With its surging job and population growth, and high retail sales, downtown Chicago is outperforming the suburbs for the first time in decades. Perhaps more than any other city in the country, it reflects the inversion of the post-war paradigm.
Greg Hinz describes how downtown Chicago, which is "adding residents faster than any other urban core in America," has become "the new economic engine of the metropolitan area and, increasingly, the rest of Illinois."
"The Chicago Loop long has been one of the world's greatest job centers, of course. For much of its history, though, downtown emptied out after office hours. And as the city aged and its population declined, the suburbs rose to become the preferred home to generations of young families and the tollways became employment corridors of their own."
"In recent years, those trends have reversed. After decades of watching the suburbs boom (often at the city's expense), Chicago now is outperforming the surrounding area by almost any measure—jobs, income, retail sales and residential property values, to name a few—despite the loss of 200,000 people in the 2010 census."
"If for decades after World War II we asked whether the area could prosper with rich suburbs but a dying inner city, the question now is whether the area can prosper with a thriving core but sinking neighborhoods and inner-ring suburbs around it."
FULL STORY: The hottest urban center in the U.S. — Chicago's mega-Loop
Explaining America's Great Inversion
Richard Florida speaks with Alan Ehrenhalt about the subject of his new book, The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City: the reversal of the last century's great shift in people and economic activity to the suburbs
The Natalist Case For Sprawl (And Why It Fails)
Some commentators defend anti-urban government policies such as exclusionary zoning on the basis that homeowning suburbanites have high birth rates. But this doesn't seem to be true in recent decades.
Off-Street Parking in the Midburbs
In several New Jersey cities, eliminating parking requirements has boosted local businesses.
Trump Administration Could Effectively End Housing Voucher Program
Federal officials are eyeing major cuts to the Section 8 program that helps millions of low-income households pay rent.
Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
Ken Jennings Launches Transit Web Series
The Jeopardy champ wants you to ride public transit.
Making Mobility More Inclusive
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Texas Bills Could Push More People Into Homelessness
A proposal to speed up the eviction process and a bill that would accelerate enforcement of an existing camping ban could make the state’s homelessness crisis worse, advocates say.
USGS Water Science Centers Targeted for Closure
If their work is suspended, states could lose a valuable resource for monitoring, understanding, and managing water resources.
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