Back-to-the-City Movement

Popularized in academia by Shirley Bradway Laska and Daphne Spain in the title of their widely referenced book Back to the City: Issues in Neighborhood Renovation (1980), the term back to the city became one of the keywords of the 1980s and 1990s literature on neighborhood revitalization and gentrification in the United States. It refers to households moving back to urban neighborhoods after many years of suburban life. The term focuses more on people and their preferences rather than on neighborhoods or the housing market. Of particular interest are newly formed families or young couples, many of whose parents had left cities decades earlier, returning to the city from the suburbs.

In many instances, though, rather than people literally returning, what occurred was that urban neighborhoods became viable alternatives to the suburbs and places of choice for certain types of households. More and more people seemingly preferred to live close to work, spend time outside the home, have easy access to cultural amenities and events, acknowledge the character of urban neighborhoods by investing in old buildings, and live in socially mixed communities. Promoters of this trend argued, in effect, that the assets of urban living outweighed the conveniences of suburban living. Moreover, they pointed to the costs of suburban life, including commuting to the city for work but also low-density development and social isolation.

The overall extent and significance of the back-to-the-city movement in the residential decisions of households have been points of controversy in the literature. Furthermore, the argument is criticized on the basis that the underlying explanation relies mainly on empirical findings based on demographic changes and preference patterns; that is, it focuses too much on the consumption side of urban neighborhood revitalization. Such an approach is criticized for ignoring the economic and political dynamics that led to the production of those neighborhoods as well as the role played by various actors, such as developers and local government. The counterargument has been that the emergence of these new consumers of urban life represents a profound change in the labor market and the lifestyle trends of young professionals. Thus, the back-to-the-city movement is a spatial reflection of new residential choices that people make in response to emerging social, political, and economic conditions and, thus, an indicator of future urban prosperity.