Voltage blog entries tagged with: metropolitan

Interesting report out from Brookings – The State of Metropolitan America. It’s fully readable with lots of good comparative graphics. The ‘five new realities’ from the exec summary pull out the major trends, although the report makes more sense when you read through their descriptions of the types of metro areas.

Speaking of the graphics, there’s a great interactive map feature online with the report, that shows various statistics at the metro area, city, suburb, and state level – like change in foreign born population, how people commute, all kinds of stuff that are talked about in the report. It’s simple and relatively easy to use.

Consider the previous Brookings report along with this article in the Harvard Business Review about the Unintended Consequences of Cul-de-Sacs, probably the most representative form of development for the American auto-dependant suburb. Could it be that along with the demographic shifts occurring in cities/suburbs is an awareness that current patterns of development are not affordable in the long-term, for the new residents of these places?

Lots has been written lately about re-tooling or retrofitting the suburbs to make them more sustainable – mostly from a transportation perspective. So there’s recognition that connectedness is inherently a good thing, and maybe now we’re swinging back around to pre-war development layouts. Many more pieces to this puzzle than just streets, though. If you’re going to make a community more connected, more walk/bike-able, then you need a local destination, like a park, or a store, or a community school, etc.