So Much For The Death Of Sprawl: America's Exurbs Are Booming

New Geography reports that the suburbs aren't dying:

Peripheral, recent suburbs accounted for roughly 43% of all U.S. residences in 2010. Between July 2013 and July 2014, core urban communities lost a net 363,000 people overall, Brookings demographer Bill Frey reports, as migration increased to suburban and exurban counties. The biggest growth was in exurban areas, or the “suburbiest” places on the periphery.

How could this be? If you read most major newspapers, or listened to NPR or PBS, you would think that the bulk of American job and housing growth was occurring closer to the inner core. Yet more than 80% of employment growth from 2007 to 2013 was in the newer suburbs and exurbs. Between 2012 and 2015, as the economy improved, occupied suburban office space rose from 75% of the market to 76.7%, according to the real estate consultancy Costar.

These same trends can be seen in older cities as well as the Sun Belt. Cities such as Indianapolis and Kansas City have seen stronger growth in the suburbs than in the core.

This pattern can even be seen in California, where suburban growth is discouraged by state planning policy but seems to be proceeding nevertheless. After getting shellacked in the recession, since 2012 the Inland Empire — long described as a basket case by urbanist pundits — has logged more rapid population growth than either Los Angeles and even generally healthy Orange County. Last year the metro area ranked third in California for job growth, behind suburban Silicon Valley and San Francisco.

Another great one from Joel Kotkin.