Monday, August 4, 2008

Demographic inversion

Over on Flint Expatriates, Gordie Young has an interesting post about demographic inversion.

This is where the affluent are returning to live downtown rather than fleeing to the suburbs. The article upon which the post is based is from The New Republic.

I don't know if I agree totally with what the author of the article is saying, but it does make one pause. Newburyport is not as large as the cities cited, but we are due for a demographic inversion, right? (If one has not already taken place.)

... Demographic inversions of one sort or another are occurring in urban pockets scattered all across America, many of them in seemingly unlikely places. Charlotte, North Carolina, is in the midst of a downtown building boom dominated by new mixed-use high-rise buildings, with office space on the bottom and condos or rental units above. Even at a moment of economic weakness, the condos are still selling briskly.

But back to my question from 2 paragraphs ago. The people who are moving into these condos in the paragraph above work in the city where they live.

Gordie Young proposes that it's possible this trend could spread to smaller cities, but Newburyport is a pretty small city.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This reminds me of an article Tom Salemi linked to awhile back on his blog about people moving back to cities where they can live, work, and walk. I think that trends like this make sense in times of economic instability. And though Newburyport is small indeed, the advantages to living here, in my opinion, outweigh having a 3-acre yard and driving 25 minutes to get groceries (a situation I used to be in myself).

Anonymous said...

That is specifically why we're here. When the last kid moved out, we left our 10 rooms on 10 acres for a 5-room condo in the South End of Boston. Nanci rebelled after 5 years and went looking for "a house with windows". While I loved it there, we were a little tight with my office in the house, so I agreed, as long as I could still walk on pavement to food, drink and supplies. The South End of Newburyport turned out to be perfect. The one disappointment is how little there is downtown that I want to buy.

Gillian Swart said...

I have to say, now that Mary Jane is going, going, gone, only Grand Trunk remains (aside from the bookstores) the only shop I patronize with any regularity. Mary Jane was good for funky (female) clothing that you probably don't wear ...