Garreau review published in 'Wilson Quarterly'

A book review by Joel Garreau, ASU Lincoln Professor of Law, Culture and Values, recently was published in the Wilson Quarterly.

The article, “The Urban Future,” reviewed Alan Ehrenhalt’s "The Great Invasion and the Future of the American City." Garreau said Ehrenhalt proposes that a “demographic shift is under way that is reversing generations of suburbanization and white flight.”

“Ehrenhalt belives that ‘the massive outward migration of the affluent that characterized the second half of the 20th century is coming to an end,’” Gareau said.

However, he said that “for those of us who have long admired Ehrenhalt’s astuteness, however, this book’s theme is undercut by some real head scratchers: His ‘great inversion’ thesis isn’t supported by the 2010 Census data, the location of high paying white-collar jobs, or the rise of the Internet as a social and economic force.”

Garreau said that it is correct that “we are moving toward a society in which millions of people with substantial earning power or ample savings will have the option of living wherever they want,” but it remains to be seen “whether that choice will amount to a great inversion, in which the roles of cities and suburbs will very nearly reverse themselves.”

To read the review, click here.

Garreau, who joined the College in 2010, is a student of culture, values and change. Professor Garreau is the author of "Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies, and What It Means to Be Human," a look at the hinge in history at which we have arrived. As director of The Prevail Project, he is building upon a Radical Evolution concept that the Prevail Scenario – the humanistic possibility that we can control and direct this future – might be encouraged.