Housing

Abstract

In many locations, properly positioned new housing that responds to changing housing markets can represent the foundation for mixed-use, walkable suburban centers. In 1920, most Americans lived in mixed-use, walkable urban neighborhoods, and both the suburb and the automobile were already well established in the nation’s culture and economy. Who could have foreseen that by the 1970s the typical new suburban neighborhood would be an isolated auto-dependent subdivision? And who in 1970 could have predicted, roughly four decades later, the rise of a new generation of mixed-use, walkable urban neighborhoods in cities and suburbs alike? Conventional demographic and life-stage analysis, based on historical norms, would forecast a boom in suburban and exurban neighborhoods as members of the millennial generation, the largest in the nation’s history, marry and begin families. But our research and experience suggest that historical norms are once again proving to be poor predictors of future settlement patterns. The assertion that the current urban preference is a mere pause in the dispersal of households, jobs, and shopping into the farther reaches of our metropolitan areas—the nation’s historical thinning out—ignores structural changes in every aspect of American life. Over the next several decades, demographic, technological, and, perhaps most importantly, changing values and lifestyles could combine to create a transformation of American settlement patterns equal in impact to the metro-area thinning out it would partly reverse. It is conceivable that, before too long, many auto-dependent suburbs will be struggling to remain economically viable, or even socially relevant.