When they write the history of US cities....

When they write the history of US ciites (perhaps a hundred years from now), how will the story of our current era play out? American cities went into decline after World War II, the industries that fueled them in dying, racial tension boiled as the interstates ripped through neighborhoods and created an easy exodus to the inviting world of sububia. Through the 50's, 60's, 70's, and into the 80's they languished. Then came the 90's and the start of the turn around. A back-to-the-city movement began. The cities started to revive. It was life style of a full urban experience and the economic advanatages of centralization that fueled this growth, not the industries of old. Thus it was the upper middle class and rich that became the group that grew, plus a healthy infusion of immigrants from abroad (in contrast to the strong middle class of the pre-WWII industrial era and the growth of poor and minorities in the post war years). But what happens when people in the future look back on this era? How will the back-to-the-city movement, the city as a life styles that razzles and dazzles, the growth of the rich and the contributions of the new immigrants from Latin America and Asia play out? Will today be viewed as a real reversal, a time when those who can afford it go back to the cities and the cities once again dominate suburbia or is this in fact a smaller scale revival of cities than we like to think, the draw of suburbia too great, the central city a better place but still in the shaddow of its outskirts. Is this era blip in the scheme of things or a time of true urban revival? And will this be viewed as a time when our large cities separate into the have's, the have-less-es, and the have not's: the global ones thrieving far more than the older industrial centers that weren't able to create the magic?>