History, Challenges & Opportunity for
America’s First Suburbs
john a. powell
July 18, 2011
2
The 20th Century
History of Suburbia
• Suburbs have existed for more than
century
▫ Streetcar suburbs of the early late 19th and
early 20th century
 Tied to streetcar development
▫ Post WWII suburbs
 Tied to FHA, Federal Highway Construction, GI
Bill
▫ Post 1990’s – rise of the exurbs & return
back to the city
 Fueled by housing bubble
• Long history of people moving away from
the congestion and conditions of the inner
city
• Race intertwined with this movement and
shift of people and opportunity in our
metropolitan areas throughout the past
century
History of Post-War Suburbs
• Historically, our nation’s suburbs have been defined
by their homogeneity; from their physical form to
their demographics, our nation’s suburbs represented
uniformity.
• Suburbia fused ethnic identities into a new
“whiteness” as suburban residents and developers
produced a pattern of segregation which was
repeated across the U.S. and reinforced by various
forms of de jure and de facto discrimination.
Overall Historical Trend:
Decentralization of Population
Percent of U.S. Population within 3 Miles of City Center
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1948
1954
1958
1963
Source:
Mills,
1972
Role of the Federal Government:
Suburbanization and Homeownership
• A series of mutually reinforcing federal
policies across multiple domains have
contributed to the disparities we see
today
▫ GI Bill, Urban Renewal
• Emergence of discriminatory policies
▫
▫
▫
▫
Racial Covenants
Racial Steering
Redlining & Mortgage Lending
Housing Discrimination
• Housing as a marginalizing tool
• Suburbs become bastion of
opportunity at the expense of cities
The Rise of Suburbia:
But not accessible to everyone
6
In the suburb-shaping years (1930-1960),
less than one-percent of all African Americans were able to
obtain a mortgage.
http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=mW764dXEI_8&f
eature=related
The effects of redlining
▫
Philadelphia Mortgage Insurance and
Redlining
▫
Historic Lending and Today’s Opportunity
Landscape
▫
Redlining was one of several tools to assure
that our nation’s new suburban utopia
remained White.
http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol2no1/sugrue.html
The “Wailing Wall” in Detroit
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Examples of Covenants: Seattle, WA
10
Role of the Government:
School Policy
• Progress in desegregation came
after the enactment of the 1964
Civil Rights Act and following a
series of Supreme Court decisions
tightening requirements, ending
delay, and authorizing busing.
• But have been re-segregating
gradually over two decades
▫ Supreme Court decisions limiting
desegregation (early 1990’s and
2007)
▫ The country’s growing Latino and
black student populations are more
segregated now than the 1960’s.
▫ Black and Latino segregation today
segregates by race, class and
educational opportunity
Suburbanization & Public Policy: Subsidizing
Shifting Opportunity in Our Metropolitan Areas
• Suburbanization has
been encouraged
through federal policies
related to….
▫
▫
▫
▫
Infrastructure
Housing finance
Local economic incentives
Transportation subsidies
 heavily subsidized road
infrastructure and
inexpensive oil
(Meanwhile in our Cities)
Unprecedented
Concentrated Poverty:
Urban Renewal & the rise
of concentrated public
housing
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Suburbia: Challenges & Opportunities
Can you identify this type of community in 2011?
Is it the City or Suburbia?
•
•
•
•
Business and job loss
Growing poverty
Population loss
Growing financial security in the
schools?
• Escalating vacancy, foreclosures
and abandonment
• Unstable tax base
A Shift Has Been Occurring…
• The growth of diversity in our suburbs should be celebrated and does represent
progress, but this progress should be viewed with caution, and from a historical
perspective.
Growing Suburban Diversity
Source: Brookings Institution
The changing face of suburbia
▫ Increasing suburban diversity
▫ Little evidence showing any
current trends of “white flight”
▫ On the contrary, more whites are
moving into cities
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Changes Within Our Suburbs
• Increasing suburban diversity
▫ In 2007, the Census Bureau found 40% of immigrants
were moving directly to suburban areas (Roberts,
2007).
▫ Approximately half of the nation’s immigrant
population and 40% of the poor immigrant population
live in our nation’s suburbs (DeParle, 2009).
But is it resulting in integration?
