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

[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.