August 2, 2015

"Just as conservatives who hearken for a return to the ’50s are sure to be disappointed, urban advocates who suggest a 'return to the city' for middle class families will be as well."

"Both minorities and millennials, often thought of as spearheading a 'back to the city' drive, are, according to most indicators, moving out to the suburbs as they enter their thirties and start families. Dense urbanity, of course, remains a huge contributor to the nation’s economy and culture. Urban centers are great places for the talented, the young, and childless affluent adults. But for most Americans, the central city offers at best a temporary lifestyle. It does not fit with what people can afford and where they want to live. There is a reason why 70 to 80 percent of Americans in our metropolitan areas live in suburbs, and those numbers are not likely to change appreciably in the coming decade. Cities... have indeed experienced a renaissance, but not in the form [described in 'Death and Life of Great American Cities']. To be sure, this revival is a hell of lot better than the urban dystopia that developed [post-1960]. But it’s time to recognize that we are not seeing a renaissance of the kind of middle class urbanity that she loved and championed. That city has passed into myth, and, unless society changes in very radical ways, it is never going to come back."

From "What Jane Jacobs Got Wrong About Cities."

101 comments:

Jane the Actuary said...

Progressive urban planners want our cities to look like Europe's (see this picture). And European cities have wonderful mass transit, and those neighborhood corner markets that appear in our storybooks from the 50s.

It's also true that families live in those cities. But while families in the U.S. "vote with their feet" to the suburbs when the inconvenience gets too high, in Germany they "vote with their contraception" by their very low birthrates.

traditionalguy said...

In the 50s the town was good or bad depending upon the side of the tracks you could afford to live on. One side was educated and church going. The other side was uneducated labor and the sexual red light and seedy bars and no tell motels.

The two sides still exist across the line drawn somewhere . The Commissrs like Obama want to see them mixed up for disaster the secretly crave.The boundary is why we have so many police and need more.

H said...

Even the most racially conscious white person wants to live where "the schools are good". But there is an undeniable racial gap in test scores, so "good schools" becomes highly correlated with "few minorities". Until the 1960s, urban whites were able to "maintain school quality" inside the city through (then legal) racial segregation. Since it is now illegal to achieve mostly white schools through segregation, whites achieve it by moving to jurisdictions outside city boundaries where the school districts are mostly white.

Over many decades, the test score gap may decline as immigration by Africans raises the average "black score". http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/09/6-key-findings-about-black-immigration/
The problem (well it's not really a problem) is African immigrants also want to settle in areas with "good schools".

rhhardin said...

The 50s lacked these public problems

1. No child sexual abuse, no child abuse.

2. No problem with loose dogs

3. Drinking-driving was a personal moral failing, not a matter of public concern.

Somehow it survived. Media ratings weren't as high though. Soap opera women had not yet been discovered by the news divisions.

Birkel said...

Conservatives sure are funny sounding when Leftists describe them, what with clinging to things and all...

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Everything I need to know about living in the densest part of the city I learned from the IKEA catalog.

Phil 314 said...

"Even diversity, often cited by Jacobs as a great asset of cities, has suffered. Among the most successful cities today are what analyst Aaron Renn has labeled “the white cities”—places like Boston, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle—which have historically been home to relatively small and now shrinking, minority populations."

Pity the Asian-Americans, they have become "white".

Phil 314 said...

"As of the 2010 census, the ethnic makeup and population of San Francisco included: 390,387 Whites (48.1%), 267,915 Asians (33.3%), 48,870 African Americans (6.1%), 4,024 Native Americans (0.5%), 3,359 Pacific Islanders (0.4%), 53,021 from other races (6.6%), and 37,659 from two or more races (4.7%). There were 121,744 Hispanics or Latinos of any race (15.1%)."
(from Wikipedia)

Skipper said...

Isn't it obvious that the "central city" is a 19th Century anachronism that served a society that technologically required people to live near each other? Not so now, iPhone user.

Phil 314 said...

By one estimate, over 15% of men in SF are gay.

Unfortunately, many are "white".

Laslo Spatula said...

The City is where you find the Girl.
The Country is where you bury the body.
The Suburbs are where you stop for gas on the way back.

I am Laslo.

lgv said...

I'm amazed at how some of these alleged great thinkers ignore economic theories. They assume people will decisions they prefer rather than following their own self interests. Despite the limited rebirth and gentrification in Dallas, families continue to move to the suburbs for two big reasons: 1) Schools and 2) Cost

Urban schools still lag behind suburban schools. I'll skip the commentary, but they just do. A decent small house in Dallas will cost $150-$200/sq. ft., whereas the burbs give you a yard and a much bigger house for $100-$125/sq. ft.

