The flight to suburbia – once a one-way trip to escape crime, poor schools, and deteriorating neighborhoods – is now more and more of a roundtrip phenomenon. The landscape of America’s suburbs – once considered safe “controllable” utopias – is changing, with rapid population growth amid growing economic, housing, and educational challenges.
Today, many suburban areas find themselves confronted with the very social and environmental ills of the central and urban core that inspired their birth.
As central cities across the nation seek to revitalize housing, spur economic development, improve educational offerings, we see many who declared themselves staunch lifelong suburbanites, even exurbanites making the return flight back to the urban core. In an interesting turn of economic events, the suburbs are more attractive and affordable for lower, to middle-income families of all racial and ethnic hues. While urban core areas, once so blighted and neglected that only those who could not escape remained, are suddenly becoming affordable by repatriated suburbanites who can afford the new housing, and now desire to be closer to their place of business and newer entertainment districts.
As the old axiom goes, what goes around comes around.
So are we headed for the enclaves of central cities for the rich and well-to-do surrounded by suburbs for the low and middle income where there is increasing blight because of closed shopping malls, neighborhoods with low-income housing, and declining school systems?
The changes occurring in metropolitan areas around the country provide a unique opportunity to learn important lessons.
First, we need to acknowledge there is really nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Central cities and suburbs are both facing many of the same challenges: lack of adequate housing, increasing crime, homelessness, not enough social services, racial and ethnic conflict, effectively educating a multi-language student population, adequate public transportation, sustaining quality air and other healthy environmental conditions.
Secondly, the long-term quality and economic viability of any central city, and the suburban areas that surround it, are inextricably connected, tied, locked, – and it will require unprecedented and sustained cooperative efforts among city and suburban leaders and dwellers to build and maintain healthy and vibrant metropolitan areas.
Our metropolitan areas are the engines that drive the economic well being of our nation. Our metro areas are the store for our greatest human capital, the seat of creativity and innovation, the seed of job creation, the shaper of contemporary society.
So, how do we stop the vicious cycle of flight, to and fro? City, county, suburban, state and federal officials, more and more, must stop governing in silos, must more and more stop taking ego and power trips because they happened to be elected for a time to preside over a piece of geography, and realize more progress can be made together than in isolation.
As part of its 2008 Metropolitan Policy Research Program, the Brookings Institution released a fascinating and important study titled, “Blueprint for American Prosperity: Unleashing the Potential of a Metropolitan Nation.” It warrants a read by all elected officials at every level of government. It also is something that all caring citizens should read to hold our elected officials accountable as they make decisions to improve the quality of life for citizens no matter where they live – in the heart of the city, the surrounding suburbs, and rural communities beyond.
What do you think?
Comments
White Flight
It's interesting to think of white flight away form the suburbs and back to the cities. Because as the article said urban areas are charcterized as low-income areas. It would seem that becuse of our current economic situation suburban homes are more affordable and more minoriteis who are usually low-income are able to move to the suburbs. I undersatand the concepet of white flight but as the article said there is "nowhere to hide". Is it just going to be a constant flip flop? When too many minorities move back to the cities or crime rates go up are whites going to move back to the suburbs?
The big issue in this article
The big issue in this article is the conditions of peoples living in cities. They believe that this is race related because everyone sees the blue collar, picket fence housing for whites in the suburbs. This is a racist statement because this says that suburbs are for whites and black and other races can’t live there. The conditions of city homes are getting worse. There is usually an area that is in the worst condition. Typically blacks and other races live there because they didn’t have the same opportunities as whites at that time. The big issue is that the housing is inadequate and the area is not fit for people to be living. We need to change it and try taking areas like this out of our country. This is a big issue because too many people are living in debt and these areas are just great example of this occurrence.
This is a very interesting
This is a very interesting article. An eye opener to many who were not aware of the occuring in society. It is just so eye opening how middle working class and lower class citizens are trying to move on to better communities to move away from the crime and everything that surrounds them, yet even when moving to the suburbs. When the suburbs used to be a community for those with money, and as soon as the wealthy moved to more exclusive communities, all of the benefits followed. While, those middle working class families have to deal with homelessness, crime, not enough social servies. It's just not right, but it is time for there to be some light on this issue and have some changes done.
