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The Human City

Brandon Donnelly avatar Brandon Donnelly

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about fluid labor markets and urban density, I thought I would present an opposing view.

Joel Kotkin is a well known geographer and author. He has published a number of books, the most recent of which is called, The Human City: Urbanism for the Rest of Us . He is also well known as a supporter of the suburbs, which is a somewhat contrarian view in today’s urban-centric world.

Here is a recent interview he did with Aaron M. Renn ( click here if you can’t see it below):

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One of his messages is that the urban core is great for young people without kids, but that we shouldn’t expect it to serve everyone’s needs and wants – particularly those of families. Families need space and affordability, and urban cores are simply not engineered for that.

Long live the suburb.

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Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.