海角大神

It used to be that as Americans moved up the ladder, they moved farther away from the city. Not anymore. According to political scientist, Alan Ehrenhalt, author of The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City, they鈥檙e flocking back in droves these days. For example, at the time of 9/11 there were 15,000 people living south of the World Trade Center. By 2007 there were 50,000. 鈥淭he strollers have reached Wall Street鈥�. Take a walk down there some Saturday and you will see for yourself.鈥� In other words, our manifest destiny is no longer toward wider open spaces and bigger homes; it鈥檚 more like a refrain from the famous Petula Clark song:聽 鈥淒owntown, things鈥檒l be great when you鈥檙e Downtown....鈥�

Inspired by his hero, the grass-roots activist and urban planner, Jane Jacobs, Ehrenhalt, walked around many of America鈥檚 big cities over the past 10 years 鈥� Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Houston, Phoenix 鈥� trying to understand how they were changing. What he discovered was a 鈥渞adical rearrangement in which people who possessed money and choice were increasingly living in the center, while newcomers and the poor were settling in the suburbs, often in the outer reaches of suburban territory. In short, many American metropolitan areas were coming to look more like the European cities of a century ago....鈥� This cultural phenomenon, unobserved and underreported, convinced Ehrenhalt that American society was, in fact, demographically inverting right under our noses, hence the term 鈥渄emographic inversion鈥� (as opposed to 鈥済entrification鈥�).

With a 鈥渜uick glance backwards,鈥� Ehrenhalt offers up Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann鈥檚 redesigned Paris of the 1860s (with a few references to fin de si猫cle Vienna) as the paradigmatic city, with its percolating street life acting as 鈥渁 theatre for living,鈥� and, in Ehrenhalt鈥檚 mind, 鈥渨hat the 鈥渕illions of people with substantial earning power or ample savings ... are moving toward鈥� in the future.聽聽

Then starting with Sheffield, a neighborhood three miles north of downtown Chicago as a prime example of this great demographic inversion, Ehrenhalt takes his reader on a tour of the changing American cityscape, pointing out the salient features that have given rise to the transformation of this once shabby, working class neighborhood into one of cosmopolitan chic: the proximity to downtown Chicago, the mass transit station, the nearby university, the charming Victorian cottages, and the commercial corridor. And that鈥檚 just Sheffield. Chicago鈥檚 entire Loop (five miles north and south of downtown, and a mile from Lake Michigan) exploded by 48% in just seven years between 2000 and 2007.

Ehrenhalt cites a few other near-center, arrondissements that have similarly burgeoned over the past decade, namely Portland, Ore.; and Clarendon, Va., eight miles due west of D.C. He implies but does not come right out and say that the linchpins for their success are three-fold: 1) jobs 2) readily accessible light-rail transit, and 3) charm, which 鈥� in James Kunzler鈥檚 words from "Home From Nowhere," a similarly themed endeavor 鈥� 鈥減romotes the intersection of relationships and invites one set of patterns to interact with other patterns, including the complex patterns of individual human minds.鈥�

From there, the great inversion is not so ... great.

The Bushwick section of Brooklyn, for example. Long synonymous with grim poverty, gangs, and drug dealers, it is today a happening bedroom community for New York鈥檚 young artists. Be that as it may, there are still 鈥渓ong, dreary blocks lined with abandoned textile factories and large strips of vacant land.鈥� Cheap, yes, lively, sure, but still uglier than a stump full of spiders. Philadelphia is another not-exactly-there-yet city that Ehrenhalt examines. Yes, Philly has an elegant central core along Walnut Street with 鈥渁 lunchtime pedestrian count of more than two thousand a day,鈥� but it also has more violent crimes per capita than any of the other 10 largest cities in America, and, according to the Brookings Institute, 鈥渢he largest proportion of abandoned properties, 36.5 for every one thousand residential units.鈥� Not exactly an American Vienna.

Ehrenhalt shows us the suburban side of the story in Gwinnett County, Georgia, a suburb outside Atlanta. This was once a rural expanse of 437 acres, and today the quintessence of our 鈥渟uburban immigrant nation.鈥� There鈥檚 even a new Taj Mahal there, called Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushoram Swaminarayan Sanstha temple (BAPS for short), situated next to a Walgreens in Lilburn, Ga. Gwinnett used to have great football teams, but with the influx of Asian immigrants, its highest scores are now recorded on the SATs. The demographic is split right down the middle 50/50 white to non-white.

Then there are, to use Ehrenhalt鈥檚 own analogy, the Pinocchios:

Phoenix, is a central-coreless sprawlscape that is trying its hardest to make itself over into an urban center, and though they are investing heavily in miles of transit lines and new centers of urbanity, their plan at present is to build nine urban centers. Nine! And Denver, which has emerged as the 鈥渃apital of the suburban town center phenomenon,鈥� has converted an unused airport ten minutes from the city鈥檚 downtown into a new urban experiment in the retrofitting of suburban America with shops and residents all in one. So much for Haussmann鈥檚 1860s Paris.

"The Great Inversion" is an enjoyable and engaging read, especially for those considering a move back to the city. It is solidly researched with great questions asked and plenty of hard facts and anecdotal answers provided. And though Ehrenhalt manages to keep his objectivity throughout most of the book, at the very end he reveals himself to be a cockeyed Eur-optimist to wit, 鈥淸people] are settling in cities 鈥� those who have a choice 鈥� in large part to experience the things that citizens of Paris and Vienna experienced a century ago: round the clock street life; caf茅 sociability; casual acquaintances they meet on the sidewalk every day; merchants who recognize them. This is the direction I think we are heading in.鈥� His research certainly bears out some of this opinion; however, he might want to make note of the fact that McDonald鈥檚 and Walmart announced record profits in 2010 and GM did the same in 2011. Vive Les 脡tats-Unis!聽

Richard Horan is a novelist and the author of "Seeds: One Man鈥檚 Serendipitous Journey to Find the Trees that Inspired Famous American Writers from Faulkner to Kerouac, Welty to Wharton."聽 His latest work, "Harvest: A Picaresque Adventure into the Heart of America鈥檚 Family Farms," is due out this summer from Harper Collins.聽