An Atlantic Monthly story not yet online but in the March issue tries to make the case that home owners are increasingly inclined to head out of the suburbs and into urban, walkable settings. The result, according to author Christopher B. Leinberger, a developer and professor of urban planning? Today’s suburbs and subdivisions could become tomorrow’s “slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay.”

He cites a study showing one third of respondents prefer an urban, downtown-type setting while just 5 percent to 10 percent of housing stock in most metropolitan areas is located in such places. He also points to lackluster construction materials used on suburban homes that will show their wear far sooner than older, city homes. Leingberger, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, says the characteristics of suburbs likely to decline are ones far from a “central city, not served by rail transit, and lacking any real core.”

Such characteristics could certainly apply to many of the South Sound’s suburban draws. But I often think that when national real estate stories take issue with suburbia, they are envisioning the developments I saw in the Riverside, Calif., area, where homes stretch to the horizon by the thousands. Suburbs of such scale are less common in Pierce County, though many hundreds of such houses have gone up in recent years and there are plans for more. Talk to anyone who makes that nightly drive down Meridian to a subdivision home and, after a few years, they might be thinking a city home and a train ride sounds appealing. (Leinberger does say that homes near Redmond will hold their value, because Redmond is close to a major city and near a walkable core. Microsoft might have something to do with it, too.)

Any thoughts? Are the Southland’s suburbs headed for slum status? Or will people continue to gravitate to big homes with big yards far from work and city cores?

UPDATE
The link to The Atlantic story was just made available. Here it is.