On a forum at the Chicago outpost of City-Data.com, a certain JohnDoe2008 asked suburbanites:

    Why do you like suburbs over {the} city? Be honest please, I never understood it, still don’t. I might have serious problems, because I hate even looking at pictures of suburbs.

Respondents cited backyards, quiet and cheap living, and congestion-free commutes — the very sort of suburban characteristics that have started to change due to higher gas prices, more single-person households, and even refugees.

What will the future hold for suburbs? In an interesting article about Clifton Park, a suburb of Albany, N.Y., that has swollen mightily in past decades {and where I, during one long, hot summer, helped build new houses}, here’s what a local architect and urban planner, Dominick Ranieri, thinks may happen to suburbia: “If we don’t change the patterns, we’re in for a long and slow and arduous collapse.”
freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/what-is-the-future-of-suburbia-a-freakonomics-quorum/?scp=2&sq=architect&st=cse