Metropolitan Policy Program Finding Exurbia: America’s ... · Fast-Growing Communities at the Metropolitan Fringe ... and sociologists attempting ... into small-town communities

October 2006 • The Brookings Institution • Living Cities Census Series 1

“Not yet full-

fledged suburbs,

but no longer

wholly rural,

exurban areas are

undergoing rapid

change in popu-

lation, land use,

and economic

function.”

M e t r o p o l i t a n P o l i c y P r o g r a m

FindingsThis study details a new effort to locate and describe the exurbs of large metropolitan areas in theUnited States. It defines exurbs as communities located on the urban fringe that have at least 20 per-cent of their workers commuting to jobs in an urbanized area, exhibit low housing density, and haverelatively high population growth. Using demographic and economic data from 1990 to 2005, thisstudy reveals that:

■ As of 2000, approximately 10.8 million people live in the exurbs of large metropolitan areas.This represents roughly 6 percent of the population of these large metro areas. These exurbanareas grew more than twice as fast as their respective metropolitan areas overall, by 31 percent inthe 1990s alone. The typical exurban census tract has 14 acres of land per home, compared to 0.8acres per home in the typical tract nationwide.

■ The South and Midwest are more exurbanized than the West and Northeast. Five million peo-ple live in exurban areas of the South, representing 47 percent of total exurban population nation-wide. Midwestern exurbs contain 2.6 million people, about one-fourth of all exurbanites. SouthCarolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Maryland have the largest proportions of their residents livingin exurbs, while Texas, California, and Ohio have the largest absolute numbers of exurbanites.

■ Seven metropolitan areas have at least one in five residents living in an exurb. These metroareas include Little Rock (AR), Grand Rapids (MI), and Greenville (SC), as well as areas likePoughkeepsie (NY) that serve as “satellites” to nearby larger metro areas. Both fast-growing andslow-growing metropolitan areas have developed exurbs.

■ Nationwide, 245 counties have at least one-fifth of their residents living in exurban areas.The Louisville metro area has the highest number of exurban counties (13), followed by Atlanta,Richmond, and Washington, D.C., which each have 11. These exurban counties grew by 12 per-cent overall between 2000 and 2005, faster than population growth in urban, inner suburban, orouter suburban counties (like Loudoun County, VA). However, outer suburban counties added 4.5million people in the last five years, exceeding the 1.8 million-person gain in exurban counties.

■ Residents of the “average” exurb are disproportionately white, middle-income, homeowners,and commuters. Yet exurbanites do not conform to all popular stereotypes. For instance, they donot appear to telecommute, work in the real estate industry, or inhabit super-sized homes at higherrates than residents of other metropolitan county types. Middle-income families’ “drive to qualify”for more affordable new homes that are in limited supply elsewhere fuels growth in many metro-politan exurbs.

Despite their popularization by political analysts, media, and local growth activists, the “exurbs” donot abound nor fit a single, neat stereotype. Just 6 percent of large metro area residents live in anexurb, and these exurbs vary from affordable housing havens for middle-class families, to “favoredquarters” for high-income residents, to the path of least resistance for new development. While they may continue to capture interest among political observers, the real test for exurbia lies in how our nation accommodates future growth. Will exurbs remain exurbs or become the suburbs of tomorrow?

Finding Exurbia: America’sFast-Growing Communitiesat the Metropolitan Fringe Alan Berube, Audrey Singer, Jill H. Wilson, and William H. Frey

Introduction

Beyond the suburbs, at the faredges of metropolitan areas,communities both new andold are developing the

capacity to house large flows of incom-ing residents.

Popularized in books like DavidBrooks’ On Paradise Drive, and innumerous news articles analyzing theaftermath of the 2004 Presidentialelection (Bai 2004; Brooks 2004;Brownstein and Rainey 2004), theseareas have come to be known as“exurbs.” Exurbs are drawing theattention of journalists, pundits, poli-cymakers, and sociologists attemptingto understand how Americans livetoday and how different communitytypes matter to politics and policy. Inmany exurbs, battles over roads, land,sewers, schools, quality of life, and“loss of small town character” arereaching a fever pitch.

But where exactly are the exurbs?And who lives there?

In most metropolitan areas, a cen-tral city (or cities) still lies at the core,containing a cluster of jobs and resi-dents. Outside the core lie suburbs,areas that developed somewhat later,comprised today of both residentialand commercial space. Suburbs arethe dominant landscape in contempo-rary America, and their speed andscale of change has reconfigured theway Americans live (Hayden 2003). Bythe Census Bureau’s definition, about53 percent of the nation’s residentslive in suburbs.1 Whereas most peopleused to work in cities and their imme-diate environs, today more than half ofall metropolitan jobs are located atleast 10 miles from a traditional citydowntown (Mieszowski and Mills1993; Berube forthcoming).

Exurbs, it is argued, lie somewherebeyond the suburbs. At the urban-rural periphery, outer suburbs bleedinto small-town communities with anagricultural heritage. Not yet full-fledged suburbs, but no longer wholly

rural in nature, these exurban areasare reportedly undergoing rapidchange in population, land use, andeconomic function.

Notwithstanding what they willbecome in future generations, exurbsare important places to understand intheir contemporary form. They lie atthe forefront of important localdebates around growth and develop-ment issues. As such, they help “setthe table” for future metropolitangrowth, and their prevalence mayserve as an important indicator ofemerging social trends or the effective-ness of various policies to shape met-ropolitan development.

Yet exurbia is hardly a new concept.It first gained popular attention whenA.C. Spectorsky described its residentsin his 1955 book, The Exurbanites.Despite this long history, the conceptof the exurbs is enjoying greater atten-tion now than ever before. The termsexurbs, exurban, and exurbia appearedin U.S. newspapers twice as manytimes in 2005 as they did just twoyears ago, and at four times the ratethey did ten years ago.2

All the talk about exurbs, however,has yielded little methodical informa-tion or consistent definitions regardingtheir location and their residents. Inaddition, it is unclear what might dis-tinguish exurbs from the suburbs inwhich Americans have lived for gener-ations. Some researchers have tackledthese questions in the academic litera-ture. But many recent observers haveresorted to an “I-know-it-when-I-see-it” approach for identifying the exurbsand their residents. Many counties, forinstance, may have a more mixed char-acter and are probably not well-described by alternating andoverlapping classifications.

A lot of journalists, and some aca-demics, argue that exurbs represent apath-breaking form of development,defined in part by the extreme dis-tances from these areas to the metro-politan core. Yet today’s exurbs mayjust be tomorrow’s suburbs. In Spec-

torsky’s 1955 rendering, FairfieldCounty (CT) and Rockland County(NY) housed exurban commuters toNew York City. After five decades ofcontinuous metropolitan decentraliza-tion, places like Greenwich (CT) andNew City (NY) are nothing if not con-ventional New York-area suburbs.

Some common threads run throughpopular descriptions of the exurbs.They generally lie within the orbit of abig city, but have weaker economicand social ties to the urban core thansuburbs, consistent with their moreremote locations. They are more resi-dential with newer housing stock, andless commercial than suburbs. Theyhave population densities that arelower, more like their rural neighbors,and their economies may still dependsomewhat on agricultural employ-ment.

Perhaps most importantly, present-day exurbs seem to be defined by fast-paced, low-density growth anddevelopment. If that type of develop-ment continues, new housing andcommerce could fill in the space onthe far fringes of metropolitan areas,turning them into more “mature” sub-urbs and potentially creating newexurbs even farther out. More immedi-ately, however, the development pat-terns typically identified as “sprawl”intersect closely with those found inthe exurbs. This paper does notattempt to define “sprawl,” nor does itequate sprawl with exurbia. Butbecause public policies designed tocurb (or promote) sprawl in metropoli-tan areas often affect the exurbs, it isimportant to understand more aboutwhere these communities are located,who lives there, and why.

Sparked by new popular interest inthe subject, this paper describes aneffort to “find exurbia,” based on areview of the academic literature andanalysis of data from Census 2000 andbeyond. We begin by examining previ-ous attempts to identify exurban terri-tory and its residents, and discuss theimplications of those inquiries. We

October 2006 • The Brookings Institution • Living Cities Census Series2

then describe a new methodology foridentifying exurbs and the assump-tions that underpin it. Applying thatmethodology, we proceed to describethe incidence and characteristics ofexurban places nationwide, in states,and in selected large metropolitanareas. Having pinpointed the exurbs asgeographies, we then profile theirdemography, asking who lives there,whether they differ from their coun-terparts elsewhere in the metropolis,and what their reasons might be forlocating there. The paper concludeswith some suggestions for futureresearch and possible implications forpublic policies that aim to slow therise of exurbia by promoting balancedmetropolitan growth patterns.

Background

This study hardly representsthe first attempt to definethe exurbs. Planners, geogra-phers, sociologists, and—

most recently—election analysts haveall devoted time and energy to examin-ing new forms of development occur-ring at the metropolitan fringe, someof which posit the existence of quasi-urban, quasi-rural places that aresometimes referred to as exurbs.

Different research questions havemotivated this literature, with littleconsensus emerging on the followingkey questions (relevant studies arelisted in Table 1):• Where are the exurbs? Several

studies have advanced one or moreways to define exurbia as a geo-graphic or demographic concept.Lamb (1983), Blumenfeld (1986),Lessinger (1987), Nelson (1992),Beale and Kassel (2005), and Clarkand colleagues (2006) use varyingtechniques to identify the scope ofexurbia (and similar geographic con-cepts) nationwide, and in selectedareas of the U.S.

• Who lives in exurbia? The firstwork to describe the notion of exur-

bia, Spectorsky’s 1955 book TheExurbanites, sought to describe notso much these far-flung (at the time)places, but the people who inhabitedthem. To Spectorsky, these peoplewere a new breed of commuters,seeking a semi-rural lifestyle towhich they could retreat from their9-to-5 jobs in Manhattan’s “ideasindustries”—advertising, media, andthe arts. Davis and Nelson (1994)and Nelson and Sanchez (1997) takea similar approach, identifying exur-ban households in the Portland areaand asking what—if anything—dif-ferentiates them from other subur-ban households.

• What are the development impactsof exurbs? Several other studiesidentify the exurbs as part of aneffort to understand the extent of“sprawling” development patterns indifferent parts of the U.S., and theimplications for public policy.Theobald (2001), Irwin and Reece(2002), Nelson and Sanchez (2005),and Wolman and colleagues (2005)all use methodologies based in partor in whole on density (of populationor housing) to measure exurbandevelopment.

• What are the electoral impacts ofexurbs? Finally, very recent analysesby a collection of political analysts,including Brownstein and Rainey(2004), Texeira (2004, 2005), Gersh(2004), and Lang and Dhavale(2005) use various definitions ofexurbs to look at voting patterns indifferent types of communities.These analyses were fueled in largepart by stories from the 2004 presi-dential election documenting thesuccess of Republican voter-mobi-lization efforts in new, outlying com-munities in “swing” states like Ohioand Florida. To study the impact ofdifferent types of suburbs on the2000 and 2004 presidential elec-tions, Lang and Sanchez (2006)develop an urban/suburban typologyfor the 50 largest metropolitan areasin which the outermost counties are

labeled “exurbs.” Teixeira (2006) fur-ther investigates the politics of exur-bia using Lang and Sanchez’sclassification system.These studies that attempt to char-

acterize exurbia and exurbanites formpart of an even larger literaturedevoted to classifying the “hierarchy”of urban, suburban, and rural placesand their residents. Some of thesestudies classify metropolitan countiesand places by their degree of “urban-ness” and the residential/commercialfunctions they serve (Orfield 2002;Lang and Gough 2006; Lang andSanchez 2006). Puentes and Warren(2006) focus on older “first suburbs”that were the first to develop outsidebig cities. Mikelbank (2004) uses thecharacteristics of both suburban resi-dents and their locations to derive atypology of suburban places. Frey(2004) advances a typology of placeswithin metropolitan areas based ontheir population and employment lev-els, and their distance from the urbancore. USDA’s Rural-Urban ContinuumCodes (2004) have for three decadesprovided a particularly influential clas-sification of counties that span theentire U.S. settlement hierarchy.

We make no attempt here to sum-marize the findings from this rich liter-ature, since the studies—spurred bydifferent inquiries—adopt such a widerange of methodologies and come tovery different conclusions.

Given such a rich literature, then,what can this study possibly add to theinformation and interpretation thatalready exists? For one thing, becausethe exurbs are generally acknowledgedas existing at the urban-rural fringe,they likely change rapidly and olderstudies may not reflect the contempo-rary situation. Furthermore, ourreview of the literature suggests to usa few core principles for this effortthat distinguish it from past efforts to“find exurbia:”• Place before people. We choose to

identify exurbs based on their char-acteristics as places, rather than on


the characteristics of the people wholive there. If we were seeking to findthe “exurbanites” as Spectorsky did,we might then consider demographiccharacteristics like race/ethnicity,income, homeownership, or occupa-tion as part of our definition.

Because exurbs are at their rootplaces, however, we identify theattributes of a geographic area thatmight label it an exurb—largely inde-pendent of the social or demo-graphic characteristics of itsresidents (aside from their commut-

ing patterns)—and then seek tounderstand whether the people wholive there are demographically dis-tinct from people elsewhere.3

• Places we know. Advances in Geo-graphic Information Systems (GIS)technology have enabled researchers


Table 1. Studies Defining Exurbia and Related Concepts

Study (by year)

Spectorsky (1955)

Lamb (1983)

Blumenfeld (1986)

Lessinger (1987)

Nelson (1992)

Davis and Nelson (1994)

Nelson and Sanchez (1997)

Theobald (2001)

Irwin and Reece (2002)

Beale and Kassel (2005)

Nelson and Sanchez (2005)

Brownstein and Rainey (2004);

Teixeira (2004, 2005), Gersh

(2004), Lang and Dhavale (2005)

Wolman et al. (2005)

Lang and Sanchez (2006)

Clark, McChesney, Munroe,

and Irwin (2006)

Source: Brookings Institution analysis

Concept measured

Exurbanites

Exurban sprawl

Metropolitan fringe

Penturbia

Exurbs

Exurban movers

Exurban population

Exurban areas

Exurban areas

Exurbs

Exurban areas

Exurbs

Extended Urban

Area

Exurbs (and other

suburban types)

Exurbia

Geographic Unit

Counties and places in NY

metro area

Counties and places

Counties

Counties

Counties

Block groups and places,

Portland and Salem,

OR MSAs

Households in American

Housing Survey, 22 metro

areas

Block groups

Block groups in Ohio

Census tracts

Block groups in 35 largest

metro areas

Counties

Census tracts in six large

metro areas

Counties within 50 largest

metro areas

Small grid cells (170 acres)

from LandScan population

model

Description

Outer edges of the NYC commuter shed: Fairfield County,

CT; Rockland County, NY; Bucks County, PA

Within 50 miles of urbanized area (UA) > 250k people;

growth rate > 5% in 1960s; outside UA in 1970

Outside Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA)

but: (a) within 70 miles of large SMSA (> 2M people) cen-

tral city; or (b) within 50 miles of mid-sized SMSA (500k

to 2M people) central city

Below-average population growth 1950–1970; far above-

average growth 1970–1985

Within 50 miles of central city boundary in mid-sized Met-

ropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) (500k to 2M people);

within 70 miles in large MSA (> 2M people); not central

county or otherwise in metro area in 1960

Recent movers to portions of Portland and Salem, OR

MSAs located outside urban growth boundary; at least

10% commuting to MSA

Recent movers to parts of metropolitan areas outside UA

Housing density of 10–40 acres per unit

Housing density between 5 and 40 acres per unit

Population density < 500 people per square mile; scores

on 4 population characteristics: % of adults with college

degrees; % employed in arts, entertainment, recreation,

information industries; median household income; average

commute time

Population density of 300 to 999 per square mile

Various combinations of metropolitan location and popula-

tion characteristics

UA plus adjoining tracts with minimum housing density

(60 units per square mile) and minimum commuting to

UA (30 percent)

Lower population density, less urbanized population,

higher non-Hispanic white population

Population density of 100 to 1,000

to describe and classify very smallgeographic areas. Many have usedGIS and small-area data to identifyas “exurban” places as small as acouple of acres. However, such tinygeographies, in isolation or in theaggregate, have limited relevance topolicymakers and the public. At thesame time, defining exurbs at toolarge a geographic scale glosses overthe very different development pat-terns that may characterize parts ofthat area. This is a particular prob-lem in the Western U.S., where theaverage county covers 2,825 squaremiles. We attempt to strike a balanceby first pinpointing exurban territoryusing census tract-level (i.e., neigh-borhood-level) data, and then aggre-gating those tracts up to the countylevel to connect our classification towidely-known geographies.

