The End of the Suburbs: Where the American Dream Is Moving (29 page)

the median age in the United States
:
Frey, “Uneven Aging,” p. 4.

The change is more pronounced in the suburbs
:
Ibid., pp. 1, 11.

one-third of all suburbs saw an absolute decline
:
Ibid., p. 11.

by 2025, an estimated 72 percent of American homes
:
Arthur C. Nelson, “Leadership in a New Era,”
Journal of the American Planning Association
72, no. 4 (Autumn 2006): 393–409.

the Janssens (four kids)
:
Names in this sentence have been changed.

from 2007 to 2009, the height of the recession
:
Paul D. Sutton, PhD, Brady E. Hamilton, PhD, and T. J. Mathews, MS, “Recent Decline in Births in the United States, 2007–2009,” National Center for Health Statistics Data Brief, March 2011, p. 1.

Married households now make up
:
“The Decline of Marriage and Rise of New Families,” Pew Research Center, November 18, 2010.

in the 1950s, half of men and women who married
:
U.S. Census Bureau.

now, the average age is twenty-eight for men
:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics.

Between 2007 and 2009, while the birth rate in the United States fell
:
Sutton et al., “Recent Decline in Births,” p. 2.

a record 27 percent of all households
:
U.S. Census Bureau, America’s Families and Living Arrangements, 2012.

According to an AARP survey
:
Nicholas Farber, Douglas Shinkle, et al., “Aging in Place: A State Survey of Livability Policies and Practices,” AARP and the National Conference of State Legislatures, December 2011.

“In some ways, current senior growth”
:
Frey, “Uneven Aging,” p. 10.

Fairfax County, Virginia
:
Carol Morello, “If Baby Boomers Stay in Suburbia, Analysts Predict Cultural Shift,”
Washington Post
, June 28, 2011.

In Levittown, Pennsylvania
:
Haya El Nasser and Paul Overberg, “Census Reveals Plummeting U.S. Birthrates,”
USA Today
, June 24, 2011.

The average Manhattan apartment
:
The Corcoran Report, 3rd Quarter 2012.

There are now twenty-six hundred more married families
:
U.S. Census Bureau.

the financial district, where fifty-seven thousand people
:
Downtown Alliance, Lower Manhattan Fact Sheet, Q3 2012.

In 2011, 22 percent of twenty-five- to thirty-four-year-olds
:
Kim Parker, “The Boomerang Generation: Feeling OK About Living with Mom and Dad,” Pew Research Social & Demographic Trends, March 15, 2012, p. 2.

Overall, 53 percent of all adults
:
Ibid., p. 6.

best captured by a
New Yorker
magazine cover
:
New Yorker
, May 24, 2010.

the Pew Research Center found
:
“Millennials: A Portrait of Generation Next,” Pew Research Center, 2010. For much of human history, it was actually quite normal and even expected for people to live with their parents until their twenties or thirties—typically, until they got married. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was even illegal for unmarrieds to live alone in the United States. Until the 1940s it remained common that young adults lived with their parents or other family until they were married.

William May
:
Name has been changed at subject’s request.

From 2009 to 2011, just 9 percent
:
Ben S. Bernanke, “The U.S. Housing Market: Current Conditions and Policy Considerations,” Federal Reserve white paper sent to the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.

the record 30 percent of households
:
U.S. Census Bureau.

“21 percent of millennial moms”
:
“21 Percent of Millennial Moms Use Their Phone in the Bathroom and 12 Percent Use It During Sex,” PR Newswire, May 9, 2012.

77 percent of millennials
:
Shyam Kannan, “Suburbia, Soccer Moms, SUVs and Smart Growth,” Robert Charles Lesser & Co., Public Strategies Group, February 2, 2012, p. 11.

