The notion that Americans are moving back to downtowns in large numbers is a myth, Kotkin announced; instead, they're moving ever outward, into new exurbs and rural areas. The traditional unipolar urban downtown isn't going to make a comeback: Young couples with families can't afford to live there, and aging Baby Boomers don't want to.
I think a lot of this falls under the category of "Where I sit everything is fine, or at least I've convinced myself it is."
I'm sure his sweeping generalizations are true for some folks - probably all the people he knows - but are significantly less true for millions of others.
More...
Telecommuting, not mass transit, is the wave of the future... The suburbs are a triumph, not a torture chamber... Suburbanites are happier and enjoy a more vibrant civic life than other Americans, and it's not just bigoted whites hiding out in gated communities... Post-industrial society will look more like pre-industrial society than anyone ever expected.
Well... my writerly two cents...
Telecommuting is fine if you're a writer or a pundit.
It's not so easy if you are, for instance, a chef. Or a barrista. Or a teacher, or a police officer, or a doctor, or just about any other job that involves something more than sitting in front of a computer all day.
I've done telecommuting from the suburbs.
It sucks.
If you want ANYTHING, you have to get in the car and drive. And that especially goes for human contact - you can make your own coffee, read the newspaper online, but that's just not the same as walking to the corner cafe and reading the paper over a cup of fresh-brewed and chatting with the neighbors and meeting new people (some of whom may end up being useful business contacts, hey!).
I now live in Santa Monica, where I walk to the coffee shop, the bank, the movie theater, restaurants, bookstores...
I have a cheap semi-reliable vehicle for running around town (and there are also buses), and for longer road trips where I'm more concerned about breakdowns (and gas mileage) I have five car-rental locations within a few blocks of home!
The one thing we miss here is land for a nice herb & vegetable garden... but I can tell you first hand that most suburbanites don't actually indulge in getting their hands dirty in that way.
Even my brother and sister, who have very similar sensibilities to mine, tell me they simply don't have the time for a garden, not with families and three kids each. They spend too much time in the car - driving to and from work, taking the kids to soccer games, gymnastics, music lessons...
Sure, there's more space in the suburbs, but you pay for the space with TIME - hours and hours of your life that you never get back. It's a truism of real estate that "Land is the one thing they're not making any more of", but that's just not true; time is at least as precious a commodity, but most people, thinking they have a lifetime's worth of spare moments, end up bleading them away minute by minute waiting at red lights, or tied up in traffic...
Imagine if someone told you, "You live in the suburbs, but in exchange you'll die 10 years earlier, lose ten full years of life."
Would you do it? Millions of people do every day, unthinking.
More commentary from Iglesias and Atrios
Also... a good piece about Seattle, Portland and Vancouver
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