It wasn’t too long ago that many experts were eulogizing the suburbs as young millennials (and even many aging baby boomers) seemed to prefer the sights, sounds and amenities of urban environments. However, as the millennials have grown older and been increasingly priced out of expensive downtown areas, they have been gradually returning to the suburbs in order to lay down roots and start families.
But they’re not really leaving the city behind. Instead, they’re demanding and supporting the
types of unique, city-like amenities which attracted them there in the first
place.
Yes, the suburbs are again becoming trendy.
Yes, the suburbs are again becoming trendy.
Certainly part of this trend is due to simple math: Given a reported 32 percent increase in
births between 1978 and 1990, it stands to reason that many cities would be
hosting a huge influx of residents born about 25 years ago. Indeed, many cities may have reached “peak
millennial” as the largest group of this generation passed the milestone age of
25 in 2015, and then moved further out as they settled into their careers and
started planning for the next stages of life.
By that same year, nearly 73 percent of those aged 25 to 34 were already
living in suburbs, versus the 21 percent living in cities.
Using the same data sets, Demographia’s Wendell Cox found that between 2016 and 2017 nearly 440,000 residents moved away from counties with urban cores, while the outlying suburbs gained net 252,000 residents. Although some large urban areas have added more people – such as in Dallas, Houston and Atlanta – they tend to have smaller downtown areas ringed by residential areas with a suburban feel.
Although we saw this kind of urban-to-suburban flight between
the 1950s and the 1980s, in that case it was usually due to fear of rising
crime as well as the evolution of more suburban employment centers. Today, however, the same type of migration is
due to the enormous success of the rebirth of many urban centers, which has
been accompanied by soaring home prices and rents. Another difference today is
that the amenities once considered specific to urban cores, such as craft
breweries, fitness boot camps and gluten-free bakeries, are increasingly
popping up in the suburbs.
Whereas yesterday’s behemoths were centered around golf courses designed by the sport’s biggest names and usually required car trips to the neighborhood shopping center, today’s master plans now include not just open space and walking trails, but also retail stores and event spaces more uniquely branded to the community.
And, instead of selling out home sites to merchant builders and then moving onto the next project, some enterprising developers are partnering with HOAs to host regular events ranging from movie nights and luaus to happy hours and cooking classes.
Another land use which could benefit from the
urban-to-suburban trend is retail, especially as more old-style malls are
increasingly being converted into spaces for offices, schools and homes. Given that a 2017 Gallup survey showed that
43 percent of employed Americans work partly from home, local versions of the
co-sharing office space company WeWork are increasingly sprouting up in
suburbs. For local millennial
entrepreneurs, a flexible retail landlord could offer pop-up stores, galleries
and incubator spaces to help test-market their ideas before a formal launch.
Still, some cities are fighting back to retain their
millennials by encouraging suburban-type projects (such as duplexes, row houses
and townhomes) to address the “missing middle” of housing options. By leveraging existing urban amenities with
more family friendly homes, they aim to keep their millennials in town for as
long as possible.