A National Association of Realtors study found
:
“The 2001 National Community Preference Survey: What Americans are looking for when deciding where to live,” National Association of Realtors, March 18, 2011.

say they’d rather live in a neighborhood with
:
G. M. Filisko, “How Millennials Move: The car-less trends,”
On Common Ground
, National Association of Realtors, Summer 2012.

many are willing to pay for the ability to walk
:
S. Mitra Kalita and Robbie Whelan, “No McMansions for Millennials,”
Wall Street Journal
, January 13, 2011.

the 2011 figures showed birth rates
:
“Births: Preliminary Data for 2011,” CDC National Vital Statistics Reports.

Similar efforts are under way
: Vanessa Wong, “Micro-Apartments in the Big City: A Trend Builds,”
Bloomberg Businessweek
, March 14, 2013.

Arthur C. Nelson
:
Heather LaVarnway, “The Changing American Dream: Shifting Trends in Who We Are and How We Live,” February 2012; coverage of Nelson’s December 2011 address at Pace University Land Use Law Center’s conference on sustainable development.

William Lucy, professor of urban and environmental planning
:
William H. Lucy, Lawrence Lewis Jr. Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning, “A Different Path to a Housing Rebound,” University of Virginia, September 20, 2010.

CHAPTER SIX: WHERE THE WEALTH IS MOVING

Mad Men
quote
:
Courtesy of AMC Network Entertainment LLC.

“unerringly contextual
:”
Robbie Whelan, “A Departure from McMansions,”
Wall Street Journal
, August 22, 2011.

“Fortress of Glassitude”
:
One sample: Pete Davis, “Fortress of Glassitude Ready to Rise at 400 Park Avenue South,” curbed.com, July 16, 2012.

Toll’s City Living division
:
As Toll Brothers’ Bob Toll wrote in a regulatory filing in 2003: “We see great demand from affluent buyers for dramatic residences in exciting urban locations. The resurgence of American cities, fueled by population growth, increasing affluence and the appeal of bright city lights, is a catalyst.”

Toll Brothers City Living “is our best market . . .”
:
Vivian Marino, “Square Feet: Douglas C. Yearley Jr.,”
New York Times
, March 24, 2011.

Highbrow publications
:
See www.theatlanticcities.com and Salon.com’s Dream City column, authored by Will Doig, at salon.com/topic/dream_city/.

Reversing a ninety-year trend
:
William H. Frey, “Demographic Reversal: Cities Thrive, Suburbs Sputter,” Brookings Institution, State of Metropolitan America series, June 29, 2012.

In many of the biggest cities
:
U.S. Census Bureau.

cities like New York, which saw the population within
:
Steven G. Wilson et al., U.S. Census Bureau, “Patterns of Metropolitan and Micropolitan Population Change: 2000 to 2010,” September 2012, p. 28. The exact number was a gain of 37,422 people or 9.3 percent.

and where new census numbers show
:
David Seifman, “The Bigger Apple: Population Spike Reverses Exodus,”
New York Post
, March 15, 2013.

In Philadelphia, the 2010 census revealed
:
U.S. Census Bureau; also, “Leading the Way: Population Growth Downtown,” Central Philadelphia Development Corporation and the Center City District, September 2011.

Of all cities, Chicago showed the biggest gain
:
Wilson et al., U.S. Census Bureau, “Patterns of Metropolitan and Micropolitan Population Change: 2000 to 2010.”

The population of the Loop area alone
:
David Roeder and Art Golab, “Loop Transforms into More Residential Area over Last Decade,”
Chicago Sun-Times
, February 25, 2011.

Manhattan is expected to add
:
“New York City Population Projections by Age/Sex & Borough, 2000–2030,” the City of New York, Department of City Planning, December 2006; also, Amy O’Leary, “Everybody Inhale: How Many People Can Manhattan Hold?”
New York Times
, March 1, 2012. The current population of Manhattan as of the 2010 census is 1,585,873.

When it was mulling locations
:
“Room and Board Buys into 14th Street,” dcmud.com, June 10, 2009.

