The Atlantic has joined the chorus of those who say that suburbs are declining as everyone who is anyone will soon move back to the cities. In The Next Slum, New Urbanist Christopher Leinberger predicts that many of our suburbs will turn into slums as people of wealth and income return to high-density, mixed-use developments.
The Antiplanner has addressed this issue at least once before. To make sure there isn’t any confusion, I don’t really care whether people move back to the cities or not. I just think it is foolish, wasteful, and intrusive for state and local governments to base their land-use policies on the assumption that Leinberger is right.
Belmar row houses “from the mid 300s.”
Photo taken by Jennifer Lang in January 2007.
For example, Leinberger extolls Belmar, a mixed-use development in Lakewood Colorado “built on the site of a razed mall.” Housing there, he says, “commands a 60 percent premium per square foot over the single-family homes in the neighborhoods around it.”
