Is Urban Renewal a Myth? Are Suburbs Where it's At?

I found this article quite interesting, especially since it was written three years ago before Covid-19 started wrecking urban areas like New York and San Francisco. 

Basically, it would appear suburbs are where the growth is and urban areas are not,

In the last decade, about 90% of U.S. population growth has been in suburbs and exurbs, with CBDs accounting for .8% of growth and the entire urban corps for roughly 10%. In this span, population growth of some of the most alluring core cities — New York, Chicago, Philadelphia — has declined considerably. Manhattan and Brooklyn, have both seen their rate of growth decline by more than 85% since 2011. Nationally, core counties lost over 300,000 net domestic migrants In 2016 (with immigrants replacing some some of those departees), while their suburbs gained nearly 250,000.

Furthermore, suburbs aren't as bad as many make them out to be,

Dense urban living has been linked to many new diseases (including psychosis, cancer, and cardiovascular disease) over the past decade, and new research contradicts the old narrative some architectural and urbanists are still spreading about the supposed healthiness of city living. Research shows that proximity and exposure to parks and outside spaces is linked to better health outcomes and life expectancy — and that the best place for most people to have this is in suburbia, given how difficult and expensive it would be to dramatically expand park spaces in densely populated cities.

The author, Joel Kotkin, also makes the point that suburbs aren't as bad for the environment as many people think (more trees, open space, etc.).

I'm not a huge fan of the endless, sprawling suburbs. Commute times and their repetitious monotony is dreary. But Kotkin makes a good case. And especially with Covid-19's impact, I suspect surburbia to continue apace.