The End of Urban Hype

Joel Kotkin writing in Forbes reports:

The once ballyhooed Trump Tower, once seen as the nation's tallest luxury condominium, remains incomplete, with a massive crane still perched at its top and troubled by persistent rumors of failing financial support. Another hyped project, Santiago Calatrava's 2000-foot, 150-story Chicago Spire, is stuck in the ground because the developer has stopped paying his "starchitect's" bill. All this is not too surprising, given a reported 73% drop in downtown home sales for the first half of the year.

For a decade or more, city leaders have kept thinking that something from outside--demographic changes, high fuel prices or changing consumer tastes--would create a revival for them. This allowed them to avoid doing hard, nasty things like cutting often-outrageous public employee pensions, streamlining regulations, cutting taxes levied on businesses or improving often-dismal schools and basic infrastructure.

Maybe the current downturn can be a wake-up call for city boosters. Overall, since 2000, the average job growth in cities has averaged less than one-sixth that of suburbs

An article well worth your time.