Earlier today, a good friend of mine shared this New York Times article on my Facebook wall. It talks about how some suburbs are taking action to try and curb the exodus of young people to cities. They’re doing things like making themselves more walkable and building bike lanes. I thought it was an interesting article.

Of course, it’s not just young people moving from the suburbs to the city. It’s also a case of young people living in the city and never leaving for the suburbs–which they have traditionally done. 

I’ve talked about this topic a lot here on ATC, but I wanted to share this article because I think it’s one thing to talk about how city centers are on the rise and it’s another thing to talk about how suburbs are starting to take notice and take action to curb their (potential) decline.

I say potential because some would argue that the suburbs aren’t necessarily on the decline–we just have a scenario where young people are delaying that period of their life, either for economic reasons or for personal/lifestyle reasons.

I, however, would disagree. I think the growing preference for cities is a real societal shift. That doesn’t mean I think the suburbs are going to die though. There will likely always be a segment of the market that prefers that housing type (or some variation of). I just think the suburbs aren’t going to be what they once were to previous generations.