Ancient Times
When reading this all I could think of was when I learned about some of the ancient societies. It reminded me of how their civilizations were set up based on their social class level; the rich were in the center and then the farther you went out the lower the social level became. Now though the suburbs that we have created are turning into what people went to them to escape. The crime is following the movement inward because it is occupying whatever space is left by the inward movers. Because we are urbanizing so quickly rural areas are having to fight more and more to stay prosperous. Big cities are becoming bigger while towns are shrinking and becoming more and more scarce.
what goes around comes around
I thought that the article made several very good points about how the isolation of the classes is becoming less and less of a posibility. I also liked how the author talked about how now its everybodies problems to take care of the diteriating educational and other system, within both the cities and suburbs. I also strongly agree with the authors point that metropolitan areas are very important to both the economic but also social advancements of this country. For this reason i, like the author, think that it is time for the elected officals to get off their high horses and really work to fix this growing problem.
After reading this article it
After reading this article it really makes sense that being a certain class does not determine where you live in the country. Most people think poor people would live in the city or in a trailer park, but after reading this it shows lower class people and families are going the suburbs. Places where you wouldn’t portray to see a homeless person or a beat up home. This is where you expect to see the nice presidential home, but times have clearly changed and it’s not that way anymore. The picture of the fire in the article is a way of showing that homeless people are living in these areas. But you are not going to be able to stop this; people will go where they go. All you can do is try to make peace in your community to make everything right.
Last Summer
As I read this article I couldn't help but be skeptical. Until I was six years old my family lived in a poor neighborhood outisde Denver. Everybody around us--I felt--was in the same boat: small houses, one or no cars, lots of kids, toys scattered across the weed infested lawn, etc. As my dad finished his CPA and accounting degree, our family moved to nicer and nicer areas. Where we ended up (when I was 10) was suburbia (Littleton). Cookie cutter houses, predominantly white schools, teenagers with their own new cars, stay-at-home moms: this was the scene. There was no crime, no drugs, no poverty. This is what I thought of while reading this article and it left me thinking, "what on earth is he talking about?!" The social classes are still separated, suburbia has not been diversified.
I started to think about situations that could support this argument, though. And I found some very convincing evidence. 1) The Columbine shooting just fifteen minutes away from us in 1999. 2) The single mom that moved next to us who had two rebel/troubled sons that once put a firecracker in our neighbor's car and let their dog on theri roof. 3) The homeless person my sister and I found dead on a jogging path early one morning last summer. Times Have changed.
The Flight to Suburbia
The last few years have been terrible for the U.S. economy. The housing market took a major nosedive. As foreclosures increased and left suburban neighborhoods unfinished or empty, some streets became ghost towns as businesses folded. These unwanted properties may wait a long time before new owners move in. When the houses start to fill up it will probably be minorities that move in. The well to do people will look elsewhere and that may include new urban housing. Usually the minorities will end up with whatever is left after the extremely wealthy decide where they want to live. Just the other day I saw that the last tenant from the Cabrini-Green Housing Project, in Chicago, was moving out. The structures will be razed and I'm not sure what will take its place. I have no doubt that if the wealthy choose to rebuild on the same spot then the people living in the immediate area will be squeezed out to may room for penthouses. In a few years we could see a huge shift as the wealthy pick and choose where to live while the minorities get the leftovers. The leftovers are going to be crime-ridden and decrepit wherever they are located. Cabrini-Green was an example of this very problem. Crime was rampant with gangs controlling the areas by night and day. Building upkeep was grossly neglected with too many problems to even begin counting. The flight to suburbia sounds good until we realize suburbia is changing a great deal.
The Flight to Suburbia
The last few years have been terrible for the U.S. economy. The housing market took a major nosedive. As foreclosures increased and left suburban neighborhoods unfinished or empty, some streets became ghost towns as businesses folded. These unwanted properties may wait a long time before new owners move in. When the houses start to fill up it will probably be minorities that move in. The well to do people will look elsewhere and that may include new urban housing. Usually the minorities will end up with whatever is left after the extremely wealthy decide where they want to live. Just the other day I saw that the last tenant from the Cabrini-Green Housing Project, in Chicago, was moving out. The structures will be razed and I'm not sure what will take its place. I have no doubt that if the wealthy choose to rebuild on the same spot then the people living in the immediate area will be squeezed out to may room for penthouses. In a few years we could see a huge shift as the wealthy pick and choose where to live while the minorities get the leftovers. The leftovers are going to be crime-ridden and decrepit wherever they are located. Cabrini-Green was an example of this very problem. Crime was rampant with gangs controlling the areas by night and day. Building upkeep was grossly neglected with too many problems to even begin counting. The flight to suburbia sounds good until we realize suburbia is changing a great deal.
Where have all the small towns gone?
