Small to mid-size cities, many in the Rust Belt, that did not recover as quickly from the Great Recession as larger metros are now bouncing back as the job market continues to grow, and home prices elsewhere continue to soar.
Many of these communities are repurposing buildings and developments to create 'an urban feel', per Bloomberg News. Deemed 'busted suburbia', Bloomberg describes the approach as "developing mid-rise apartment buildings and mixed-use developments instead of strip malls on major corridors, and townhomes with some walkable amenities replacing some neglected neighborhoods of single-family detached homes."
The past decade has divided U.S. geography into haves and have nots. The haves: educated, wealthy communities in large metro areas like New York and San Francisco. The have nots: places with structural problems like cities in the Rust Belt; communities that suffered the worst in the housing bust like Riverside, California.
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