Brookings’ Robert Puentes has a new report on the four major forces affecting cities in the US and worldwide. It synthesizes the growing body of evidence on America’s spatial sorting and its effects on cities.
1. Resurgence of urban downtowns: notably Chicago, lower Manhattan, San Francisco and Seattle, driven by young couples and empty-nesters.
2. City growth is uneven: While some cities are thriving, others are not. The ability to attract immigrants is a key differentiator here, especially among smaller cities.
3. Diversity: While many urban downtowns are more diverse racially and ethnically than two decades ago, the locus of immigration is shifting to the suburbs. Nearly half (48 percent) of immigrants live in suburbs.
4. New geography of poverty: Thirty percent of the poor live in cities, compared to 31 percent in large metro suburbs, 20 percent in smaller towns and 19 percent in rural areas. Poverty rates have declined somewhat in central cities over the past decade, while increasing in suburbs, the trend for high-poverty rates is even more pronounced. Cities are losing their middle class and becoming more polarized economically.
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Heard great Jane Jacobs quote on cbc Radio the other day:
“When a city gets boring, even the rich people will decide to leave”
It will be interesting to see how the economic crisis impacts the urban resurgence….