Our Inner Ring Suburb

Our Inner Ring Suburb

When you walk through Lakewood, and I know you may be a bit jaded to the whole mystique of wonderful, walkable Lakewood, pause and look around. What do you see? If you lived elsewhere would you be capable of seeing so many different things? I know you have heard the litany many times but it bears repeating, a new library, the YMCA, fabulous dining establishments, brand new school buildings, a park, a skateboard park, a dog park ( at least for the moment) Georgian architecture, early twentieth century bungalow, shopping , other people walking, and least we forget, a very large lake, and all are within a ten minute walk of anywhere in Lakewood.

So what does this have to do with inner ring suburbs? Quite a lot actually. If you google the phrase inner ring suburb, the search results will be one tale after another outlining the death of the inner ring suburbs, followed by scholarly articles on how we must reinvent and re-imagine these cities in order for them to survive at all. You will read of how it is vital to keep these cities going before they become a part of the vast urban wasteland. There was one article that posited it was more economical to have a larger mortgage in an inner ring suburb than to have a smaller one out in the outer burbs when you add all the actual costs of gasoline, car upkeep, lack of family time and less social activity. Is this what you see when you stop to look around?

Lakewood is different than most inner ring suburbs.  Yes there are problems and yes things do need to be re-imagined, but Lakewood is alive, not dying. We have an abundance of dedicated citizens and local businesses moving forward. We are a city that asks what can we add to our city, not what can we hold on to. We take for granted things so many others would love to have such as a world class fishery, the fact we are about twenty minutes from about anywhere you want to go,  and lest we forget, a really large lake. Ask yourself, what does Minneapolis have that we don’t have, besides a healthier and skinnier population and a winter that goes until May? Not really much.

Next time you take a walk stop, look around and take time to see where you are.

Eric Lowrey is a licensed Realtor

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Volume 6, Issue 16, Posted 8:28 AM, 08.11.2010