The New Slums

From The Atlantic, an interesting article on the role reversal underway between suburbs and cities. Where suburbs were once seen as the model of the future, abandoning the rundown, crime ridden cities of the time, now it is the cities and urban-esque walkable areas that are seen as having a bright future, while the suburbs may be headed towards crime and squalor. It's an article about the U.S. and cities never turned into slums as badly in Canada as they did in the U.S., but much of what is said seems likely to apply in Canada as well.

Waterloo's transformation of Waterloo Town Square, its downtown mall built like a suburban mall, back into something which looks more urban (with less of a sea of parking, and more through streets and shops facing the street rather than facing inward toward the mall.) is one example. Toronto has also seen a migration of some of the worst areas from downtown into the fringes of the city, and Vancouver is seeing gentrification of the downtown east side which may lead to the same thing one day.

And I'm no expert on Europe, but from what I hear, this pattern (prosperous cities, surrounded by slummy suburbs) is already somewhat the case there.