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Comment by vkou | Hacker News Reader

In which case, I'd cite the ability, and the desire of the American middle class to raise their children in a gated suburbia to be a far more likely factor.

Think of it as a typical parent - would you want your kid to go to school in Detroit? (The same school that Balanced Budget politics is more then willing to defund.)

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That trend lasted from the 50's through the 90's or so, but the trend now has been to move back into cities, except for Detroit.

I think it is way too early to call a trend. And to the degree cities are growing just barely faster than suburbs (.2%) for the last couple years, that can largely be explained by the housing bubble and recession. While there is some data showing young people moving to cities, there isn't much showing families returning to cities.

According to his analysis of the 51 metropolitan areas with more than 1 million people, the primary cities in those metros grew an average of 1.1 percent, compared with 0.9 percent growth in the suburban areas of those metros between July 2010 and July 2011.*

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/06/urban...

It remains to be seen whether the trend among young people will continue as those generations have their own children.

This is true of many metro areas. The overall decline in Dallas (Texas) schools began with the boom economy in the 70's and 80's and the flight of the middle class to suburbia, the Park cities and exurbia. It was sped up due to school integration and ever ongoing mass migration of poor and wealthy from out of state/county.

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