Suburbs

In fact, says one planner, suburbs and exurbs can expect to see some of the biggest changes of all, at least from infrastructure and transportation funding.

According to Kirk Rogers, European suburbs are not all that different from American ones--they indulge the need for space, good schools, and cars-- and they're there to stay.

Since its completion, Boston's Big Dig freeway project has succeeded in reducing congestion downtown, but new figures show the congestion has merely moved out of the central city into suburban areas.

Wendell Cox looks at how single-family detached housing came to be, and why it's likely to remain a popular option for the middle class.

Despite the $700 billion financial bailout plan, the suburbs will continue to lose population and value, according to Peter Katz. He says it's time for the government to prevent suburban development that is only doomed to fail.

Greg Beato looks at self-expression via the front lawn. In places that lack homeowners associations, he suggests, individualized lawns have great potential to strengthen the surrounding community.

An exhibit at the Carnegie Museum of Art offers an unbiased, "awestruck" exploration of America's suburbs.

Homelessness is on the rise in metropolitan Vancouver, but the numbers are most significant in the suburbs.

The suburbs draw on Americans may be dwindling, according to this column from Neal Peirce. But, he argues, this shift doesn't mean the end of suburban living.

The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, the MPO for the Philadelphia metropolitan region, has introduced an innovate way of making people aware of the benefits of older, established suburbs: market them.

Rising energy prices and falling home values are bringing many exurban dwellers closer to the city core. In this commentary, Keith Schneider argues that central cities and inner-ring suburbs need to work with each other to stay afloat.

The economic decline of the suburbs could flood cities like New York with "suburban economic refugees". This commentary from the New York Post warns that this is bad news for cities.

Next American City reflects on the changing face of suburbia.

Joel Kotkin's recent LA Times Op-Ed is critiqued by Bill Fulton of the California Planning and Development Report. Fulton argues the suburban areas Kotkin defends are actually urbanizing, whereas true suburbia show signs of becoming the new slums.

Joel Kotkin once again leaps to the defense of the suburbs as a choice, and says that urbanists who are hoping that Americans will rush back into the cities are sadly mistaken.

This segment from NPR looks at what's behind the trend of house prices falling more sharply outside of cities.

This article from City Journal looks at the anti-modernist architect Leon Krier's plan for remaking suburbs into self-contained towns.

In order to respond to the changing climate and economy, many say suburbs need to start acting more like cities.

A peaceful suburb wanting to preserve its tranquility is pitted against a large rail company attempting to lessen freight congestion around Chicago by running its trains through it and other suburbs on an existing rail line it hopes to purchase.

The suburbs are becoming the inner-city, according to recent studies that are showing a shift in suburban demographics from predominantly white to incredibly diverse.