![]() It seems as if the lure of lawns-and an affordable one-at that wins out. It’s perhaps surprising given the polarization in American politics that residents are turning a blind eye to what their neighbors believe. Least important to these new movers was their access to higher education and the politics of the area. Notwithstanding the plastic pink lawn flamingos and ample activities like loitering at Panera, other main factors for moving to the suburbs per Ipsos’ data include the location’s crime rates (37%), affordable healthcare options (28%), climate (23%), and the job market (20%). The authors of the report suggest that millennials are looking to build wealth and invest in relatively affordable areas (at least compared to major metropolitan areas, which continue to experience a population drain). And 43% to 45% of millennials of all ages report that they’re looking to buy a house in the suburbs, despite a market that was quite competitive until recently. The suburban pull remains strong for some, and millennials aren’t immune a Bank of America Research survey found that 31- to 41-year-olds are almost three times more likely to move to a house than an apartment. But it seems as if the desire to build wealth still wins out over this rising urge to know thy neighbor, especially as Ipsos finds that the political climate of the suburban town is low on Americans’ list of priorities. ![]() But the suburbs are a famously isolating environment, essentially locking residents inside their cars and apart from each other. Paradoxically, Americans are also looking for community now more than ever, perhaps stoked by the recent isolation and loneliness epidemic spurred on by the pandemic. Whatever they may or may not be, the suburbs are above all a mentality, a state of mind that Americans want to move to in pursuit of a cheaper and better life. This all puts to one side, as Elizabeth Kneebone wrote for Brookings in 2020, that the suburbs lack a consensus definition altogether. The 21st-century challenge facing the suburbs (and suburb-like communities) is the “donut effect,” where remote work-depressed central business districts hollow out as a wealthy ring emerges in a broad circle nearby-in other words, a remixed and updated version of the midcentury flight out of inner-city areas. These days, the suburbs have grown far more diverse than their origins and ensuing stereotypes, becoming more of a representation of what America actually looks like. The ‘donut effect’ and the new suburban frontier In particular, they cited the Target controversy, as a Fortune 500 firm was effectively bullied into retreating from a trans-oriented ad campaign, as a direct outgrowth of this thinking. The ‘burbs have all but eliminated Americans’ ability to collectively protest and evolved into an ideology that “breeds reactionary thinking and turns Americans into people constantly scared of a Big Bad Other,” they argued. ![]() Moskowitz, author of the Mental Health newsletter, argued in The Nation that the suburbs’ uniquely isolated and car-dependent nature have led to terrible outcomes. The suburbs were memorably conjured by the Talking Heads at the dawn of the Reagan era with 1981’s “ Once in a Lifetime,” as David Byrne talk-sings about a “large automobile,” with a “beautiful house” and a “beautiful wife.” At one point, the narrator wonders “My God, what have I done?” But this fades away, leading to an eerie refrain: “Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.” In coming decades, the so-called white flight era entrenched a cultural divide between cities and suburbs. Levittown, New York, widely considered the original Betty Crocker town, baked into said location a legacy of segregation and enshrinement of patriarchal norms. ![]()
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