Cities and Suburbs Converge into New Economic Generators

This post from Richard Florida explores the shifts underway, and what the new urban-suburban city-states mean in the new economy.

"Watching the Reset unfold, it's been fascinating to see how quickly the once great divide between our cities and suburbs has been shrinking. The most desirable neighborhoods look increasingly similar, no matter where they are. The best urban neighborhoods are safe and have good schools; they are becoming strollervilles and toddler-towns, filled with families as well as singles. The best suburban neighborhoods have great commercial districts with restaurants, movie theaters, and all manner of amenities.

As many of our cities and older inner-ring suburbs are being renovated and revitalized, the great challenge of our time -- far bigger than urban renewal was in decades past -- is to remake our many shoddily-built, far-off exurbs into denser, more- connected, more livable communities. Some of them -- the ones that were built as much to keep the building boom going as because people needed to live in them -- might be fated to shrink back into small towns or disappear altogether."