Global suburbia and the transition century: Physical suburbs in the long term

Over the current century, when the world’s population will grow by some billions, much of the increase in the human population will be housed in suburbs. However, sometime after the middle of this century the world’s total population is also likely to level off, increasing in some areas while declining in others, causing new challenges. In this transition century, suburbs are a key technology and setting for managing a number of public concerns and problems: population change, aging, environmental issues, and tensions between continued poverty and expectations of affluence. Suburbs are very diverse internationally but share some common problems and opportunities related to their relative newness and outer location. Although planned solutions to suburban growth are important, a great deal of work in the coming century will be retrofitting opportunistic suburban development. A global view of suburban growth is important because physical planning and urban design have long shared ideas internationally, and because of global economic, environmental and cultural linkages.