Suburban Poverty

From Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, as cited on Atlantic Cities

The New Suburban Poverty (Lisa McGirr, NY Times)

There have been a number of articles since the beginning of the recession about the dramatic increase of poverty levels in suburban America since 2000. This editorial nicely summarizes the history of post-war suburban development and its central place in America's self-image and mythology. McGirr emphasizes the fact that post-war suburban development patterns were greatly subsidized by a number of Federal Policy initiatives (they are not the 'natural' outgrowth of the free market or personal choice as many maintain or assume) and that they allowed the American Middle Class to escape the realities of poverty, pollution, cultural conflict and the general adversities of living in modern cities.

The suburbs, in other words, allowed a large majority of American's to lead entirely privatized lives pretending that our society's problems either didn't exist or that they belonged to "other's," i.e. minorities and "non-Americans" who lived back in the dark shadows of the city. As McGirr specifically notes, this privilege of isolation ultimately lead to declining support for social programs and non-suburban/road infrastructure projects and facilitated the beginning of the Republican "Tax-Revolts" of the last 30 years.

The problem is, quite simply, that the suburban way of life is not sustainable for the vast majority of Americans. The Upper Class has always had its country retreats and villas and they probably always will. Farms and Small, compact towns will be as essential in the future as they were in the past. Cities will be around as long as there is complex civilization, but era of mass suburbanization is over. Mass Middle Class suburbanization was only possible through massive Federal subsidy and cheap energy.

The only suburban areas that will remain viable in the future are those built before World Wart II ('Streetcar Suburbs' - basically like small towns), the enclaves of the extremely wealthy and some of the more recent infill developments that have higher relative densities and are located relatively close to transit. Unless McMansions built on the metropolitan fringe can be converted into small farms, they and their brand new communities will simply be abandoned.

Most newly constructed housing is simply too far from anything and too poorly built to be of any value in 50 years. While old row-houses in places like Brooklyn and Chicago were made of sturdy stone and timber and could survive being carved up into cheap apartments and neglected for decades, McMansions are mostly made of light lumber with relatively poor insulation. They will not age well, especially without constant upkeep. They were never really built to last. The entire suburban experiment was designed to be a disposable environment - a place that you could get cheap and sell for a return on your private investment before venturing on. We became a nation that treated its homes and communities as pure commodities -  literally like stock options.

Most of us simply can't afford to do this anymore. No matter how far you move, the problems always follow. Unfortunately mythologies of the frontier, private utopias, and freedom from the adversities society (while enjoying its benefits) runs extremely deep in this country. It's going to continue to be very difficult for some people to accept change and to confront the realities of the 21st Century. We can either cling nostalgically to a relatively brief period of time when we escaped into a suburban utopia or we can re-engage reality and re-invest smartly in a more sustainable way of life.