How America's Suburbs Got So Miserable

[xchrom]

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-americas-suburbs-got-so-miserable-2014-9


An abandoned neighborhood in Gary, Indiana.

When I was a small child, something called “the suburbs” kept snatching away my friends, like a monster hiding under the bed, but worse. Over time, I’ve come to appreciate why my friends moved. The urban neighborhoods of my Brooklyn youth were a little rough around the edges, and they didn’t offer growing families much in the way of elbow room. I couldn’t fall asleep without the sweet sound of sirens blaring, but not everyone felt the same way. The suburbs have long been a welcome refuge for families looking for a safe, affordable place to live.

But for many Americans, the suburbs have become a trap. This week, Radley Balko of the Washington Post vividly described the many ways bite-sized suburban municipalities in St. Louis County prey on poor people. Towns too small or too starved of sales tax revenue to sustain their own local governments stay afloat by having local law enforcement go trawling for trumped-up traffic violations, the fines for which can be cripplingly expensive, and which only grow more onerous as low-income residents fail to pay them. Those who can afford lawyers know how to massage a big fine into a smaller one. Those who can’t dread their run-ins with local police, who often come across less like civic guardians and more like cash-thirsty pirates. The resentment and distrust that follows is, according to Balko, crucial for understanding the recent unrest in Ferguson, Missouri.

Could it be that the problems plaguing St. Louis County reflect a larger failure of fragmented local government? Would these problems go away if, say, St. Louis simply absorbed all of these petty fiefdoms? I doubt it. The deeper problem is that the low-density suburbs of single-family homes that are common in this part of Missouri, and indeed across the country, are fundamentally inhospitable to those who find themselves at the bottom of the economic ladder.

You might be wondering why poor families are moving to the suburbs in large numbers—the number of suburban poor grew more than twice as quickly as the number of urban poor between 2000 and 2011—if they are such hard places for poor people to get ahead. Part of it is that as middle- and high-income households moved to the suburbs, the low-wage workers who look after their children had little choice but to follow. Then there is the fact that as America’s most productive cities experience a revival, gentrification is displacing low-income families to outlying neighborhoods and towns.



Read more: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/09/poverty_in_the_suburbs_places_that_thrived_in_the_era_of_two_parent_families.2.html#ixzz3CWwa6d90


Read more: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/09/poverty_in_the_suburbs_places_that_thrived_in_the_era_of_two_parent_families.2.html#ixzz3CWwScckD

[Laelth]

1. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[ErikJ]

2. Suburbs: "Greatest misallocation of resources in world history"

As the great James Kunstler puts it.

James Howard Kunstler: The ghastly tragedy of the suburbs-- Ted Talk
https://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia

[phantom power]

15. beat me to it

[hobbit709]

3. If you look at the history of a lot of these suburbs, they were all formed after 1954.

Brown vs. Board of Education started white flight so their kids wouldn't have to go to school with "those people"

[d_r]

8. Yep. nt

[RKP5637]

4. Excellent article! What I see in some of the new ones today, is like an "urban sprawl machine" paved

out neighborhoods and shopping malls, many if them quite unattractive and following the same pattern, same stores, all looking like they slid off an "urban sprawl machine."

Many of them also look thrown up, certainly not all, but many. IMO, the same mistake is being made yet again. And as this occurs, the ones of the 50's are left to rot than being revitalized. To me, it's a monster of creeping crud and get rich schemes by those financing the "urban sprawl machine."

[Spitfire of ATJ]

5. Meanwhile both Dems and Republicans expect a parade for increasing the Dow.

[Enthusiast]

9. +1

Precisely.

[TBF]

6. "But for many Americans, the suburbs have become a trap."

Excellent article. K&R

[Newsjock]

7. Neither cities nor suburbs are inherently 'bad' or 'good'

As one of the reader comments at the link puts it: "Twenty-something 'journalists' bashing on suburbs because they don't want to live there is a very old schtick, that changes once they get married and have children."

The pile-on is compounded by the "New Urbanism" movement. While it has many laudable goals for improving and revitalizing our cities, the movement has more than its share of True Believers who believe that high-density urban living is The Only Moral Way To Live, and anyone who thinks otherwise Hates The Planet.

The story even notes that some "suburbs" are indeed quite nice places, especially if they adopt a smaller-scale version of New Urbanism thinking.

But this whole revolt against suburban and rural living smacks of millennials who are rejecting everything that the older generations embraced, perhaps as a form of revolt against what they see as the screwed-up world that they inherited.

Cities aren't for everyone.

[Gormy Cuss]

10. Low income people moving to the suburbs to be child care workers is an oversimplification

In the past fifty years of so there has been a shift of jobs to areas away from central cities. People living in the city could no longer walk or use mass transit to get to work. Moreover, if you're low income and own a car, chances are good that it's not a terribly RELIABLE car for a long daily commute. Thus it makes sense to look for an affordable location closer to where the jobs are. It's rare that these are the post-WWII suburbs. Instead, they tend to be the older communities on the fringe of the central city, places that are technically suburbs but aren't where the middle class wants to live anymore.

[tooeyeten]

12. That's called

Leaving the urbanites behind, usually known by the moniker "democrat" and if you lift that cover its about race, they are starved out of the cities, services, jobs, schools, all on purpose.

[frazzled]

14. To put it mildly

It's plain ridiculous, and occurring so early in the article, it's a big tipoff that this analysis is what the great Mr. T. used to call "jibba jabba."

There are plenty of reasons why lower income Americans have moved to the suburbs. Chief among them, where I live, has been an attempt to escape urban crime and to find more spacious housing at a lower price than in major urban areas. In addition to the movement of jobs.

And what's the picture of Gary, IN doing there? The problems of this steel mill-based town gone bad occurred many decades ago, and is not explanatory of other municipalities.

[tooeyeten]

16. Where did the steel go? N/t

[tooeyeten]

11. Closing churches, abandoning communities

IMO the Catholic Church has a habit of not serving the poor. In fact you'll find they close down parishes in urban areas where the wealth of the flock has diminished, and poverty increased; instead the good church leaders move outside cities build even more opulent churches and schools in affluence, or at least those communities with the money to support the parish, leaving the poor behind. If you want to see how well the good church serves the flock, map those moves and closures and check the income of the area demographics you would discover money is the root of their service. White flight? Church flight!

[ctsnowman]

13. K & R

And a related link. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/09/03/how-st-louis-county-missouri-profits-from-poverty/

Thanks xchrom.