Laserfiche WebLink
Public policy is changing as well. Policies at the federal, state, and local levels are <br />beginning to encourage more compact development in an effort to reduce oil use and <br />out emissions of greenhouse gases by cars and trucks. After all, the greenest energy- <br />efficient building located in an outer-ring greenfield uses more energy than anaverage <br />building in an urbanized area. <br />The challenge presented by this reurbanization is that once the economy recovers <br />and household formation resumes, the demand for urban housing will greatly outstrip <br />the supply. This imbalance is likely to continue for the rest of the current decade and <br />beyond. Producing enough urban housing to meet this demand, even in the close-in <br />suburbs, requires infiLL development, which is time consuming and costly. <br />As metropolitan regions urbanize, not all will grow suthe same cue. As often happens, <br />even during a time of continuing population growth, some regions will grow slowly or not <br />at all. Which these will be is likely to shift from what has been the case in past decades. <br />Job growth and population increases go hand in hand, and it is often hard to tell which is the <br />driver and which is the result. The migration to the Sunbelt, for instance, produced millions <br />of new jobs as homes, stores, and other amenities were created for the newcomers. <br />This trend has seen a sharp shift in the past year. In December 2009, the U.S. Census <br />Bureau reported that the Sunbelt migration had come to a sudden halt. Population <br />growth in four of the fastest-growing states has stopped. In Arizona, population growth <br />has slowed precipitously, dropping the state to eighth in the country in overall growth <br />from first three years ago. Florida, Nevada, and California experienced net out-migca- <br />tion for the first time indecades. <br />