• Useful across time and place. Just asyesterday’s rural area is today’sexurb, the exurbs of prior decades—like Greenwich and New City—aretoday’s mature suburbs. In light ofthese dynamics, we base our exurbanidentification on geographies anddata that are likely to be available atregular intervals over time. Certainly,one-time surveys of land use, sewer-age lines, or night lighting couldform the basis for a methodology toidentify exurban territory. However,these unique data sources are diffi-cult to collect regularly or may beunevenly available locally. Our selec-tion criteria derive from decennialcensus data, with the expectationthat very similar, if not identical,data will be available across time tochart the movement and changingcharacteristics of exurbia. Thesedata also have the advantage of cov-ering the entire United States.

Methodology and Data

The principles above guidehow we translate our modelof exurbia from concept toreal-world geography. Based

on research, popular literature, fieldwork, and interviews with experts, weobserve three measures that defineexurban places: connection, density,and growth. We first identify exurbsusing census tracts—small areas withan average of 4,000 people—and thenaggregate these areas to the countylevel for further analysis.6 To qualify asexurban, a census tract must meet allthree of the criteria described below.

1. Economic connection to a largemetropolis. Implicit in the term“exurb” is some relationship with anurban area. The definition of its prefix,“ex,”—meaning “outside of”—is more

difficult to pinpoint.7 Someresearchers have used distance from,or adjacency to, a city or its estab-lished suburbs to define exurbs. Butthe underlying assumption is that geo-graphical proximity to an urban areaimplies some kind of “connectedness.”Though those connections may takevarious forms—where people shop,where their friends live, what newspa-per they read, or what sports teamsthey root for—commuting ties offerone way to measure economic connec-tion, and one for which data arewidely available.

In our view, an exurb must be physi-cally located outside a large city and itsclose-in suburbs, yet have some pro-portion of its residents working in thatarea. To identify these areas, we usedata compiled by the USDA’s Eco-nomic Research Service (ERS) fromthe Census 2000 tract-to-tract com-


Source: Brookings Institution

Figure 1. Exurban census tracts send at least 20% of their workers to urbanized areas in large metropolitan areas

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muting file.8 We identify as potentiallyexurban those tracts for which ERSidentifies that at least 20 percent ofworkers commute to an urbanized areawithin a large metropolitan area.9

Urbanized areas are the basic censusgeographies that define the core ofmetropolitan areas (Frey et al. 2006),and they typically represent a centralcity and its built-up suburbs.10 The 20-percent commuting threshold is some-what lower than the 30-percentthreshold used by Wolman et al.(2005) to define the extended urbanarea, and also below the 25-percentcounty-level threshold used by OMBto differentiate outlying and centralcounties in metropolitan areas. In thisway, our minimum commuting thresh-old seeks to capture places that maystill be evolving toward fuller inclusionin the metropolis.

We further limit qualifying tracts byidentifying as exurban only thosetracts with commuting ties to anurbanized area within a MetropolitanStatistical Area that had at least500,000 residents in 2000 (see Figure1 for a visual representation of this cri-terion). Exurban tracts may be locatedinside a metropolitan area, either in asmaller urbanized area or outsideurban areas altogether; or they may lieoutside metropolitan areas, in somecases within micropolitan areas.

By using a minimum metropolitanpopulation threshold, we do not meanto indicate that smaller metropolitanareas lack exurbs. Rather, we expectthat applying similar criteria to smallermetro areas would yield a very differ-ent sort of exurb. For instance, com-muting distances from the exurbs ofBinghamton, New York (assumingthere are any) are likely much shorter,and housing prices much lower, thanin the exurbs of Washington, D.C.,San Francisco, or even Tulsa. Addi-tionally, for purposes of this study,aggregating tracts in order to identifysome counties as “exurban” would sac-rifice refinement in small metro areas,which are much more likely to be

composed of only one county thantheir large-metro counterparts.11

Future research should considerwhether and how exurbs might bedefined differently in the small metro-politan context; in this paper we focuson the incidence of large metropolitanexurbs only.12

2. Low housing density. All measuresof urbanity and rurality take densityinto consideration. Since the most vis-ible component of an area’s settlementtype is the built landscape, we usehousing density rather than populationdensity to identify exurban areas. Using Census 2000 data, we rank allcensus tracts nationwide on housingdensity (units per square mile). Wethen distinguish as potentially exurbanthose tracts which, beginning from thelowest density tract, collectively con-tain one-third of the nation’s housingunits.13 In 2000, these tracts had amaximum housing density of roughly2.6 acres per unit.

Why the bottom third? First, thisapproach ensures that we captureareas in which housing is significantlymore spread out than is typical in theU.S. today. Second, it includes a size-able proportion of the typical residen-tial development style at themetropolitan fringe today, whichoccurs on lots of at least one acre.When aggregated to the census tractlevel, most developments at this den-sity likely fall within the range wedefine as exurban.14 Notably, our rangeof acceptable housing densities forexurbia includes more dense settingsthan those used by Theobald (2001)and Irwin and Reece (2002), but simi-lar settings to those considered exur-ban by Nelson and Sanchez (2005;equivalent to a range of 1.6 to 5.3acres/per unit).

Our use of housing density inter-sects to a certain degree with densitymeasures that underlie our commut-ing criterion. Specifically, potentiallyexurban tracts must have an economicconnection to an urbanized area

within a large metropolitan area, yetlie outside that urbanized area. Thus,many exurbs lie in areas that alreadyfail to meet the population densitythreshold necessary to qualify as“urbanized” under the CensusBureau’s definition.15 Because sometracts that meet our commuting crite-rion do lie in smaller urbanized areas(see the commuting discussion above),the housing density criterion ensuresthat we capture areas with a morespread-out feel than is typical in sub-urbia today.

3. Population growth. Exurbs areemerging growth centers, where peo-ple have been moving in large num-bers recently. Some of these peoplemay have come from outside the met-ropolitan area, but an even largernumber may have relocated fromdenser parts of the same metropolitanarea, in search of lower housing costs,more open space, and/or a small-town“feel.” To qualify as exurban, a censustract must have experienced popula-tion growth between 1990 and 2000that exceeded the average for itsrelated metropolitan area.16 In addi-tion, the tract must have grown by atleast 10 percent in the 1990s (thusexcluding neighborhoods with very lit-tle population growth located indeclining metropolitan areas). Simi-larly, tracts that grew by at least 3times the national rate in the 1990s(at least 39.6 percent) are consideredto have satisfied this criterion, even iftheir metropolitan area grew some-what faster (as was the case in metroareas such as Austin, Las Vegas,Phoenix, and Raleigh).

Some may argue that exurbs neednot be growing at all, and that anysemi-rural community with an impor-tant economic relationship to anurban area should be considered exur-ban. But most popular accounts ofexurbia focus on communities grap-pling with change, often facing rapidgrowth as they try to preserve theirrural character. The profile of these


areas is probably quite distinct fromslow-growing or stagnant fringe com-munities with either recent or long-standing commuting ties to the urbancore. (See Box 1 below for an exami-nation of “slow/no-growth exurbs.”)Thus, by including population growthin our conceptual model, we seek toidentify exurbs that have undergonesignificant recent development andchange, where the urban-rural fringeis shifting rapidly.

We apply these three criteria to allcensus tracts nationwide, using datafrom the Geolytics® NeighborhoodChange Database to hold tract bound-aries constant between 1990 and 2000to measure population growth.

Throughout the paper, we refer tocensus tracts that meet these criteria as“exurbs” or “exurban areas,” and to theirresidents as “exurban population” or“exurbanites.” Certainly, not every resi-dent of these census tracts lives an“exurban” lifestyle, to the extent that theterm denotes commuting long dis-tances, living on a large-acre lot, andparticipating in significant recentgrowth. However, because both newand old residents of these areas areexposed to the growth pressures, devel-opment impacts, and economic changestaking place in these areas, we feel com-fortable assigning exurban status to theentire population of these tracts.

For a portion of the analysis, weaggregate our tract results to thecounty level to describe the exurbancharacter of counties based on theproportion of their residents living incensus tracts identified as exurban.We start from census tracts ratherthan counties because the latter varygreatly in size across the country;small counties in the Southeast maybe largely characterized by one type ofdevelopment, while massive countiesin the West might span the distribu-tion from older cities, to mature sub-urbs, to exurbs, to wholly ruralterritory.17

County-based analysis does, how-ever, allow us to identify the exurban

character of recognizable geographies.In Findings D and E, we develop an“urban hierarchy” of metropolitancounties that permits us to compareexurban counties with other types ofurban and suburban counties. Weexplore the demographic, economic,and housing characteristics of exurbanversus other metropolitan residents,using data derived from Census 2000,the Census Bureau’s Population Esti-mates Program, the Internal RevenueService, and the 2004 election results.

Findings

A. In 2000, approximately 10.8 mil-lion people lived in the exurbs oflarge metropolitan areas. Applying the three criteria describedabove to all U.S. census tracts in2000, we find that just 2,127 tracts(3.3 percent of all tracts) can truly belabeled “exurban” (Table 2). They con-tained total population of 10.8 millionthat year, a little under 4 percent ofnational population. Viewed againstthe backdrop of large metropolitanareas, to which our conceptual modelaffixes exurbs, the population of theseexurban areas equaled a little over 6percent of total large metropolitanarea population.18

The most limiting of the three crite-ria relates to the census tract’s eco-nomic connections. Of the more than65,000 census tracts nationwide in2000, just 5,828 (9 percent) qualifiedunder our commuting criterion, whichrequires that at least 20 percent of thetract’s workers commute to an urban-ized area within a large metro area. Ofthese tracts, 3,831 (66 percent) metthe density standard, and 2,952 (51percent) expanded sufficiently in the1990s to meet the population growthcriterion. In the end, 2,127 tracts metall three of these criteria.

Because of the way we defineexurbs, it comes as no surprise thatexurban communities are, on average,fast-growing, low-density, high-com-

muter areas. Because they must, bydefinition, grow faster than their sur-rounding areas, the typical exurbantract experienced rapid populationgrowth in the 1990s. While the nationgrew by 13.2 percent over the decade,median population growth in exurbancensus tracts was 31.4 percent, morethan double the national rate. Simi-larly, housing in exurban areas is builtat low densities; with the typical exur-ban census tract possessing nearly 14acres of land per housing unit.19 Bycontrast, the median tract nationwidehad just 0.8 acres of land per housingunit in 2000. And exurbs are clearlybedroom communities, evidenced bythe 52 percent of workers in the typi-cal exurban tract who commute intothe urbanized core of a large metropol-itan area.

Most exurbs are located within theouter reaches of metropolitan areas.Yet in 2000, nearly 14 percent of exur-banites lived outside metro areas alto-gether. A significant share of thesenonmetropolitan exurbanites (44 per-cent) could be found in newly-desig-nated micropolitan areas, smallercommunities that often adjoin metro-politan areas. For instance, LaSalleCounty, part of the Ottawa-Streator,IL Micropolitan Statistical Area, bor-ders the Chicago metropolis andhouses significant numbers of com-muters to that urban area. Similarly,Monroe County in eastern Pennsylva-nia, which forms the East Strouds-burg, PA Micropolitan Statistical Area,sends commuters to the urban core ofthe nearby Allentown-Bethlehem-Eas-ton area, as well as to urban portionsof the greater New York area.

If exurbanites represent only 4 per-cent of all Americans, are they such abig deal? First, recall that under ourclassification system, many parts ofthe nation fail to qualify because theylie at a great distance from a largemetropolitan area. As such, a betterway to view the incidence of exurbia isas 6 percent of large metropolitan pop-ulation. Smaller metropolitan areas



Box 1. Slow/No-Growth Exurbs

Our method for defining exurbia embraces fast growth as a defining characteristic of the exurban experience.This is consistent with most popular accounts of exurbs, which tend to focus on rapidly changing areas nearthe urban-rural fringe, and our methods help to identify the locales that are making perhaps the greatestimpacts on metropolitan development patterns. Moreover, using this additional growth criterion enforces

greater similarity across the various communities that we ultimately label “exurbs.”What if instead we had decided that exurbs need not grow fast—or even grow at all? Many past efforts to find exurbia

have not included growth among their definitional criteria (see Table 1). In these studies, exurbs are areas of semi-ruralcharacter (defined most often by density) that lie within the orbit of big cities and their metropolitan areas, but they maynot be growing at all, or they may even be losing population. How might our exurban map change if we were to includethese slow/no-growth areas that met our commuting and density criteria only?

As indicated in Finding A, there are roughly 1,700 additional census tracts nationwide that would qualify as exurbs ifwe dropped the growth criterion. In 2000, 6.8 million people lived in these slow/no-growth exurbs. Including these areaswould thus boost our overall exurban population by roughly two-thirds. Moreover, it would alter somewhat the geographicdistribution of exurbia. The table below shows that, compared to the exurban tracts identified in the text, slow/no-growthexurbs are tilted more heavily towards the Middle Atlantic states, and away from the interior South and the Mountainstates. This makes sense, given the slower growth prevailing in the northern part of the United States. Within the Mid-Atlantic, metropolitan areas such as Albany, Buffalo, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Rochester, and Syracuse all possess largepopulations in these types of slow/no-growth locales.

Regional Location and Population of Slow/No-Growth Exurbs, 2000

Slow/No-Growth Exurbs Exurbs (Table 2)

Share of National Share of National

Division/Region Population 2000 Exurban Population Population 2000 Exurban Population

New England 361,552 5.3 494,084 4.6Middle Atlantic 1,459,919 21.5 1,005,709 9.3Northeast Subtotal 1,821,471 26.8 1,499,793 13.9

East North Central 1,227,699 18.1 1,790,439 16.6West North Central 361,445 5.3 835,705 7.8Midwest Subtotal 1,589,144 23.4 2,626,144 24.4

South Atlantic 1,456,057 21.4 2,235,117 20.8East South Central 298,290 4.4 922,158 8.6West South Central 751,144 11.0 1,874,031 17.4South Subtotal 2,505,491 36.8 5,031,306 46.7

Mountain 134,669 2.0 554,883 5.2Pacific 748,120 11.0 1,051,152 9.8West Subtotal 882,789 13.0 1,606,035 14.9

U.S. Total 6,798,895 100.0 10,763,278 100.0

Source: Brookings Institution analysis of Census 2000 data

Collectively, these slow/no-growth exurban census tracts grew by only 5 percent in population between 1990 and 2000,compared to 31 percent growth in the exurbs defined in the text. As such, they seem distinct from the fast-growing met-ropolitan communities explored throughout this study. Nonetheless, the significant number of people living in theseslow/no-growth exurbs across the country suggests that they merit further study and consideration of their uniqueimpacts on metropolitan form.

may have their own forms of exurbia,but we suspect that they are quite dis-tinct from the large-metro exurbs iden-tified here. Second, although 6percent may not seem like a large por-tion of metropolitan population, thereare many regions of the country, andmetropolitan areas within thoseregions, where exurbs capture muchgreater shares of the population. Thenext section explores variations acrossthe United States in the prevalence ofexurbs.

