According to CityLab columnist Sommer Mathis, recent articles and surveys by the Wall Street Journal and the NAHB respectively have been misleading.
“[These articles] expose flaws in the idea of some fictional ‘battle’ between cities and suburbs, where the suburbs are now staging a comeback or were never ‘losing’ in the first place,” Sommers contends. “Rather, in a lot of metros across the U.S., there are suburbs that were either already close to becoming or have been adapting into the ‘urban burbs.’”