In a March Atlantic article, Christopher B. Leinberger, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor of urban planning, contended that yesterday's new suburbs will become "the slums" of tomorrow because high gas prices and the housing meltdown will force Americans back to the urban core. Leinberger is not alone. Other pundits, among them author James Howard Kunstler, who despises suburban aesthetics, and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, see the pain in suburbia as a silver lining for urban revival.
"Not so fast," says Joel Kotkin, in his LA Times opinion piece.
6 Comments
He's dead on.
The most ambitious metro Chicago commuter plan and one that seems most vialble right now to be funded, all 1.5 Billion of it, is an intra-suburban commuter train that doesnt come within even 20miles of the city proper.
7 million people live in the suburbs of the Chi - enough to build their own railroad - so what does that say about less densely populated regions? The suburbs certainly do seem to have won the war.
or maybe the jobs will go to the suburbs. as they already have if you have been to the suburbs.
Maybe the cities need to rethink their tax structures. The other side of the built environmet is cash flow, we need to think of cities as revenue engines. Not revenue milkers.
Read Agenda21 by the UN.
Watch Soylent Green.
All the workers live in the city slums.
The big boys enjoy the countryside.
"Stopping a fundamental market shift by legislation or regulation is generally impossible."
New York will be an exception to this, since the de facto segregated neighborhoods of Queens and Staten Island have been prescient in clamoring for zoning law changes already.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.