B. The South and Midwest are moreexurbanized than the West andNortheast.The 2,127 census tracts we identify asexurban in 2000 do not distributeevenly across the country. Someregions of the country seem to “exur-banize” more than others, dependingon factors such as historical and con-temporary settlement patterns, theirnatural constraints to development,

rules and regulations that guide (orfail to guide) development, and thelocation and number of their largemetropolitan areas.

Overall, the South and the Midwestare the most exurbanized regions,based on the ratio of population intheir exurban tracts to population intheir large metropolitan areas. In theSouth, these exurbanites represented9.3 percent of large metro area popu-lation in 2000, and the comparableproportion in the Midwest was 7.5percent (Table 2). Within theseregions, the East South Central divi-sion, comprising Kentucky, Tennessee,Mississippi, and Alabama, exhibited aneven more highly exurbanized popula-tion than the larger South, with nearlyone in six residents living in an exurb.The same was true of the West NorthCentral division (the Dakotas,Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, andMinnesota) compared to the overallMidwest. In these areas of the nation,

suburban growth generally far out-paced city growth in the 1990s, andfew natural barriers stand in the wayof continued metropolitan decentral-ization (Berube 2003, Fulton et al.2001).

The West and Northeast show a farlower incidence of exurbia than theother regions. Exurbanites in theseregions represent between 3 and 4percent of large metropolitan popula-tion. In particular, the Mid-Atlantic(New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jer-sey) and Pacific (California, Oregon,Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii) divi-sions, though they each have morethan 1 million exurban residents, haverelatively small shares of their large-metro populations in such areas. Envi-ronmental constraints to outwardgrowth in the West, such as desertsand mountains, the older urbanizeddevelopment of the Northeast, andmore similar growth rates betweencities and suburbs make for smaller

September 2006 • The Brookings Institution • Living Cities Census Series 9

Table 2. Regional Location of Exurban Census Tracts

Ratio of Share of Percent of Total Exurban to National

Number of Total Number Tracts that Population in Total Large Metro Large Metro ExurbanCensus Division Exurban Tracts of Tracts are Exurban Exurban Tracts Population Population Population Population

New England 99 3,207 3.1 494,084 13,922,517 10,260,511 4.8 4.6

Middle Atlantic 212 9,974 2.1 1,005,709 39,671,861 32,090,895 3.1 9.3

Northeast 311 13,181 2.4 1,499,793 53,594,378 42,351,406 3.5 13.9

East North Central 382 11,358 3.4 1,790,439 45,155,037 26,895,804 6.7 16.6

West North Central 169 5,106 3.3 835,705 19,237,739 8,070,198 10.4 7.8

Midwest 551 16,464 3.3 2,626,144 64,392,776 34,966,002 7.5 24.4

South Atlantic 381 10,793 3.5 2,235,117 51,769,160 30,144,612 7.4 20.8

East South Central 167 3,941 4.2 922,158 17,022,810 5,446,570 16.9 8.6

West South Central 359 7,108 5.1 1,874,031 31,444,850 18,726,322 10.0 17.4

South 907 21,842 4.2 5,031,306 100,236,820 54,317,504 9.3 46.7

Mountain 127 4,285 3.0 554,883 18,172,295 9,886,618 5.6 5.2

Pacific 231 9,565 2.4 1,051,152 45,025,637 34,716,459 3.0 9.8

West 358 13,850 2.6 1,606,035 63,197,932 44,603,077 3.6 14.9

Nation 2,127 65,337 3.3 10,763,278 281,421,906 176,237,989 6.1 100.0

Source: Brookings Institution analysis of decennial census data

10

shares of population in these regionsliving in far-flung, low-density exurbs.

The South as a whole containsalmost 47 percent of the nation’s exur-ban population, far more than anyother region. The South Atlantic statesalone (coastal states from Maryland toFlorida) contain one-fifth of all exur-banites. Roughly one-quarter of exur-ban population resides in the Midwest,with about one in six living in the EastNorth Central division (the “RustBelt” states from Ohio to Wisconsin).The rest of exurbia splits fairly evenlybetween the Northeast and the West.

Drilling down to the state level, themore exurbanized nature of the Southand Midwest continues to stand out(Figure 2). South Carolina, Oklahoma,Tennessee, and Maryland—all South-ern states—lead all others in the shareof their populations living in exurbancommunities. The Midwest also placesthree states (Wisconsin, Missouri, andMinnesota) among the 10 most exur-banized. Due to the happenstance ofpolitical boundaries, exurban residentsin some of these states actually com-mute to adjacent states for work. Forinstance, much of Maryland’s exurbanpopulation commutes to Washington,D.C., and its Northern Virginia sub-urbs. Many Wisconsin exurbanitescommute to Minneapolis-St. Paul andits Minnesota suburbs.

Also striking is the rank-order ofstates by their total exurban popula-tions. Texas and California place num-ber one and number two, respectively,not surprising in light of their overallsize. Yet Ohio, the seventh-largest stateby overall population, places third ontotal exurban population. Michigan,the eighth-largest state, comes rightbehind in fourth place (Table 3).

Notably, seven states and the Dis-trict of Columbia lack exurbs alto-gether. These states—includingVermont, Montana, and Alaska—pos-sess no large metropolitan areas, andare located at great enough distancesfrom other large metropolitan areasthat they do not have any tracts that

Table 3. States Ranked by Total Exurban Population, 2000

State Total population Exurban population Percent exurban

1 Texas 20,851,820 1,241,472 6.0

2 California 33,871,648 725,921 2.1

3 Ohio 11,353,140 465,585 4.1

4 Michigan 9,938,444 457,184 4.6

5 New York 18,976,457 455,833 2.4

6 Tennessee 5,689,283 438,600 7.7

7 Virginia 7,078,515 417,721 5.9

8 Maryland 5,296,486 395,084 7.5

9 South Carolina 4,012,012 379,369 9.5

10 Wisconsin 5,363,675 375,881 7.0

11 Florida 15,982,378 373,092 2.3

12 Pennsylvania 12,281,054 368,000 3.0

13 North Carolina 8,049,313 360,292 4.5

14 Missouri 5,595,211 353,722 6.3

15 Minnesota 4,919,479 307,425 6.2

16 Oklahoma 3,450,654 307,354 8.9

17 Washington 5,894,121 261,709 4.4

18 Georgia 8,186,453 260,191 3.2

19 Indiana 6,080,485 255,979 4.2

20 Illinois 12,419,293 235,810 1.9

21 Alabama 4,447,100 224,129 5.0

22 Massachusetts 6,349,097 218,592 3.4

23 Colorado 4,301,261 199,548 4.6

24 Kentucky 4,041,769 190,125 4.7

25 Arizona 5,130,632 187,584 3.7

26 New Jersey 8,414,350 181,876 2.2

27 Louisiana 4,468,976 180,877 4.0

28 Arkansas 2,673,400 144,328 5.4

29 Kansas 2,688,418 132,235 4.9

30 Connecticut 3,405,565 127,699 3.7

31 New Mexico 1,819,046 104,302 5.7

32 New Hampshire 1,235,786 83,851 6.8

33 Mississippi 2,844,658 69,304 2.4

34 Oregon 3,421,399 52,435 1.5

35 Rhode Island 1,048,319 47,750 4.6

36 Nevada 1,998,257 40,912 2.0

37 Nebraska 1,711,263 29,748 1.7

38 Delaware 783,600 24,697 3.2

39 West Virginia 1,808,344 24,671 1.4

40 Utah 2,233,169 22,537 1.0

41 Maine 1,274,923 16,192 1.3

42 Iowa 2,926,324 12,575 0.4

43 Hawaii 1,211,537 11,087 0.9

44 Alaska 626,932 0 0.0

45 District of Columbia 572,059 0 0.0

46 Idaho 1,293,953 0 0.0

47 Montana 902,195 0 0.0

48 North Dakota 642,200 0 0.0

49 South Dakota 754,844 0 0.0

50 Vermont 608,827 0 0.0

51 Wyoming 493,782 0 0.0

Total 281,421,906 10,763,278 3.8


qualify on our commuting criterion(the District, on the other hand, lies atthe fully-urbanized heart of the Wash-ington, DC metro area). Still, thesestates probably have growing, com-muter-dominated areas with low-den-sity housing that might form thesubject of future “small-metro exurbs”research.

C. Seven metropolitan areas have atleast one in five residents living inan exurb.Exurbia, at least by our rendering, is ametropolitan phenomenon. Therefore,examining the incidence of exurbia atthe metropolitan level can offer per-haps the best insights into whereexurbs are most common, and whatdrives their development.20

As a first observation, large metro-politan areas vary greatly in their num-ber of exurban residents, and the ratioof exurban residents to total metropol-itan residents (Table 4). From themost exurban metro area (Poughkeep-sie, NY) to the least exurban (Miami,FL), there exists a roughly hundred-fold difference in the exurban ratio.

A second revealing finding is that eachand every one of the 88 large metroareas has at least some associatedexurban population—from just 4,600in the New Haven-Milford, CT area to445,000 in the Dallas-Forth Wortharea (details on exurban populationsassociated with all 88 large metroareas can be found in Appendix Table A).

Among the top 10 metro areas inthe ratio of exurban to metropolitanpopulation, seven actually have exur-ban-to-metropolitan population ratiosof at least 20 percent. This representsmore than three times the nationalaverage. The top 10 comprise threesomewhat different types of “heavilyexurban” areas: • One set contains relatively smaller

metro areas with populationsbetween 500,000 and 750,000 (Lit-tle Rock, Grand Rapids, Greenville,Madison, and Knoxville). Thesemetro areas seem to contain signifi-cant rural territory within their met-ropolitan boundaries, and have largenumbers of workers commuting intotheir urban cores from outside the

metro area altogether. • A second group, consisting of

Poughkeepsie and Worcester, repre-sents “satellite metros” linked closelyto the adjoining metro areas of NewYork and Boston. Many residents ofthese areas live in fast-growing com-munities where the majority of peo-ple work within the county, even as asignificant minority commute longdistances to adjacent metropolises.(See Box 2.)

• A third set of large, Southern metro-politan areas (Birmingham,Knoxville, Nashville, and Austin)reflects fast-growing regions wherehomebuilding seems to have spreadquickly into the rural hinterlands.At the other end of the spectrum

lies a group of areas where exurbanresidents amount to fewer than one in40 metropolitan residents. Thesemetro areas, too, divide into threegroups. • Some face natural barriers, such as

mountains, oceans, deserts, and wet-lands, that inhibit the outward, low-density development characteristicof exurbs (Salt Lake City, San Diego,San Jose, Honolulu, and Miami).21

• New York and Los Angeles anchordense mega-regions that each have aconsiderable number of exurbanites.However, those exurban populationsare quite small viewed against thebackdrop of total metropolitan popu-lation.

• Finally, Youngstown, Pittsburgh, andNew Haven are growing so slowly—or losing population—that relativelyfew of their communities (even atthe metropolitan fringe) have gainedenough population recently to qual-ify as exurbs.Ranked by absolute exurban popula-

tion, the Dallas, Minneapolis-St. Paul,and Washington, DC metro areas leadthe way. These regions feature promi-nently in journalistic accounts of exur-ban change; Frisco (TX), CarverCounty (MN), and Caroline and KingGeorge counties (VA) have all served assubjects of recent news stories about

October 2006 • The Brookings Institution • Living Cities Census Series 1 1

Source: Brookings Institution analysis of Census Bureau data

Note: Alaska has no exurban population, and less than 1 percent of Hawaii’s population lives in

exurbs

Figure 2. Percentage of Population Living in Exurban CensusTracts by State, 2000

< 2%

2% to 3.99%

4% to 5.99%

6% and up

None

the rise of exurbia (Lyman 2005; Curry2004; Cohn and Gardner 2006).

Analyzing the metro-area results byregion further illuminates the variableforms and drivers of exurban develop-ment across the United States.• South. Consistent with the findings

by region, the vast majority of South-ern metropolitan areas (26 of 32)exhibit above-average degrees ofexurbanization. The trend is particu-larly pronounced in the Carolinas,which place six metro areas amongthe 20 most exurban. Metro areas inthe interior South, including thosein Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas,and Kentucky also rank high, withfew natural barriers standing in theway of their outward development,and an extensive interstate highway

system fueling it. Notably, Atlanta—apopular example of the problemsassociated with lower-density devel-opment patterns—shows up withonly an average degree of exurban-ization. Roughly 85 percent of theregion’s population in 2000 actuallylived inside the massive Atlanta, GAurbanized area (mostly at suburbandensities), implicitly limiting theextent of exurban development.Additionally, the region grew by astaggering 38 percent in the 1990s,mounting a high growth bar for anycommunity to qualify as exurban.22

• West. In contrast to the South, 12 of20 Western metro areas have abelow-average ratio of exurban popu-lation to metro area population. Sev-eral in California rank very low, a

testament to the denser developmentthat characterizes the Pacific coast(Fulton et al. 2001). As one headsinto California’s interior, however,exurbs become more prevalent.Riverside-San Bernardino, Fresno,Stockton, and Bakersfield possessmore exurban development relativeto their populations than theircoastal counterparts. In the Moun-tain West, natural barriers seem tolimit the extent of exurbia in placeslike Salt Lake City, Phoenix, and LasVegas. Yet the same does not hold forDenver, Tucson, Colorado Springs,and Albuquerque, all of whichexhibit above-average degrees ofexurbanization.

• Northeast. As the “top 10” resultssuggest, significant exurban develop-


Table 4. Top and Bottom Metropolitan Areas by Percent Exurban, 2000

Population, Total Exurban Percent Exurban, ExurbanMetropolitan Area 2000 Population, 2000 2000* counties

1 Poughkeepsie-Newburgh-Middletown, NY 621,517 200,728 32.3% 2

2 Little Rock-North Little Rock, AR 610,518 144,328 23.6% 6

3 Grand Rapids-Wyoming, MI 740,482 168,523 22.8% 3

4 Greenville, SC 559,940 123,734 22.1% 1

5 Madison, WI 501,774 110,127 21.9% 3

6 Birmingham-Hoover, AL 1,052,238 224,129 21.3% 5

7 Knoxville, TN 616,079 129,497 21.0% 6

8 Worcester, MA 750,963 149,104 19.9% 0

9 Nashville-Davidson—Murfreesboro, TN 1,311,789 253,100 19.3% 8

10 Austin-Round Rock, TX 1,249,763 221,611 17.7% 5

79 Salt Lake City, UT 968,858 22,537 2.3% 2

80 San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA 2,813,833 60,331 2.1% 0

81 Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, OH-PA 602,964 12,870 2.1% 0

82 Pittsburgh, PA 2,431,087 51,035 2.1% 0

83 San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA 1,735,819 28,185 1.6% 0

84 Honolulu, HI 876,156 11,087 1.3% 0

85 New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA 18,323,002 219,667 1.2% 3

86 Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA 12,365,627 111,511 0.9% 0

87 New Haven-Milford, CT 824,008 4,593 0.6% 0

88 Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach, FL 5,007,564 13,478 0.3% 0

Total 176,237,989 10,763,278 6.1% 245

* Ratio of total exurban population to total metropolitan population


ment can be found in some smaller“satellite” metropolitan areas in theNortheast. Beyond Poughkeepsie andWorcester, a host of eastern Pennsyl-vania metro areas (Scranton–Wilkes-Barre, Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton,Harrisburg-Carlisle) exhibit above-average ratios of exurban-to-total-metropolitan population. Householdsat the fringe of each of these metroareas commute to their urban coresfor work, but others drive to largerneighboring regions (e.g., New York,Philadelphia, Baltimore) for theirjobs. While none is growingquickly—the Scranton area actuallylost population during the 1990s—each contains neighborhoods wherefast development occurred over theprevious decade.23 Even more strikingis the collection of upstate New Yorkmetro areas, including Albany, Buf-falo, Rochester, and Syracuse, whichdespite very slow metropolitangrowth or even population loss stillcontain significant exurban popula-tions.

