The Decline Of Suburbia

In 1925, sociologist Ernest Burgess developed a simple model to explain the relationship between social class and residential location. He envisioned an archetypal city where zones of different classes stretched out from a central business district in concentric rings, like the ripples that form when water meets a puddle. Based on his observations in Chicago, Burgess postulated that urban areas are organized in a way that sees working classes huddled around the central core, and that the distance one lived from the core was an indication of their social class.

The ubiquitous rise of suburbia in post-WWII America did nothing to hinder this model’s validity as a basic theoretical construct of economic geography. However, as a result of the ongoing financial crisis, things are changing. Renowned geographer and urban studies theorist Richard Florida, best known for his theories on the role of the ‘creative class’, wrote an article in March’s issue of em>The Atlantic< arguing that the cities which will weather the current recession best will be those that feature “dense ecosystems” of well-educated professionals. He cites New York and Los Angeles as examples, asserting that densely-packed creative workers will produce increased knowledge spillovers, leading in turn to accelerating rates of ‘urban metabolism’.

Florida opines that one of the implications of this pattern of recovery will be the end of the suburban epoch as we know it. In an era where economies will be driven by innovation and dynamism set in dense urban areas, a “different geography is required”. Richard Florida isn’t alone – Alan Ehrenhalt of The New Republic foresaw the “demographic inversion of the American city” in an article last year, driven by the deindustrialization and declining crime rates of some inner-cities. The solution, Florida argues, will be to incentivize an era of renting and locational flexibility. This is because homes root owners in areas of economic decline – how can one move to a new city if they can’t profitably sell their home?

Republicans should be troubled if these prophecies and prescriptions come to pass. After all, some of the most reliably consistent mechanisms drawing individuals to conservatism are the modes of consumption inherent in suburban living. It has long been thought that those who agree with lower taxes do so because of the burden of mortgage payments, and that those who shun spending programs like public transit are inclined in this manner because they own cars. An intense brouhaha erupted last week when Republicans accused the White House of politicizing the census, fearing that, with the push of a few buttons and a corrupt formula, the Democrats could make suburban voters disappear. But what if suburbia as we know it vanished on its own?

If the aforementioned patterns begin to emerge more commonly, the traditional Reagan model of inciting “suburban revolt” may no longer be relevant. Taxes will continue to be a burden on the middle class, but a middle class that more directly benefits from urban public spending may be increasingly willing to shoulder the load. People will continue to purchase houses, but perhaps in lower numbers. Voters are drawn to policy stances when they are relevant to problems experienced in their own lives, and Republicans will need to adjust their policies so that they speak to an increasingly urban audience. To do this, conservatives will need to consider how government can be effectively used to encourage competition and efficiency in the problems most relevant to the burgeoning urban middle-class: issues like health care, education and social security.