CBD retailers were already struggling before the pandemic. The contrast in fortunes with suburban retail activity is stark, and there are good reasons to think the shift could be permanent.
The American suburban population has increased dramatically in the last few decades.
Shabdro Photo/Moment Collection via Getty Images
President Trump’s image of the suburbs is filled with white people; he wants their votes. But there is another contingent of suburban residents: African Americans, and they’re not in his corner.
Housing developments in northeastern Colorado Springs, Colorado., are typical of the car-oriented suburbs developed in the United States after World War II.
David Shankbone/Wikipedia
Donald Trump has accused the Democrats of wanting to “abolish” and “destroy” the suburbs through a regulation aimed at diversifying housing, a claim unsupported by the facts.
An airtanker drops retardant to help stop the spread of the 2015 Eyrie Fire in the foothills of Boise, Idaho, which was ignited by sparks from construction equipment.
Austin Catlin, BLM/Flickr
Wildfires aren’t always wild. Many of the most expensive and damaging fires happen in suburban areas, and nearly all blazes in these zones are started by humans.
The U.S. spends the most money on advertising in the world. Marketing and advertising spending in 2020 is projected to reach nearly $390 billion.
Dan Mewing/Moment via Getty Images
A mural by Amanda Newman in Northcote, Melbourne, depicts Ai Fen, a Wuhan Central Hospital doctor who was reprimanded for raising the alarm about COVID-19 in December 2019.
Photo: Carl Grodach
The inner suburbs are home to large numbers of workers in jobs vulnerable to the pandemic. If they’re forced to seek cheaper housing in outer suburbs, the urban divide will widen.
On-demand public transport has now provided over 1 million rides in 36 trials in various Australian cities. Is the problem of poor suburban public transport on the way to being solved?
Achieving the American dream.
4 PM production/Shutterstock.com
As more people of color move to the suburbs, they might not find the full range of opportunities that white European ethnic groups did for most of the previous century.
The Kayasehir suburb of Istanbul, Turkey. Cities throughout the world have differing approaches to development at their edges.
Roger Keil
Most of the world’s urban residents now live in suburban areas. A multi-year, multi-site project has conducted research internationally about these changing urban areas.
Residents play Pimp my Suburb, an exercise in engaging the community in achieving higher density while preserving what they love about their neighbourhood.
Anthony Duckworth-Smith
Faced with local planning changes like infill development people often fear they could lose the neighbourhood they love. But serious games are proving effective in giving locals a say in their future.
As one of the fastest-growing cities in the developed world, Melbourne’s suburban sprawl has many costs.
Nils Versemann/Shutterstock
John Stanley, University of Sydney; Janet Stanley, The University of Melbourne y Peter Brain, National Institute of Economic and Industry Research
State and local governments can’t do much about the rapid population growth in Melbourne, but they can take steps to reduce the costs of growing disparities between the outer suburbs and inner city.
New housing estates on the city fringes might be soulless, cookie-cutter developments, but communities can invest them with layers of meaning that create a sense of place.
Lukas Coch/AAP
A sense of place matters for people and communities. When a suburb is created from scratch, close attention needs to be paid to the cues from the landscape and meanings people attach to the area.
Residents of the outer suburbs like the green spaces and sense of community, but lament the lack of access to transport and other services.
theskaman306/Shutterstock
Much of the growth in our cities is in the outer suburbs, now home to around 5 million people. And that creates problems like traffic that detract from the advantages residents see in living there.
The U.S. is getting older, more suburban and less fertile.
connel/shutterstock.com
The average consumerist suburban lifestyle is unsustainable. But what if affluent suburbanites and battlers alike ditch the rat race and embrace economic ‘degrowth’? Here’s how it might unfold.
They’re a long way from the traditional inner-city ‘Chinatowns’, but the suburbs are where you’ll find 21st-century China-born migrants settling.
Jandrie Lombard/Shutterstock
China-born migrants in Australia’s capital cities are becoming more suburban, but there are differences in settlement patterns between the biggest cities and smaller cities.
Traffic crosses over the Lions Gate Bridge from North Vancouver into Vancouver, B.C., in July 2015. Canada is increasingly becoming a suburban nation, with more people living in car-dependent suburbs.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
It’s easy to over-estimate crowding and traffic in highly visible downtown cores and underestimate the vast growth happening in the suburban edges of our metropolitan regions.
Interim Director, UWA Public Policy Institute; Associate Professor & Programme Co-ordinator (Masters of Public Policy), The University of Western Australia