• “…it appears that the movement to the suburbs may not be true
integration, but may actually represent the movement of concentrated
racial populations into suburban areas” (Weizel, 2010)
• While suburban diversity is growing, residential segregation has only
slightly declined for many racial groups.
• School segregation, along the lines of both race and class has actually
increased in recent years (Bordas, 2006)
Chasing Opportunity…
• Evidence suggests that the people of color who are moving into our nation’s
suburbs are not necessarily making moves into areas of great opportunity, but into
communities that are on the decline.
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Continued Segregation from Opportunity?
Suburbanizing African Americans in Baltimore are
moving to areas with marginal economic growth
N
African American Population
Growth 1990 to 2000
Change in African
American Population
W
N
E
S
Estimated Recent Job Changes
1998 to 2002
Percent Change
in Jobs
Job Loss
Population Loss
0-5
0 - 250
5 - 15
250 - 500
15 - 30
500 - 1000
30 - 66.6
1000 - 4347
W
E
S
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Suburbanizing African Americans
in Chicago are Moving Away from
Opportunity
The following map illustrates
“opportunity mapping” in
Chicago. Communities in blue
contain the highest
concentration of opportunity,
areas in red the lowest.
Note that opportunity is highly
clustered in the northern
suburbs.
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Suburbanizing African Americans
in Chicago are Moving Away from
Opportunity
(High growth areas in dark blue).
The following map shows that the
largest movement of African
Americans in Chicago (to the
south side suburbs) is in the
opposite direction of opportunity
in Chicago (previous map).
Common Characteristics of First Suburbs
•
•
•
•
•
Aging infrastructure and housing stock
Aging population
High public service costs
Stressed tax bases
Growing poverty
How do we seize this critical urban-suburban moment?
• An opportunity for real integration in first suburb communities, schools,
and public spaces.
• Traditional assets of first suburbs can be leveraged to open opportunity to
all, and build strong, diverse communities.
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Opportunity Matters:
Space, Place, and Life Outcomes
• “Opportunity” is a situation or condition that places individuals in a
position to be more likely to succeed or excel.
• Opportunity structures are critical to opening pathways to success:
▫ High-quality education
▫ Healthy and safe environment
▫ Stable housing
▫ Sustainable employment
▫ Political empowerment
▫ Outlets for wealth-building
▫ Positive social networks
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Space and Opportunity
"The old concepts of suburbia, Sun Belt, and Rust Belt are outdated and at
odds with effective governance."
-Alan Berube, The Brookings Institution
• Retire our traditional urban/suburban dichotomy,
understand these changing conditions
• Learning from historic urban-suburban trends
• Refining our policies and approaches for new realities
• Adopt an opportunity based model:
▫ Opening and establishing pathways to opportunity for all
Moving from Transactional Policies to
Transformational Policies
• Retiring our traditional transactional approaches to addressing
urban/suburban development
▫ Transactional approaches
 Intra regional economic cannibalism (zero sum tax incentive competition)
 Peanut butter investment (spreading infrastructure investments widely and
subsidizing shifting opportunity away from people)
 Working in silo’s (housing, education, transportation)
• Embracing a transformational approach
▫ Regional solutions : regional revenue sharing, regional planning and
sustainable development
▫ Sustainable Solutions: taking a systems perspective:
 Tying housing, education & transportation initiatives together (breaking
down silos)
Building Economically Vibrant Communities &
Regions by Affirmatively Assuring Equity
• Inclusion is essential for healthy sustainable communities
▫ A 2006 Federal Reserve study found that a skilled workforce,
high levels of racial inclusion and improved income equality
correlate strongly and positively with economic growth at the
regional level.
 Eberts, Randall, George Erickcek and Jack Kleinhenz. 2006. "Dashboard Indicators for the
NortheastOhio Economy: Prepared for the Fund for Our Economic Future." in Working Paper 0605. Cleveland, OH: Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
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Positive Signs: The Growing Sustainability
Movement
• HUD the DOT and EPA are
now partnering to provide
federal leadership and
support for sustainable
development and planning
• Launch of regional
sustainable communities
planning grants
▫ Deliberately linking the
economy, environment &
equity
▫ Breaking down silos
▫ Incentivizing regional planning
and regional cooperation
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