• Midwest. The Midwest places a cou-ple of metropolitan areas (GrandRapids and Madison) very high onthe exurban scale. Several more dis-play high rates of exurbanization,such that 11 of the 18 Midwesternmetro areas exhibit above-averageexurban ratios. The Detroit, KansasCity, and St. Louis regions, in partic-ular, each possess more than200,000 exurban residents. All arelosing population in the urban core,but are experiencing rapid, low-den-sity growth at the exurban fringe.Columbus (OH), Cincinnati, Mil-waukee, and Cleveland lag not farbehind. The Chicago area, like theTwin Cities, has more than 300,000exurban residents, but that repre-sents a relatively small fraction ofthe metro area’s 9 million-personreach. Finally, Dayton, Toledo, andYoungstown, largely by virtue of theirstagnant overall population growth,as well as their proximity to otherstruggling regions (Cincinnati and

Cleveland), show fairly low degreesof rapid exurban development.These findings emphasize that pop-

ulation growth alone does not deter-mine the degree to which ametropolitan area develops exurbs. Inslow-growth regions of the Northeastand Midwest, rapid homebuilding atthe fringe may drain population awayfrom cities and close-in suburbs, fuel-ing the rise of exurban communities.In Buffalo, Scranton, St. Louis, andDetroit, the pace of homebuilding faroutstripped household growth in the1990s (Bier and Post 2003). Alterna-tively, proximity to an economicallydynamic region, coupled with a slowrate of homebuilding in that adjacentregion, may force growth into exurbsin satellite metro areas. The Bostonand New York areas, in particular, haveexperienced declining rates of home-building in recent decades (Glaeser,Gyourko, and Saks 2005). To gainaccess to affordable housing, house-holds seem to have shifted outward toexurbs in areas like Worcester, Hart-ford, Poughkeepsie, and Allentown.

Similarly, in Southern and Westernmetro areas, fast growth alone has notdictated the extent of exurbia. Wherenatural barriers to metropolitan decen-tralization are limited—such as in theSoutheast, some areas of the Inter-mountain West, and California’sInland Empire and Central Valley—rapid metropolitan expansion hasbrought significant exurbanization. Inother fast-growing metro areas nearoceans, deserts, wetlands, and moun-tains, by contrast, fewer exurbs havesprung up (e.g., Phoenix, Las Vegas,coastal California, and Florida). Inmany cases, rapid suburban develop-ment in these regions has assumed adenser “boomburb” form than is typi-cal elsewhere (Lang and Simmons2003).

Maps of selected regions help toilluminate the variable number andlocation of exurban areas across theUnited States:• In the greater Boston area (Map 1),

exurbanization has pushed north-ward into southern New Hampshire,and westward into WorcesterCounty. Within Massachusetts, mostcommunities inside Interstate 495are either too dense, or too slow-growing, to qualify as exurbs. Justbeyond the interstate, however, lies aseries of rapidly growing commutertowns, like Lancaster, Sterling,Bolton, and Harvard, where lower-density development predominates.Meanwhile, the smaller city ofWorcester itself has spawned exur-ban development to its west, intowns like Barre, Hubbardston, andWestminster. Several tracts in andaround Worcester qualify on ourcommuting criterion (yellow areas)because they still maintain signifi-cant commuting ties to the largerBoston urbanized area, but they aretoo high-density and slow-growing tobe exurban.

• Chicago (Map 2) has sprouted aconsiderable number of exurbancommunities in former farmlandsthroughout the metro area, and insome instances, beyond. Outside themetro area’s older counties of Cookand DuPage, exurbs are evident inthe remaining eight counties—mostnotably in McHenry County to thecity’s northwest, where nearly one-quarter of residents live in exurbancensus tracts. The region’s exurbsextend into southern Wisconsin andwestern Indiana; more than half theresidents of Jasper County, IN live infast-growing, low-density areas withsignificant commuting ties to theChicago area’s urban core.

• The map of the greater Los Angelesarea (Map 3) highlights the region’spolycentric nature. The dark greenareas on the map represent exurbsnot only to the city of Los Angelesand its immediate environs, but toother large cities throughout theregion, such as Long Beach, Ana-heim, Thousand Oaks, Riverside,and San Bernardino. The extent ofthe dense urban core (grey areas of



Map 1. Exurban Character of Census Tracts in the Greater Boston AreaBased on Commuting Ties, Population Growth, and Housing Density

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Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NHMetropolitan Statistical Area

Worcester, MA MetropolitanStatistical Area

Source: Brookings Institution analysis of Census 1990 and 2000 data


Map 2. Exurban Character of Census Tracts in the Greater Chicago AreaBased on Commuting Ties, Population Growth, and Housing Density

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Source: Brookings Institution analysis of Census 1990 and 2000 data


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Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WIMetropolitan Statistical Area


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MARYLAND

DC

Source: Brookings Institution analysis of Census 1990 and 2000 data0 6 12 18 243Miles



Density, not commuting,not growthCommuting and density,not growth

None

Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WVMetropolitan Statistical Area

Baltimore-Towson, MDMetropolitan Statisitical Area

Exurban: All three


Box 2. Whose Exurb?

In this section, we associate exurban census tracts with the metropolitan areas in which they are located, and in thecase of tracts outside metro areas, with the metro area to which they have their most significant commuting ties. Asa result, satellite areas like Poughkeepsie, NY and Worcester, MA, rank among the most highly exurban metro areas,in part because many of their residents commute to nearby large metro areas. Relating exurban tracts to metro areas

in this way maintains consistency with other parts of our analysis, which assign tracts to the regions and states (FindingsA and B) and counties (Findings D and E) in which they are located.

Under an alternative approach, one could associate each exurban tract not with its “home” metro area, but with themetro area to which it has qualifying commuting ties. In this view, some exurbs in Worcester County, MA would beassigned to the Boston metro area; likewise, exurbs in Dutchess and Orange counties, NY would relate to the New York,rather than Poughkeepsie, metro area.

How would a commuting-based assignment change our rankings? The vast majority of metro areas would not changetheir relative position very much. Only 13 out of the 88 large metro areas change by at least six positions within the list ineither direction under this alternative allocation scheme (see table below). Those shedding significant amounts of exurbiaunder the commuting approach include Worcester and Poughkeepsie, as well Riverside and Oxnard (satellites to the LosAngeles metro area) and Allentown (a satellite to both New York and Philadelphia). Gaining are regions that draw in com-muters from surrounding metro areas, including Milwaukee (from Madison and Chicago), Los Angeles, and Boston.Some gains represent the addition of only one census tract (e.g., Dayton, Stockton, and Virginia Beach). In the majorityof places, the two methods produce minor differences, or none at all.

In the end, viewing exurbs through the lens of their own metropolitan areas puts the issues associated with theirgrowth and development squarely at the feet of policymakers who must contend with these issues on a daily basis.Nonetheless, it is useful to examine how “exurbanized” metro areas like Boston, New York, and Los Angeles appearthrough the commuting kaleidoscope.

Difference in Percentage Exurban Rank, Location-Based versus Commuting-Based Allocation of Exurban Tracts, Large Metropolitan Areas

Location-Based Commuting-Based

Exurban Exurban

Metro Area* Population % in Exurbs Rank Population % in Exurbs Rank

Exurban Population IncreasesBoston, MA-NH 130,785 3.0 75 248,363 5.7 52Milwaukee, WI 116,780 7.8 38 148,708 9.9 28Stockton, CA 26,432 4.7 64 29,101 5.2 56Bridgeport, CT 18,985 5.3 57 51,696 5.9 50Dayton, OH 21,242 2.5 77 28,492 3.4 70Virginia Beach, VA 95,292 6.0 52 100,654 6.4 45Los Angeles, CA 111,598 0.9 86 277,066 2.2 80

Exurban Population DecreasesSpringfield, MA 35,795 5.3 58 28,312 4.2 64Poughkeepsie, NY 200,728 32.3 1 70,489 11.3 23Allentown, PA 80,705 10.9 25 44,485 6.0 49Oxnard, CA 47,920 6.4 48 17,864 2.4 78Riverside, CA 217,750 6.7 44 87,216 2.7 76Worcester, MA 149,104 19.9 8 34,428 4.6 62

* Metro area names abbreviated; full names displayed in Appendix A


the map) is striking, reflecting thenatural barriers to low-density devel-opment that have limited the overalldegree of exurbanization in theregion. The yellow areas, whichmaintain significant commuting tieswith more than one of the region’surbanized areas, occur frequently aswell. Nodes of exurban developmentare nonetheless evident in severalparts of greater Los Angeles, includ-ing: southern Orange County aroundLaguna Niguel; northern Los Ange-les County outside of Lancaster andPalmdale; the outskirts of Simi Val-ley and other areas surroundingThousand Oaks; and inner RiversideCounty near Corona and Ontario.Yet the map may make exurbaniza-tion in the region look slightly moreprevalent than it is, since many darkgreen tracts are actually sparselypopulated desert and mountainareas.

• Measured as a proportion of metro-politan population, Washington’sexurbs are the largest among thesefour regions (Map 4). The tentaclesof the Washington region reach farsouth into Spotsylvania County, VA,where they begin to bleed into Rich-mond’s northern exurbs; west intoWarren County, VA, at the base ofthe Shenandoah Mountains; northinto Frederick County, MD; and tothe southeast in Calvert, Charles,and St. Mary’s counties, MD. Balti-more, pictured partially on the map,also exhibits significant exurbandevelopment, and its exurbs meetWashington’s in fast-growing west-ern Howard County, MD. Unlike inBoston, Chicago, and Los Angeles—regions bounded by water on oneside—development in the Washing-ton region is occurring on all foursides of the urban core.

D. Nationwide, 245 counties have at least one-fifth of their residentsliving in exurban areas.Analyzing exurban population at thecensus tract level provides a fine-

grained view of where, and how much,exurban development occurs in andaround metropolitan areas. But ques-tions regarding who lives in exurbiaare just as important for understand-ing what drives the growth of thesecommunities, and what, if anything,differentiates them from the rest ofsuburbia.

Identifying Exurban CountiesUnfortunately, the decennial census ispractically the only data source thatprovides tract-level information onhousehold social and economic char-acteristics. For some statistics pre-sented in this and subsequentsections, Census 2000 provides themost recent information available todescribe these characteristics. To takeadvantage of newer data, we aggregatecensus tracts to the county level, andprofile so-called exurban counties andtheir inhabitants using a variety ofnational demographic and economicdata sources.

As noted in the Methodology sec-tion, census tracts are small enoughareas that designating a whole tract,and 100 percent of its residents, as“exurban” probably does not createconsiderable error. By contrast, label-ing a whole county as “exurban” ismore difficult, since counties aremuch larger entities, especially in theWestern U.S. and New England.

To determine a threshold for identi-fying exurban counties, we ranked allU.S. counties on the percentage oftheir populations living in exurbancensus tracts (Appendix Figure A).Overall, 574 counties contained atleast one exurban census tract. Ofthese, 329 counties had less than 20percent of their populations living inexurban areas, containing 5.1 millionpeople (47 percent of total exurbanpopulation). A lower-bound thresholdof 20 percent to identify exurbancounties, then, captures a slightmajority (53 percent) of all people liv-ing in exurban areas. Furthermore,there exists a significant drop between

the number of counties that are 15 to20 percent exurban (54), and thenumber that are 20 to 25 percentexurban (37), suggesting that a sort ofnatural break exists at this threshold(see Appendix Figure A). We also com-pared the list of counties that Langand Sanchez (2006) identify as exur-ban to our county rankings, and whileour methodological approaches differ,we find significant overlap betweentheir exurban counties and countiesthat exceed our 20-percent threshold.24

Picking 20 percent as our lower-bound threshold, we identify 245counties (7.8 percent of all U.S. coun-ties) that have significant exurbancharacter. Many of these countiescluster around a handful of metropoli-tan areas (these counties and some oftheir characteristics are listed inAppendix Table B). Louisville laysclaim to the largest number of exurbancounties, with 13 in its metropolitanorbit. Three other metropolitan areasin the South—Richmond, Washing-ton, and Atlanta—possess 11 exurbancounties each. Minneapolis-St. Pauland Dallas-Ft. Worth both claim 10.Together, more than one-quarter of allexurban counties lie in and aroundthese six metro areas.

This clustering reflects not only theexurban character of certain metroareas, but also the typical size of coun-ties in their home states. All elseequal, smaller counties at the metro-politan fringe are more likely than verylarge ones to reach the 20-percentexurban threshold. Birmingham, forinstance, exhibits a larger exurbanpopulation than Louisville (Table 4),but has only five exurban counties toLouisville’s 13. Birmingham’s exurbancounties, however, boast 64,000 peo-ple on average, more than double thesize of the average exurban countyaround Louisville. Notably, theWorcester metro area—ranked eighthoverall on the ratio of exurban-to-totalpopulation—possesses no exurbancounties, because it is composed ofonly county (Worcester County, MA)


that fails to meet the 20-percentthreshold. Thus, the number of exur-ban counties in any one metro areadepends on its geographic extent andgovernance arrangements, as well asthe degree of local exurbanization.

Our list of exurban counties con-tains several of the “usual suspects”identified as such in the popularpress—Jackson County north ofAtlanta, Scott County outside of Min-neapolis-St. Paul, and FauquierCounty outside of Washington, D.C.25

Yet other counties widely cited asexurbs, such as Loudoun County, VA;Forsyth County, GA; Delaware County,OH; and Pasco County, FL, fail toqualify. Each of these counties actu-ally has significant population living inexurban census tracts (and significantland area consumed by exurban devel-opment) but not quite enough to rep-resent 20 percent of total countypopulation. In fact, these countieshave largely passed the exurban stage

of their life cycles, and are closer towhat Lang and Sanchez (2006) term“emerging suburbs” (see below).

In identifying exurbs, we rely ondecennial census data. Six years onfrom Census 2000, however, it isworth inquiring whether exurbsremain growth centers in their respec-tive metropolitan areas. To examinethis and several additional questionsregarding the demographic and eco-nomic profile of exurbs using morerecent data, we divide jurisdictionswithin the 88 metropolitan areas intofour types of county-based geogra-phies:26

• Urban counties (40 in total) havesignificant central-city populations,and a highly urbanized character.Specifically, one or more of the 123metropolitan central cities identifiedin Living Cities Census Series publi-cations, based on city size and met-ropolitan area name, accounted forat least half the population of these

counties in 2000. Furthermore, atleast 95 percent of residents in thesecounties lived in an urbanized areain 2000. Several are urban city-counties such as Philadelphia, Balti-more, and San Francisco. Others areSunbelt counties with large, “elastic”central cities such as Houston,Charlotte, and Albuquerque thatmaintain urban population densities(Rusk 2003).

