URBAN AMERICA IS GIVING BACK ITS GAINS …
Recently our founding editor posted an item about his decision to leave the high-tax, high-crime city center of Columbia, S.C. for more economically hospitable climes (to the event such geographic locales exist anymore in South Carolina – or the United States).
Turns out he was – or is – part of a trend.
According to reporter Neil Shah of The Wall Street Journal, “the long tug of war between big cities and suburbs is tilting ever so slightly back to the land of lawns and malls. After two years of solid urban growth, more Americans are moving again to suburbs and beyond.”
Quoting 2012-13 numbers released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau, Shah reports that “fourteen of the nation’s 20 biggest cities saw their growth slow or their populations fall outright.” And quoting Brookings Institution demographer William H. Frey, “just 18 of America’s 51 metropolitan areas with more than 1 million people had cities growing faster than their suburbs last year, down from 25 in 2012.”
Four years ago in the Journal‘s pages, Frey was trumpeting what he referred to as “bright flight” – i.e. “aspiring young adults who see access to knowledge-based jobs, public transportation and a new city ambiance.”
“A new image of urban America is in the making,” he claimed.
Cue Arcade Fire …
20 comments
Conformist.
You getting settled?
It will be interesting to see how liquid these $500,000 condominiums become (that sport a whopping 1200 square feet in downtown Cola and Greenville) a few years from now.
Most of the folks that I know who wish to downsize realize that they will only dine in those fine restaurants three or four times per month and the cityscape scenery from their little perch ain’t all that it’s cracked up to be after a few months.
Once the shine wears off and you have bragged to everyone who will listen that you have “moved downtown for the nightlife”, you tire of riding elevators, steaming concrete and panhandlers and never ceasing street festivals that screw up the simple things like going to grab a few things to make dinner, THEN, you quietly put that bitch on the market, buy a great island house or condo for $385,000 and a single speed cruiser and take up the turtle brigade. Variations are plenty but being 65 and stuck in the business district of any of our screwed up little cities is a nauseating thought.
There will be a glut of those things pretty soon and all your neighbors will be from Ohio and Queens. Carry on Mr. Jefferson.
You mean I shouldn’t buy one of those condo’s at the corner of Gervais and Huger? They have the lovely view of a Hertz rental store and a tanning store.
You got that right. Glad to know there are others who haven’t fallen for the “city “life. I can see one house from mine. Way too overcrowded for my liking. LOL
Living in the suburbs wouldn’t be so bad if the decent jobs were in the ‘burbs.
The crowded commute twice a day sure gets old.
The crowded commute twice a day sure gets old.
Start a blog.
Will Folks is, verily, a Pied Piper for our generation.
Wait….
I relate here, the vivid and dramatic epic of the rats — the scampering army of obscene vermin which so very recently burst forth from the subterranean depths of the Republican Party — the lean, filthy, ravenous army which swept all before it and devoured the environment, the economy, the sick, the elderly, the unemployed, the uninsured, the poor…. The larger rats fed even upon each other in their blood frenzy. Around that unforgettable rodent army a whole separate cycle of myths revolves, and to this day brings curses and horrors in its train.
From the immense height of my perch, I saw Limbaugh knee-deep in filth, driving about with his staff a flock of fungous, flabby pigs whose appearance filled me with unutterable loathing. Suddenly, a mighty swarm of rats rained down on the stinking abyss and fell to devouring his flock and the swineherd alike. On every side alive with nauseous sound — the verminous slithering of ravenous, gigantic rats.
The nation’s capitol was always alive with rats, scampering and milling about, but focused by the sound of pipes, stampeded with force to a single purpose. These creatures, in numbers apparently inexhaustible, were engaged in one stupendous migration to a singular obsidian depth – the destruction of America.
In the wake of the hideous swarm extends an insane tangle of once human endeavors lying about upon the neglected plain. Like a foamy sea they stretched, some fallen apart, others wholly or partly articulated. These latter invariably frozen in final postures of rational persuasion by the demonic frenzy, their forms seeming to either be fighting off some menace or clutching other forms, converted by the rats.
The complete scene was gnawed, mostly by rats, and somewhat by others of the half-human, converted drove. Mixed with them were many tiny bones of rats — fallen members of the lethal army which closed upon them in the initial wave.
You must know it was the rats; the slithering scurrying rats whose scampering continues to this day; the demon rats that race within their defenders in this forum and beckon us all down to greater horrors than we have ever known; the rats they can never hear; the rats, the rats..
TL;DR.
*Too busy gnawing on insulated electrical wiring*
It’s the aftertaste that finally put me off
Gee….. and I was enjoying my weekend – until I read THIS POST..!!
The above photo is from Mr. Folk’s front verandah. The entire open space will soon be enclosed by a 33 foot high wall covered with poison ivy. It will be topped with cemented glass shards cut from the beer bottles he has saved during the last 15 years. No decision has been reached about installing the moat.
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Notice that the entrance driveway allows his children to make only right turns on their tricycles. He is also considering the possibility of having his fiefdom designated a separate municipality. He will then be able to have himself and family members appointed mayor, chief of police, etc.
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Future plans include an anti-drone defense system combined with trained guard dogs. Outside the front gate will be a visitors room where Mr. Folks will autograph his greatly anticipated book (photos with the author will be permissible).
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Fitsnews will have a weekly article featuring uncensored articles and comments from his neighbors.
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Mr. Folks is now beginning his “Golden Days of Glory” —-
PS: no decision yet on naming his fiefdom…..
Sure hope it ends better than PETORIA.
+6 ..! Anyway, Mr. Folks will have planned for every contingency that can be humanly avoided or survivable.
You forgot motion sensor, lazer guided mini-guns.
Isn’t the new Ball Field supposed to cure that issue ?
i don’t buy it. urban is the overriding trend. how are they gonna live in the burbs without a car? nope. you will lose money on a tract house in lexington. and the crime will follow as it gets cheaper to live there than in town. where will they put the folks in gonzales garden when they bulldoze it next year? where did they put residents from handey? in town will be blighted with coffee clutching hipsters who might not be as interesting but not nearly as dangerous.
First-ring suburbs are becoming more urbanized, so leaving for the suburbs doesn’t mean what it did a generation ago. The exurbs have taken on the old suburban role, and as far as I’ve heard, they are still struggling.
Goodness knows why. Who wouldn’t want to live in a vinyl shack behind a Wal-Mart in the beautiful town of Exit 52.
You couldn’t pay me to live out there, wherever you are.