[M II A II R II K]

America has fallen out of love with the suburbs

https://www.fastcompany.com/90374868...th-the-suburbs

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- The Boston metro area may be the first region in America to claim that it’s put an end to sprawl. “There’s no leasing activity happening in the drivable suburbs,” says Tracy Hadden Loh, senior data scientists at the George Washington University School for Businesses’ Center for Real Estate and Urban Analysis. “All of the new demand for retail, office, and multifamily rental space is going to walkable, urban places.”

- Those walkable, urban places, Loh adds, are not just located in downtown Boston. Adjacent cities, like Cambridge and Somerville, are well connected by transit and contain dense housing options, near shops and amenities, that people want to live in. Looking at the Boston metro area, Loh says, provides a window into what could be the landscape of America in the future: networks of dense, urbanized communities built out around core cities, and connected by non-car transit options like light rail, buses, and bike infrastructure.

- This trend is not just limited to Boston. A new report from GWU and Smart Growth America (Loh is a co-author) finds that on the whole, America is falling out of love with the suburbs. It’s not the location of these places that is the issue, Loh and her co-authors find, but rather their design: sprawling communities of single-family homes that require a car to navigate are not what’s drawing people anymore. What’s popular now are places where people can live in mixed-use, multifamily housing maybe an apartment building above a coffee shop—and walk, bike, or take transit to get around.

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