Chapter 12: Metro politics: conflict in the metropolis

Metropolitization

The concentration of people, jobs, economic activity, and social life in metropolitan and micropolitan areas across the United States.

United States as a metropolitan nation

The United States is considered metropolitan because metropolitan and micropolitan areas together contain about 93 percent of the U.S. population, while about 7 percent live in rural areas.

Metropolitan statistical area (MSA)

A core urban area of 50,000 or more people together with adjacent counties that have mostly urban populations and close ties to the central city, especially through commuting patterns.

Micropolitan statistical area (M

PSA)

Office of Management and Budget metropolitan categories

The federal government divides metropolitan geography into metropolitan areas, which include larger urban cores, and micropolitan areas, which include smaller, newer, more suburban

Every state and MSAs

Every state has at least one metropolitan statistical area, showing that metropolitan life affects the entire country.

California and MSAs

California is given as an example of a highly metropolitanized state because it has 26 metropolitan statistical areas.

Megalopolis

A continuous urban environment created when metropolitan areas adjoin one another over an extended area.

New York–Northern New Jersey–Long Island megalopolis

An example of a megalopolis that includes parts of 4 states, 15 MSAs, and more than 22 million people.

Metropolitan boundaries

People, businesses, media markets, and cultural institutions regularly cross municipal boundaries within metropolitan areas, even though governments remain divided.

Metropolitanized states

All 50 states have more than half of their populations concentrated in MSAs and M

Characteristics of metropolitan life

Metropolitan life is marked by large numbers of people, density, heterogeneity, and interdependence.

Numbers in metropolitan life

Metropolitan areas contain large populations living close together, making conflict management and service delivery more complex.

Density in metropolitan life

Density means many people live and work within limited space, increasing social interaction, competition, and demand for public services.

Heterogeneity

In metropolitan areas, differences among people in occupation, education, income, race, ethnicity, culture, and lifestyle.

Economic heterogeneity

Metropolitan areas contain a specialized division of labor, meaning people hold many different types of jobs with different incomes, education levels, and ways of viewing politics.

Educational differences in MSAs

Metro areas vary in the proportion of adults with bachelor’s degrees, often because of differences in economic bases such as high

Ethnic and racial diversity in cities

Cities historically attracted immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, and later from Mexico, Latin America, Asia, the Philippines, Haiti, and other less

Metro melting pots

A phrase used to describe metropolitan areas that attract diverse immigrant and racial groups and gradually blend newcomers into urban life.

Majority

minority MSAs

Interdependence

The mutual social and economic dependence among central cities, suburbs, residents, firms, workers, customers, and institutions in a metropolitan area.

City reliance on suburbs

Central cities rely on suburbs for employees, customers, and economic support.

Suburban reliance on central cities

Suburban residents often rely on central cities for jobs, hospitals, newspapers, entertainment, cultural centers, and other services.

Fragmented government

Multiple governmental jurisdictions, such as cities, townships, school districts, counties, and special districts, all operating within a single metropolitan area.

Fragmented government problem

Metropolitan areas are socially and economically interconnected, but their governments are divided into many smaller jurisdictions that cannot govern the whole region as one unit.

Suburbanization and fragmented government

As suburbs expanded outward, development crossed or ignored boundaries and engulfed counties, townships, towns, and smaller cities, creating many overlapping governments.

International metropolitan connections

Some U.S. metropolitan areas adjoin urban territory in Canada or Mexico, including Detroit, San Diego, El Paso, and Laredo.

Potential for metropolitan conflict

Conflict arises because different people live close together with different occupations, incomes, races, religions, lifestyles, tax interests, school interests, and views of government authority.

Metropolitan conflict management

Metropolitan politics is largely about managing conflict among groups with different needs and values living in the same interconnected region.

Growth engines of the U.S. economy

Metropolitan areas are major economic engines; the 10 largest metro areas have economies larger than 36 states, and combined U.S. metro output is larger than the output of many countries.

Suburban growth

Suburbs account for most growth in metropolitan areas, especially new suburbs built since the 1970s on the outer fringes of metropolitan regions.

Central city decline

Many older central cities, especially in the Northeast and Midwest, lost people and jobs over the last two decades because they struggled to shift from manufacturing

Central city revitalization

Some central cities show signs of renewal because of immigrants, aging Boomers wanting access to health care, young people living near colleges and jobs, and environmentalists concerned about auto emissions.

Suburban growth variation

Most suburbs have grown, but declining suburbs are usually in slow

Suburbanization

The movement of people, businesses, industry, and jobs from central cities to suburbs, made possible largely by transportation advances.

Transportation and suburbanization

Streetcars, private automobiles, expressways, trucks, and highways reduced the need for workers, industries, and stores to stay near the central city.

Nineteenth

century city pattern

Automobile and expressway effect

Automobiles and expressways allowed people to live farther from work, encouraging residential, commercial, and industrial suburbanization.

Industry and suburbanization

Motor trucks, highways, and labor mobility allowed many industries, especially light industries, to move to suburbs instead of staying near waterways and railroads.

Commerce and suburbanization

When people and industries moved to suburbs, commerce followed, including suburban shopping centers that competed with downtown stores.

Job sprawl

The decentralization of jobs as people, businesses, and industries spread across the suburban landscape away from the central business district.

Central business district (CBD)

The downtown business core of a city; many metro

Metro job distribution

In metropolitan areas, many jobs are located more than 10 miles from the CBD, many are 3 to 10 miles away, and a smaller share remains near the CBD.

