Isn’t it bizarre how in college short distances, walkability and building high capacity accommodations on a budget are a priority to create productive, collaborative, social and affordable environments but after college, people move to suburban hell
When you're young and not tied down, and also likely lack much money, you prioritize a different lifestyle and are also in college to, presumably, accomplish your goal of getting a degree and learning something.
For many, once they get older and desire a slower, calmer, quieter life, and especially if you want more space with kids, the suburbs start holding more appeal. And that also factors in constraints about job availability.
Suburbs don't need to be car-dependent. The suburban appeal in fact has nothing to do with cars.
In Germany as just one example, there was (when I lived there) excellent, reliable bus service in and between suburbs. And connecting the suburbs to light rail, which connected to the city center.
The big complaint I had in my 20s was that the light rail stopped running before midnight.
Probably true, but unless you have infinite money, building enough housing with expensive rail infrastructure is pretty tough. We can only manage truly world-class(ish) transit in (parts of) one city, NYC, and plenty of people still routinely choose to move out of Manhattan upon having kids instead of staying, either because they can't afford enough space to reasonably make a go of it, or because it's so much easier to do the car-dependent suburb. So, the people themselves are choosing it. Whatever anyone thinks of it, there is plenty of evidence that a lot of people who have a choice choose something other than the urban walkable deal.
PS: Don't come at me please, I loved living in a big urban city, but moved out because I refused to choose only one of: big enough home, safe neighborhood, decent schools, reasonable commute distance. And honestly to stay in the urban core where I used to live, only "commute distance" was even available.
Take a look at a satellite view of the suburban areas where most Americans actually live. They're mostly post-1950 and were built with basically the opposite assumptions as Europe:
1. Homes spaced generously with residential districts stretching out tens of miles in every direction from the dense-ish core.
2. Homes fully isolated from business districts (i.e. anywhere anyone would want to go)
3. High-speed arterial stroads or, in tonier suburbs, basically expressways, which serve as the connection between neighborhoods.
4. Offices and other workplaces dispersed into strip malls, long stroads, and industrial parks throughout an area, rather than concentrated in a primary central business district.
Turning all that into a cool Dutch city or town where people are going to bike or take trains everywhere pretty much requires bulldozing and starting again. Again I say this with no judgment, I think 'Not Just Bikes,' for instance, makes a perfectly good case that our way is lame and the Dutch are doing great. But realistically I would never hold my breath expecting the US to transform even 1/10 of the way to the Europe style of transport.
If colleges represent the ideal social environment, count me out.
I'm 61 now, and for the last 6 years I've lived in a very small village in rural NM. Those big cities? Well, I'll go if I have to and will not complain the way some folks would. But I certainly do not love them the way I once did, and it's not because they changed.
Too noisy, too dirty and the bad traffic...
Well they certainly aren't able to buy within walking distance of their office job. Even if housing exists, is not dangerous, or they could afford it, it won't work if a couple doesn't work in same exact area, unlike strolling around campus between classes.
I like city density myself, but you do have to remember that "high capacity accommodations" in this case means "sharing a room with a stranger and a bathroom with twenty."