The story a few years ago was that baby boomer “empty nesters” would be selling and moving to the city along with all the 20 something hip crowd (pre baby) just outa college. Now it is families will be moving in because the burbs are too expensive with gas. The redevelopment agencies have to have someone that they are supposidly building for, and now it is families. You cant just say “we are building it because it is politically popular to do so and because we can, we have alot of tax money sitting around for this purpose.”

Also, they gave what?, one example of someone who is living closer in, and one example of a dying suburb. Where the hell does biker mom work? Unless she is a stay at home mom which is conviently left off of the story. How does she ride around in Denver winters with small kids in the cart? These are likely people who would be doing this anyways, even if gas was back to 1.50/gallon. Not everyone in the USA has been living the SUV/Costco/McMansion life.
And for Maripoca, that whole area went through a building binge on the assumption that everyone and their grandparents would be moving there within a year. When that didn’t happen, the outer burbs that were prob mostly spec homes with crappy loans went belly up. This has little to do with gas, or people not wanting to live in a nice suburb.