• Inner suburban counties (82 intotal) meet either of the criteria tobe considered urban, but not both.Some have high population densitiesbut do not contain significant cen-tral-city population. Many of theseare the “first suburbs” just outsidelarge cities identified by Puentes andWarren (2006), such as Nassau(NY), Montgomery (MD), andOrange (CA). Others contain one ormore central cities, but have amajority of their populations livingoutside them, such as Los Angeles


Table 5. Exurban Population Change, 2000 to 2005

Population Change and Components of Change by County TypePopulation % Change by Component

County Type Number 2000 2005 % Change Natural Increase Immigration Internal Migration

Urban 40 44,279,015 45,581,910 2.9 4.3 4.0 -5.8

Inner Suburban 82 69,143,556 71,912,902 4.0 3.6 3.4 -2.9

Outer Suburban 211 50,637,945 55,178,398 9.0 3.0 1.5 4.6

Exurban 245 14,454,037 16,226,633 12.3 2.7 0.7 9.0

Total 578 178,514,553 188,899,843 5.8 3.5 2.8 -0.5

Metro Areas with Largest Absolute Change in Exurban County PopulationPopulation Change 2000–2005

Metro Area Exurbs Metro Area % in Exurbs

Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV 139,681 409,300 34.1

Orlando-Kissimmee, FL 121,572 276,867 43.9

Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI 113,401 166,333 68.2

Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA 108,500 649,632 16.7

Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX 91,653 538,657 17.0

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX 88,814 629,290 14.1

Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI 79,397 323,634 24.5

Source: Brookings analysis of Census 2000 and Census Population Estimates Program data

(CA), Hamilton (OH), and Allegheny(PA). Still others have a large centralcity, but are built at lower, suburban-style densities, such as Pima (AZ),Guilford (NC), and Travis (TX). Onbalance, the suburban character ofthese counties outweighs their urbancharacter.

• Outer suburban counties (211 intotal) include the residual countieswithin the 88 large metropolitanareas that do not meet the criteriafor any of the other three countytypes (including exurban counties—see below). Lang and Sanchez(2006) term most of these either“mature suburbs” or “emerging sub-urbs,” and they include growingcounties such as Anne Arundel (MD,outside Baltimore), Collin (TX, out-side Dallas), Pinal (AZ, outsidePhoenix), and Forsyth (GA, outsideAtlanta). These counties do notalways lie at the outer edges of theirmetropolitan areas, but the title con-notes their position in the metropolisrelative to inner suburban counties,and the fact that they are distinctfrom exurbs, which lie outside thesuburban range.

• Exurban counties (245 in total) arethose described above, both insideand outside large metropolitan areas,that have at least 20 percent of theirpopulations living in census tractsthat satisfy the three exurban criteria.

Recent Exurban County GrowthExurban areas are defined in part bytheir rapid population growth between1990 and 2000. County-level analysissuggests that their growth advantagehas continued into the current decade.Among the four county types, exurbancounties grew fastest overall between2000 and 2005, by 12.3 percent(Table 5). This was more than doublethe rate for the 578 counties com-bined. Thirty-eight (38) exurban coun-ties actually ranked among the 100fastest-growing in the United Statesduring this period (U.S. Census

Bureau 2006). Outer suburban coun-ties grew by the largest absoluteamount, adding 4.5 million people in5 years, compared to 1.8 million peo-ple added to exurban counties.

In fact, within metropolitan areas,population growth in outer suburbancounties sometimes outpaced that inexurban counties. In the Dallas metroarea, for example, the outer suburbancounties of Collin, Delta, Denton, andRockwall combined for a nearly 30percent growth rate between 2000 and2005, compared to 15 percent in Dal-las’ exurbs. The Austin and Jack-sonville areas exhibited similar growthadvantages “inside” of their far-flungexurbs. Of the 58 large metro areasthat had associated exurban counties,25 had their fastest populationincreases in other county types. Thispattern suggests that in many metro-politan areas, exurbs remain at theedge of the growth envelope, whererapid smaller-lot, suburban-style devel-opment has yet to take root. In theTwin Cities, Orlando, and Washing-ton, D.C. areas, however, exurbs havecaptured a very significant proportionof recent metropolitan populationgrowth (Table 5).

What is the source of exurbs’ con-tinuing growth? In large measure,these counties are growing thanks todomestic in-migration. Between 2000and 2005, they grew by 9 percent dueto internal migration alone, far out-stripping comparable rates in the othercounty types (Table 5). By contrast,they experienced little migration fromabroad. And natural increase—theexcess of births over deaths—hasadded relatively less population toexurban counties than to other countytypes in recent years.

Census Bureau population esti-mates do not provide information onthe exact geographic source of countyin-migrants. But IRS county-to-countymigration data, applied to the Wash-ington, D.C. region as a case-studyexample, offer a picture of within-met-ropolitan migration’s importance to

exurban population gain. The Wash-ington area contains three urban juris-dictions, six inner suburbanjurisdictions, 11 exurban counties, andfive outer suburban counties (Figure3). Between 2000 and 2004, there wasa clear hierarchy of migration withinthe region. Urban counties—specifi-cally, the District of Columbia, Arling-ton, VA, and Alexandria, VA—lostconsiderable population on net toinner suburban jurisdictions. Theinner suburbs, in turn, also experi-enced net migration losses within theregion as they re-distributed migrantsto outer suburbs and exurbs. Thelargest net movement was from theinner suburbs to the outer suburbs,particularly from Fairfax County, VA,to the nearby Virginia counties ofLoudoun and Price William.28

But exurbs gained from these innersuburban counties, too, to the tune of43,000 people from 2000 to 2004.They also drew residents on net fromouter suburban counties, over 22,000during that time period. What is more,Washington-area exurbs actually expe-rienced a small net loss of residents toother parts of the United States duringthis period, further highlighting theimportance of the inner parts of theWashington metropolis as a source ofits exurbs’ population gains.

E. The “average” exurb is dispropor-tionately white, middle-income,homeowner-dominated, and com-muter-oriented.Among those acquainted with exurbia,theories and assumptions about itsprofile abound. Some commonlyadvanced notions hold that exurbs arecharacterized by:• Large non-Hispanic white popula-

tions;• Mostly married-couple family house-

holds, especially with children;• High-income newcomers mixing

with moderate-income longtime resi-dents;

• Workers making long-distance“super-commutes” back into the


urban core, and workers telecom-muting and working from home;

• A real estate-driven economy, withlarge numbers of workers employedin construction, landscaping, realestate brokerage, and home-relatedretail;

• Enormous cookie-cutter “McMan-sions” abutting old farmhouses; and

• Reliably Republican votersHaving defined and identified

exurbs, we explore in this section theaccuracy of these hypotheses aboutexurbs and their residents. Table 6 dis-plays the characteristics of the “aver-age” exurb, one exhibiting thepopulation-weighted mean values onseveral of the indicators exploredbelow, compared to large-metropolitanaverages. In many respects, the aver-age exurban area seems to live up topopular expectations.

Of course, there is no one “average”exurb, and the more detailed explo-rations below suggest that exurbanitesdo not always differ dramatically fromtheir suburban counterparts. It alsobears emphasizing that not all resi-dents of exurbs exhibit exurban“behavior.” That is, many people inthese places lived there long beforenew homebuilding and fast growthbegan to occur. And while some exur-ban counties have the majority, oreven all, of their residents living inexurban census tracts, others merelymeet the 20-percent threshold. Thus,the overall characteristics of exurban-county residents explored here con-flate the profiles of newcomers,long-time residents of exurbs, andadjoining areas that do not exhibitexurban character. Using these countyproxies, however, enables us to com-pare a much wider, up-to-date set ofdemographic and economic indicatorsin exurbs versus other metropolitanlocations.

Race and ethnicity—predominantlywhite communities Exurban counties do have a signifi-cantly higher representation of non-

Hispanic whites than other large-metro county types. In 2004, over 83percent of exurban-county residentswere non-Hispanic white, compared to61 percent of large-metro residentsoverall (Table 7). With the exceptionof American Indians, each race andethnic group—including people of twoor more races—comprised a lowershare of population in exurbs than inany other county type. Moreover, thevast majority of exurban counties—211 of 245 (86 percent) had a whitepopulation share that exceeded thenational average of 67 percent. Blacks(7.4 percent) constituted a slightlyhigher share of exurban-county popu-lation than Hispanics (6.5 percent).

Although whites are still over-repre-sented in exurban counties relative totheir share of the nation’s population,exurban counties actually grew slightlymore diverse in the 2000s. Between2000 and 2004, they gained roughly 1million new white residents, but over-all non-Hispanic white share of popu-lation declined by 1.6 percentage

points overall, and dropped in 187 of245 exurban counties.29

Household types—slightly more“nuclear” families The results from Census 2000, the lat-est available for examining householdtypes at the county level, confirm thehypothesis that exurbs do containhigher proportions of “nuclear” fami-lies than other types of places. The dif-ferences are not dramatic, however.Overall, about 28 percent of exurban-county households are married-couplefamilies with children, about 2 per-centage points higher than in outersuburban counties, and 4 percentagepoints higher than the large-metropoli-tan average (Figure 4). The exurbanadvantage is somewhat larger, actually,with respect to childless married cou-ples. These may represent a mix ofyounger professional couples who havenot yet had children, and empty-nesterand retiree households whose childrenhave left home.30

People living alone do, notably,


Source: Brookings Institution analysis of IRS data. *The city-county equivalents of Manassas andManassas Park, VA have population densities that qualify them as “inner suburban,” but are labeledas “outer suburban” here because they lie wholly within outer suburban Prince William County, VA

Figure 3. Net migration patterns within the Washington, D.C.metropolitan area, 2000 to 2004

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760,32

162,3

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272,34

694,7

137,51

217,3

923,2

Migration into/out of region Migration within region

make up a far smaller proportion ofhouseholds in exurban (21 percent)than urban (30 percent) counties. Not surprisingly, then, the averageexurban household (2.67 persons) isslightly larger than that in other typesof counties.

Income—largely middle-income Exurban areas have households at allincome levels, but retain a somewhatmore middle-income profile than sub-urbs. The most recent evidence avail-able on household incomes by countycomes from tax return data reportedby the Internal Revenue Service (IRS),which contains information on tax-payer Adjusted Gross Incomes (AGI).31

The income profile of exurban coun-ties largely mirrors that in other sub-urbs, with one notable difference.Exurbs tilt somewhat more towardsmiddle- and upper-middle-incomehouseholds than their suburban neigh-bors, with a greater percentage of theirresidents in the $40,000 to $60,000,and $60,000 to $100,000 AGI cate-gories. Inner and outer suburbs hadrelatively more high-income house-holds with AGI of at least $100,000.

Of course, these statistics mask sig-nificant variation in the income pro-files of exurban counties themselves.Nearly $27,000 separated the typicalincomes of households in the richestexurban county (Stafford County, VA)

from those in the poorest exurbancounty (Torrance County, NM) in2003 (Table 8). In the counties at thetop of the list, roughly one in sixhouseholds broke the $100,000 bar-rier, compared to roughly one in 40 atthe bottom of the list. Large metroareas such as Washington, New York,Chicago, and the Twin Cities tend tohave wealthy exurbs, while low-incomeexurbs ring somewhat smaller regionsin the South such as Knoxville, Mem-phis, Charlotte, and Tulsa.

Commuting—more early risers and“super-commuters”Commuting patterns form part of ourdefinition of exurbia. At the censustract level, at least 20 percent of work-ers must commute to a large urbanizedarea in order for the tract to be consid-ered exurban (in addition to its meet-ing density and growth criteria). Thus,we might expect that commuting pat-terns in exurban counties are distinctfrom those in other types of metropoli-tan counties.

This turns out to be the case insome, though not all, respects. A largeproportion of workers from exurbancounties worked outside their countyof residence in 2000—roughly halfoverall (Table 9). This is a far highershare than in other metropolitancounties (reflecting in part the smalleraverage geographic size of exurbancounties, as well as our method foridentifying exurbs). Only 11 percent of


Table 6. “Average” Exurban County vs. Large Metropolitan AreaCharacteristics

Exurban counties (%) All large-metro counties (%)

% population change (2000-05) 12 6

% non-Hispanic white (2004) 83 61

% married-with-children (2000) 28 24

% with AGI over $100,000 (2003) 8 11

% working outside county of residence (2000) 51 29

% commuting > 1 hour each direction (2000) 11 9

% in manufacturing or construction (2000) 26 19

% homeowners (2000) 78 63

% of new houses with 9+ rooms (2000) 14 20

% voting for Bush (2004) 63 47

Source: Brookings Institution analysis of Census 2000, Population Estimates Program,

Internal Revenue Service, and 2004 election data

Table 7. Race/Ethnic Profile by County Type, 2004

Urban Inner Suburban Outer Suburban Exurban Total (race/ethnicity)Population % Population % Population % Population % Population %

White 21,237,954 47.0 39,615,756 55.3 40,187,525 74.0 13,236,748 83.4 114,277,983 61.1

Black/African American 10,549,626 23.3 9,033,773 12.6 5,114,065 9.4 1,177,314 7.4 25,874,778 13.8

American Indian 240,034 0.5 495,159 0.7 271,221 0.5 104,351 0.7 1,110,765 0.6

Asian/Pacific Islander 2,991,678 6.6 5,718,352 8.0 1,699,035 3.1 165,837 1.0 10,574,902 5.7

Two or More Races 568,986 1.3 1,207,137 1.7 699,923 1.3 163,183 1.0 2,639,229 1.4

Hispanic 9,624,373 21.3 15,538,624 21.7 6,324,603 11.6 1,029,743 6.5 32,517,343 17.4

Source: Brookings Institution analysis of Population Estimates Program data

exurban workers commute into anurban county, however; most only goas far as the inner or outer suburbs.32

To reach their jobs, exurban resi-dents are more likely than workersfrom urban or inner suburban coun-ties to drive alone to work, thoughthey are very similar in this respect toresidents of outer suburban counties.They are slightly more likely than com-muters from other county types to car-pool. Only a small fraction—less than1 percent—use public transit, com-pared to 16 percent in urban counties,reflecting that most exurban areashave no viable public transportationoptions.

Contrary to the notion that exurbsare hotbeds for “telecommuters,” thereis no evidence that exurbanites workfrom home at higher rates than othermetropolitan workers.33 The vastmajority who work outside the homedo, however, face longer commutes—roughly one in nine exurban com-muters travels more than an hour ineach direction to reach his/her job.34

Park and Pike counties, at the faredges of the Denver and New Yorkmetro areas, respectively, have thehighest proportions of these “super-commuters” among exurban counties(Table 10). Exurban commuters alsohit the road earlier than other metro-politan workers, with roughly one inseven starting his/her commute before6 AM. “Early riser” exurbs include amix of counties at the edge of traffic-snarled metro areas like Washingtonand Houston, where exurbanites mightdepart early to beat the rush, andcounties where agricultural jobsremain important, around metro areaslike Louisville.

Employment—more manufacturing,construction, and farming jobsIn On Paradise Drive, David Brooksportrays the archetypal exurban house-hold headed by a married couple,“Patio Man” and “Realtor Mom.” Notonly is one member of the coupleemployed in the real estate industry,


Source: Brookings Institution analysis of IRS data

Figure 5. Taxpayers by Adjusted Gross Income and County Type, 2003

Urban Inner Suburban Outer Suburban Exurban

Source: Brookings Institution analysis of Census 2000 data;

“Children” refers to own children under the age of 18

Figure 4. Household Types by County Type, 2000

Urban Inner Suburban Outer Suburban Exurban

but their personal endeavors revolvearound the home—having the per-fectly manicured lawn, a spaciousbackyard deck, the most powerful gasgrill available on the market.

Brooks’ scene is mostly caricature,of course. But it hints at what manyconsider to be powerful home-relatedeconomic drivers in exurbia, such ashomebuilding, home sales, and homeimprovement.

