The March Atlantic Monthly has a thought-provoking article called "The Next Slum?" The gist of it is the trend of moving from urban areas to the suburbs is going into reverse.

The author, Christopher B. Leinberger, predicts a troubling future for suburbs as people abandon them to live in "'Lifestyle centers'—walkable developments that create an urban feel" (not talking about The Summit in Reno). Actually, some of these trends are already being seen, and subprime foreclosures are an early part of the process:

• Premium prices for urban homes as Baby Boomers and others who prefer an urban lifestyle sell homes in the suburbs and move into town.
• Drops in value in suburbs.
  
• Developers building more homes in urban areas.
• An oversupply of homes in suburban areas.
• Pressure to turn large suburban homes into multi-family homes.
• Inability to revamp the infrastructure in suburbs to accommodate a switch to multiple families in single family homes in the suburbs.
• Poor construction quality of suburban homes creating further problems as they are remodeled for multiple families.
• Lower income people being segregated in the suburbs.
• Half-empty suburbs taken over by transients and criminals.

According to the article, Arthur C. Nelson, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, used a computer model in 2006 to forecast "a surplus of 22 million large-lot homes (houses built on a sixth of an acre or more) by 2025—that’s roughly 40 percent of the large-lot homes in existence today."

I'm one of the Baby Boomers who is starting to be attracted to the thought of a lifestyle without yard and home maintenance and commuting. I think the future is good for condos in downtown Reno and Sparks.

I've seen predictions elsewhere that at some point in the future rising costs of fuel will make it important to have food grown around the outer edges of cities. I wonder if truck farms are another potential use of abandoned suburban homes. If not, maybe I'd better start trying to convince Mr. Ann to move sooner rather than later!