I received a call the other day from a man who wanted to buy an fixer-upper for an investment. His main requirement was that it be close to town. "I listen to a lot of talk shows and talk to a lot of people," he said. "A lot of the older folks are saying they're thinking about moving back to the city."

A lot of us can see these trends in our own neighborhoods. While once urban neighborhoods were populated with youth, in a few years they may be taken over by those approaching the golden years.

At any rate, a new book begins to confirm that repopulating the core as a trend is indeed more than talk. Tomorrow's Cities, Tomorrow's Suburbs, published by the American Planning Association (APA), analyzed metro areas and found that by 2000, old city neighborhoods were thriving while middle-aged suburbs were in decline.

Of the 2,586 suburbs and 35 large metropolitan areas analyzed, the authors found that 155 suburbs were worse off than Detroit, with per capita incomes of less than 60 percent of their metropolitan area's income. Detroit was used as a benchmark for cities with problems because it had the lowest ratio of city residents' per capita income to metropolitan income in 2000.

Additionally, the authors report that more than 50 percent of suburbs in the study had declined faster, or increased slower than their central cities in relative per capita income.

Suburban malaise measured by suburban income decline was especially severe in the Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Miami, Orlando, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa, and Washington, D.C., metropolitan areas, where 50 percent or more of the suburbs lagged behind their central cities relative income performance between 1990 and 2000.

Neighborhoods built between 1940 and 1990 were much more likely to decline in relative family income than were pre-1940 neighborhoods. Approximately half of pre-1940 neighborhoods were going up in relative family income during the 1990s in the six metropolitan areas (Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Richmond, and Washington, D.C.) where the authors analyzed income changes in census tracts. In contrast, more than 75 percent of neighborhoods built substantially during the 1960s were going down in relative family income during the 1990s.

The authors partially attribute city revival to the ability to attract more middle- and upper-income households. Faster revival of old neighborhoods is likely within the next decade because cities have been good at attracting empty nesters, middle-aged neighborhoods dominated by small houses are now considered obsolete, and fewer people believe the best neighborhoods are formed from isolated detached houses in an auto-dependent suburban development.

In the book, the authors attribute suburban decline partially to the size of available housing, citing the increase in the median size of a new house from 1,100 square feet in 1950 to 2,000 square feet in 2000. The authors theorize that suburbs dominated by housing built between 1945 and 1970 will likely have trouble attracting and retaining middle-income households since larger housing stock became more readily available in the 1990s.

Another reason for future suburban decline may be increasing awareness that the exurbs are proving to be more dangerous than the central cities. "Our research in 10 large metropolitan areas shows that in each area, one or more exurban counties had more deaths associated with leaving home, mainly traffic deaths, than occur in central cities from the combination of traffic deaths and homicides by strangers."

Additionally, the authors caution that when parents realize the perceived safety of cul-de-sac neighborhoods is in fact "bogus," support for families preferring suburbs may erode further.

While the authors' book focuses on analysis of the 2000 census data, Lucy and Phillips did analyze data from the new American Community Survey of the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Early data analysis for 20 large cities indicates cities continued to experience revivals between 2000 and 2003.

The authors argue that opportunities for condominium ownership have influenced middle-income residents' location decisions. Increased availability of condo ownership is partially a result of changing consumer preferences, but also partly a belated adaptation by developers to provide a housing ownership opportunity that has been underserved in many metropolitan housing markets. According to Lucy and Phillips, where developers respond to this condo market demand, as many more have done since the 2000 census, central cities are more likely to make comebacks that can be measured by increases in relative income.

The book is by William H. Lucy and David L. Phillips, professors of urban planning at the University of Virginia. The two have spent more than 20 years studying city and suburban trends.

I met some neighbors for a pre-dinner drink Friday. They were hosting someone visiting from Japan here to learn about affordable housing programs in the U.S. Pittsburgh is of course filled with affordable housing (to get an idea, visit link. So with so much housing available, why are condos, priced significantly higher, selling so well. My neighbor wondered at what point the market would be saturated with condos. With three thousand scheduled to come online in the near term, how many would remain unsold? "All those and more will sell and be occupied," I responded.

This morning's paper had some information that helps explain why. "Allegheny County has 12,000 people turning 60 this year, according to the 2000 census, with another 354,000 boomers to follow in their wake over the next 18 years."

Some might want to spend the golden years mowing lawns in distant suburbs, but countless others want a more convenient life in a place where someone else takes care of the building. And hey, you can walk outside and get a bite to eat or see a show.

At least in Pittsburgh, the condo boom is in its infancy.

Great cities to live in are supported by great transit systems. These transit systems are centered on extensive netwoks of light-rail and subway lines rather than buses. These notions are supported by a recent Post-Gazette article that outlines increases gained in Port Authority ridership following sustained higher gasoline prices.

The gasoline prices, the article concludes, have lead to increased transit ridership. More, rail ridership in Pittsburgh and elsewhere had an increase more than twice that of transit ridership over-all (which means buses had an even smaller percentage increase).

This reaffirms two of my already held notions.

1. Imposing gasoline tax's (as roadway user fees rather than subsidies) will serve to boost transit ridership (and thus help clean the air and slow co2 emmissions that cause global warming).

2. Those who would otherwise drive much prefer rail over buses.

Statistics from Saturday's paper reveal the amazing opportunity that exits for the center City of Pittsburgh. According to the article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,more than 180,000 suburbanites flow into Downtown, Oakland and other city neighborhoods each day to work, boosting Pittsburgh's population by 41 percent, the fourth-highest proportional "day surge" among large cities in the nation.

This is amazing in itself. Center-city employment is actually higher now than in the past when many jobs were at steel mills along the rivers. A large number of these come by public transit, but a majority come by car. The number has also increase over the past decade from about 300,000 in 1992 to 320,000 in 2001.

These trends run counter to much of what has happened in cities in general over the past half-century. They also spotlight two areas of opportunity.

The first is to get some of these commuters to move into the city. This is already happening to some degree. Empty-nesters, boomer retirees, childless couples and singles are already moving into downtown and other areas, attracted by new housing opportunities. This is great news, but the numbers we saw Saturday reveal much greater opportunity.

The second area of opportunity, which should serve to booster the first, is to improve transportation within the city. This should be done using surface light-rail and streetcar lines that can be built in short amounts of time. The lack of such systems will keep the downtown housing boom from moving into other neighborhoods. New housing thus far has been concentrated in areas in very close proximity to downtown and Oakland, including South Side, North Shore, Squirrel Hill and the lower Hill District. Improving the time it takes (and ease of use) of transit systems will allow, in essence, other neighborhoods to become closer and "transit villages" to emerge.

In the more immediate term, city housing advocates should focus attention on selling city living to these commuters. More increasing the variety and quantity of in-city housing will serve to insure something more than a day-time population boost, a real reversal of suburban flight.