Expert at VCU event says more people will move to smaller cities.
Despite revitalization of downtown areas, most people still envision themselves living in the suburbs, and that's not likely to change, an urban development expert said Tuesday at a conference in Richmond.
"The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of Americans, for most of their lives, want to live in single-family homes," said Joel Kotkin, a distinguished fellow in urban studies at Chapman University in California.
Kotkin was a keynote speaker at Virginia Commonwealth University's 23rd annual Real Estate Trends Conference. About 1,200 people attended the morning event at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.
He predicted that more Americans will move from the nation's large urban centers into smaller cities as they seek a lower cost of living, economic opportunities and affordable housing, a trend that the Richmond area is in a good position to exploit, he said.
"The population of this country will continue to disperse away from expensive coastal regions into other parts of the country," said Kotkin, the author of books on demographic and economic change.
The question is which small cities will capture the majority of that growth, he said, adding that metro areas with populations of 1 million to 2.5 million saw the most population growth from 2000 to 2009.