While they do not allow us to lookat detailed industries like home-related retail, or architecture and land-scaping, Census 2000 data do revealthat exurban-county residents aremore likely to work in constructionthan other metropolitan residents. In2000, 9 percent of workers from exur-ban counties were employed in theconstruction industry; compared to 6percent of workers from other metro-politan counties (Figure 6). Construc-tion accounted for an especiallysignificant portion of jobs in boom-county exurbs outside of VirginiaBeach (Currituck County, NC); Den-ver (Park and Elbert counties, CO);and Atlanta (Pickens and Waltoncounties, GA). The proportion of exur-ban-county workers employed in realestate, however, appeared no differentthan in other metropolitan counties.Only in Summit County, UT (east ofSalt Lake City) were more than 5 per-cent of workers employed in thatindustry.

Besides construction, two otherindustries appear to exhibit a loca-tional preference for exurban counties.Farming, not surprisingly, is moreimportant in the exurbs, though less sothan in prior decades—only about 2percent of exurban residents wereemployed in agriculture and mining in2000. Manufacturing looms largestamong exurban industries, accountingfor a much higher proportion of jobs(17 percent) than in the remainder oflarge metropolitan areas (13 percent)(Figure 6). This makes sense, giventhe land intensity of manufacturing,and the decreasing price of land as

25

Table 8. Top and Bottom Exurban Counties by Median AdjustedGross Income, 2003

County Metro Area* Median AGI ($) % over 100k

1 Stafford, VA Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV 47,214 17.5

2 Scott, MN Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI 46,218 15.3

3 Sussex, NJ New York, NY-NJ-CT-PA 45,673 16.4

4 Calvert, MD Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV 45,531 17.5

5 Carver, MN Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI 45,215 17.5

6 Fauquier, VA Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV 44,907 18.2

7 McHenry, IL Chicago, IL 44,698 15.8

8 Livingston, MI Detroit, MI 44,618 16.5

9 Elbert, CO Denver, CO 44,080 14.3

10 Frederick, MD Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV 42,804 15.6

236 Sevier, TN Knoxville, TN 22,074 4.0

237 Atascosa, TX San Antonio, TX 22,059 3.1

238 Waller, TX Houston, TX 21,938 4.6

239 Marshall, MS Memphis, TN-AR-MS 21,880 2.5

240 Saluda, SC Columbia, SC 21,799 2.5

241 Anson, NC Charlotte, NC-SC 21,348 2.3

242 Okmulgee, OK Tulsa, OK 21,189 2.2

243 Union, TN Knoxville, TN 21,125 2.0

244 Washington, MO St. Louis, MO-IL 21,110 1.3

245 Torrance, NM Albuquerque, NM 20,429 2.0

All Exurban Counties 31,605 8.4

Source: Brookings Institution analysis of IRS data

*Names abbreviated; full names displayed in Appendix Table A

Table 9. Commuting Characteristics by County Type, 2000

Percentage of Workers (unless otherwise noted)Urban Inner Suburban Outer Suburban Exurban

Counties (number) 40 82 211 245

Work Location

Work outside county of residence 22.0 22.6 35.4 50.8

Work in an:

Urban county 87.1 8.6 10.7 11.7

Inner Suburban county 6.3 85.1 12.1 14.8

Outer Suburban county 5.0 4.5 72.7 13.9

Exurban county 0.7 0.7 1.4 53.1

Other county 1.0 1.1 3.1 6.5

Commuting Mode

Drive alone 63.5 74.4 80.8 80.6

Carpool 12.2 12.2 10.9 12.7

Public transit 15.7 6.2 2.1 0.8

Work at home 2.8 3.3 3.2 3.2

Commuting Time

At least 60 minutes (in one direction) 10.3 8.9 7.7 11.5

Leave before 6 AM 9.8 9.8 10.8 14.4


one moves outward from the urbancore (Glaeser and Kahn 2001).

These job figures provide a snapshotof exurban employment as it existed in2000. As these areas continue todevelop residentially, some mayacquire more diversified, higher-valueindustries and occupations that reflectthe growing demands and skills oftheir populations. In the end, somemay shed their exurban status andmorph into outer suburban employ-ment centers, even as others remainmore rural and single-industrydependent in character.

Housing—more affordable, modestly-sized homesExurbs are, by and large, homeowner

communities. More than three-fourthsof exurban-county residents in 2000owned their home, a significantlyhigher proportion than in any othermetropolitan county type.

One type of exurbanite homeowner,the sort described by Spectorsky(1955), Nelson (1992), and Brooks(2004), has relocated to the urbanfringe to enjoy a countryside or small-town atmosphere, while retainingaccess to metropolitan amenities suchas shopping, culture, and high-payingjobs. These newcomers might live inenormous new houses in gated subdi-visions, or in restored farmhouses onlarge tracts of land that enable them toengage in “hobby farming.” They mayfind themselves living side-by-side

with long-time residents of these com-munities who inhabit homes of farmore modest value.

This stereotype, however, overlooksthe evidence that exurbs serve assources of affordable homeownershipin many metropolitan areas. In theseregions, middle-income families maybe “driving to qualify” for a home intheir price range, one that does notexist in closer-in suburbs. Lackingdetailed information on new home val-ues at the county level, we examineaverage incomes for owners of newhomes in Census 2000—those builtbetween 1995 and 2000—as a proxyfor the value of the homes purchasedby those households.

Overall, owners of new exurban


Table 10. “Super-Commuter” and “Early Riser” Exurbs, 2000

Super-Commuter ExurbsWorkers with 60+ Super-commuter

County Associated metro area* Total commuters minute commute share (%)

1 Park, CO Denver, CO 7,110 2,344 33.0

2 Pike, PA New York, NY-NJ-CT-PA 18,643 5,712 30.6

3 Warren, VA Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV 14,994 4,346 29.0

4 San Jacinto, TX Houston, TX 7,891 2,156 27.3

5 Charles, MD Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV 60,032 15,225 25.4

6 Calvert, MD Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV 36,187 9,127 25.2

7 Amelia, VA Richmond, VA 5,326 1,334 25.0

8 Van Zandt, TX Dallas, TX 18,759 4,675 24.9

9 Elbert, CO Denver, CO 9,863 2,429 24.6

10 Culpeper, VA Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV 15,469 3,804 24.6

Early Riser ExurbsWorkers departing Early riser commuter s

County Associated metro area* Total commuters before 6 AM hare (%)

1 Crawford, IN Louisville, KY-IN 4,377 1,234 28.2

2 Juniata, PA Harrisburg, PA 9,915 2,733 27.6

3 Nye, NV Las Vegas, NV 11,660 3,211 27.5

4 Washington, MO St. Louis, MO-IL 8,331 2,260 27.1

5 Warren, VA Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV 14,994 4,050 27.0

6 Liberty, TX Houston, TX 25,409 6,525 25.7

7 San Jacinto, TX Houston, TX 7,891 2,003 25.4

8 Bibb, AL Birmingham, AL 7,754 1,923 24.8

9 East Feliciana, LA Baton Rouge, LA 7,280 1,784 24.5

10 Breckinridge, KY Louisville, KY-IN 7,518 1,805 24.0


* Names abbreviated; Full names displayed in Appendix Table A

homes had significantly lower averageincomes ($68,790) than owners ofnew urban ($93,627), inner suburban($100,010), and outer suburban($88,618) homes. Thus, while outersuburbs seem slightly more affordableoverall than urban or inner suburbancounties, new homes in the exurbswere occupied by families withincomes on average $20,000 lowerthan in outer suburbs.

In theory, this pattern could derivefrom the disproportionate number ofexurban counties located in the South,where incomes tend to be lower. Buteven within metro areas, high-incomehouseholds tended to buy nearer thecore, while middle-income householdsbought toward the fringes. In fast-growing areas like Denver and Wash-ington, DC, incomes for owners ofnew homes are highest in the urbancore, and decrease with county dis-tance from the core (Figure 7).35 Inslower-growing areas, especially thosewith a struggling urban core, newowner incomes tend to be highest ininner and outer suburbs, while exurbsappeal to a middle- and upper-middle-income market. In the Richmondmetro area, new exurban homeownershave incomes nearly equal to those inthe outer suburbs; in the Philadelphiaarea, the exurban market is somewhatmore middle-income.

Statistics on the size of new homesthat exurbanites buy are consistentwith their more middle-income status.Based on the fact that the median-sized home nationwide constructedbetween 1995 and 2000 containedjust under six rooms, we categorize“super-sized” homes as those contain-ing nine or more rooms. One in sixhomes built during that period werethat large. In exurbs, these super-sizedhomes made up one in seven recently-constructed houses in 2000. The pro-portion of homeowners in inner (21percent) and outer suburbs (23 per-cent) that occupied “super-sized” newhomes in 2000 was roughly 50 percenthigher than in exurbs. Thus, it seems



Figure 6. Employment by Industry, Residents of Exurban Counties versus Other Metropolitan Counties, 2000

Agriculture & Mining

Construction

Manufacturing

Wholesale

Retail

Transp/Utilities

Information

Finance/Real Estate

Education

Professional/Admin

Health

Arts/Rec/Hospitality

Public

Other

Other Metropolitan Counties

Exurban Counties

2%9%

17%

4%

12%

6%2%6%

8%

7%

10%

7%

5%5%

1% 6%

13%

4%

5%

8%

11%

8%4%

11%

11%

8%

5%5%

that exurbs generally offer more inter-mediate, affordable new home typesthan do metropolitan suburbs.36

Housing affordability, of course, is afunction of both homebuyer incomesand home prices. Viewed through thislens, exurban homes do appear some-what more affordable to their inhabi-tants than homes elsewhere inmetropolitan areas. In 2000, justunder one-quarter of all exurbanhomeowners with mortgages spentmore than 30 percent of their incomeon housing, a standard metric forassessing housing-cost burdens (Fig-ure 8). This was a lower proportionthan in urban, inner suburban, andouter suburban counties. About 45percent spent a modest amount (lessthan 20 percent) of income on hous-ing costs. Interestingly, inner suburbancounties appeared to have the highesthousing costs relative to residentincomes, with almost one-third ofhouseholds spending over 30 percentof income on those costs.

Politics—heavily Republican, but smallvote totalAmong all topics related to exurbia,perhaps the most ink has been spilledanalyzing their political leanings (seeBackground). In particular, Teixeira(2006) acknowledges that Republicanvoters dominate exurbia, but points toLang and Sanchez’s (2006) “emergingsuburbs” as the political battlegroundof tomorrow.

Our method for identifying andclassifying exurbs and other countytypes differs from Teixeira’s (ours alsoapplies to a greater number of metro-politan areas), but our basic conclu-sions echo his.37 In 2004, 63 percentof votes cast in exurban counties foreither of the two major-party presiden-tial candidates went to George W.Bush. This formed the mirror image ofthe situation in urban counties, whereJohn Kerry captured a little under 63percent of the vote. The margin wasclosest in outer suburban counties,where less than 6 percentage points

separated the two candidates (thiscounty category overlaps most closelywith Lang and Sanchez’s “emergingsuburbs”). So reliably Republican werethe exurbs that only 19 of the 242counties cast a majority of their ballotsfor Kerry.

As Teixeira (2004, 2005, 2006) hasnoted, however, the exurbs still form asmall piece of the electoral pie. Ouranalysis lends further support to thisview. Of the more than 75 millionvotes cast in large metropolitan coun-ties for either of the candidates in2004, fewer than 7 million (9 percent)originated in exurban counties.38 Elec-toral dynamics in the inner and outersuburbs, the source of more than two-thirds of large-metro votes, will likelyplay a much more significant role inshaping future election results thanshifts in voting behavior occurring atthe exurban fringe. Differing demo-graphic drivers of growth in andamong these county types may influ-ence their future political path.39

SummaryThis section demonstrates that in sev-eral ways, exurban-county residentscan indeed be distinguished from theirmetropolitan neighbors. They aremore likely to: be non-Hispanic white;live in a “nuclear” family; face daily“super-commutes” of an hour or moreeach way; work in construction ormanufacturing; and vote Republican.In other important ways, however,exurbanites do not look that different,or actually confound some popularstereotypes. For instance, the exurbsdo not appear to be overrun with realestate agents. Nor are they generallydestinations for high-income home-owners living in super-sized new man-sions. In many metropolitan areas,though, the growth of exurbs may berelated to middle-income families’“drive to qualify” for more affordablenew homes that are in limited supplyelsewhere.

As to individual families’ reasons forlocating in the exurbs, and their aspi-rations for life there, these nationwide



* Not all metro areas contain all county types

Figure 7. Average Household Income, Owners of Newly Built Homes (1995–2000), Selected Metro Areas

by County Type, 2000

Metropolitan Area*

Ave

rage

Inc

om

e ($

)

Denver Philadelphia Richmond Washington, D.C.

data are merely suggestive. There isclear variation among exurban coun-ties themselves on many of the indica-tors described here, which forms thesubject of the next section.

Discussion

In this paper, we have attemptedto “find exurbia” in an effort toinform not just news storiesabout the exurbs, but the very

policies that shape metropolitan devel-opment patterns. We find that exurbsemerge to varying degrees in differentregions of the country, and servesomewhat different functions depend-ing on their location. Consequently, itis difficult to generalize about the pol-icy factors that drive exurbanization,or curb it, and we have only begun toscratch the surface on these issues. Asa next step for research, we would rec-ommend “unpacking” the varioustypes of exurban areas in order to digdeeper into the variable causes of theirgrowth, and the consequences of thatgrowth for efforts to achieve sustain-able metropolitan development. Thismight involve, among other strategies,interviewing new households in differ-ent types of exurbs to discover theirmotives for relocating (see Davis andNelson (1994)).

Thus far, we have been studiouslyneutral in our descriptions of exurbs,in order to identify and describe themas objectively as possible. Yet evidenceand observation suggest that exurbsrepresent a sub-optimal form of devel-opment.

To be sure, some exurbanites preferthe acreage and semi-rural lifestylethat living “out there” offers, and aremore than willing to endure long com-mutes to their jobs to secure it. Forsome, exurbs satisfy an ever-growingdemand for new, large housing. Whenoffered a range of conventional hous-ing options, most potential homebuy-ers surveyed (from 71 to 83 percent)prefer single-family, detached



Figure 8. Percentage of Income Spent on Housing Costs, Homeowners with Mortgage, by County Type, 2000

Exurban

Outer Suburban

Inner Suburban

Urban

*Democratic and Republican candidates only


Figure 9. Presidential Vote Totals by Candidate and CountyType, 2004*

Urban

Tota

l vo

tes

Inner Suburban Outer Suburban Exurban

62.6%

37.4%

55.1%

44.9%

47.1%

52.9%

36.9%

63.1%

dwellings (Fannie Mae Corporation1997; National Association of HomeBuilders 1999). Over the past 45years, the size of the average new sin-gle-family home increased from 1,200to 2,343 square feet (U.S. CensusBureau 2005).

But given a greater range of viablehousing options, many exurban resi-dents (perhaps with the exception ofthose living in “recreation exurbs,”described below) might prefer to liveelsewhere in the metropolis, closer tojobs, in safe communities with goodschools and nearby amenities. Prefer-ence surveys reflect continueddemand among homebuyers for largelots (57 percent preferring more thanone acre), but also the ability to walkto stores and restaurants (51 percent)and have reasonable daily commutes(79 percent desiring 45 minutes orless) (National Association of Realtors2004). Much exurban developmentseems to be satisfying the first prefer-ence in lieu of the other two.

