Yahoo Finance Why Everything You Think You Know About The Suburbs Is Wrong
The ongoing renaissance of American cities, combined with shifting values among consumers, led some observers just a few years ago to declare the end of the suburb’s reign as the default destination for those seeking to live out the American dream. But as rising home prices pressure affordability, and millennials (finally) start nab stable jobs and raise children, those suburbs are starting to regain some of that allure.
But these aren’t your grandparents’ suburbs. New data from the Urban Land Institute’s Terwilliger Center for Housing, finds that today’s suburbs aren’t the homogenous bedroom communities that they used to be. Here are five common misconceptions when it comes to suburbs:
Related: 10 Real Estate Trends to Watch in 2016
Suburban residents commute to the city for work.
In 2014, nearly two-thirds of the employment in the 50 largest metro areas was in the suburbs, and from 2010-2014, the number of jobs in the suburbs increased by 9 percent. While traditional suburban office parks remain on the decline, mixed-use suburban developments and master-planned communities, which include employment centers, are thriving.Young people don’t live in the suburbs.
Three quarters of Americans ages 25 to 34 in the country’s 50 largest metro areas reside in the suburbs. Millennials looking for property they can afford to purchase in today’s market are even more likely to live in the “economically challenged” suburbs, older communities with less population growth, and in “greenfield value suburbs,” further-out communities with lower home prices.There’s no diversity in suburbs.
More than three-quarters of the minority population in the 50 largest metro areas live in the suburbs. In stable, middle-income suburbs, minorities account for more than half the population.
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