Housing
Where Cities Are Growing Faster Than Their Suburbs
In 19 of the 51 largest U.S. metros, including knowledge centers like New York, the city grew faster than the suburbs last year.
Where is growth happening in America: cities or suburbs? For much of the last half-century, growth was a suburban phenomenon. But over the past decade or so, many have noted the comeback of cities and the urban core—a phenomenon Alan Ehrenhalt dubs “the great inversion.” In fact, the question of where growth is centered—in cities or suburbs—has emerged as one of the great dividing lines in the debate over urban America’s future.
Last month, Brookings Institution demographer William Frey parsed through the most recent Census data on population growth to dig into this fundamental question.