The International City County Management Association, holding its annual meeting in San Antonio, got a glimpse into the urban future, and there are problems on the horizon for suburbs, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Pioneering urbanologist Richard Florida, whose 2003 book 'The Creative Class' predicted the revival of urban central cores and the development of neighborhoods like Southtown and the Pearl, says in the sixties and seventies, the prevailing urban pattern was people who could afford it getting out of central cities and moving to leafy suburbs, leading to a wealth flight out of cities and leaving many urban areas dealing with the multiple pathologies that come with increased poverty, from crime to dysfunctional families.
This movie was compounded by the construction of major Interstate highways which divided and in many cases destroyed urban neighborhoods, and the perception by the new, almost entirely White middle class of the 1960s, that newer was better, when it came to schools, housing, and infrastructure.
But Florida says in the last decade the opposite has happened, as more and more people, mainly upscale millennials, the 'creative class,' that Florida described in his book, and wealthy retirees interested in the cultural and transportation amenities which are available, return to central cities. And he says a combination of social programs, the gentrification caused by the move of wealthy people into previously lower middle income neighborhoods, like the Pearl and Southtown, have led to a flight of lower income people to the once leafy and bucolic suburbs.
"The poverty in our suburbs, economic despair in our suburbs, economic dislocation in our suburbs, is actually of greater magnitude than the urban crisis," Florida said.
Immigration is adding to that trend, as new immigrants to the U.S. are more likely to be settled by social agencies in suburbs, rather than cities. The Dallas suburb of Irving, which now more than 20% Muslim, is a good example of that trend.
"So many of what we think of urban problems have shifted to the suburbs, as our urban areas have become wealthier," Florida said.
He says many suburbs are unprepared to deal with the 'new poverty,' lacking services like mass transit needed to accommodate the new downscale arrivals.
"The top 10% of income earners have moved to cities, and the bottom 10% of income earners have moved back to suburbs," he said.
Florida says that means many of the pathologies which have affected big cities in the past thirty years, from crime to racial tension, are looming for suburbs which are ill prepared to deal with the inevitable result of this new trend.'
IMAGE; GETTY