For Release Sunday, May 13, 2012
© 2012 Washington Post Writers Group
How fast are our downtowns, neighborhoods and regions truly changing? Are cities on a clear comeback path? What’s the future of suburbia?
Opinions abound. Some analysts predict spirited and expanding revival of once-neglected center cities, even while far-out, “drive ’til you qualify” suburbia virtually withers on the vine. Others contend that suburbia and America have become synonymous, that our love of space will in time refuel sprawling housing tracts expanding to farthest suburban frontier, no matter if gasoline prices soar.
If you’d like a clear-eyed view, check Alan Ehrenhalt’s new book, “The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City” (Alfred Knopf). Ehrenhalt leans to the side of cities on the rebound. He makes a strong case for how today’s young adults, in sharp contrast to the choices their parents made, are opting for lively, walkable urban streets with parks, shops, transit and school choices.
But it’s not just urban hype. Equally important, Ehrenhalt notes: Large numbers of African-Americans are moving out of cities, into once typically white suburbs. And high proportions of recent immigrants aren’t repeating the historic choice of inner cities, but selecting suburbia instead.
Atlanta offers a prime example. The center city is on the brink of losing its black majority as whites move in and blacks move out. Two huge Atlanta suburban counties, Clayton and DeKalb, now have black majorities. In the meantime, a mélange of Hispanics, followed by foreign-born from India, Vietnam, South Korea and Eastern Europe, have flooded into once overwhelmingly white Gwinnett County on the region’s outskirts. Anglos are now a minority in Gwinnett, once prototype of the white-fight-escape-and-settlement American suburb.
