Are the exurbs dying?
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Census Bureau data from April shows that outer exurbs are dying and urban cores are growing.
From The New York Times:
"The country's outer suburbs, often referred to as the exurbs by demographers, were at the forefront of the country's population growth for most of the last decade. New houses mushroomed in those areas as young families bought homes on credit that was easy to get, following the tradition of moving to the suburbs to begin adult lives.
But when the housing market collapsed, growth in those areas slowed drastically. The economic recovery has not revived population growth in those areas and, according to an analysis by William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, has only served to flatten it further."
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What are the reasons for this trend? Can the exurbs make a comeback?
Tanya Snyder, Streetsblog's Capitol Hill editor, will join The Daily Circuit Friday to talk about the future of exurbs.
"The latest numbers, capturing the year (actually 15 months, April 2010 to July 2011) since the last Census, showed a major shift away from the settlement patterns from 2000 to 2010," Snyder wrote on Streetsblog. "That's not exactly how it happened. The shift didn't suddenly happen in 2010. The 2000-2010 numbers encompass a decade whose first two-thirds were the heyday of an economic boom that buoyed greenfield development. The real break was in 2007, when the housing bubble burst and the artificially inflated value of the outer suburbs crashed."
Charles Marohn, executive director of Strong Towns, will also join the discussion.
