FOR PEOPLE

Urban Core:
CBD
Urban Core:
Inner Ring
Early Suburb Later Suburb Exurb
Small Area (Zip Code Analysis Zones)
Detached
House
80.0%
Figure 9
Home Ownership by Type
UNITED STATES 2013
0K + Municipalities
in 2013
Multi-Unit
(Apartment,
Condo)
5.3%
Townhouse/
Semi-Detached
5.8%
Mobile
Home
6.5%
Other
.1%
Figure 10
Core Municipality
Share of Growth
MAJOR METROPOLITAN
AREAS: 1950-2010
Core
Municipalities
9.9%
Figure 12
Housing by Family Type
U.S. 2013
100%
80%
Other
Multi Family
Single Family
Detached
82.3%
60%
Portland
New
York
13, 1 year
Baltimore
Denver
Richmond
San Diego
From: American Community Survey, 2013 (1 year)
million Americans live in the core cities
of America’s 51 major metropolitan areas,
n Sectorwhile nearly 122 million Americans live
in the suburbs. And this does not
include the more than half of the core
city population that lives in districts
that are functionally suburban or
exurban, with low density and high
automobile use. 31
This preference has elicited the
disdain of many of America’s leading
intellectuals, of the planning
community and of some urban land
interests. In reviewing the literature,
urban historian Becky Nicolaides has
suggested that, whatever their other
differences, intellectuals generally
burb Later Suburb Exurb
agreed about suburbia: “… the
e Analysis Zones) common denominator was hell.” 32
Much criticism has come from
progressives or liberals, including
President Obama, who proclaimed in
Type
2009 that “sprawl is over.” But some
conservatives also denounce suburban
lifestyles, preferring an engineered
return to an urban more hierarchical
order of a previous age. 33
Suburban
Areas
90.1%
From: U.S. Census Bureau Data
Modern Figure 11 critics have blamed suburbs for
everything Housing from Preferences:
climate change to the
collapse
Realtors
of culture
Survey
and mental health.
The Congress for the New Urbanism has
2011 COMMUNITY
claimed that the suburb “…spells the
PREFERENCE SURVEY
end of authentic civic life.” 34 Going even
Other
further, the hyperbolic Multi-Unit
5.0%
James Howard
Kunstler opines, “The 8.0% state of the Attached art
mega-suburbs of recent decades Single have family
7.0%
produced horrendous levels of alienation,
anomie, anxiety and depression.”
Dependence on fossil fuels, he insists,
will seal the fate of suburbs as we face a
chronic condition of “peak oil.” 35 Even
when gas prices are high, most
Americans still overwhelmingly
choose suburban living. Regardless
of Detached the hysteria about “peak oil,” high
House
gas prices are neither forcing people
80.0%
back into cities nor leading to a mass
exodus from suburbia.
Figure One 12reason may be the vast
Housing preference for by single Family family Type housing,
U.S. particularly 2013 among married couples. Over
80 percent of married couples live in this
Other Multi Family Single Family
100% kind of housing, compared to barely fifty
percent for “non-family” households of
40%
20%
0%
Married
Couples
Single Head
of Household
Non Family
Household
From: Derived from American Community Survey 2013
(One Year)
80%
BEST CITIES FOR PEOPLE 15