Love to get the board's take on this article, especially this section:

But according to Robert McDonald, lead scientist for the Global Cities Program at the Nature Conservancy, there is something akin to a law of nature about new transportation technology: The faster humans move, the bigger and more sprawling our cities become. Researchers from New York University and the University of Connecticut examining a global sample of 30 cities found that population density has been declining between 1% and 1.5% a year since 1890. Not coincidentally, this is the era when electric street cars were introduced in major cities.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/driverle...awl-1466395201

But wait, you might say, don’t millennials prefer to live in cities? That is widely believed, but not true, according to Jed Kolko, former chief economist at real-estate site Trulia. Not only do 66% of millennials tell pollsters they want to live in the suburbs, they are moving there, as population growth in suburbs outstrips growth in cities.
“Millennials with kids in school, that’s children 6 and older, are actually less urban today than the same age group was 15 years ago,” says Mr. Kolko.