Suburbs and City Planning

Suburbs are mostly outlying rural district areas within cities. Suburban neighborhoods are made up of suburban neighbourhoods located within commuting distance to towns. This clearly indicates that residential communities can be located on the outskirts of towns. A physical contrast of the outlook of a residential area and a community reveals significant differences (Monti, 2015). Cities are generally synonymous with income, whereas suburban regions are associated with poverty. This belief drives people to commute from suburbs to towns in search of employment and ways to improve their financial situation. Their shift in position to the cities is mainly to escape the poverty levels that are still quite vital in brandishing suburban areas (Levine, 2015). The probabilities of getting a well-paying job in the city are relatively higher as opposed to the suburban areas since cities are more developed and stable economically.

There has been rapid development in the economy of nations which causes the controversy of whether the suburban areas still exist. Research and reassurances have been carried out to affirm to their existence. The studies are still underway, and in its course, most of the people staying in both developed and developing nations would not agree to be aware of the existence of these suburban areas (Levine, 2015). This is mainly because most people would not identify a suburban area even when they saw one. However, many academic works of literature have been digging deep into the issue, and they give a strong suggestion that affirms to the existence of suburban areas (Ross & Levine, 2015). Identifying them has been tough lately due to the rapid improvement in their states.

The suburbs are among the most treasured stereotypes in the United States of America. According to most articles relating to the suburbs, they are either a suffocating nightmare that alludes to sameness or the culmination of the big picture in the American dream. However, the articles had one thing in common within them, and that is the fact that they give recognition to suburbs being a home to middle-class people and values (Levine, 2015). The clear definition of the characteristics that pertain to the suburbs links them to poverty, diversity, and noise. Concisely, the suburbs are characteristically on the verge of vanishing (Monti, 2015). The later makes them represent the locus of a retreat from the tumult that is clearly a part of the American life.



Fig 1: Ross, B. & Levine, (2015)

Contrary to anticipations, the suburbs have seen a rapid improvement in their states making them compete at the same level with cities. In comparison to the rates of employment in the towns, those in the cities are relatively higher. This fact makes the suburbs a home to numerous immigrants who go there for better lifestyles. The employment opportunities that may be available in the major metropolitan areas can only be at a distance of three miles from the traditional downtown. These opportunities only stand at the rate of twenty-two percent (Monti, 2015). There are more chances to get employment, but they are twice away from the metropolitan areas that people stay. This is quite discouraging, and that is why approximately 60% of the total population chooses to live in the suburbs (Levine, 2015).

U.S. Population living in Metropolitan areas and their Central Cities and Suburbs, 1900-1990 (percentage)



 

U.S. Population Living in:

Metropolitan Population Living in:

Year

Metropolitan Areas

Central Cities

Suburbs

Central Cities

Suburbs

1900

25.5

19.7

5.8

77.3

22.7

1910

28.3

21.7

6.6

76.7

23.3

1920

34.0

25.3

8.7

74.4

25.6

1930

44.6

30.8

13.8

69.1

30.9

1940

47.8

32.5

15.3

68.0

32.0

1950

56.1

32.8

23.3

58.5

41.5

1960

63.3

32.3

30.9

51.0

49.0

1970

69.0

31.4

37.6

45.5

54.5

1980

74.8

30.0

44.8

40.1

59.9

1990

77.5

31.3

46.2

40.4

59.6

Fig 2: Ross, B. & Levine, (2015)

Just like any other place, the suburban areas also major issues facing them. Poverty is sometimes just like the air; it chooses to be almost everywhere. Apart from those who come to seek for better chances in the suburban areas, the poverty levels for the original inhabitants of these places languish in high levels of poverty (Levine, 2015). The lifestyles of those who intend to come better their lives find a way coming through with their plans whereas the inhabitants still stay below the poverty line. Even though some of these families have secure employment opportunities, poverty still has its way of weighing them down. There is also the issue of mortgage that only serves to worsen the situation instead of helping the people (Monti, 2015).

Governments in 15 Largest Primary Metropolitan Statistical Areas, 1997

Metropolitan Areas

Total Governments

Governments/ 100,000 Population

General-Purpose Governments/ 100,000 Population

Anaheim

147

6.1

1.3

Atlanta

261

8.8

4.3

Boston

1,000

17.9

7.0

Chicago

1,458

19.7

6.3

Dallas

326

12.2

5.8

Detroit

378

8.9

5.1

Houston

790

23.8

2.6

Los Angeles-Long Beach

354

4.0

1.0

Minneapolis-St. Paul

549

21.6

13.5

New York

213

2.5

1.0

Philadelphia

877

17.8

7.4

Riverside-San Bernadino

309

11.9

1.9

San Diego

181

7.2

0.8

St. Louis

789

31.7

12.5

Washington, D.C.

