Sun Belt Cities Need a New Approach to Urbanism

"That future can be seen now in the cities of the Urban Sun Belt — the 22 metropolitan statistical areas in the Sun Belt with a population of 1 million people or more," according to an article published by the Kinder Institute for Urban Research. 

The article previews a new white paper from the Kinder Institute, titled "The Urban Sun Belt: An Overview," which "explores the interconnected opportunities and problems facing these large, young and quickly growing metro areas and how they differentiate them from the big cities of the Rust Belt and Coastal/Mountain regions of the U.S."

One of the prominent features of the biggest Sun Belt metropolitan areas is their quick growth, which includes quick growth in low-income populations. Meanwhile, affordability, a major selling point for many of these cities during the growth of recent decades, is slipping away. 

For solutions to the challenges facing Sun Belt cities, the report suggests a new kind of urban policy, tailored to the unique qualities of those cities. "Many of the challenges facing the Urban Sun Belt are very specific to those metros. Making it more difficult to meet these challenges, according to the report, is the fact that most American urban policy is still crafted — and policy research is still conducted — with traditional Northeastern and Midwestern cities in mind," according to the article.