rural idiocy

[hoov]

> Yoshie wrote:
> >Stats provided by Michael says that the most significant change is not
> >out-migration from cities to suburbs but depopulation of rural areas and/or
> >what used to be rural areas developping into suburbs.
> 
> I thought about that too, but not necessarily.  The pricing of suburban and
> urban residences suggests a different pattern: rural migrants moving to the
> cities where housing costs are lower than in the suburbs.  Manhattan,
> Boston or San Francisco might be excpetions, but that ceratinly holds for
> other cities.
> WS

obviously, suburbs use up lots of land so there is loss of agricultural
land and open space...here in Central FL where citrus used to be king,
we can see where the next phase of sprawl will occur by looking at
the condition of still-existing groves (FL's citrus industry is marked
by its own disgusting history, but that's another story)...and where
planned residential development may leave up to 50% of the land as 
undeveloped open space, typical sprawl uses up nearly all open space...
so there is a loss of both agricultural land and open space...

in addition, the growth of US suburbs may be understated by the fact
that cities have succeed in annexing many residents in a number of
sprawling metropolitan areas of the Sunbelt...for example, Oklahoma
City (not exactly the first metropolitan area one thinks of)
encompasses more than 600 square miles...

and some people have opted to move away from the immediate metro
area entirely, and are living in small towns (for the time being,
anyway) within commuting distance...according to urban geographer
John Friedman, 90% of the US population lives within a 2 hour auto
drive (a not entirely uncommon commute) of a core area of 300,000+
Michael Hoover