Joel Kotkin says the 21st century will continue to be a suburban one for America, but that we’ll see a different kind of suburb. Excerpt:

Over the next few decades, however, suburban communities will evolve beyond the conventional 1950s-style “production suburbs” of vast housing tracts constructed far from existing commercial and industrial centers. The suburbs of the 21st century will increasingly incorporate aspects of preindustrial villages. They will be more compact and self-sufficient, providing office space as well as a surging home-based workforce. Well before 2050 as many one in four or five people will work full or part time from home.

Kotkin adds that people will be migrating back to the Midwest and to the hinterlands, looking for a better quality of life, and able to have the mobility to make those choices because of the Internet.