REALTOR® Magazine-Daily News-Study: Exurbs More Diverse Than You Think

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Daily Real Estate News | October 30, 2006 | Study: Exurbs More Diverse Than You Think
Exurbs living may conjure up ever expanding starter homes next to cornfields, but “the ‘exurbs’ do not abound nor fit a single, neat stereotype, ” is the conclusion of Finding Exurbia: American’s Fast-Growing Communities at the Metropolitan Fringe, a recent study published by The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

“Just 6 percent of large metro area residents live in an exurb, and these exurbs vary from affordable housing havens for middle-class families to ‘favored quarters’ for high-income residents, to the path of least resistance for new development,” says the report.

The study defines exurbs as communities located outside metropolitan areas where at least 20 percent of workers commute to jobs in an urbanized area.

Still, exurbs are changing the landscape of where Americans live. Exurbs grew more than twice as fast as their respective metropolitan areas overall. Expansion was strongest in the South and Midwest; together these regions account for almost three-quarters of exurb dwellers.

Exurb Concentrations

States with the largest proportions of their residents living in exurbs are South Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Maryland. Texas, California, and Ohio have the largest absolute numbers of exurbanites.

Seven metro areas have at least one in five residents in an exurb: Poughkeepsie, N.Y; Little Rock, Ark.; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Greenville, S. C.; Madison, Wis.; Birmingham-Hoover, Ala.; and Knoxville, Tenn.

Louisville, Ky., has the highest number of exurb counties (13), followed by Atlanta; Richmond, Va.; and Washington, D.C., each with 11.

— By Camilla McLaughlin for REALTOR® Magazine Online