- Millennials are moving to the suburbs after all, reports Bloomberg. This has always been a strange battle between the demand side (industry) and the supply side (policy-makers). Of course the more rational answer is that it’s both, but identifying an underlying cause for why Boomers embraced sub-urbanization and why millennials haven’t (thus far) hasn’t been as straightforward as many would think. My answer has lain in the demographics – millennials are starting families much later than our parents did, so the desire for a suburban lifestyle has been more delayed than completely replaced. Additionally, it’s also been less an issue of personal choice, as the economic fallout of the Great Recession has definitely played a major role in many young people’s abilities to afford the suburban lifestyle (buying a house and a car). As the economy has recovered and young people are finding gainful employment again, they seem to be embracing the suburban lifestyle.
- Japan, ever struggling with an aging population, also has to contend with rising urbanization and what it means for smaller towns and rural areas.
- The NYTime wrote a piece on “co-living spaces” – communal housing units where resident apartments are limited to the basics (bedroom+bathroom?) and other spaces, such as kitchens, dining, living areas are all shared. The most interesting bit of the article, for me, though is “You won’t find much of that outside the building, which is why this Urby is essentially a vertical — and interior — neighborhood.”
- I’ve often wondered about the intersection of the technology industry and urbanism – will we have a resurgence of the old “company town”? Considering many of North America’s major technology hubs are in existing cities, it might be a different evolution. In that theme, the Seattle Times wrote about Amazon’s footprint on the city.
Musings on Metropolises 