WASHINGTON, DC—Less celebrated than urban neighborhoods, yet more diversified, and diverse, than they're often given credit for being, US suburbs still house the lion's share of population. They've also driven the growth within their metropolitan areas: between 2000 and 2015, suburban areas accounted for 91% of the population growth and 84% of the household growth in the top 50 metro areas, according to the Urban Land Institute.
A new report from ULI, Housing in the Evolving American Suburb, makes the case that dividing metro areas into “the city” and “the suburbs” is an oversimplification. Using methodology developed by RCLCO for ULI's Terwilliger Center for Housing, the report identifies five distinct types of suburb within the 50 largest metro areas.
The five types, according to the ULI report, are “Established High-End,” “Stable Middle-Income,” “Economically Challenged,” “Greenfield Lifestyle” and “Greenfield Value.” Within each type of suburb may be found “multiple types of potential housing and mixed-use development sites, although some types of sites are more common than others within a given type of suburb,” the report states.
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Paul Bubny
Paul Bubny is managing editor of Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com. He has been reporting on business since 1988 and on commercial real estate since 2007. He is based at ALM Real Estate Media Group's offices in New York City.
