JOEL KOTKIN: “The ongoing Census reveals the continuing evolution of America’s cities from small urban cores to dispersed, multi-polar regions that includes the city’s surrounding areas and suburbs. This is not exactly what most urban pundits, and journalists covering cities, would like to see, but the reality is there for anyone who reads the numbers.” This is why most mass-transit plans are stuck in the 20th Century, presupposing that everyone commutes to jobs downtown. Nowadays they tend to travel around the edges. I wrote a piece on this subject a while back, inspired by Robert Breugmann’s excellent book, Sprawl: A Compact History.

Also, some related thoughts here. But the federal government is still promoting de-suburbanization.