Exurbs

In this opinion piece, Brookings demographer William H. Frey looks at three years of census data and discusses whether urban growth will stay through the decade or whether the U.S. will return to its traditional, post-War suburban growth patterns.

June 2, 2014 - Brookings

A high-rise residential building boom has transformed the skylines of Vancouver and Toronto over the past two decades. But despite the evident rise in the popularity of urban living, Canada's suburbs and exurbs continue to dominate growth trends.

September 9, 2013 - The Vancouver Sun

Despite a flurry of new commuter rail lines in operation, ridership increased a mere .5% during a record year for transit. Worse yet, some of the newer lines saw the greatest decreases. The answer: increase service to attract riders.

June 18, 2013 - Governing Magazine

A new report from the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program shows that areas located 10-35 miles from America's central cities sustained far higher job losses during the recession, staunching the sprawl of people and employment.

April 19, 2013 - Next City

Robbie Whelan reports that the last remaining unbuilt parcel in L.A.'s 1,000-acre Playa Vista development has been sold to Brookfield Homes, reflecting a turn by developers away from the exurbs and towards densifying urban cores.

November 28, 2012 - The Wall Street Journal

Nate Berg looks at new data released by the U.S. Census Bureau that puts hard numbers behind what people across the country have observed: America's downtowns are booming again.

September 28, 2012 - The Atlantic Cities

Chasing the widespread interest in city living, developers are exporting mixed-use urbanism to the suburbs and exurbs as "town center" projects, prompting Jonathan O’Connell to ask if "a city can be a city if it’s built in the middle of a cornfield."

September 10, 2012 - The Washington Post

New analysis from the Urban Institute and researchers at the U.S. Census Bureau shows that, despite the housing bust and economic recession, exurban growth in recent years has been significantly higher than in more densely populated areas.

July 20, 2012 - The Atlantic Cities

A new report from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies released this week claims that sprawl is poised to make a comeback after a pause driven by the recession, and not lasting changes in lifestyle choice, reports Robbie Whelan.

June 15, 2012 - The Wall Street Journal

William Lucy of the University of Virginia has written extensively on the question of whether outer suburbs are safer than cities or inner suburbs; he argues, based on traffic fatality data, that outer suburbs are certainly less safe than inner suburbs, and maybe even less safe than cities. (1)  However, Lucy’s analysis is not particularly fine-grained: it analyzes data county-by-county, rather than town-by-town. What’s wrong with this?  Often, suburban cities within a county are quite diverse: some share the characteristics of inner suburbs (e.g. some public transit) while others look more like exurbs.  So I wondered whether there is any significant 'safety gap" between inner and outer suburbs. 

April 29, 2012 - Michael Lewyn

After the Census Bureau released population estimates showing that core counties were (at least in some metro areas) growing faster than exurban counties, the media was full of headlines about this alleged trend.  An extreme example came from the Washington Post: "An end to America's exurbia?" (1)

April 16, 2012 - Michael Lewyn

Steven Pearlstein reads the tea leaves to predict the future development patterns in Washington, D.C. and finds that all signs point inwards to the city center and its closer-in suburbs.

January 19, 2012 - The Washington Post

The Philadelphia Inquirer's architecture critic sets out to find the outer edge of the Philadelphia suburbs, and finds a "zombie subdivision."

January 9, 2012 - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Christopher B. Leinberger expounds on the mortgage crisis plaguing America, particularly the exurbs. Rather than being a product of the excesses of bank lending and regulation, Leinberger attributes it to demographic changes benefiting cities.

November 27, 2011 - The New York Times- Opinion Pages

While the South is king when it comes to exurbs (low density, with workers who mostly commute to an urban area), the exurban experience has many faces, including small town New England.

September 6, 2011 - Places

From 2000 to 2010, Kendall County, Illinois was the fastest growing county in the country. Today, it seems the downturn has caught up with Kendall.

August 23, 2011 - Chicago News Cooperative

Even office parks in the exurbs can have high rates of transit use, according to success seen at an office park in San Ramon, California.

April 14, 2011 - The Atlantic

This story from the Los Angeles Times looks at the downfall of exurban growth in the High Desert of Southern California, and the families caught in the downfall.

June 29, 2010 - Los Angeles Times

The U.S. is expected to grow by more than 100 million people over the next 40 years, and much of that growth will occur in urban areas. Joel Kotkin says that this growth will highlight the inefficiencies of centralized power.

May 5, 2010 - Governing

Development is occurring more rapidly in urban centers than in the suburbs, according to a new study from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

March 30, 2010 - The New York Times