First suburbs

Communities that are neither fully urban nor fully suburban, usually the first ring of suburbs built around central cities after World War II.

Bedroom communities

Early suburbs where people mainly lived while commuting elsewhere for work, especially after World War II.

First suburb challenges

First suburbs often face aging populations, immigrant populations, outdated housing, outdated commercial buildings, and wide income, education, and racial divides.

Boomburb

A city with more than 100,000 residents located within a metropolitan area that is not the central city and has maintained double

Boomburb characteristics

Boomburbs are often in the Southwest, more economically and racially diverse than smaller suburbs, have commercial sectors, and are built around highways, office parks, and shopping malls.

Phoenix boomburbs

The Phoenix metropolitan area is given as an example because it has seven boomburbs.

Exurb

A suburb on the outer ring of a metropolitan area, farthest from the central city, sometimes called an edge city.

Edge city

Another term for an exurb, referring to newer suburban development far from the central city.

Recessions and suburban growth

During recessions, population growth slows, and outlying exurbs are often affected more than central cities and closer

Great Recession and cities

During the Great Recession beginning in 2007, primary city population growth in the 100 largest metro areas accelerated while suburban growth slowed.

City

suburban conflict

The metropolitan problem

The failure to achieve metropolitanwide consensus or action on public policy questions affecting the whole metropolitan area.

Causes of the metropolitan problem

Social, economic, and racial differences between cities and suburbs make it difficult to build regional coalitions or metropolitanwide governments.

Different types of suburbs

Suburbs may be industrial, residential, Black, wealthy, working

Social distance

The perceived gap between city and suburban residents, especially in larger metropolitan areas, based on differences in class, race, lifestyle, and political interests.

Social class

The occupation, income, and educational levels of a population.

Suburbs and social class

Suburbs usually contain higher proportions of white

Status differentials

Differences in income, education, and occupation between city and suburban residents, usually favoring suburbs in larger metropolitan areas.

Familism

A child

Suburbs and familism

Many families move to suburbs because of children, schools, quiet neighborhoods, and family

Cities and nontraditional households

Cities generally have a larger proportion of nontraditional households than suburbs, though the gap has narrowed.

Race as a city

suburban difference

Suburban racial change

African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians have moved to suburbs faster than whites, making suburbs more integrated than in the past.

Majority of racial and ethnic groups in suburbs

More than half of all racial and ethnic groups in the 100 largest MSAs now live in suburbs, challenging the stereotype of white suburbs and minority cities.

Melting pot metros

Large diverse metro areas such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, Houston, and New York that have large minority suburban populations.

Poverty in central cities

Low

Central city poverty rate

The poverty rate among central

Suburban poverty during recessions

During recessions, suburban poverty rates often increase more than central

Middle

class suburban movement

First suburbs and poverty

Poor neighborhoods are increasingly appearing in first suburbs, even though poverty has historically been concentrated in central cities.

Political party differences between cities and suburbs

Large cities are generally more Democratic, while suburban rings generally produce more Republican votes.

Democratic city pattern

Central cities tend to support Democrats because the Democratic Party is associated with low

Republican suburb pattern

Suburbs have historically leaned more Republican because the Republican Party is associated with middle

Party pattern exception

The Democratic city and Republican suburb pattern is less clear in melting pot metros where suburbs have large minority populations.

Central city government costs

Large central cities have higher per capita operating expenditures than suburbs because they maintain services and facilities used by the entire metro area and serve populations with greater needs.

City

suburban service differences

Public versus private suburban costs

Some suburban costs are shifted from public spending to private spending, such as private septic tanks instead of public sewers or private recreation instead of public recreation.

City

suburban taxes

Self

denying prophecy of suburban taxes

Suburban education spending

Suburbs often spend more per pupil on education than cities, which raises suburban school taxes.

Suburban debt pattern

Suburbs tend to limit indebtedness more than cities, and much suburban debt is for schools rather than municipal services.

Negative media coverage of cities

Some scholars argue that media coverage reinforces harsh stereotypes by emphasizing crime, gangs, drugs, racial tension, homelessness, poor schools, and slum housing.

Political consequence of negative city coverage

Negative media coverage may lead people to believe urban problems such as poverty and crime are impossible to solve.

Positive media role in cities

Media can also promote urban rebirth by highlighting downtown advantages such as jobs, culture, recreation, diversity, tolerance, and social amenities.

Suburban sprawl

The outward extension of new low

Smart growth view of sprawl

Smart growth supporters argue that sprawl contributes to inner

Inner city

The area of the central city where poverty, joblessness, crime, and social dependency are most common.

Sprawl and older communities

Central cities and older inner

Sprawl and fiscal capacity

Older cities may be left with concentrated poverty, joblessness, family fragmentation, failing schools, and deteriorating commercial districts but not enough fiscal capacity to address them.

Sprawl and suburban residents

Sprawl can also hurt suburban residents through traffic jams, strip malls, resource consumption, loss of open space, and endless housing development.

Unlimited outward extension

A characteristic of unwanted sprawl in which development keeps expanding farther outward from the central city.

Low

density development

Leapfrog development

A characteristic of sprawl in which new development jumps beyond established settlements to more distant areas.

Land

use fragmentation

Automobile dominance

A characteristic of sprawl in which private cars are the main form of transportation.

Commercial strips

A characteristic of sprawl involving widespread strip malls and roadside commercial development.

Fiscal disparities among localities

A characteristic of sprawl in which some local governments have strong tax bases while others have weak tax bases and greater needs.