Sebastian said...

Sure, conservatives "hearken for a return to the '50s."

Cold War, polio, segregation, the Edsel -- those were the days.

David said...

The new American urbanists are a triumph of the theoretical over the actual.

Phil 314 said...

Igv,
Don't you know they're fleeing to the suburbs because they're white and they want to get away from all of those minorities!?

Michael said...

Schools, safety, cost, square footage and neighbors that cling to the same values. If the Obama administration succeeds in compelling suburbs to build low cost housing the citizens will pack up and create another suburb

The disparate outcome crowd are trying to stall or stop people voting with their feet but I believe it is futile.

Michael K said...

deBlasio and the mayors of the sanctuary cities will wonder why anyone who can afford it wants to leave.

I grew up in Chicago in the 50s. The neighborhood I grew up in was upper middle class and a great place to live. It now has a murder rate like Baltimore if not higher. Guess why?

Michael K said...

"because they're white and they want to get away from all of those minorities!?"

Or they are black and want to get away from all the crime, like my neighbors,.

Lewis Wetzel said...

One of the important and revealing differences between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives don't want to control where people live.

I'm Full of Soup said...

I just got a govt questionnaire in the mail from the National Institute of Health. One question asks for my race. I found it interesting that the options are:

White
Black or African American
Amer. Indian
Asian Indian
Chinese
Filipino
Japanese
Korean
Vietnamese
Other Asian
Native Hawaiian
Guamanian or Chamorro
Samoan
Other Pacific Islander

No option to choose Hispanic or Latino? Is that because Hispanic is not a race?

And are all those Asian categories really distinct races?

The questionnaire seems to be focused on smoking / e-cigarettes and tobacco advertising.

rhhardin said...

I picked rural long ago so that there was a decent bike ride to work.

Titus said...

I am from country but moved to city and abs love it!

It is very expensive though-we only allow certain types to live here.

There are no chilren in my building and everyone is single.

Lewis Wetzel said...

The only person I have heard express a wish to return to the 1950s is Paul Krugman.

Freder Frederson said...

One of the important and revealing differences between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives don't want to control where people live.

Of course conservatives want to control where people live. They just want to achieve it strictly through economic means and private contract.

Laslo Spatula said...

In the Cities the Dysfunctional Hot Girls are all jammed together, their Special Frequency of Crazy practically humming high in the air. Some came to the City to get away from Daddy; others are looking to fill the Daddy-Shaped Hole. The Key to being a Man in the City is to know what version of Daddy you need to be.

The Girls with the Missing Daddies are easiest to deal with: these are the Girls who had the Father leave the family at an early age, and the Girl either doesn't even know him, or has a relationship built from stilted weekend visits that probably dwindled away in her teen years.

These Girls want a Daddy that will be there for them, that will never be too far away: they are looking for you -- as Dylan would put it -- as shelter from the storm.

The biggest downside is that she will be jealous of any time you spend with your friends. Also: the sex will probably be pretty boring.

The Girls with the Abandoning Daddies are the ones whose Father left the family in the girl's teen-age years: they are looking for a Daddy that would punish their Daddy, at least on a psychological level. These Girls want a boy who they fully expect to eventually leave, so he might as well be a dangerous Bad Boy.

The biggest downside is that she will be jealous of any time you spend with your friends. And/or sleep with one of them. The sex will probably be pretty hot, though.

The Girls with the Abusive Daddies are pretty self-explanatory. There will be crying in the middle of the night: expect it. You are to be the Example that Not All Men Are Bad: the weight of this will get heavy.

The biggest downside is that she will be jealous of any time you spend with your friends. And/or cry in front of them. The sex will probably be a minefield of psychological jack-in-the-boxes: you touched her 'there'? Booooinnnngggg.

This is not to say that girls in rural areas or the suburbs do not possess these problems; it is just that they are not packed as tightly as sardines in a tin can.

Finally: there is the Girl with No Daddy Issues. She has a healthy relationship with her Father, and expects men to be honorable and strong. She will want you to move her out of the City and into the Suburbs.

Your friends can visit for a barbeque.


I am Laslo.

khesanh0802 said...

Economics and human behavior are two things that "intellectuals" do not understand. They are sure that everyone will act as they wish in their predictions. Really quite silly that anyone pays any attention to them, but we don't learn from experience.

