Flashback: Whither the ‘Burbs?
A friend points me to an article published last spring in the Atlantic titled “The Next Slum,” by Christopher B. Leinberger, on whether all those McMansions constructed in the building frenzy will survive both the subprime crisis and what could be changing attitudes on the part of some Americans to move away from car-centric suburbs and exurbs to public-transportation-accessible, walkable urban areas.
The article relies in part on data from the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, which incidentially has an article in the May 2009 issue of Planning magazine on American Demographics, circa 2109. Using a midrange scenario, the authors envision a U.S. population double the size of today’s: 600 million people.
I don’t see how transporting that many people (nevermind housing, feeding, schooling, and caring for them) is possible without a wholesale rethinking of the way communities are designed and built.
Let’s hope some smart people get cracking on some good ideas!