169

4.0

2.7

Average

 

11.9

4.4

Fig 3: Ross, B. & Levine, (2015)

Many factors make a town to earn itself the name a suburban area. Contrary to the apparent, the trends in suburbanization are very long standing. According to historical sources, suburbanization has its route back in the early 1880s. However, the significant surge that encompasses suburbanization has its tracing back in the 1920s (Levine, 2015). The major factors that are believed to have been behind the rise of suburban areas are the interstate highway system, the federal mortgage insurance programs that began in the 1950s and the racial tensions, poverty in the city schools of recent decades and the fear of crime (Monti, 2015). The best way of explaining suburbanization is through the urban economist model. It was dealing with improvement in infrastructure and transportation (Monti, 2015). The model was to help reduce the cost of commuting. Also, the model was to advance technology to create employment opportunities and long term household incomes. The latter would create decentralization in work and allow families act in their space preference.

The other means that may be as well be significant in explaining suburbanization is by the use of the stress push factors that have a relation to both social and fiscal problems that cities face. These problems may be inclusive of high tax rates, poor city amenities and inadequacy of public schools to foster better education. This explanation apparently shows that the two accounts lack a mutual exclusion point. However, they assist in explaining the daunting economic challenges that urban areas face. In spite of the various problems that the cities may be known of, they are the almost the perfect places for revitalization and growth (Monti, 2015). The interplay point that both opportunities and challenges create, provides a critical task for researchers and policy makers.

In order for the United States to manage and maintain its place in the global economy, it is worthwhile to grapple with the opportunities and problems that its suburban areas are facing. Also, the government should step in and help in the preservation and production of housing at the rates that may be affordable to the low income earning families (Levine, 2015). The housing crisis flattens suburban governments. This is because they lack the experience to find solutions to the vacancies that keep strafing neighborhoods. Also, the governments lack the capacities that would help them in slowing the tide of foreclosures. Federal governments should allocate funds to local authorities that would assist in the purchase of foreclosed properties and find the use of lands that are not having any use at all.

There is a mental line that exists between suburban area and cities. The implementation of policies does not treat metropolitan areas as a whole. Most of the clusters for high-tech industries regarding urban areas are not taken all round every area but just the selective few. The overall understanding of regional groups is that they foster both innovational economic growth and this makes them not to look pretty in only one of just a few municipalities (Ross & Levine, 2015). This is the main reason most people speak of Route 128 and Silicon Valley instead of Boston or San Jose (Levine, 2015). Another major issue is that federal job-training funds do not give a reflection of the manner in which modern economies work.

Most of the levels of government lack physical landscape reinvent. It is vital to create communities that are walkable. Also, there is need to put in place a public transport that connects people within the suburbs to concert halls, schools, sports fields and jobs that are most likely to be present the next county, neighborhood or municipality. The people living in the suburban areas are known to be very fond of their SUV vehicles, but then the shift would gladly offer them a great opportunity for low greenhouse gas emissions, higher housing values, and less traffic congestion on roads (Levine, 2015). The top rates of housing costs are mainly attributes of the proximity of the houses to transit.

The developments that are prerequisite in the suburban areas lies in the arms of the federal government. This is because they play a very crucial role in the lowering of regulatory hurdles and provision of funds that would help see the development plans and projects through to their completion. The previous President of the United States, President Barrack Obama was aware of the challenges that were brought to his attention about suburban areas (Lane, 2015). He, through the help of other leaders in his tenure, led to the formulation of strategies that would greatly assist in finding exclusive solutions to the problems that suburban areas are facing. The necessitation was through his office and the urban policy that made the promise to generate the implementation strategies to arriving at amicable solutions.

However, leaving the past behind isn’t always such an easy task to undertake. Although the federal governments may try so hard to put an end to the suburb tradition, it just becomes harder by the day since the social concerns that the people are so much engrossed in, seem to follow the society (Lane, 2015) inexorably. These include the demands, compromises and the pressures of the city life. This makes it difficult for those in authority to put an end to the suburban areas and even make rational decisions regarding the same. Due to this fact, the leaders inclusive of the president have no option but to make mental jumps that would get them across the urban and the suburban boundary and allow them to catch up with the route that the people in these areas are taking.

Conclusively, the fight in making the suburban areas should not come to an end anytime soon until the issue settles. This is because the economic gauging is done inclusive of the people leading sub-standard lives in these areas. This implies that if they are left to do as they please, they will keep weighing the country’s economy down. However, if there can be measures that can be put in place to help curb the situation or even better, bring it to an end, then it’s worth giving a try. The authorities should develop urban centers and lower the poverty levels by creating more employment opportunities that would empower the people and boost the economy.



References

Lane, B. M. (2015). Houses for a new world: Builders and buyers in American suburbs, 1945-1965.

Levine, M. A. (2015). Urban Politics: Cities and suburbs in a global age.

Monti, D. J. (2015). Urban people and places: The sociology of cities, suburbs, and towns.

Ross, B. H., & Levine, M. A. (2015). Urban Politics: Cities and suburbs in a global age.