For decades, Americans have moved to the suburbs in search of bigger homes and better schools. But through the recent downturn, this became much harder to do. Now, as the nation’s economic health continues to strengthen, migration trends are shifting back toward the nation’s suburbs. This article from The Wall Street Journal reports on an analysis of some of the new data from the Census Bureau by William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution.
The population of U.S. counties that represent the “urban cores” of large metropolitan areas – inner cities and dense, inner suburban areas – grew just 0.73% between July 2013 and July 2014, down from a growth rate of 0.90% the previous year. The year before, this growth rate also dropped, from 0.97%.
Suburbs of large metro areas, by contrast, are seeing their growth rates increase. The population of newer suburbs grew 1.20% last year, Mr. Frey’s analysis shows, up from 1.11% and 1.01% in the two prior years.
Perhaps most interesting: So-called exurbs – the peripheral parts of metro areas far from inner cities – saw population growth of 0.87% last year, up from 0.56% the previous year. This rate is now higher than the growth rate for inner cities.
