WSJ Blog: America primed for surge of pop. growth in exurbs over coming years

[Virginiá]

I stumbled upon this article just now and I'm curious what you guys think of it, particularly the implications for elections going forward. It seems more suited for the Economics board, but I'm interested in the electoral components, both presidential and downballot.

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Why the Exurbs Are Poised to Take Off in the Coming Years

https://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2017/04/19/why-the-exurbs-are-poised-to-take-off-in-the-coming-years/

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Thoughts?

[LabourJersey]

I'm pretty skeptical that this is going to happen in a way that is going to cause some political shift. I don't necessarily think that people will move out to the exurbs just because they now can--a lot of people really enjoy the ability to walk to get dinner/to shop/to get their kids at school.

I'm sure the exurbs will grow, but I really doubt a surge will come from the cities, unless rents in cities aside from NY/SF/DC suddenly rise up to the levels of those three cities.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Surprised to see this, since it seems that all anyone's talking about around here is how youngs are staying in the city longer. Interesting that the alleged urban (re)growth spurt would meet up with one of our first upticks in crime in decades (though there was at least one scholar who claimed to have found an uptick in crime during the first stages of gentrification).

[GlobeSoc]

What's an exurb? The definition is: "a region or settlement that lies outside a city and usually beyond its suburbs and that often is inhabited chiefly by well-to-do families"

But what would be a real world example of this? And more importantly what makes it different from any other suburb?

St. Charles County, Missouri. McHenry County, Illinois. San Bernardino County, CA. Forsyth and Cherokee Counties, Georgia. Suffolk County, New York.

Generally all Republican-leaning, but not overwhelmingly so. This is why I don't think the Republican Party will ever be dead. These places are growing at rates fast enough to make up for all the decay of rural America. In fact, I'm guessing a lot of the growth in these exurbs are from people who used to be rural residents who have been forced into the urbanization of America due to job opportunities and such.

But exurban growth and rural decay will cause populism to weaken significantly as a factor in the republican party

[Skill and Chance]

What's an exurb? The definition is: "a region or settlement that lies outside a city and usually beyond its suburbs and that often is inhabited chiefly by well-to-do families"

But what would be a real world example of this? And more importantly what makes it different from any other suburb?

St. Charles County, Missouri. McHenry County, Illinois. San Bernardino County, CA. Forsyth and Cherokee Counties, Georgia. Suffolk County, New York.

Generally all Republican-leaning, but not overwhelmingly so. This is why I don't think the Republican Party will ever be dead. These places are growing at rates fast enough to make up for all the decay of rural America. In fact, I'm guessing a lot of the growth in these exurbs are from people who used to be rural residents who have been forced into the urbanization of America due to job opportunities and such.

But exurban growth and rural decay will cause populism to weaken significantly as a factor in the republican party

I think you underestimate how many $75K household income middle manager families voted for Trump.

The immediate effect of this should actually be to break up GOP gerrymanders as 2:1 Dem millennials fan out from the city centers.  Whether living out there pulls people right in the long run is an open question, but in the short run, this will just make a bunch more districts act swing like GA-06 over the next decade or so.  Democrats should be cheering if a bunch of 30-year-olds move into the exurbs.

[pbrower2a]

The exurbs will attract people largely from the suburbs for the lower cost of living and the core cities for the low-paying retail and restaurant jobs.  Trailer parks and cheap apartments will not be priced or zoned out as they are in the big cities (slum apartments are horrible values for square footage alone). Some rural people will stay. Many people like being close enough to the Big City to enjoy its sporting events and cultural attractions on occasion, but they still don't like the crowding, traffic jams, and political climate. The exurbs serve such people well.   

When does an exurb become a suburb? I am already thinking of places like Noblesville, Indiana, which was rural until the 1980s before Interstate 69 supplanted most of Indiana 37 from I-465 to Noblesville. Plano and Lewisville, Texas lost their rural character around 1980. Noblesville has gone from rural community to exurb to suburb in about 30 years. 

If there are contiguous suburbs all the way to the exurb, then the exurb has become a suburb. 

[Roronoa D. Law]

What is considered Exurban/Surbuban depends on the city and who you ask. Since Atlanta is the poster child of urban sprawl I think I can speak to this.

ITP is everything in I-285 this is what people would call the city of Atlanta. According to them everyone OTP is not from Atlanta but from a one way road that flows onto 285. If you go out and ask people in Roswell, Marietta, Tucker, and Morrow they would say Atlanta is Cobb, Clayton, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett. According to them the 5 counties are what make up Atlanta and its suburbs everybody else is from North Georgia.

That isn't far from the truth most people who commute to Atlanta are from the main 5 counties most towns outside these counties are close to 40 mi from the COA. Most people in Fayette and Coweta work near Hartsfield-Jackson and Forsyth and Cherokee working in Perimeter Center/Cumberland.
I know people from these counties who never step foot in Downtown Atlanta. I think an exurb is a surburb of suburbs. If that's the case Republicans better start supporting early voting and mail in ballots cause they'll be sitting in traffic till after polls close.

[Person Man]

Something. Something. Easy Loans. Lifestyle Centers. "I am a Republican because I can afford a $350,000 house on $75,000 a year". This has a very 2005-2007 feel to it.