The commenters above have pretty well identified the major reasons for the middle class move to the suburbs. So far no one has mentioned the many government programs for the poor that have exacerbated the problems of cities while failing to do anything about poverty. Just add that to the list.

Michael K said...

"Of course conservatives want to control where people live. "

I prefer another definition of the difference which you illustrate,

Conservatives believe what they see whereas leftists see what they believe.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Freder Federson wrote:
"Of course conservatives want to control where people live. They just want to achieve it strictly through economic means and private contract."
You mean by choice? Do you understand wat "liberty" is, Freder Federson? The country was founded on it, I believe.

Bruce Hayden said...

I think the better question than why do people like suburbs, is why the left/Dems are so enamored with inner cities, and everyone living in big cities. For me, it has never made sense - my family moved to the suburbs when I was 5, and I probably spent maybe another year there as a young adult. Better schools, safer, more privacy - what is not to love about the suburbs?

I think that part of the left's resistance to suburbia is that their real power base is urban, the big city machines. And, unfortunately for them, many/most vote with their feet when they can after getting married, etc, and move out to the suburbs. They may do as I did, which is move in for a year or so as a young adult, but living in suburbia is really a lot better for many when raising families. And it is getting worse, with those stuck in the cities being more colored, dumber, more violent and law breaking, etc. Part of the problem then is that so many big cities are crashing financially. So long run by big city machines, their unionized city employees keep driving wages, and esp benefits up, at a time when the tax base is fleeing. So many of the Dem party's most loyal and valuable foot soldiers facing loss of jobs and over-generous pensions must be panicking their more thoughtful leadership.

No surprise that the Dems are doing what they can to reverse the trend of suburbizidation, but at a national level are going to be stuck doing what the Obama Admin has been doing by executive action, because so many Dem politicians now represent suburbs. I was thinking of purple CO, where only left loonie Rep Dianne DeGettes of Denver represents an inner city. The rest of the Dems represent suburban/rural districts. Metro areas may be growing, but many/most of the inner urban areas are not. Who in their right mind wants to live somewhere with the dirt, stink, and incivility, where you are far more likely to be the subject of violence? So, the left/Dems want to force you, since you won't prefer it voluntarily.

Freder Frederson said...

You mean by choice?

Choice for whom? The liberty you espouse is liberty only for those who can afford the choice.

Big Mike said...

Choice for whom? The liberty you espouse is liberty only for those who can afford the choice.

Kind of true about nearly everything.

Freder Frederson said...

what is not to love about the suburbs?

Sterility, monotony, lack of cultural opportunities and entertainment, lousy chain restaurants, lack of diversity, inconvenience of having to drive everywhere. I could go on if you wish.

Most of the commenters on this thread apparently missed the thrust of the article. You are focused exclusively on the poverty of the urban core while the article clearly points out that the very rich choose to live in the urban core, while the very poor are stuck there. The article blames both gentrification and increased poverty for the flight of the middle class.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Freder Frederson said...
You mean by choice?

Choice for whom? The liberty you espouse is liberty only for those who can afford the choice.

So the wicked conservatives control where people can by selling them them houses? Or maybe by exercising their own liberty to live where they want?
Evil bastards!
I know a lot of conservatives. I've never heard one -- any conservative -- in person or in print say "this group of people should live in this kind of neighborhood." Liberals are obsessed with that crap, not conservatives.

Freder Frederson said...

And it is getting worse, with those stuck in the cities being more colored, dumber, more violent and law breaking, etc.

Why is it that when we are discussing guns, the crime rate has been dropping since the eighties, yet when we are discussing why you suburbanites hate the city, it is because it is more violent and law breaking than it was in the past. Both can not be true.

And of course violent crime is much lower than it was 35 years ago.

Freder Frederson said...

I know a lot of conservatives. I've never heard one -- any conservative -- in person or in print say "this group of people should live in this kind of neighborhood." Liberals are obsessed with that crap, not conservatives.

Well then you are extremely <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLLDn7MjbF0> ignorant and/or in serious denial</a>.

And the comments above certainly are saying: "I don't care where this group of people live, they just sure as hell shouldn't live in my neighborhood."

Laslo Spatula said...

While doing additional research for my earlier post I Google "Hot Chicks In The City" and this site popped up.

Scroll through the photos (SFW) and identify the Girls to the categories I listed earlier. It is easier than you might think.

I am Laslo.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

"The liberty you espouse is liberty only for those who can afford the choice."

