I've heard the idea bandied about for a while now, but this Miller-McCune post offers a pretty decent distillation of the oncoming suburban crisis. It states that in 2005, suburban poverty topped urban poverty for the first time, and it will continue to do so.By 2025, predicts planning expert Arthur C. Nelson, America will face a market surplus of 22 million large-lot homes (a sixth of an acre or more), attracting millions of low-income residents deeper into suburbia where decay and social and geographic isolation will pose challenges few see coming. ...Nelson and others warn that suburbia's least desirable neighborhoods-aging, middle-class tract-home developments far from city centers and mass transit lines-are America's emerging slums, characterized by poverty, crime and other social ills. Treating those ills is complicated by the same qualities that once defined suburbia's appeal-seclusion, homogeneity and low population density.The trend isn't altogether irreversible. By committing to developing mixed use neighborhoods with access to mass transit-and by not building any more suburbs-we can reshape the residential landscape. Still, the transformation from suburban dream to suburban nightmare in many areas is all but inevitable.The Atlantic has also looked at the idea of suburban slums; read that article here.Via Archinet. Photo via Flickr user ulybug.
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