Confronting Suburban Decline: Strategic Planning for Metropolitan Renewal

Rating:
Summary: great work
Review: Some think of sprawl as a simple zero sum game: suburbs win, cities lose. But this book explains (with quantitative analysis from numerous regions) that sprawl, like the French Revolution, devours its own children: that older suburbs decline as newer suburbs suck away their elites. That fact is of course common knowledge in the Rust Belt. But Lucy and Phillips add another level of detail, explaining how some places have survived the rising tide of sprawl while others go into meltdown. Suburbs (and city neighborhoods) with historic housing and pedestrian-friendly features have often managed to keep up with the rest of their metro areas, while typical 1950s suburbs are the biggest losers from sprawl because they are stuck with the worst of both worlds: their housing is too small for 21st century tastes, yet they lack the urban amenities that lead to gentrification.