U.S. Is Revitalizing Urban Living
City Living Offers Luxury and Convenience Along With Green Benefits
Jun 6, 2008
Benefits of Urban Living
Proximity is generally considered a luxury. Proximity to beaches cranks up the value of coastal real estate. Same goes for the slopes in any ski resort area. And for houses that sit along golf course fairways.
In city living, it’s about closeness to daily life: work, play, dining and friends. Whatever an urban dweller wants he has within reach, within stroll, within a bike commute. It's environmentally friendly, economical, and simple living. It's a lifestyle.
As depressed city centers across the U.S. have worked in recent years to revive themselves with residential and commercial loft districts, coffee houses, art galleries, and gourmet eateries it will be the early joiners who gain the most from the effort. Living close to work and play will, at some point in the future, no longer be a luxury. Rather it will be a necessity for many.
Long commutes to work from suburbia – commonly 45 minutes to an hour in the U.S. Midwest and as long as a few hours in more heavily populated metro areas such as New York City – will need to be phased out as costs become prohibitive to the masses.
Costs of living are increasing faster than the incomes that try to afford them, especially as Corporate America deems acceptable annual salary increases that are lower than the annual rate of inflation.
The benefits of America’s re-embracing truly urban living can be: better mass transit systems, better educational districts, and more successful law enforcement agencies funded by a deeper tax base. And communities can become stronger, more productive, and more caring through the physical closeness of shared spaces.
Difficulties of Urban Living
American suburbia bloomed after the middle-class population left the urban centers. Residential subdivisions promised more predictability, safety, and solitude from certain elements – traffic, noise, late-hours activity, crime, pollution – more commonly found in urban areas.
When educated professionals who could afford to move from city centers to suburbia – and in recent years even further to outer rings known as exurbia – they created an economical void in the cities.
The infrastructure that depended on the higher level of financial flow – including taxes that support police departments and educational systems – became distressed and weak. That disrepair is what is now being tended to by pioneers of urban dwelling, those who are building and rehabbing a once decrepit landscape with modern living opportunities.
Balancing Pros and Cons of Urban Living
The negatives caused in any given city by earlier flight of the population to suburbia find their best cure in the return of the population. Its participation in the economy, community planning, businesses and schools is what will revitalize stalled urban hubs. It will take time and persistence – like any good goal.
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