Suburbs Outstrip Cities in Population Growth, Study Finds
Suburbs Outstrip Cities in Population Growth, Study Finds
Bob Miller for The Wall Street Journal
Big cities may be getting all the attention, but the suburbs are holding their own in the battle for population and young earners.
That is the thrust of a study of population trends and housing set to be released Monday by the Urban Land Institute’s Terwilliger Center for Housing, a nonprofit real-estate research group.
Property developers and urban-policy experts have trumpeted the influx of young, affluent professionals into big central cities in recent years. The shift has transformed downtown areas, sparking a historic boom in luxury-apartment construction and retail development.
That, in turn, has fueled affordability concerns in cities as diverse as Cleveland and Dallas. Median home values in the urban areas studied were $365,000, compared with $305,000 in the suburbs.
But research shows that suburbs are continuing to outstrip downtowns in overall population growth, diversity and even younger residents.
The suburban areas surrounding the 50 largest metropolitan areas make up 79% of the population of those areas but accounted for 91% of population growth over the past 15 years, according to the study. What’s more, three-quarters of people age 25 to 34 in these metro areas live in suburbs.
Stockton Williams, executive director of the Terwilliger Center, said suburbs will continue to play a key role in helping cities, by providing lower-cost alternatives, tackle their affordability challenges.
“We won’t solve the many economic and social challenges that are bound up in our housing market in the urban core,” he said.
The factors that have enticed Americans for decades to move to the suburbs, such as lower-cost housing and proximity to jobs, remain in place.
As of 2014, about two-thirds of jobs in the 50 largest metros were in the suburbs. While employers in the mid-20th century moved thousands of jobs out of urban areas into suburban office parks, the Urban Land Institute found that job growth recently has been more balanced. Between 2005 and 2010, employment in urban areas grew by 8%, while it remained stagnant in the suburbs. But in recent years, that trend has reversed, with suburbs seeing a 9% increase in jobs and city centers just 6%.
Still, the findings point to steep challenges some suburbs face. Providing services such as public transportation and school-lunch programs in some less-affluent suburban areas remains challenging because many are more spread out and have less established nonprofit bases than urban areas.
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