Moreover, a significant body ofresearch evidence demonstrates thatsuch low-density development patternsare fiscally inefficient, and forego theproductivity gains that smarter growthdevelopment patterns can generate(Muro and Puentes 2004). It is notclear that these negative externalitiesare fully captured in the prices thatnew exurban residents pay for theirhomes and land.40

Nor are the transportation costsassociated with exurban living readilyapparent to many residents. Newresearch is demonstrating that theincreased transportation costs thatencumber households in exurban loca-tions may severely mitigate the bene-fits that accrue to those householdsfrom the less expensive housing foundthere. In a recent Brookings publica-tion, the Center for Transit-OrientedDevelopment and Center for Neigh-borhood Technology (2006) found thatfewer transportation options andlonger commutes in outer parts of theTwin Cities area cause affordability

rates to vary greatly. Policymakers andplanners have only recently begun toconsider housing affordability in thecontext of the transportation costsassociated with neighborhoods inwhich new homes are located.

The profile of exurbs developed inthis paper points toward the existenceof at least a few different exurbantypes, explored below. A full review ofthe policy levers that may promote orcurb exurbanization is beyond thescope of this descriptive analysis. Foreach of the exurban types described,however, we identify policy areas thatdeserve further scrutiny from state,local, and regional leaders seeking tounderstand the differing drivers ofexurbanization. This is by no means anexhaustive account of all types ofexurbs that exist today, nor do weattempt to place every exurban countyinto one of these categories. This dis-cussion instead aims to illustrate thediverse range of exurbs and their resi-dents, and seeks to provoke additionalresearch into why these places haveemerged and how public policy shouldrespond.

Affordable exurbs. In a number of large metropolitanareas, particularly those on the Eastand West coasts, exurbs appear tooffer new housing that is considerablymore affordable to middle-incomehomebuyers than new housing else-where in the metro area. This does notmean that the cities or older suburbsin these areas have no affordablehousing stock whatsoever, but ratherthat most owner-occupied housingcloser to the core tends to be quite

expensive, and perhaps out of manyfamilies’ reach. Considering that mostof these metro areas are growing at amoderate pace or faster, they have aneed for new housing. Yet a range ofpolicy or planning factors may limitthe supply of housing generally, andaffordable housing specifically, incloser-in jurisdictions, pushing some-what affordable development to theurban fringe. Some local governments,including many in the greater Boston,Denver, and San Francisco Bay areas,use exclusionary tools like low-density-only zoning and permit caps thatseverely limit the supply of apartmentbuildings and affordable housing (Pen-dall, Puentes, and Martin 2006). Inother cases, building codes in citiesand first suburbs may drive up thecosts of rehabilitation and re-use ofolder housing stock, or effectively pre-vent redevelopment altogether (Burby,Salvesen, and Creed 2006).

Inclusionary zoning requirementsand special subsidies for key public-sector workers have emerged asresponses to the lack of affordablehousing in cities and older suburbs,but these tools are still used relativelyinfrequently across the United States.In addition to considering programssuch as these, policymakers contend-ing with rapid growth in “affordableexurbs” should also update local meas-ures of housing affordability to reflectthe full range of location costs, includ-ing transportation.

Recreation exurbs. Access to natural amenities, such aslakes, mountains, forests, and temper-ate climate, has long been recognized


Affordable Exurbs—ExamplesBoston Strafford County, NHDallas Henderson and Hunt counties, TXNew York Dutchess County, NY and Pike County, PA Philadelphia Cecil County, MDPortland Yamhill County, OR

as a major driver of growth in ruralareas (McGranahan 1999). As mostexurban areas lie at the intersection ofrural and urban America, many haveexperienced rapid growth preciselybecause they are proximate to theseattractive settings. Indeed, about one-tenth of the exurban counties identi-fied in this report score high onMcGranahan’s Natural Amenity Index.In many of these locales, includingthose listed below, second homes—forrecreational or seasonal use—accountfor at least one-fourth of the housingstock.

Thus, even with a healthy localrecreation-based economy, theseplaces exhibit important economicconnections to their nearby large met-ropolitan areas. While other exurbshave grown due to land-use conver-sions—from agriculture to housingdevelopment—the recreation exurbshave undergone more of a “housingconversion,” from seasonal to year-round living. Advances in technologyand changes in the way people workhave enabled more workers to estab-lish their primary residences in theselocales. As an educated, high-incomeBaby Boom generation moves into itspre-retirement and semi-retirementyears, development will likely continueto proceed apace in these counties,and their metropolitan connectionsmay grow even stronger. New chal-lenges will undoubtedly arise forefforts to preserve the resource sys-tems that make these recreationexurbs such valued locations in thefirst place. Overall, growing incomesand natural beauty virtually guarantee

future growth in these types of exurbs;the test for state, regional, and localplanners will be to accommodate thatgrowth in a balanced and efficient way.

Favored-quarter exurbs. In a minority of metro areas, exurbsare not exactly the affordable-housinghaven for middle-income homebuyers.They feature more upscale homes,occupied by high-income householdsseeking the semi-rural lifestyle enjoyedby Spectorsky’s exurbanites some 50years ago. Many large and prosperousmetro areas noted above—like NewYork, Washington, and the San Fran-cisco Bay Area—have these types ofexurban communities.

But these exurbs are somewhatmore prominent in slow-growth areasof the country that have underper-formed the rest of the nation economi-cally in recent decades. In theseregions, new exurban homeowners arevery nearly as wealthy as their coun-terparts in inner or outer suburbs, andgenerally much better-off than thosein the city. Their houses are typicallyquite large, with significant acreage.These exurbs have effectively become

part of the “favored quarter” for met-ropolitan residents. This may owe inpart to the decentralized nature ofthese metropolitan economies, as thelocation of a majority of their jobs farfrom the central-city downtownreduces commute times for exurbanresidents (Glaeser, Kahn, and Chu2001). They may also offer a perceivedrefuge from the economic and socialdistress that afflicts their far-away cen-tral cities.

In most of the metro areas that fea-ture these favored-quarter exurbs,housing unit growth outpaced house-hold growth significantly over the1990s (Bier and Post 2003), and thetrend appears to have continued intothe current decade. Thus, exurbangrowth is occurring largely at theexpense of other parts of the region, asjurisdictions compete to acquire thetax base that high-income residentsbring. Residents of every region, eventhose with no net household growth,will exhibit some demand for new andbetter housing, particularly if theirincomes are rising (Gottlieb 2002). Alack of coordinated local land useplanning, however, may drive newhousing growth to the urban-ruralfringe. In these metropolitan areas,first suburbs and central cities that arelosing higher-income households tothe exurbs might consider joiningforces to push for statewide andregional growth management reformsthat require greater local collabora-tion, and bring the pace of develop-ment into line with projected growth(Puentes and Warren 2006).


Recreation Exurbs—ExamplesAustin Burnet and Blanco counties, TX (Texas Hill Country)Denver Park and Gilpin counties, CO (Rocky Mountains)Providence Washington County, RI (Narragansett Bay and

Long Island Sound)Seattle Island County, WA (Puget Sound)Stockton Calaveras County, CA (Sierra Nevada foothills)

Favored-Quarter Exurbs—ExamplesBaltimore Carroll County, MDCleveland Geauga County, OHDetroit Livingston County, MIHartford Tolland County, CTNew Orleans St. Tammany Parish, LARichmond Goochland County, VA

Many other exurbs do not fit neatlyinto any of the categories exploredabove. Exurbs around cities likeLouisville, Nashville, and Tulsa, forinstance, seem to provide new homesthat are affordable, but not signifi-cantly less expensive than those in theinner or outer suburbs of those metro-politan areas. Counties such as DeS-oto (MS), Wagoner (OK), and Nelson(KY) are not blessed with considerablenatural advantages. Neither do theyform part of the “favored quarter” indeclining regions, since they arelocated in areas of the country that aregrowing.

Still, several metropolitan areas fea-ture exurbs like these that simply liewithin the path of rapid residentialdevelopment. For instance, the exurbsof Virginia Beach and Norfolk con-tained 11 percent of that region’s pop-ulation in 2000, but have captured 26percent of recent housing growth.Around Memphis, exurban countiescontained 21 percent of metropolitanpopulation in 2000, but have reaped38 percent of new housing since then.The pattern is repeated in severalother metropolitan areas, especiallythose in the Midwest and South wherefew natural barriers impede continuedoutward growth. Over the past twodecades, these areas have consumedsignificant amounts of formerly agri-cultural lands to accommodate popu-lation growth. The Nashville metroarea, for instance, urbanized an aver-age of nearly one acre of land between1982 and 1997 for each additionalresident (and even more per house-hold) of the region (Fulton et al.2001).41

Local and regional leaders in areaslike these should recognize the distinctpossibility that these exurbs are wellon their way to graduating from exur-ban status into what Lang andSanchez (2006) term “emerging sub-urbs.” As such, political and corporateleaders must consider how future met-ropolitan growth can be accommo-dated in a more compact, fiscally

efficient manner as these places con-tinue to add housing and jobs. Other-wise, low-density “build-out” couldfuel rapid growth farther out in theregion, creating even more severe eco-nomic and environmental challenges.

Conclusion

After so much analysis, it isworth returning to a ques-tion posed much earlier inthe paper: Are exurbs that

big a deal? We find that the roughly 11million residents of exurbia amount tojust 6 percent of the population oflarge metropolitan areas to which theyattach. As such, exurbs are probablyreceiving a slightly outsized share ofattention nationally. Politically, thesejurisdictions were not alone responsi-ble for the outcome of the 2004 presi-dential election (Teixeira 2005). Somemight be tempted to joke that exur-banites are nothing more than “fringeelements” in their metropolitan areas,and hardly represent the norm.

If exurbs signal the possible shapeof things to come, however, thatmakes them all the more important tounderstand today. Spectorsky’s TheExurbanites is a fascinating periodpiece, but it failed to foresee a con-temporary New York metropolis inwhich Poughkeepsie—another 50miles north of Rockland County—forms the exurban frontier. Absentcontinued research and policy focus asto the causes and consequences ofexurban growth, we might find our-selves wondering in 2050 how NewYork’s exurbs arrived in Albany. Wehope that the foregoing analysis pro-vides a useful baseline for furtherinquiry, and helps state and local lead-ers wrestle with some of the economic,environmental, fiscal, and quality-of-life issues posed by their fast-growingfringe communities.

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Puentes, Robert and David Warren.2006. “One-Fifth of the Nation: Amer-ica’s First Suburbs in Transition.”Washington: Brookings Institution.

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Appendix Figure A. Number of counties by percentage exurban, and cumulative share of exurban population, 2000

Num

ber

of c

oun

ties

Cum

ulat

ive

shar

e o

f exu

rban

po

pula

tio

n

Share of population in exurban tracts

110%

100%

90%

80%

70%

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50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

160

140

120

100

80

60

40

20

00 to5%

5 to10%

10 to15%

15 to20%

20 to25%

25 to30%

30 to35%

35 to40%

40 to45%

45 to50%

50 to55%

55 to60%

60 to65%

65 to70%

70 to75%

75 to80%

80 to85%

85 to90%

90 to95%

95 to100%

Number of counties Cumulative share of exurban population142

70

63

54

3735

29

2026

17

12 14 14

7

2

7 6 62

11


Appendix Table A. Large Metropolitan Areas by Percent Exurban, 2000

Exurban Exurban TotalPop Pop Exurban Percent

Population Inside Outside Pop, Exurban, ExurbanMetropolitan Area Region 2000 Metro Metro 2000 2000* Counties

1 Poughkeepsie-Newburgh-Middletown, NY NE 621,517 174,747 25,981 200,728 32.3% 22 Little Rock-North Little Rock, AR S 610,518 121,049 23,279 144,328 23.6% 63 Grand Rapids-Wyoming, MI MW 740,482 110,777 57,746 168,523 22.8% 34 Greenville, SC S 559,940 91,553 32,181 123,734 22.1% 15 Madison, WI MW 501,774 80,537 29,590 110,127 21.9% 36 Birmingham-Hoover, AL S 1,052,238 208,935 15,194 224,129 21.3% 57 Knoxville, TN S 616,079 85,341 44,156 129,497 21.0% 68 Worcester, MA NE 750,963 141,883 7,221 149,104 19.9% 09 Nashville-Davidson—Murfreesboro, TN S 1,311,789 236,654 16,446 253,100 19.3% 8

10 Austin-Round Rock, TX S 1,249,763 209,366 12,245 221,611 17.7% 511 Louisville, KY-IN S 1,161,975 190,029 12,821 202,850 17.5% 1312 Columbia, SC S 647,158 96,191 13,875 110,066 17.0% 613 Tulsa, OK S 859,532 140,503 5,060 145,563 16.9% 614 Raleigh-Cary, NC S 797,071 117,303 14,585 131,888 16.5% 215 Greensboro-High Point, NC S 643,430 83,346 21,252 104,598 16.3% 116 Charleston-North Charleston, SC S 549,033 75,323 10,319 85,642 15.6% 117 Oklahoma City, OK S 1,095,421 154,160 7,631 161,791 14.8% 418 Harrisburg-Carlisle, PA NE 509,074 61,989 11,152 73,141 14.4% 219 Richmond, VA S 1,096,957 153,501 0 153,501 14.0% 1120 Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, NC-SC S 1,330,448 95,481 73,235 168,716 12.7% 321 Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI MW 2,968,806 342,512 27,900 370,412 12.5% 1022 San Antonio, TX S 1,711,703 211,624 0 211,624 12.4% 723 Albuquerque, NM W 729,649 74,276 10,804 85,080 11.7% 224 Kansas City, MO-KS MW 1,836,038 190,225 20,453 210,678 11.5% 925 Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ NE 740,395 64,992 15,713 80,705 10.9% 126 St. Louis, MO-IL MW 2,698,687 259,470 22,618 282,088 10.5% 827 Memphis, TN-MS-AR S 1,205,204 125,307 0 125,307 10.4% 528 Baton Rouge, LA S 705,973 72,071 0 72,071 10.2% 429 Colorado Springs, CO W 537,484 50,133 4,536 54,669 10.2% 138 Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, WI MW 1,500,741 88,582 60,126 148,708 9.9% 130 Orlando-Kissimmee, FL S 1,644,561 135,910 22,863 158,733 9.7% 231 Columbus, OH MW 1,612,694 128,261 17,127 145,388 9.0% 532 Cincinnati-Middletown, OH-KY-IN MW 2,009,632 163,406 13,231 176,637 8.8% 833 Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX S 5,161,544 337,807 106,710 444,517 8.6% 1034 Baltimore-Towson, MD S 2,552,994 197,819 17,884 215,703 8.4% 235 Wichita, KS MW 571,166 45,043 2,693 47,736 8.4% 236 Tucson, AZ W 843,746 58,956 11,012 69,968 8.3% 037 New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, LA S 1,316,510 108,806 0 108,806 8.3% 239 Jacksonville, FL S 1,122,750 80,126 6,105 86,231 7.7% 440 Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV S 4,796,183 317,066 39,743 356,809 7.4% 1141 Scranton—Wilkes-Barre, PA NE 560,625 12,901 27,742 40,643 7.2% 142 Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX S 4,715,407 330,153 2,870 333,023 7.1% 543 Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA W 3,043,878 142,489 68,721 211,210 6.9% 144 Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA W 3,254,821 217,750 0 217,750 6.7% 045 Denver-Aurora, CO W 2,179,240 100,237 44,642 144,879 6.6% 446 Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, OH MW 2,148,143 124,039 15,993 140,032 6.5% 247 Detroit-Warren-Livonia, MI MW 4,452,557 244,192 44,469 288,661 6.5% 448 Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, CA W 753,197 47,920 0 47,920 6.4% 049 Fresno, CA W 799,407 32,962 16,764 49,726 6.2% 050 Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA S 4,247,981 236,041 24,150 260,191 6.1% 1151 Syracuse, NY NE 650,154 34,498 5,170 39,668 6.1% 052 Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC S 1,576,370 89,483 5,809 95,292 6.0% 753 Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT NE 1,148,618 50,782 18,000 68,782 6.0% 1


