Bill, Great insights and spot on. One thing I would add is the major trend I am seeing in the inner suburbs, the "urbanization of the suburbs"...think Reston Town Center and downtown Bethesda in metro DC, Addison, Plano Town Center and Grapevine in DFW and Redmond and Kirkland in Seattle. I have found there are 3 types of regionally significant walkable urban places in the suburbs: suburban town centers, redevelopment of malls/business parks and greenfield/brownfield. Of course the "edgeless city", using the late Rob Lang's great term, you discuss in this piece are also doing well. I have found that the net fiscal impact for local government coffers of drivable sub-urban data centers is about same as high density walkable urban places like i mention above...high local taxes (property, taxes on servers, etc.) and nearly ZERO cost of local government services. Terrible neighbor (they hum 24/7), low job generation as you mention and little nearby economic spinoff but great tax benefits...they may be considered a LULU...locally undesirable land use, except for the local government.
Bill, Great insights and spot on. One thing I would add is the major trend I am seeing in the inner suburbs, the "urbanization of the suburbs"...think Reston Town Center and downtown Bethesda in metro DC, Addison, Plano Town Center and Grapevine in DFW and Redmond and Kirkland in Seattle. I have found there are 3 types of regionally significant walkable urban places in the suburbs: suburban town centers, redevelopment of malls/business parks and greenfield/brownfield. Of course the "edgeless city", using the late Rob Lang's great term, you discuss in this piece are also doing well. I have found that the net fiscal impact for local government coffers of drivable sub-urban data centers is about same as high density walkable urban places like i mention above...high local taxes (property, taxes on servers, etc.) and nearly ZERO cost of local government services. Terrible neighbor (they hum 24/7), low job generation as you mention and little nearby economic spinoff but great tax benefits...they may be considered a LULU...locally undesirable land use, except for the local government.
Chris