Suburbanization is often characterized as reducing densities, but in fact it has done just the opposite. Most suburbanites come from smaller places; they may prefer suburbs because they are less dense, safer, or simply more manageable than the core cities. But they are also, almost invariably, more dense than where they lived before. Suburbanization is thus a densifying dynamic, albeit one that is less dramatic than preferred by many planners and architects.
I don’t know if I’d call that “truth” or “truthiness.”
Maybe on a world wide basis that is true, certainly in places like Mexico City, but in the US of A?
The overwhelming majority of suburban Chicago residents either moved from the city or their families moved from the city within a generation or two. I suspect Herr Professor Wendell is either intentionally ignoring some numbers or partially screwing the pooch very badly.
I don’t see some huge movement of rural folks from less dense areas moving into suburbs. If anything the suburbs are moving into those areas.
Now maybe I’m wrong, but if you look at the initial suburban Chicago boom post World War Two most of the new suburbanites were former city dwellers.
Hey, it’s 1 AM so I could be missing something.
Sometimes common perceptions are wrong. The common perception is that suburbanites or their families emigrated from the cities.
I’d like to see what response that article gets from people better equipped to crunch the numbers than me.
I’m almost viewing this article the way I view some of the articles regarding real estate issues or any issue for that matter in major newspapers. I always read their “facts” and conclusions with great skepticism.
I just googled Wendell Cox. He has a very strong libertarian point of view regarding land issues and other related issues.
The wikipedia article on, Wendell Cox, the author of this article.
I’m very skeptical about the objectivity of the author. I tend not to trust people with strong ideological views sometimes they see what they choose to see. I could mention Dick Cheney and the WMD/War in Iraq issues, but at this time of the morning that is just torture.
Give me some skeptical academic who mistrusts the left and right and see what he says on the issue.
Quoting from the post:
“The city of Chicago lost 725,000 residents between 1950 and 2000, yet 82 percent of the suburban growth was from outside the metropolitan area.”
The transition from rural to urban / suburban that’s occurred across America is undeniable and not something slanted by ideology. It was driven by many factors, not the least of which was job growth in the suburbs.
Every weekday morning I get a visual index of the effect a back to the city movement might have on automobile usage as I watch the outbound Kennedy and Edens. Over time the morning rush has become worse outbound than inbound as city dwellers head to their jobs in the suburbs. It’s hard to imagine those jobs moving back to the city and incurring the much higher costs of doing business in the city.
First of all, you have just quoted one of the most libertarian people out there when it comes to urban development. Wendell Cox has been accused of skewing the data to support his strong pro-sprawl, anti-urban stance before.
Casting those doubts aside, I’m not sure what Cox is trying to say this time. I take it he’s trying to twist logic as usual in such a way to say that suburbs are denser than nothing.
Okay, sure, I’ll give him that. Suburbs are definitely denser than the farmland than they replaced. No problem, Wendell, you go get um!
But the whole point that Cox is missing is that urbanization should be about making communities dense enough so that people can WALK somewhere. You know–not being completely reliant on their automobiles, something which I believe to be absolutely horrible for our environment. If Cox wants to score points for suburbia in his head by saying “hey, at least we’re more dense than rural farmland” then he can do so, but once again he sounds like the fraud that he is.
“Every weekday morning I get a visual index of the effect a back to the city movement might have on automobile usage as I watch the outbound Kennedy and Edens. Over time the morning rush has become worse outbound than inbound as city dwellers head to their jobs in the suburbs. It’s hard to imagine those jobs moving back to the city and incurring the much higher costs of doing business in the city.”
^ At least every few months or so I hear about a sizeable company moving their offices, or part of their staff, downtown from the suburbs. I can’t think of the last time a major company moved to the suburbs from downtown, with the exception of Sara Lee but that was a couple of years ago.
