The Urban Revival Is Over

There is really one one reason cities are not gaining population as fast (or they are losing it) as they have been relatively recently: the astronomical cost of living in major urban centers. The article points this out, but I think it's conclusion, that urban revival is over because of this, is pretty odd. Prices are so high because there are still way more people that want to live in central cities than there is housing. If the urban revival were truly over, so many people wouldn't want to live there.

Kind of a sloppily-written article, tbh. The stats are good, but the shift at the last paragraph to "why we should care" is very weak. And while, yes, I'm sure the White House's policies aren't doing urban revival any favors, it seems to me that we collectively need to stop freaking out every time the wind changes direction. Who's to say that whatever artificial incentives we create to shore up city populations won't have unintended consequences of their own?

The &quot;crime is skyrocketing&quot; argument is a bad one. It&#x27;s an increase, true, but the absolute value remains low.<p>Florida cites 5-15% increases in some cities. That&#x27;s like returning to the terribly violent year of... 2010 or so?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.usnews.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2016-09-19&#x2F;chicago-drives-uptick-in-murders-national-crime-rate-stays-near-historic-lows" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.usnews.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2016-09-19&#x2F;chicago-driv...</a><p>We&#x27;re still 300% below the violent crime rate in the early 90s.

Tangentially related, but I am really disappointed in how little actual renewal the &quot;revival&quot; brought about. Except in extremely concentrated urban cores like in Manhattan almost every city is still <i>by far</i> dominated by 20s style row houses that stalled out the renewal process (because the yuppies that were moving into cores had no interest in those).<p>Gentrification and renewal came to blows right in the middle and left what was probably the greatest blemish on the urban unchanged... because those were where the actual poverty was all along in the first place. The urban cores that got &quot;renewed&quot; were never squalor and dilapidation - they might not have been as trendy, but city centers have too much general access to be that useless no matter the popular trends. Unless you have a city like Detroit they just cannot degrade that much.<p>Which really means all this hype about renewal is really just vapid air. Nobody is putting big money into actually innovating on the city concept, its all about buying politicians for favorable zoning over actually making anything lasting and meaningful out of the interest in urban renewal.

The urban revival never really happened. Some yuppies moved downtown in a few cities. Big deal. Middle class people kept leaving cities in droves. Even NYC, which boomed economically, lost middle income people from 2002-2006: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.crainsnewyork.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;20090205&#x2F;FREE&#x2F;902059930" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.crainsnewyork.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;20090205&#x2F;FREE&#x2F;902059930</a>

I unabashedly prefer living in the suburbs over cities. But I&#x27;m glad the &quot;Urban Revival&quot; happened, and I hope it continues.<p>In my own city, the rising home values have made it economically viable to pour money into formerly decaying row houses that were built for working class families over a century ago. So at least a lot of the ancient, unsafe wiring, plumbing, lead paint, asbestos, etc., is being dealt with by people who can afford to foot the bill.

After adapting to life in 500sqft, a single family home just seems kind of... disgusting. Wasteful. On the other hand, I pay an enormous premium to have a public transit commute of only 25 minutes, while this is totally normally in more car-oriented areas.<p>I hope that, with the return to the suburbs, we distribute those suburbs around the country instead of having a few instances of enormous sprawl. If we continue to scale just a few cities outwards until traffic gets catastrophic, we&#x27;re going to be spending a hell of a long time commuting. (Even if there&#x27;s transit, because transit for single-family-home sprawl will never work <i>that</i> well).<p>Electric cars should be able to mitigate the worst of the environmental impacts.

The crime explanation doesn&#x27;t make that much sense for Chicago, which is geographically quite large and remains one of the most segregated in the country (due in part to the legacy of redlining, which continued into the 1970s).<p>Most of the increases in crime aren&#x27;t felt in areas that urban revivalists move to, but rather in areas to the south and west that for all intents and purposes might as well be different cities.<p>The murder rate in Englewood is a poor explanation for whether or not families will remain in Roscoe Village or Bucktown.

This is somewhat nonsensical. Part of what drives the urban expansion is the rise of two income families.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pewresearch.org&#x2F;ft_dual-income-households-1960-2012-2&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pewresearch.org&#x2F;ft_dual-income-households-1960-20...</a><p>Short commutes to urban centered jobs are VERY attractive to such families. It might mean the urban core boom is over but cities are more than just fancy downtown neighborhoods.

Hard not to see Uber&#x2F;Lyft contributing to the idea that suburbs could be tolerable after all. Certainly changes the equation for me personally.

Hasn&#x27;t this already been forecasted as part of a regular cycle? All of those tech yupsters in SF will eventually start families (maybe later than sooner), and will move back to the suburbs to have kids instead of deal with the space&#x2F;schooling issues of the city.<p>Edit: Richard Florida is a very famous urbanist, but take his predictions with a grain of salt. He has been wrong before, self-admittedly so (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jacobinmag.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;08&#x2F;new-urban-crisis-review-richard-florida" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jacobinmag.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;08&#x2F;new-urban-crisis-review-richa...</a>). The descriptive aspects of this article might be right (the urban rush is slowing or reversing, for certain reasons), but his prescriptive descriptions- maybe less so.

What this article doesn&#x27;t mention is that while in some cities like SF, where rents are astronomically high, there&#x27;s a huge influx of tech workers whose compensations are also relatively high. That coupled with not wanting to deal with traffic as well as younger generation of workers attracted to the city scene results in more and more people crowding into the city. The increase in development of high rise residential is also supportive of the urban revival (cultural, generational, financial) and demand in SF.

&quot;these new urbanites embraced the energy and authenticity — and the ethnic, racial and sexual diversity — that are emblematic of cities&quot;<p>Yes of course, those must be the reasons why young people liked to live in easy to maintain and affordable properties near their place of business.

You&#x27;d think that with ever-increasing evidence of the havoc that climate change is having on our coastal cities, we&#x27;d be better off actively discouraging more people moving to the coasts and investing in other places.

More high rises are needed. American cities have too low density. America should learn from Hongkong and Shenzhen

I think remote work increasing in viability &amp; popularity will continue pushing this trend over time. Many people who work in software and other computer-centric jobs (myself included) no longer feel pressure to live central to a big city for work anymore.

That&#x27;s a good thing. Over-urbanization is a real problem. It&#x27;s much worse outside the US, with monsters such as Delhi and Sao Paulo, with huge slums. The US has managed to avoid that.<p>The other failure mode is where the rich cities eat the country. Japan did that - Tokyo and Osaka are growing, and the rest of the country is emptying out. China is trying desperately to keep Beijing from growing further.