We have a real opportunity to fix this by removing one of them[2], but we're too terrified of change to improve our own lives. So the concrete canyon called I-94 will remain, poisoning the heart of our cities, for at least another four generations. Sigh.
[1] Comparison of the Twin Cities before & after the freeways were built: https://twitter.com/SegByDesign/status/1623376761722490881
Millennials followed the boomers right into the suburbs as they got older and that was before there was a path to killing the commute.
When Gen Z can get by without a commute and live in social media, where is their push for cities going to come from?
- secured a remote job and settled down in their college city
- as a remote worker, followed a significant other or close friend to a city where they have to work in person
- found a hybrid role that allows some in-person work in a city
I think the "work remotely, from your college city" trend is a positive one. I attended college in a small city with a serious brain drain problem (aside from medical folks) and it's nice to see more and more classmates move back to that city as the brain drain reverses.
Certainly the fact that I would have needed to commute to a job that was an hour outside the nearest major city (where I went undergrad) influenced the fact that I just went to live near my office when I graduated grad school. It was mostly the same with my classmates who also worked way out in the burbs/exurbs.
If the commute weren't a factor, I'd probably have at least considered living in the city--at least while I was still renting. (Of course, urban prices weren't nearly as relatively high as they are today.)