Suburbs

The extent of China's embrace of American-style suburbanization is best illustrated by one of its newest gated communities, which is actually called Orange County.

May 7, 2008 - Good

Homes farther out from the central city and with longer commutes are being hit harder by the downturn in the housing market. Those located close to city cores and transit are faring better, according to this report from NPR.

April 24, 2008 - NPR

Michael Gecan uses the Chicago and New York City areas as examples of the challenges facing mature suburbs, examines the ways many are avoiding reality, and draws a series of conclusions.

April 8, 2008 - Boston Review

The mortgage crisis is devastating many communities far from urban centers, while 'inner cities', regionally speaking, are weathering the financial storm far better thanks to their urban form that makes them attractive to those that can afford them.

March 21, 2008 - The San Francisco Chronicle

The suburban Detroit town of Wixom is looking to lure in residents by creating dense downtown living.

March 18, 2008 - The Detroit Free Press

This opinion piece from The Boston Globe calls for an end to the special treatment and unfair taxes levied on city residents.

March 4, 2008 - The Boston Globe

The age of the suburbs may be coming to an end in America, and conditions in Canada are even more ripe for this transition to urban density.

March 4, 2008 - The Toronto Star

A rise in the amount of jobs available in the suburbs has more city dwellers in New York doing the "reverse commute" and traveling from home in the city to work in the 'burbs.

March 2, 2008 - The New York Times

Over the past three months, my girlfriend and I have made three trips to the suburbs of Miami. Twice to the Whole Foods we desperately lack on Miami Beach (Yes, Wild Oats is okay, but for us food snobs it just does not compare) and once to the brand new, soul-killing, 283,000 square foot IKEA to partially outfit our 450 square foot South Beach studio apartment.

October 30, 2007 - Mike Lydon

I first visited the African American suburb of Country Club Hills, south of Chicago, as an interviewer for a research project. It seemed as though only race had been reversed: The Maryland suburbs I had grown up in were 80 percent white, these were 80 Black, but otherwise they were so utterly familiar, right down to the floor plan of the split-level ranches, that I knew the layout of every home before I went in. In research I’ve begun on other Black, middle-class suburbs, however, it turns out that more than color has been reversed. In fact, race reverses many of the things planners have come to see as inevitable.

August 7, 2007 - Greg Smithsimon

Houston or Holland? The rapidly growing suburbs of Madrid uncomfortably (and instructively) amalgamate some of both. I was lucky to receive a recent tour from David Cohn, a long-time colleague and 20-year resident of Madrid; Sylvia Perea, a post-doctoral student and, until recently, an editor at the journal Arquitectura Viva, and Emilio Ontiveros, a young architect of the local Research Group on Social Housing.

May 28, 2007 - James S. Russell

This week, a few stories circulated around our office that generated some discussion. One was a piece in The New Yorker by Nick Paumgarten on commuting in America entitled "There and Back Again". The tease at the beginning sums up the entire piece: "People may endure miserable commutes out of an inability to weigh their general well-being against quantifiable material gains."In this story, the writer accompanies commuters in Manhattan and Atlanta while attempting to understand the life of an "extreme commuter."

April 24, 2007 - Anonymous

Author James Howard Kunstler takes an incisive look at the dilemma of open space conservation as a means of salvaging community.

February 4, 2002 - Orion Online