The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Take a Ride to Exurbia

Ah, the land of Outback Steakhouse and TGIFridays. My homeland. Worry not, fair I-4 corridorland, the prodigal son will one day return.

Two side notes: 1. Since I've been home, I've been sleeping with my laptop. (Insert your own Internetporn joke here, or if you'd like, in the comments section.) and 2. These people scare me. It's like the exact opposite of Portland living. Or Manhattan living.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Take a Ride to Exurbia: "rlando, Fla.
About six months ago I came out with a book on the booming exurbs - places like the I-4 corridor in central Florida and Henderson, Nev. These are the places where George Bush racked up the amazing vote totals that allowed him to retain the presidency.
My book started with Witold Rybczynski's observation that America's population is decentralizing faster than any other society's in history. People in established suburbs are moving out to vast sprawling exurbs that have broken free of the gravitational pull of the cities and now exist in their own world far beyond.
Ninety percent of the office space built in America in the 1990's was built in suburbia, usually in low office parks along the interstates. Now you have a tribe of people who not only don't work in cities, they don't commute to cities or go to the movies in cities or have any contact with urban life. You have these huge, sprawling communities with no center. Mesa, Ariz., for example, has more people than St. Louis or Minneapolis."