Sunday, August 5, 2012

Article Review: Kotkin on Suburbs




Some things don't change much generation to generation.

When my grandmother graduated from Ohio State, she moved to an urban California location. Just a few years later, she was living in Massillon, Ohio--a suburban kind of place--where she would live the next 50+ years.

That was the late 1930's but, despite four generations passing the torch, this path to the suburbs preference hasn't changed much. Joel Kotkin's latest column points this out with facts to back it up.

Kotkin's review is bad news for urban planners and those who prefer Americans be gas priced or otherwise forced to live denser lives in denser places. It also should convince policy makers that an urban my-piece-of-the-pie approach to governing is not going to grow our economy.

I'm glad Grandma chose suburban life. Like her, I once chose urban living, it didn't last.


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