(Community Matters) In this week’s Economist, an article on the continued growth and increased diversity of American suburbs here.
Such diversity is now common in suburbia. According to William Frey, a demographer, the white population of big-city suburbs grew by 7% between 2000 and 2006. In the same period the suburban Asian population grew by 16%, the black population by 24% and the Hispanic population by an astonishing 60%. Many immigrants to America now move directly to the suburbs without passing through established urban ghettos. Having conquered suburbia, ethnic-minority groups are now swiftly infiltrating the more distant “exurbs”. . . . Gary Gates, who follows the subject at the University of California at Los Angeles, says the number of gay and lesbian couples in suburbia is also increasing. Much of this can be put down to greater tolerance . . . . America’s suburbs have had shopping malls since the 1950s, and factories for longer. Increasingly, though, they are centres of white-collar work.
Community Matters 