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Historical June 1999 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
I was not able to see Ray Suarez of NPR when he appeared at Crossroads.
However, thanks to a reminder from a Times collaborator, I did catch him on Greg Freeman’s Mosaic TV program. Suarez’ discussion of his book on suburbanization echoed a number of themes from many urban politics classes I have taught.
The most important point is that outward sprawl in urban communities is not a natural phenomenon.
In many non-U.S. locations, the wealthy still live at the heart of a city where culture, religion, education and government are concentrated.
As in colonial days, the poor are at the suburban fringes.
There are a number of reasons for U.S. exceptionalism in this case.
For one, industrialization came to American cities during their formation. Neighborhoods bordered the dirty, smelly factories that belched soot into the air every day. Working at those factories were immigrants from Europe with each new batch of Irish, Italians, Jews, Czechs, Poles, and others despised by those already ensconced here.
As early as the 1810s, the wealthy sought homes far away from the stench and sounds of a complex urban world.
This out-migration was fostered by popular publications in the latter half of the 19th century, publications that encouraged every American family to have a single standing house on an acre of grassy land.
A further push to the move outward was dealt by state legislatures.
In the early 1900s, states in the midwest and northeast made municipal annexation far more difficult and suburban incorporation a simple matter. (St. Louis of course was the first city to have its borders closed—as part of the 1876 divorce from the county.) As the 20th century took its course, a pattern of wealthy, middle class and working class suburbanization took form.
The Great Depression and World War II slowed housing production everywhere. But, at the end of that war, veterans formed families and a tremendous need for housing emerged. That housing was not to be in the central city. Instead, federally-guaranteed mortgage loans made possible a suburban explosion. FHA and VA fostered the burgeoning subdivisions outside city borders while denying loans in central cities.
The freeways of the 1950s added to the migration. Many suburbanites will tell you of their free choice of housing. Yet, the decisions were shaped for them by federal policy and by the redlining of bankers, realtors, and insurers. Central cities were dealt a very difficult hand.
The derision that greeted each new wave of newcomers to the city reached new heights with the great migration of African-Americans from the south to northern cities.
The element of race guided the housing policies that discriminated against cities and it shaped new residential patterns. Suarez mentioned how other facets of suburban living were often code words for hiding the desire for exclusively white middle class communities.
There is tremendous irony in the fact that today’s urban communities are often found in integrated central city neighborhoods where residents work together to provide a safe, amenable, and aesthetic environment. Those who live without sidewalks and without real neighbors can visit us to see what they are missing.
We are a neighborhood that does not always agree with one another. But, we are a neighborhood where people know one another and know the benefits of closeness and community.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, June 1999.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1999_06.pdf, printed page(s) 2; PDF page(s) 2.