Appendix Table A. Large Metropolitan Areas by Percent Exurban, 2000 (continued)

Exurban Exurban TotalPop Pop Exurban Percent

Population Inside Outside Pop, Exurban, ExurbanMetropolitan Area Region 2000 Metro Metro 2000 2000* Counties

54 Rochester, NY NE 1,037,831 53,608 5,675 59,283 5.7% 155 Omaha-Council Bluffs, NE-IA MW 767,041 42,323 0 42,323 5.5% 356 Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA W 1,927,881 85,987 16,947 102,934 5.3% 157 Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT NE 882,567 18,995 28,108 47,103 5.3% 058 Springfield, MA NE 680,014 35,795 0 35,795 5.3% 059 Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY NE 825,875 30,980 11,255 42,235 5.1% 060 Indianapolis, IN MW 1,525,104 68,138 7,534 75,672 5.0% 461 Buffalo-Niagara Falls, NY NE 1,170,111 52,789 4,803 57,592 4.9% 062 El Paso, TX S 679,622 13,285 19,222 32,507 4.8% 063 Akron, OH MW 694,960 22,643 10,179 32,822 4.7% 064 Stockton, CA W 563,598 14,600 11,832 26,432 4.7% 165 Toledo, OH MW 659,188 28,046 0 28,046 4.3% 0 066 Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL S 2,395,997 94,285 0 94,285 3.9% 167 Bakersfield, CA W 661,645 25,326 0 25,326 3.8% 068 Providence-New Bedford-Fall River, RI-MA NE 1,582,997 57,922 0 57,922 3.7% 169 Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ W 3,251,876 109,171 8,445 117,616 3.6% 070 Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI MW 9,098,316 273,226 44,632 317,858 3.5% 771 Sarasota-Bradenton-Venice, FL S 589,959 20,325 0 20,325 3.4% 072 Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD NE 5,687,147 156,823 33,670 190,493 3.3% 173 Sacramento—Arden-Arcade—Roseville, CA W 1,796,857 50,636 5,380 56,016 3.1% 074 McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX S 569,463 7,802 9,610 17,412 3.1% 075 Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH NE 4,391,344 102,722 28,063 130,785 3.0% 176 Las Vegas-Paradise, NV W 1,375,765 16,176 24,736 40,912 3.0% 177 Dayton, OH MW 848,153 16,786 4,456 21,242 2.5% 078 San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA W 4,123,740 90,795 11,929 102,724 2.5% 079 Salt Lake City, UT W 968,858 18,880 3,657 22,537 2.3% 280 San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA W 2,813,833 60,331 0 60,331 2.1% 081 Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, OH-PA MW 602,964 12,870 0 12,870 2.1% 082 Pittsburgh, PA NE 2,431,087 51,035 0 51,035 2.1% 083 San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA W 1,735,819 16,808 11,377 28,185 1.6% 084 Honolulu, HI W 876,156 11,087 0 11,087 1.3% 085 New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA NE 18,323,002 178,384 41,283 219,667 1.2% 386 Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA W 12,365,627 111,511 0 111,511 0.9% 087 New Haven-Milford, CT NE 824,008 4,593 0 4,593 0.6% 088 Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach, FL S 5,007,564 7,261 6,217 13,478 0.3% 0

Total 176,237,989 9,306,451 1,456,827 10,763,278 6.1% 245

* Ratio of total exurban population to total metropolitan population



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Endnotes

1. This figure is the sum total of metropolitan

area residents who live outside Census

Bureau-defined central cities. Source:

www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/hist-

pov/hstpov8.html [accessed July 2006].

2. Brookings Nexis search of U.S. Newspapers.

3. Though commuting and population growth

are arguably “people-based” measures that

serve to define exurbs in this paper, they

closely reflect the relationship between people

and their surrounding places, unlike indica-

tors such as race/ethnicity and education

(which have been employed in other defini-

tions of exurbia).

4. This figure excludes Alaska. Counties in the

other three regions average between 600 and

750 square miles in land area. Analysis of

Census Bureau data.

5. We first attempted to apply our methodology

to county subdivisions rather than census

tracts, but were constrained by a lack of con-

sistent data for these geographies across time

and in all states.

6. Each census tract is associated with one and

only one U.S. county.

7. An alternate view might hold that the “ex” in

the term “exurban” refers to the “ex” (i.e., for-

mer) urban dwellers who relocated to the far

reaches of the metropolitan area in which the

exurbs are located.

8. ERS used this file to assemble Rural-Urban

Commuting Area (RUCA) codes for all U.S.

census tracts. Thanks to John Cromartie at

ERS for making these data available.

9. A qualifying tract may be located within an

urbanized area if at least 20 percent of its

commuters travel to a larger urbanized area

for work. Such tracts are often located near

smaller city/town centers in outlying parts of a

larger metropolitan area, such as Antioch, CA

(outside Oakland); Frederick, MD (outside

Washington); Monessen, PA (outside Pitts-

burgh); and Rock Hill, SC (outside Char-

lotte). Urbanized areas are, by definition, part

of metropolitan areas.

10. An urbanized area consists of an incorporated

or census-designated place(s) and adjacent

territory with a general population density of

at least 1,000 people per square mile of land

area, that together have a minimum residen-

tial population of at least 50,000 people.

11. Of the 88 metropolitan areas with 2000 popu-

lations of at least 500,000, 13 are composed

of one county, versus 38 of the 78 metropoli-

tan areas with populations of 250,000 to

500,000.

12. Accordingly, in most cases we express exurban

population as a percentage of relevant large

metropolitan population, rather than national

or regional population.

13. We also tried adjusting these rankings by Cen-

sus region and division to reflect the variabil-

ity in typical development density across the

U.S. (using a technique described in Cohen

and Debbage 2004), but those adjustments

did not significantly change our results.

14. Because new residential development at the

urban-rural fringe typically occupies only a

portion of a census tract, and often occurs in

a “leapfrog” fashion that leaves open space

between developments, when aggregated to

the tract level we expect that much of this

development would qualify as exurban (with

tract densities of at least 2.6 acres per unit).

Fieldwork in the Washington, D.C. area con-

firmed that many developments with one-acre

lots were situated in census tracts that quali-

fied as exurban.

15. For Census 2000, the Census Bureau classi-

fies as “urban” all census block groups that

have a population density of at least 1,000

persons per square mile, plus surrounding

census blocks that have a population density

of at least 500 people per square mile. Urban-

ized areas are those urban areas with a popu-

lation of at least 50,000.

16. Because some exurban tracts are located out-

side metropolitan areas altogether, we com-

pare the tract growth rate to the growth rate

for the large metropolitan area to which the

tract sends the largest number of commuters.

In addition, tracts designated as exurban must

have had total population of at least 100 in

2000.

17. See Lang and Sanchez (2006).

18. Technically, exurban population is not itself a

component of large metropolitan population,

since 14 percent of exurban population falls

outside the boundaries of large metropolitan

areas. See Finding B.

19. This does not indicate that houses in the typi-

cal exurban tract were sited on 14-acre lots,

because our housing density calculation takes

into consideration both developed and unde-

veloped land.

20. Here, we consider the extent of exurban pop-

ulation by metro area based on the location of

census tracts we identify as exurban. This is

consistent with our approach above, which

associates exurban census tracts with their

respective regions, divisions, and states. That

noted, our results would be somewhat differ-

ent if we identified exurban census tracts with

the metro areas to which they had their quali-

fying commuting ties. In particular, very large

metro areas along the Eastern seaboard, such

as Boston, New York, and Washington, would

acquire additional exurban tracts that actually

lie within adjoining metro areas. See Box 2.

Where an exurban census tract lies wholly

outside metropolitan areas, however, we

assign that tract’s population to the metro

area(s) to which it has its largest qualifying

commuting tie.

21. A few metro areas, such as San Diego, CA;

McAllen, TX; and Detroit, MI, face interna-

tional barriers to continued outward expan-

sion.

22. As the next section demonstrates, however, a

large number of the small counties that ring

the Atlanta region have significant exurban

character.

23. Pike County, PA, long the prototypical New

York City exurb, has actually been integrated

into the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long

Island, NY-NJ-PA metropolitan area. Richard

D. Lyons, “Lure for Long Commute: Cheaper

Homes.” The New York Times, September 20,

1987; Anthony DePalma, “New York Suburbs

Spilling Westward.” The New York Times, Feb-

ruary 14, 1988; Nick Ravo, “Commuting at

the Edge of the Exurb Belt.” The New York

Times, December 11, 1994; Matthew Purdy,

“Across Two Rivers and Into the Poconos:

City Folk Go Country.” The New York Times,

March 18, 2001; Mark Morrison, “Living Too

Large in Exurbia.” BusinessWeek Online,

October 17, 2005.

24. The overlap between our methodology and

that of Lang and Sanchez was actually some-

what greater among counties with 20 to 25

percent exurban populations than among

those with 25 to 30 percent exurban popula-

tions. The 20-percent exurban population

threshold is also analogous to the 20-percent

lower-bound commuting criterion we use to

identify qualifying census tracts. Rather than

adopt the approach described here, we could

have identified as exurban only those 81

counties in which a majority of the population

lived in exurban tracts. However, these coun-

ties would have captured only 19 percent of

U.S. exurban population. Further, because

exurbanization is an evolutionary process, a

lower threshold identifies as exurban those

counties that may in future years (and per-

haps as of today) have even faster growth and

stronger commuting linkages with the metro-

politan core. In addition, we found that the

demographic characteristics of residents of

counties that were majority exurban did not

differ significantly from those of residents of

counties that were 20 to 50 percent exurban.

25. See, e.g., Janet Frankston, “The Birth of a

City: Whetting Growth.” The Atlanta Journal-

Constitution, May 2, 2005, p. 1E; Larry

Werner, “New City Manager Ready to Remake

Burnsville.” Star-Tribune, April 12, 2003, p.

1D; Sandhya Somashekhar, “Town Reaps

Hard Cash for New Houses.” The Washington

Post, July 16, 2006, p. A1.

26. Other than exurbs, we derived the counties

types described here—urban, inner suburban,

and other suburban—primarily for purposes

of comparing exurbs to other geographies, and

not necessarily to advance a new method for

categorizing metropolitan counties. Other sys-

tems are more refined, but were not appropri-

ate for use here. The Lang/Sanchez typology

applies only to the 50 largest metropolitan

areas (and includes some residential demo-

graphic information in its classification sys-

tem), while the Puentes/Warren typology is

not county-based, but relies on central-city

data not available between decennial cen-

suses. Lang and Sanchez (2006); Puentes and

Warren (2006).

27. Specifically, we treat as a central city all cities

named first in the metropolitan area name,

plus additional cities within the name that

had populations of at least 100,000 in 2000.

In the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long

Island, NY-NJ-PA metro area, we treat New

York, NY and Newark, NJ as central cities.

This yields 123 central cities within the 88

large metro areas. Recognizing the city-county

consolidation that occurred in 2003,

Louisville, KY is treated as the Louisville-Jef-

ferson Consolidated City post-2000.

28. Note that these figures capture moves within

the United States alone, and do not account

for other sources of population gain/loss

including immigration and natural increase.

29. Interestingly, in the extended region encom-

passing Washington, D.C., and Richmond,

exurban counties such as Charles County,

MD, and Stafford County, VA, have seen their

white population shares drop, even as more

rural exurbs such as Virginia’s Caroline and

King William counties saw those shares

increase. The effects of these migration and

population dynamics on exurban diversity may

merit deeper study in other selected large

metropolitan areas.

30. The proportion of exurban-county households

headed by an individual age 65 or over in

2000 was actually the same as the metro-wide

average (19.6 percent).


31. Adjusted gross income differs from total

income, in that it excludes earnings directed

to a retirement account, or used to pay health

insurance premiums. It may also exclude cer-

tain other household expenses such as inter-

est paid on student loans, job relocation costs,

and tuition and fees paid for post-secondary

education.

32. The high percentage of workers commuting to

the inner suburbs for work partly reflects the

fact that major urban centers in some metro-

politan areas, including Los Angeles, Phoenix,

Miami, and San Antonio, are located within

counties classified as “inner suburban”

because they are large and include lower-den-

sity development.

33. This does not necessarily indicate that exur-

banites do not work from home; some may

alternate between commuting and telecom-

muting. The question on the census long form

asks the respondent how he/she “usually” got

to work in the previous week.

34. The share of commuters in urban counties

traveling at least an hour in each direction is

relatively high primarily due to large numbers

of workers in New York City’s outer boroughs

traveling into Manhattan, or to inner suburbs,

via public transit.

35. The county with the highest average income

for owners of new homes in 2000 was Man-

hattan, at $243,000. The county with the low-

est average was Union County, TN, an

exurban county outside of Knoxville, at

$38,000. In only six exurban counties—Sum-

mit, UT; Sussex, NJ; Goochland, VA; Geauga,

OH; Tolland, CT; and Carver, MN—did aver-

age incomes for owners of new homes exceed

$100,000.

36. Stafford County, VA, the Washington, DC

exurb with the highest median adjusted gross

income in 2003, had the highest proportion of

new super-sized homes in 2000 among exur-

ban counties, at 45 percent.

37. Voters in the large-metro counties analyzed

here cast 62 percent of the popular ballots

cast nationwide for either Bush or Kerry.

38. Note, however, that 33 of the 242 exurban

counties lie outside large metropolitan areas.

39. This forms the subject of a forthcoming Met-

ropolitan Policy Program analysis by William

H. Frey.

40. To ensure that developers help pay for exist-

ing, new, or expanded infrastructure needed

to serve development, some municipalities

impose impact fees on the owners of new

development. However, fewer than half of

jurisdictions in large metropolitan areas in the

Northeast, Midwest, and South impose such

fees (Pendall, Puentes, and Martin 2006).

Nor do such fees generally compensate for

other externalities such as increased traffic

congestion and loss of open space.

41. The term “urbanized” here connotes devel-

oped land, rather than land meeting the mini-

mum population density requirements to be

considered “urbanized” by the Census Bureau

(Fulton et al 2001). These statistics on land

urbanization are derived from the Natural

Resources Conservation Service’s Natural

Resources Inventory (NRI) at the U.S.

Department of Agriculture. Unfortunately, the

data from the 2002 NRI have not yet been

publicly released. As such, 1997 data are the

latest national available.



AcknowledgmentsThe authors are grateful for the insights offered by participants in an expertroundtable in March 2005, including: Bill Bishop, John Cromartie, ToddGardner, Royce Hanson, Robert Lang, Ge Lin, Chris Nelson, Paul Over-berg, Marc Perry, Michael Ratcliffe, Andrea Sarzynski, and Hal Wolman.They also benefited tremendously from comments on early drafts of themethodology and paper provided by John Cromartie, Anthony Downs,Richard Forstall, Amy Liu, Chris Nelson, Robert Puentes, Michael Ratcliffe,and Hal Wolman. Thanks go to Dorn McGrath for his insights and first-hand tour of Loudoun County, Virginia; and to officials in the planningdepartments of Fauquier and Clarke counties, Virginia.

For More Information:Alan Berube FellowThe Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program(202) [email protected]

For General Information:The Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program(202) 797-6139www.brookings.edu/metro

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Sweeping U.S. demographic changes alter the context in which urban and metropolitanpolicies take shape. With support from Living Cities: The National CommunityDevelopment Initiative, the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program con-tinues the Living Cities Census Series, a major effort to illustrate how recent demo-graphic, social, and economic trends affect the vitality of cities and metropolitan areas.Building upon prior work focused on the results of Census 2000, the series is payingspecial attention to changes occurring during the current decade.

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