Spoken like a true communist. If you cannot afford it, it will be provided for you; Government will see to the confiscation and re-distribution.

Freder Frederson said...

Spoken like a true communist. If you cannot afford it, it will be provided for you

Where did I say that? People who can afford it can live where ever they want, but don't pretend that the ability to live where one wants is the definition of liberty.

Michael K said...

" the article clearly points out that the very rich choose to live in the urban core,"

Where they have limousines and security guards. In fact, that only applies to a few cities. Nobody chooses to live in the urban core of Los Angeles. Chicago is limited to a segment of the North Side where they live in high rise buildings with security.

Detroit ?

Baltimore ?

Philadelphia ?

Michael K said...

"don't pretend that the ability to live where one wants is the definition of liberty."

Walter Ulbricht could not be reached for comment.

Freder Frederson said...



Screwed up the link.

Freder Frederson said...

Where they have limousines and security guards. In fact, that only applies to a few cities. Nobody chooses to live in the urban core of Los Angeles. Chicago is limited to a segment of the North Side where they live in high rise buildings with security.

When was the last time you were in a major city? You are freaking paranoid.

William said...

The author speaks of "low paying service jobs". Ha. The IRS doesn't know them, but within my field of acquaintance in NYC, I know of many supers, doormen, waiters, and others who have de facto six figure incomes. It's not dentist money, but it's an ok living. I've heard that even the take out delivery guys sometimes have to bribe the restaurants for the lucrative delivery jobs.

Amy said...

My kids bemoaned the 'soul-sucking suburbs' they grew up in and moved to the big city post-college. Now one is a mom, and thinking about schools, and suddenly she is saving suburban houses on Zillow. And the beat goes on....

khesanh0802 said...

@ Freder I think Jane Jacobs point was that inner cities were going to be a boon to a middle class revival. The point of the article is that did not happen. Cities have ended up with the very rich and the very poor and very little in the way of the middle class because of all the reasons that have been mentioned.

Michael K said...

"When was the last time you were in a major city? "

June. You ?

Skeptical Voter said...

Ah well the things you read these days.
I'm just back from 10 days in Michigan. I read Charles Leduff's book describing what happened to Detroit. Suffice to say I refused to set foot in the city--it's a war zone of sorts.

I live 10 miles from downtown Los Angeles--albeit in a suburb. South Central Los Angeles or "Watts" was a black neighborhood in the 1960's --Watts Riots--and still largely black in the Rodney King Riots in the early 90's. It is becoming much less black as those folks who can afford it get the heck out of there and move out to the far suburbs like Riverside or San Bernardino. There their children have much less chance of being shot and killed when "walking while black". If you are a teenaged boy wearing the wrong color shirt and walking in the "wrong" neighborhood, you can and will be shot and killed. And then there's the occasional extraneous unintended victim of a drive by shooting. Watts isn't "healthy" for anyone who lives there. So off to the suburbs if you can afford it.

As for the public schools in Los Angeles? As the saying goes "Pulease!!!". This morning's Los Angeles Times had a front page story about the expansion of private schools. The expansion --adding new buildings, playing fields etc. has the school's neighbors up in arms. The schools are located on the wealthy West Side--Brentwood, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills or over the hill in the slightly less posh Sherman Oaks. There were five such schools listed. The cheapest annual tuition was $29,000 a year--the four other schools were in the $33-35K annual tuition range.

So yeah--if you are a wealthy executive or professional with say three kids, and can stand $100,000 a year in tuition bills for jr. high or high school, Los Angeles is a great place to live--but you wouldn't want to send your kids to the public schools.

Lewis Wetzel said...

George Wallace? Are you kidding Frederson? You tried to find a conservative telling people where to live and you came up with Democrat George Wallace? HE HAS BEEN DEAD FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS. The clip you link to came from the 1960s. I'm not 70 years old, Frederson. I hope you will forgive me because I never spoke with Wallace or read anything he has written.
Hey, y'know what, It was two Democrats that started the Vietnam War! I'm good with the idea that Democrats are warmongers and racists -- howabout you?
Jesus you are lame.

richard mcenroe said...

I don't want to return to the 50's. It was a time when Democrat cops were killing blacks in the streets and oh, wait....

Michael K said...

"Los Angeles is a great place to live--but you wouldn't want to send your kids to the public schools."

I drive into the city a couple of times a week to work but get out as fast as I can. Southern California has nice weather. I would prefer to live in Tucson where a house costs about 1/3 of the similar house in Orange County. If you go into a gun store in Tucson and they see your California DL, they back off like you have plague.

