base to support it all.
Have a high enough ratio of net producers vs net consumers of public wealth and it all works fine.

I'm pretty sure it's generally worth the effort to make it work for all
but I think the raw number of all that works is a fair bit lower than the number of all we have now.