An Increase in Poverty in the Suburbs: Are the Suburbs Becoming More Like the Cities?

November 3, 2011 by

The New York Times had a piece last week about the increase in suburban poverty since 2000:

The poor population in America’s suburbs — long a symbol of a stable and prosperous American middle class — rose by more than half after 2000, forcing suburban communities across the country to re-evaluate their identities and how they serve their populations.

The increase in the suburbs was 53 percent, compared with 26 percent in cities. The recession accelerated the pace: two-thirds of the new suburban poor were added from 2007 to 2010.

“The growth has been stunning,” said Elizabeth Kneebone, a senior researcher at the Brookings Institution, who conducted the analysis of census data. “For the first time, more than half of the metropolitan poor live in suburban areas.”

As a result, suburban municipalities — once concerned with policing, putting out fires and repairing roads — are confronting a new set of issues, namely how to help poor residents without the array of social programs that cities have, and how to get those residents to services without public transportation. Many suburbs are facing these challenges with the tightest budgets in years.

“The whole political class is just getting the memo that Ozzie and Harriet don’t live here anymore,” said Edward Hill, dean of the Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University.

So why is this happening? I think it’s just because the suburbs are simply getting older. If you think about it, the very concept of the “suburbs” developed in the post-WWII era, part of the baby boom explosion in population that pushed so many people from the urban environments to the then-bucolic suburban enclaves.  But the areas that were developed at that time have started to show their age, with the children and grandchildren of those original suburbanites migrating to newer, larger, posher developments. So some of the older, less fashionable suburban areas are now affordable for people at the lower ends of the income spectrum, which is actually a good thing to the extent that it flies in the face of the typical complaint about the suburbs lacking economic and racial diversity. But it’s a bad thing insofar as most of these suburban areas are ill-equipped to provide the social services needed by the working poor.

Essentially, what I think is happening is that these original suburbs are going through the same transformation that urban areas went through in the 1950s.  The infrastructure is getting older, some of the people living there are getting older, and some of the people who traditionally lived there are choosing to move to newer, sometimes more upscale, environments. But the census isn’t going to have that granular level of detail to show how people are moving from one part of the suburbs to another, so all it’s showing is population growth in the suburbs generally, and population growth in the poorer demographics.

Arguably, then, the suburbs of today are starting to demographically reflect the outer regions of the city (think: the Bronx, or uptown Manhattan) from 50 years ago.  And they’re bringing both the same challenges that those urban areas had (poverty, crime) as well as some of the benefits of both economic and ethnic diversity.

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In the News: Heavens! Could it Be That Young, Bright People Are Leaving the Suburbs and Moving to the Cities?

July 17, 2010 by

A few months ago, we noted a Brookings Institution report on the rise of poverty in the suburbs.  That report has now started to generate some chatter, with the Wall Street Journal taking the data and speculating breathlessly that the rise of suburban poverty is associated with the startling idea that young, upwardly mobile people are starting to choose to move to cities:  “In a historic first, many young, prosperous Americans are moving from the suburbs to the city.”

Similarly, the Huffington Post reported a Brookings demographer saying that “what used to be white flight to the suburbs is turning into ‘bright flight’ to cities that have become magnets for aspiring young adults who see access to knowledge-based jobs, public transportation and a new city ambience as an attraction.”

For a second, I was starting to wonder about whether I’m on the wrong end of the trend — that the suburbs are winding down and everyone’s moving to the cities.  But here’s the thing: young, prosperous Americans HAVE ALWAYS MOVED FROM THE SUBURBS TO THE CITY.  That’s actually the WHOLE POINT of having cities, so young people can go and get educated and get cool jobs and drink fancy drinks and dance in clubs and meet other young people and fall in love and get married, at which point many of them MOVE BACK TO THE SUBURBS.

That is, I have absolutely no doubt that young people are moving into the city.  That’s what I did, back 20 years ago when apparently the suburbs weren’t a haven for poverty and ruin.  I was DYING to move to the city after growing up in the New York City suburbs.  I loved the city so much that when I got a job clerking for a judge in Uniondale, I commuted an hour each way just so I wouldn’t have to live in Long Island (no offense, guys…).  That’s what young people do.

So I’m not so sure what news people think they’re breaking.  Maybe next week we’ll have a “trend” report that old people are FLEEING THE NORTH and moving to Florida!

Yes, young people are moving to the suburbs.  Like they always have.  The bigger question is whether they’ll stay there once they’re not so young anymore, or, like me, they’ll give in to reality and exile themselves back to the suburbs.  At the very least, if they start moving back, they might help that poverty situation that seems to be generating so much buzz.

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In the News: The Brookings Institution Reports that Poverty is Rising in the Suburbs

March 30, 2010 by

This is not such good news for us suburbanites.  The Brookings Institution released a paper recently entitled “The Suburbanization of Poverty: Trends in Metropolitan America, 2000 to 2008.”  The gist  is that poverty in the suburbs is on the rise, particularly due to the recent economic downturns of the past few years —  by 2008, suburbs were home to the largest and fastest-growing poor population in the country, particularly in midwester cities.

This is an interesting development, insofar as it bucks the stereotype of “cities =poor, suburbs=wealthy”, which is obviously a legacy from the original development of the suburbs as a place where wealthier cityfolk went if they wanted to escape from urban problems– particularly the “white flight” of about 40 or 50 years ago.

I’m not so sure this is such a big deal.  It makes sense that as the suburbs got more fully developed, they developed the same economic stratification that evolved in the cities.  And it’s probably more a reflection of the economic difficulties in general than anything intrinsic to the suburban life.

Interesting, though.

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