I’m rocking the suburbs
And now everyone else is too?
There are many things my friends make fun of me about. My use of sweatpants for almost any occasion. My love of bidets, Taylor Swift, and rollerblading. Oh, and my love of suburbia.
I find people that grow up in suburban environments are rarely on the fence – they either love it or hate it with a passion. I fall into the former camp. I’ve never understood the attraction of a city – small living spaces, public transport, no nature? No thanks. Yet, among my peers, I was the outlier. While all my friends couldn’t imagine leaving city life, I dreamed of nothing else. I couldn’t wait to start life in suburbia. This is what I thought of most of my friends. This is what they thought of me.
They say fashion is cyclical, and maybe our living choices are, too. We seem to be in the midst of a suburban revival with the closures and the lack of social gatherings during the pandemic. If you’re not going to do anything, you might as well not do it with more space and without the exorbitant rent. Given this recency bias, it’s hard to remember how fast things were moving in the other direction not long ago. Over the last decade, the suburbs were in the midst of a steep decline. Growth was concentrated in major US cities.
Is this reversal simply due to the pandemic? Will suburban preferences outlive it? Yes and yes. While people may be giving suburban environments a whirl due to the circumstances, a lot of these people are falling in love. They are realizing they can get a 4-bedroom house for the price of a 1-bedroom apartment. They are realizing that a sense of community is fostered more by your lifestyle than by your location.
Nowadays, the arguments for living in a city have never been weaker.
Looking for culture and diversity? Prices have risen so much that all but the wealthiest and the homeless have been priced out.
Looking for things to do? During a pandemic, hikes in the surrounding suburbs sounds ideal. And post-pandemic, suburbs have bars too. With cheaper beer.
Looking for Chinese food at 4 am? Stop eating so late.
I used to joke that suburbs have everything I want except jobs. Now, even that may not be true with the accelerated shift to virtual work in recent months. Maybe the pandemic isn’t just a harbinger for the death of the office; maybe it’s a harbinger for a suburban revival.