Where I grew up on the East Coast I lived in a Town. Not a suburb of Boston, but a Town near Boston. The concept of suburbs was so odd to me, and it wasn’t a nice word. My understanding was that Suburbs were for people who couldn’t afford to live in the city, or the Town’s – they were caught in the middle. They weren’t very nice and *gasp* they had strip malls! (We didn’t have a franchise in our town until 2004) When I moved to the Mid-West I was stunned that Chicagoans celebrated suburbia! They would brag that they were from a North/East/West/South Suburb of Chicago – when it turned out there was at least an hour and a half commute into the city! How is that a suburb I thought? Then I migrated to California and it seems that entire counties are suburbs of the main city in the county – it’s startling! All of this just to say – I think the answer is not only racially motivated but also regionally. I only skimmed the Brookings Institute piece, but from the first couple of pages I’d say their findings kind of match up with my migration across the country. Over 80% of the population lives in Metro Areas? Wow. The idea of small towns as a heartbeat of America is over, sorry John Cougar Mellencamp. If this shift is real (is it a shift or a realization?) then clearly we need to focus our attention on equalizing the education, housing and job opportunities in the Metro Areas. Is it that people don't want to live in small towns, or they can't because the jobs are centered in one place? What happened to sponsoring large corporations to build their business in remote areas? With our new technology infrastructures can't we make this more of a reality with a little focus?
The Flight to Suburbia
It is always so sad to me to walk down downtown San Diego or LA and see broken down apartments and homes, or hundreds of people lying on the street in sleeping bags. It is discouraging to live in a country where the wealthy get richer and the poor get poorer. There needs to be more and sophisticated programs to help families with low incomes. Instead of spending billions of dollars on a war that is to promote Democracy on a country that doesn't want it, why not practice Democracy in our own back yard? Why not allow people of all racism to have a descent education? Something has to change; I don't see how we can help other countries when we aren't even tolerant of each other in our own country!
comment:
This article reminded me what we learned in sociology class how back in the 1950’s and onward, the time period after World War II, when the economy boomed due to the New Deal Housing Program & Social Security for Americans. This helped people, mostly white people purchase a house in the suburbs, which eventually became a symbol for status. Living in the suburbs redefined the White-anglo Saxon Protestant ideals. Being able to live in the suburbs was what people wanted to be associated with because it shows that they are an educated, white middle-class family. What is more interesting about this is that people of color at that time was not granted with privileges white people had with easy credit formed by the government. Here we already see the disparity due to race. The Fair Housing Act stated that having one or two non-white residents in the suburbs will decrease the value of real estate in the community. Later on, cycle changes again as how white people goes back to the cities and minorities move to the suburbs because the urban areas are associated with low-income areas, which does not fit under the WASP ideals. It is just funny how this whole cycle works, and at the same time sad how geographical location still have to be associated somehow with race.
There will always be a mix
When the author asked the reader to what outcome this situation will occur I immediately thought of my hometown of Houston. Both parts spoken of in the article are seen. Near downtown there are very rich parts known as River Oaks and Memorial City and in the suburbs rich areas such as Sugar Land have formed. The same is true for very poor parts such as the wards near downtown and poor neighborhoods north of Memorial City. North of Houston in Spring and Cypress there are also poor neighborhoods. There will always be a mixture of poor and rich neighborhoods in both the city and suburbs because of what people want. Some very successful people live close to Houston so they can be near work. Some rich people live far out in the suburbs to be on acres of land and also be within driving distance of work. Poor neighborhoods will shrink and grow through time based on commercial developement of the area. At Memorial City, interstate 10 used to be a dividing line between rich and poor neighborhoods, but as time has passed companies have bought land on the poor side and began developing. The developement has raised the land value of corresponding neighborhoods causing gangs to move out. At the same time Willowbrook mall, a suburban area northwest of Houston was a hotspot that many people of different levels of wealth attended. As time passed more gangs and crimes occurred. The mall has the nickname "willowcrook". The only way the suburbs would be low income families is if enough companies were able to buy all the downtown lands and develope it for upper class families.
Just a little more to think about.
I agree almost completely with the comment above. However, I would also like to point out that while some neighborhoods are generally rich or poor, this can be more or a generalization than a rule. Take for example the wards of Houston. I know lots of families who are doing quite well for themselves but prefer to live in the wards, rather than in the suburbs. They like being in a mostly black environment where there parents grew up and where their children will grow up. They like giving back to the community and they like being close to everything that the city of Houston has to offer, like the medical center for example.
Also I would like to point out that if companies are buying land on poorer sides of town and making it hard for poorer people to live there; those people a lot of time are going to the suburbs, where lower income housing is more widely available than most people would think.
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