In recent years, the young, educated, and affluent have surged back into cities, reversing decades of suburban flight and urban decline. And yet all is not well. The very the same forces that power the growth of our great cities have generated a New Urban Crisis of gentrification, rising inequality, and increasingly unaffordable urban housing.
The New Urban Crisis is different from the older urban crisis of the 1960s and 1970s. That previous crisis was defined by the economic abandonment of cities and their loss of economic function. This New Urban Crisis is more all encompassing than its predecessor, hitting at both growing and declining cities as well as urban and suburban centres.