In St. Louis, an old abandoned
:
These look pretty great. See www.warehouse7lofts.com.

In Boston, a West Coast development firm
:
Casey Ross, “West Coast Firm Takes on Fort Point,”
Boston Globe
, October 20, 2011.

In 1975, the
New York Daily News
:
New York Daily News
front-page headline, “Ford to City: Drop Dead,” October 30, 1975.

In Philadelphia, much of the population increase
:
U.S. Census Bureau; also, “Philadelphia: The State of the City, a 2012 Update,” Pew Charitable Trusts and the Philadelphia Research Initiative, 2012.

She listed ten more benefits
:
Daily’s full list of things she likes most about living in Boston is here, verbatim:

-Access to museums for quick visits (kid-length)

-Fun, quick access to free events—fireworks, free music, cliff diving (Red Bull sponsored a contest last weekend where people dove off the top of the Institute of Contemporary Art into Boston Harbor)

-People visiting town—easier to see extended network of people

-I’m still living my life—e.g., restaurants, music

-Access to sports—friends with tickets they can’t use for professional sports are frequently offered to us b/c we can use them on a last-minute basis

-More time by not having to take care of a house

-Not more expensive, just a trade-off of space (vs. a house in the suburbs)

-kids get a lot of activity—lot of walking, parks, even in winter

-Internet shopping makes things much easier (can’t imagine not having that!)

-Can get groceries delivered (I don’t do this all the time)

Walmart has said it is planning “hundreds”
:
Laura Heller, “Hundreds of Small Walmarts Are Coming Soon,”
Daily Finance
, March 11, 2011, and Tom Ryan, “Walmart’s View from 15,000 Square Feet,” Retailwire.com, March 14, 2011; store info at corporate.walmart.com.

By 2016 Best Buy plans
:
Zach Honig, “Best Buy to Close 50 Big Box U.S. Retail Stores, Open 100 Mobile Stand-Alone Outlets in 2013,” engadget.com, March 29, 2012.

Even Target
:
Matt Townsend, “Target’s City Ambitions,”
Bloomberg Businessweek
, May 31, 2012.

“You have a massive rush throughout retail”
:
Miguel Bustillo, “As Big Boxes Shrink, They Also Rethink,”
Wall Street Journal
, March 3, 2011.

As of this writing, JCPenney
:
Lois Weiss, “Penney Shines Images with Lafayette Lease,”
New York Post
, May 2, 2012.

in 2007, United Airlines left
:
“United Airlines Moving Its Headquarters to the Willis Tower,”
Chicago Tribune
, August 13, 2012.

This year, Hillshire Brands
:
Hillshire Brands 10K report.

Motorola Mobility is shuttering
:
Sandra Guy, “Motorola Mobility Leaving Libertyville for Merchandise Mart,” suntimes.com, July 26, 2012.

“The whole corporate campus seems”
:
Eddie Baeb, “Crain’s Special Report: Corporate Campuses in Twilight,”
Crain’s Chicago Business
, May 30, 2011.

In New York City, UBS
:
Charles V. Bagli, “Regretting Move, Bank May Return to Manhattan,”
New York Times
, June 8, 2011.

Twitter, Zynga, Airbnb, Dropbox
:
A notable exception to the tech moguls’ fascination with cities is Steve Jobs, who lived and worked his whole life in the suburbs (he lived in a Tudor house in Palo Alto, and Apple’s headquarters were in nearby Cupertino). But when Apple-owned Pixar moved to a new headquarters in Emeryville, California, Jobs pushed the designers to emphasize central locations where employees could mingle with one another with the hope of fostering creativity. Another exception is Mark Zuckerberg, who has built Facebook’s headquarters into a massive campus in Menlo Park, but one that attempts to approximate urbanism, with a walkable commercial strip that includes a dry cleaner, gym, doctor’s office, and various eateries.