Adapting to Demographic Shifts

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The recent re-election of Barack Obama President reconfirms an important demographic reality.  America is becoming a more ethnically diverse nation.   Suburban demographics are following this mega trend.  According to Alan Berube, Senior Fellow & Deputy Director of the Metropolitan Policy Program, these changes can broadly be summarized as a continuing demographic convergence in our metropolitan areas.  That is to say that the suburbs and the cities are becoming demographically similar.  For suburban America, this means their populations are becoming more non-white. This convergence is the result of a combination of economic, social and physical changes.  These changes are producing a host of consequences.  On the positive side, where the suburbs were once only bedroom communities, today they now host 45 percent of all metropolitan jobs.   Increased ethic diversification can also be viewed as a positive trend.

With the growth of suburban jobs comes increased affordable housing.  As a result of the "Great Recession'" many suburban communities are facing a wave of housing foreclosures and exposure to poverty unlike ever before.   Additional burdens come from increased numbers of aging baby boomers.  While these realities put new demands on provision of services, resources are limited due to declining property values and forced reductions in local revenue streams by conservative state legislatures.
  
Clearly, adaptations are needed to accommodate new demographic realities.  As a short-term response to the Great Recession, city administrators have moved to "rightsize" their governmental work forces.  For the most part this has now been accomplished.  Positioning government structures to efficiently address demographic transformations may be more challenging.

Here's my working list of structural changes to be considered:

1.  Reposition your city's amenity package:  Most suburbs were created after World War II.  The community amenities provided to attract residents in the 1960s are not those that will attract or support the emerging generations of residents.  Perhaps the largest of these is the golf course.  Be it publicly or privately owned, in all probability it is not financially performing as it once did.  All signs point to continued decline in the golfing population.  The 100 or so acres of a 18-hole golf course offer opportunities to create new public and park amenities of connected green space that responds to the interests of the up-and-coming.


2.  Placemaking: Much has already been written and discussed on this topic. The demographic angle for placemaking in the suburbs pertains to the ability of the city to attract new generations of residents.  The millennials and generations x's desire experiential lifestyles and are looking for energized social and cultural activities.  Cities need to building public spaces which can host daily, weekly and monthly concerts, festivals and impromptu gatherings.  Properly designed, these spaces are further activated by private sector investment in adjacent restaurants functioning as third spaces.  A very successful execution of this concept can be found in Suwanee, Georgia's new town center and 10-acre park, which is financially out performing more traditional retail centers around it.  Such spaces attract the new generations with their ever expanding purchasing power, important for expanding the local economy and tax base.    

3.  Densification and Housing Diversification: Along with activated places, securing the new housing products desired by new generations is paramount to meeting the demographic challenge.  For all practical purposes we are talking about highly amenitized, new apartment projects.  Coordinated development through strategic public-private partnerships so to co-locate the housing adjacent to the new public spaces is ideal.
 
4.  Corridor Repair:  A great place to locate additional density is along the commercial corridors now consisting of vacant and low-performing strip centers.  Revising the city's code to allow residential in general commercial corridors and provide for sufficient density to energize private sector investors should be considered.

Suburban cities with proactive responses to the changing demographic shifts documented in the 2010 census will be in a much better position to capture the financial upside offered by these trends. To ignore them may well be detrimental to your city's success.  As always, feedback to these thoughts is greatly appreciated.