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Comment by skolor | Hacker News Reader

We've seen the reverse of this now. Everything I've seen has shown that newer generations are moving more into the cities, back to closer to their employers.

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Have to factor in population density and massive increases in the population overall. US pop in 1950 was less than half of what it is now. So I could see why it would work out back then.

I've heard that my entire life. "The city is coming back". "Its not like ten years ago when the cities were dead" I'm in my 40s. Same message for the last four decades. Think about that, four times in a row, the city has always been dead a decade ago but now its returned, no really, this time its true.

I'm told by elders that sloganeering about urban renewal and return began around 1955, about 5 years after the burbs started getting built out.

Yep. They used to say every generation thinks they're the first to discover sex, but as I get older it seems like that applies to many, many things.

Since 2010, population growth has either restarted in many cities that lost inhabitants for decades, or has accelerated for cities that never stopped growing. New York, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, D.C., Minneapolis, Miami, Philadelphia, Denver, and Chicago have all experienced this phenomenon, not to mention others, I'm sure. It's a huge trend.

City populations can grow without an actual trend of increasing desire to live in the city. It's the percentage that matters, not the absolute number.

Some cities are growing a bit, but far more people, proportionally, are heading to the suburbs, which is where all the fastest-growing places in the US are.

For example, between 2000 and 2014, SF added about 75,000 residents. In that same period, Irvine, CA added about 150,000 residents, and one quadrant of the Dallas suburbs, Collin County, TX (the northern suburbs) added about 400,000 residents. All of NYC put together in the same period added 500,000 residents, slightly beating out this one part of suburban Dallas.

I personally like living in dense urban areas, but for there to be a sea change in that direction on the scale of overall American trends, people need to be moving into cities in much larger numbers. Here's a modest goal that would represent an undeniable change, even if still only for a small minority of the population: over the next 10 years, 2-3% more Americans live in dense urban areas than currently. That's ~6-9 million more people in dense urban areas. As far as I can tell, we're nowhere near being on track for that to happen.

I wonder if increased urban demand pushing up housing costs in metro areas will eventually cause a reverse migration back to the suburbs (facilitated by telecommuting).

Increase telecommuting would solve a lot of the transportation problems. I've been full-time remote for awhile now. I turned down an offer that was almost double my current salary because I don't want to commute.

Agree, I'm the same way. I insist on being paid the same as people who live in the city though. My value doesn't change just because I live in a cheaper place.

I believe I'm paid a similar rate to other people in my city but I also believe I'm still underpaid. The market for my specific skills is starting to open up though and there is much more demand than there is supply of workers right now. I don't like when companies think they can get away with 1/2 salary for an expert just because it's a remote position.

There's also increased demand for "walkable" neighborhoods in suburban areas. Higher density housing with grocery stores, doctor's offices, restaurants, and bars all in a single development.

I think there's potential for all of that to come into the suburbs since it will eventually be so cheap to live there. Artists and squatters can turn these abandon office parks into co-ops and urban farms :)

I know they were building that in the early 60s because that's where I grew up and where I live today. Well, I grew up in a 1930 house in a suburb, but same zoning.

Also I know there were awful exurbs built during the peak of the bubble, say a decade ago. Sometime between 1960 and "now" suburb designs went badly downhill.

I have observed over my life that suburb street layout corresponds with this zoning trend. If you live in a subdivision/burb with straight lines and many connections to the arterial road, you probably have a grocery store, dentist, bars, and restaurants within short walking distance, but if you live in "bowl of spaghetti" subdivision/burb with exactly one connection to exactly one arterial road, then you probably need to drive at least five miles to buy a gallon of milk.

They always have.

Then they have kids.

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