The house in Orange County that I bought for $47,000 in 1972 is worth a million dollars now. The house in South Pasadena that I bought for $68,000 in 1971 was recently listed for $2.7 million. It's crazy.

SteveR said...

A modern "middle class" family has neither the time, or money, to make a urban dwelling, a home. Its either the playground of those with money and/or time (essentially one or less kids). The extra drive time is worth the trade off for convenience and security. This was decided a long time ago and the blue urban model has only solidified it. Romanticizing the past is folly.

Michael K said...

The left sees what it believes and the right believes what it sees. All the difference in the world.

Urban life is for a small rich subset, usually without children and, of course the poor. San Francisco is an excellent example.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Progressives do have an obsession with romanticizing the past. It's kind of ironic. If only progressives could turn the clock back to the days when cities had an actual middle class! And covenants that kept homeowners from selling to coloreds!
Most American cities and towns were built by the evil, racist, sexist Victorians. Screw them, I say! We need more New Deal era and post WW2 suburbs. The future lies in front of us, not behind us!
Call me the Strelnikov of Suburbia. One hundred square meters of living space per person is our demand! Onward! To the suburbs!

Art in LA said...

Paraphrased comment from the Kotkin article ... "these urban bluetopias are the most unequal places in the world." What's up with that? Gotta blame the other guys, of course!

Big Mike said...

"these urban bluetopias are the most unequal places in the world." What's up with that? Gotta blame the other guys, of course!

Well, Freder certainly thinks so.

Sam L. said...

"Blogger rhhardin said...
The 50s lacked these public problems
1. No child sexual abuse, no child abuse."

I'm sure there was, but I expect it was much less. Broken families to come allowed growth.

" Blogger Freder Frederson said...

And it is getting worse, with those stuck in the cities being more colored, dumber, more violent and law breaking, etc.

Why is it that when we are discussing guns, the crime rate has been dropping since the eighties, yet when we are discussing why you suburbanites hate the city, it is because it is more violent and law breaking than it was in the past. Both can not be true.

And of course violent crime is much lower than it was 35 years ago.

8/2/15, 10:47 AM"

Because crime, as everyone knows, is equally distributed.

walter said...

I live closer to Madison, but it's not a normal city by any measure. Looking to Milwaukee, clearly what it needs is a trolley and a renamed park with a Dantre Hamilton statue.

walter said...

Hey Laslo,
How does the hot girl/pit bull owner and defender figure into that model?

Anonymous said...

Spoken like a true communist. If you cannot afford it, it will be provided for you; Government will see to the confiscation and re-distribution

*cough cough* school vouchers *cough cough*

richard mcenroe said...

Feeder Fredersen, you're free to choose anything you want. Doesn't mean the choice will come without cost or consequences.

ken in tx said...

I'm not familiar with this use of the word 'hearken' with means to listen. I think they meant harken.

Michael K said...

"*cough cough* school vouchers *cough cough*

So, giving the taxpayers' money back to them to school their children as they see fit is communism ?

Interesting. I would think you would be more concerned at singles having to pay for "breeders'" children in schools.

Most voucher proposals leave money in the public system and only allow parents to take a fraction, a half or two-thirds, of the percapita school budget with them.

richard mcenroe said...

Feeder are you seriously suggesting that the people moving to Westwood, Beverly Hills and Marina del Rey are moving into the same "core urban experience" as the folks living in South LA, Compton, East LA and Watts?

richard mcenroe said...

Phil 3:14 just to state the obvious, the black percentage of San Francisco's population is far below the national average. Racist Democrat bastids.

furious_a said...

"...for a return to the ’50s..."

The '50s? Who wants Jim Crow or Polio? Or being drafted and sent to Korea?

furious_a said...

Progressives do have an obsession with romanticizing the past.

They're "the 19th Century Men", darned determined to stick us with Windmills and Passenger Trains and Corner Grocery Markups.

furious_a said...


I hear the DeBlasio era includes the return of "No Radio in Car" signs. Yay Urban Core!

The money one saves on taxes, inflated rents and mortgages, corner store markups, car alarms, parking fees, etc. one can spend a month a year in Paris getting all the culture and non-lousy chain restaurant food one can stand.

Joe said...

"The liberty you espouse is liberty only for those who can afford the choice."

You do know it's cheaper to live the suburbs, right?