It’s not going to be an overnight process, but there is a slow response, as there always will be, to demographic changes. Of course, the suburbs will continue to have a bulk of the jobs, but my point is that I believe that the city-suburb office dynamic has reached a steady state much more so than perhaps 20-30 years ago when downtown companies were fleeing for the suburbs like it was the holy promised land.
I’d also like to add that despite the construction of millions of square feet of office space downtown in the past few years, downtown’s office vacancy rate is consistently lower than that in the suburbs.
Cox fails to distinguish between sprawl and urbanism. There are plenty of urban places in the suburbs (and even rural areas) that exemplify the density and qualities “planners and architects prefer.” (Evanston, Oak Park and Riverside to name a few.) And the traditional small towns he says they’re moving from could easily be more dense than a subdivision in sprawlville — making it a dubious claim that suburbanization is a net increase in density. Not all suburbs are created equal. So it’s not a matter of people moving to the suburbs — it’s a matter of which kinds of suburbs they’re moving to and what kind of environment we’re creating in the suburbs through our land use and transportation policies.
tup,
One of the reasons downtown’s office vacancy rate is lower than that of the suburbs is that there’s been far more office development in the suburbs than in the city over the past 50 years. That trend continues.
As to large companies moving to the suburbs, are you familiar with the company that occupied the tower formerly known as Sears? When was the last time a major corporation relocated from the suburbs to the city?
Sears left for the suburbs almost 20 years ago.
Willis is moving to the Sears Tower, and they will be taking some suburban jobs with them. United Airlines moved downtown from the suburbs just about 2 years ago. BP moved their North American operations from the suburbs to Houston less than a year ago, but in the process decided to move 1,000 trading jobs into the Loop to be close to Chicago’s financial exchanges. A few smaller companies have also moved downtown, but United Airlines has been the only really massive one of late.
But lets be realistic–really big corporate HQ moves aren’t that common. But in the case of smaller companies, there are a decent number of examples.
Other examples:
Mittal Steel, the world’s largest steel company, moved their North American HQ into downtown Chicago from NW Indiana about 2 years ago. Motorola recently moved research & design jobs downtown.
Downtown Chicago has actually had more success in landing new offices/HQ from out of town than from its own suburbs. I can name several examples of that.
I think it’s important to differentiate the Chicago vs suburb dynamic of 20 years ago versus now.
Grub & Ellis moved downtown from the suburbs recently as well–unfortunately, they were acquired and now will be based in California. But my point still stands
There is no doubt that suburbs are denser than rural areas. There is a doubt that most American suburban development is driven by residents coming from less dense areas. I think Cox is twisting the data to fit his own philosophy.
There is certainly more job and population growth in suburban areas than cities. Saying that suburban growth is driven by people coming from less dense areas………….I don’t think so.
Cox definitely twists the data to fit his own philosophy, take this one line for example:
“82 percent of the suburban growth was from outside the metropolitan area.”
He then assumes that all that 82% growth is from smaller communities. the key word here is THE metropolitan area, not A metropolitan area. If a family left St. Louis or Milwaukee and moved to suburban Chicago he is counting them as coming from a rural area. Add to this the fact that the population of the US as a whole grew by 86% between 1950 and 2000, and 82% of growth was from outside the metropolitan area becomes an even less meaningful statistic. It takes serious analysis to prove the conclusions he arrives at, and he doesn’t even begin to do the work needed to prove his point. Let me know if Nate Silver crunches the numbers and arrives at this conclusion.
TUP makes a very good point that the trends in suburban growth now are very different now than they have been over the last 50 years. I don’t think the suburbs are going anywhere anytime soon, but their growth has leveled off and most urban areas have stopped losing population and many are beginning to see modest growth.
“You know–not being completely reliant on their automobiles, something which I believe to be absolutely horrible for our environment.”
right now they are.
but you might want to get up to speed:
http://revengeoftheelectriccar.com/
advancements in PV technology will lead to many urban drivers (those who don’t drive more than 50 – 60 miles a day, which is many) simply charging their cars via a few panels on their garage.
it’s already happening…