Suburban Home Renewal
In recent times, many American suburbs have flourished, attracting residents and businesses back downtown. Older suburbs, mainly in the Midwest, where economic growth has been lax, have been adversely affected. Their condition has earned them the name inner ring suburbs or first suburbs as compared to the outer ring suburbs or exurbs where builders can build from scratch.
Against all odds, some suburbs are fighting back. Like Jennings in Montana. It used be a struggling suburb of 16,000 on the edge of St. Louis. The authorities attracted a developer who replaced a languishing department store with a new one and is now as the 126,000 square foot Target store. In Lakewood, Colorado, city officials faced with declining revenues razed down an aging 1950s style mall known as Villa Italia and put up in its place a $850 million mixed use town center that has attracted a host of new tenants.
Jennings witnessed huge demographic changes between 1980 and 2000. Its predominantly white middle class population declined while the poorer African-American population increased rapidly. Deterioration in the socio-economic situation led to immense worry to city officials who were worried that the city may turn into something like East St Louis, an industrial town that has become synonymous with blight. The first structure to go was the Northland shopping center, a dilapidated concrete relic from the 1950s, which at the time of its closing, was being used as a shelter by the homeless. This was replaced with a new retail center that is already 90 percent leased. Other rundown structures are to follow suit.
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