Here’s quite a revealing passage from Otis White’s “Urban Notebook” feature in the October 2003 issue of Governing magazine. A Census Bureau report examined the movement of people to and from central cities from 1995 to 2000. It found that far more people were moving out of town into the suburbs than were moving the other direction. “In Denver, for example, about twice as many moved out as moved in,” White writes.
OK, this doesn’t sound at all surprising. Except that it was to plenty of “city watchers,” meaning experts who work for governments or various Smart Growth outfits. “I had been theorizing all along that transportation problems were causing people to want to return to the inner city,” one Colorado wonk said. Another hack, from Cleveland, just concluded that “we have to make sure that when people are ready to return, we have a vibrant downtown and inner-ring suburbs to offer them.”
Let’s get this straight. First, the justification for throwing tax money and regulations around cities was to accommodate all those frustrated commuters trying to move back downtown. Only, that theory didn’t pan out. So now the justification for continuing to throw tax money and regulations around is that people will “wake up” and move back someday.
Apparently, it would also be a good idea to replace all those missing hitching posts and water troughs in downtowns, just to be ready for the return of the horse carriage.
