This is an excellent article from Publicola on the City’s increase in population density juxtaposed against a migration of jobs to the suburbs.
“Between 2000 and 2009, Seattle added 40,000 new residents – entirely through growth, as opposed to annexation. One quarter of this growth occurred downtown. That’s a good thing. Yet while we’ve been focused on creating dense, walkable communities, the jobs necessary to pay the rent and mortgages on those new apartments and condos have been drifting elsewhere.”
Read the article here.
The Seattle Times posted this article back in May about the trends seen around the country pointing to the reversal of “white flight” – a term describing the demographic segregation that occurred in the United States (and around the world) post-World War II when many white people traded their homes in urban centers as the minority population increased for the suburbs and commuter towns (contributing to sprawl and urban decay). The author notes that “America’s suburbs are now more likely to be home to minorities, the poor and a rapidly growing older population as many younger, educated whites move to cities for jobs and shorter commutes.” (The rest of the article is here.)
[…] city brought crowding, crime, poverty and urban blight. Middle and upper class city dwellers moved to the suburbs as tenements rose and city centers became dangerous, unsanitary and largely unlivable. Early […]