recession demographics

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a630

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Diversify! It's no shock that the cities whose biggest economic engines were "growth" itself are hurting the most.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I really think that in the next 20 to 40 years America will see a shift towards a more European urban demographic, that is more middle class in the city and lower classes in the suburbs. That isn't to say that all the suburbs will be slums, just that more middle class families will chose to live close to city centers, that's all. If this is the case then older cities with more secure inner cities will see the most improvements while cities that were based on suburban sprawl will see the most slumming.
 
That's sad. Inner cities were (and are) harsh places as slums, but at least the urban poor could walk everywhere, and some were dense enough to provide some "eyes on the street" mediation of crime. Imagine the economic and social devastation of sprawling ghettos. The poor being forced to shoulder auto expenses alone will have a big impact.
 
^^ It makes me think of the Johannesburg working poor. Crowded unsafe shared taxis running unofficial bus routes along the freeways from poor township suburbs into rich employment-center suburbs... and men and women walking many miles each day along those same routes on the highway medians.

Our future suburbia?
 
or our current los angeles - with a more regulated transit system.
 
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