Housing bust halts growing suburbs

[phantom power]

The recession and housing collapse have halted four decades of double-digit growth for nearly half of the nation's biggest rapidly expanding suburbs.

Twenty-four of the 53 cities of 100,000 or more that grew by at least 10% every decade since 1970 lost population in the last two years.

Fifteen are likely to end the decade with less than a 10% gain in population, largely because of recent losses. Among them: Bellevue, Wash., near Seattle; Coral Springs, Fla., near Fort Lauderdale; Fullerton, Calif., near Los Angeles; and Lakewood, Colo., near Denver.

...

"This may signal a real shift in the American landscape where suburbs can no longer assume to be gaining on traditional cities," Lang says.

"Places that have done the worst are places where basically real estate was the economic engine," says Ed McMahon, senior research fellow at the Urban Land Institute, a non-profit group that promotes sustainable development.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-11-19-suburbs_N.htm

[GliderGuider]

1. Who was it that said

“Suburbia is the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world”?

I think that guy might have been right. Chickens, come on home.

[phantom power]

2. I think I remember that guy.

Bit of an architecture snob, but he has a way with words, doesn't he.

[DoBotherMe]

4. James Kunstler?

http://kunstler.com/ Dana ; )

[GliderGuider]

7. Ding!

That would be correct.

I'll take "The Collapse of Industrial Civilization" for $800, Alex...

[Warpy]

3. I'm a total city person

but I managed to survive in a small town once upon a time.

There is just no way I could possibly cope with the burbs, especially since there's been a time in my life when I was too blind to drive.

[phantom power]

5. Interestingly, small towns and cities both frequently have walkable neighborhoods.

Not so, the burbs.

[Warpy]

6. I biked everywhere in the small town

in the good old days before my back broke. I could walk to an astonishing variety of stuff, also. Night life was pot luck suppers and life there was pretty good, overall.

I do hate the burbs, though, always have.

[marmar]

8. Good......

What seemed like a good idea at one time has turned out to be a total f**king disaster.