The New Heartland

The 1980 census showed more Americans moving away from cities and their suburbs than moving into them. This unprecedented diffusion of population into formerly rural areas, many of them not far from smaller cities, is a trend that Herbers, a New York Times correspondent, believes will continue into the next century. He foresees a nation in which the old urban cores will serve as centers for finance, communications, entertainment and tourism, and places to house minorities and the poor, while the suburbs will continue on their downward path, and the population will become increasingly decentralized. A corollary of this will be a steady move to the right politically, he feels. The wave of the future, Herbers maintains, can be seen in North Carolina, already a state full of ""countrified cities.'' An arresting study. First serial to the New York Times Magazine. (October 6)