But in any case, what might happen is a shift to more light commercial zoning in residential areas for retail shops and other employment opportunities and such. If there’s a corner market a few blocks away, then even a suburban townhouse doesn’t have to have three cars. I’m rooting for the rezoning option. It’ll be better for suburbs, cities, and everyone living in either.

I think part of the point of the CNN piece was that public perception of the ‘American Dream’ is changing, and the suburbs may lose their place to ‘New Urbanism’. I don’t think that wealthy people will completely abandon suburbs, and I certainly hope that suburbs don’t get taken over by poor people with nowhere else to go and abandoned by a society focused on dense urban living. I would imagine that there will be a lot of effort in many cities to provide affordable housing for all income levels.

But, I also agree with the CNN author’s opinion that many large suburban houses will be turned into multi-family homes because of the simple fact that many people won’t be able to afford having such large homes all to themselves anymore (not only will they be unable to afford it, but it just makes more sense for people to downsize to conserve resources). It’s just like many Victorian-era neighborhoods all over the country, where those huge houses have been turned into apartment buildings.

In large cities, like NYC, Chicago, Seattle, etc. that won’t be necessary, but in smaller urban centers, many cities have laws (such as max height of buildings) that would make high density housing developments difficult to build unless the laws were changed. Not all cities were built to have a large number of occupants.

The speculation that ‘McMansions’ in the suburbs will be divided up for multi-family housing comes from several experts including Arthur C. Nelson, director of Virginia Tech’s Metropolitan Institute. That’s not only due to families moving to cities, it’s also due to the current mortgage crisis. Suburbs are being abandoned at pretty startling rates across the country, leaving these houses in disrepair. The trend will probably lead not just to higher density populations in cities but in suburbs, as well, with fewer people owning large homes by themselves.

“governmental regulations and zoning laws will have to be adjusted to allow for high-density developments”

At first, you were saying that suburbanites are going to be flocking back to city centers. If that’s the case, why would re-zoning be necessary? Cities are zoned for density.

Do you really believe that “McMansions” are going to be subdivided for poor families in the wake of a mass exodus of wealthy families to the cities? That seems pretty far-fetched.