Problem is that most of these articles are written by people not just living in cities, but big cities, like San Francisco and New York City. To them the suburbs are Atherton, Marin County, Westchester, southern Connecticut, etc.. To those of us in flyover country, many "cities" are what the coasties call suburbs, if that.

furious_a said...

"The liberty you espouse is liberty only for those who can afford the choice."

What's the median price of a home on the San Francisco Peninsula? In Plano, TX? Whats 20% of each for the money one needs in the bank to even be in the market?

Creeps like Freder really want to stick it to the people in the middle so they can feel better about the people they maroon at the bottom.

Anonymous said...

So, giving the taxpayers' money back to them to school their children as they see fit is communism ?

These people can not afford a ritzy-ditzy private school for their little precious children, so the government confiscates money from earners like me and re-distributes it to them, the takers. When you add in the fact that this welfare program has less accountability and safeguards then food stamps or even Section 8 housing, then how can it be considered anything but "communism"?

I would think you would be more concerned at singles having to pay for "breeders'" children in schools

At least with the public schools there is a School Board which is accountable to the voters. There is no such voice in the private school welfare program - you're just want to take my money while not letting me have ANY say at all about how it is being used.

buwaya said...

On California cities, the wealthy, and the "urban core".
Some California cities have an urban core. Other places it can be difficult to identify such a core. If one redefines the core as that of a general conurbation it maybe works better.
The SF Bay Area can be considered one large city, sort of. It has three " cores" if so, SF, Oakland, and downtown San Jose, if one stretches a bit.
In this place one "core", SF, doesn't really have many urban poor and those remaining spots of poverty are nowhere near where the wealthy live. Oakland's urban downtown is a ghost town, where no-one lives. Likewise San Jose's downtown is really an office park. Other than in San Francisco both the wealthy and the poor mostly live in suburbs. Different suburbs.
That's the pattern in Los Angeles also for the most part.
So the whole business they are going on about in this article and those it criticizes pretty much misses the reality of much of the country.
And from what I have seen, the general reality is closer to that of Los Angeles than New York, I.e., its not a matter of poor urban cores with built up slums, adjacent to expensive condo buildings, but of rich and poor suburbs.
As for bad food in the suburbs, no nightlife, etc.
This is not the case in any way. Note that most Asians and Hispanics live in suburbs and brought their cooking with them.
There is a concentration of wealthy young people in San Francisco, and expensive entertainment for them, but that's as far as it goes.

furious_a said...

a 'return to the city' for middle class families

Smaller and more expensive homes, crappy public schools, higher taxes, bigger grocery bills, bus stops that smell like urinals, hobo campgrounds for city parks...what's not to love?

furious_a said...


After you, Freder.

buwaya said...

Urban school districts normally give parents the backs of their hands, because they aren't accountable to them in any way. They belong to the local political machine (always Democrat). They run in huge districts that require heavy election funding and public union organizations. The parents and the kids are irrelevant. They aren't the people the board members need to please. That is the reality.
In addition, there really isnt much such a school board can do, because in nearly all matters their hands are tied by state and federal level regulation, as well as overriding governance bodies. There is no democratic accountability at all.
Vouchers give parents some actual individual power.
This is better than the truly dysfunctional structure of democratic accountability, which is now mostly a Potemkin facade.

Mark said...

I'm surprised the discussion can go on this long without mention of the key concepts of this ideology - "smart growth," "urban village," "walkable community," which does not try to draw people into the large cities, but seeks to fundamentally transform medium-sized, suburban-style towns into urban areas, with ultra-high density, high-rise "mixed use" buildings, intentional obstructions to traffic flow, and "affordable housing," which means housing is affordable like health insurance is affordable under the Affordable Care Act, i.e. it is highly subsidized. All of this together with progressive ruling regime being in bed with developers to build, build, build, while diminishing quality of life, increasing cost of living, overloading infrastructure, oversaturating markets so businesses cannot thrive, and making things dramatically worse for everyone.

eddie willers said...

Or they are black and want to get away from all the crime, like my neighbors,

In Atlanta, they had to change the term "White Flight" to "Bright Flight" for that very reason.

furious_a said...


If Urban Core! living is so great, why is the last child of a Democrat US President or Vice President who attended D.C. schools now forty-seven years old?

SJ said...

@Freder,

Sterility, monotony, lack of cultural opportunities and entertainment, lousy chain restaurants, lack of diversity, inconvenience of having to drive everywhere. I could go on if you wish.

Don't know what you're talking about...

I can find an equal number of community theaters in the Detroit suburbs as inside the City.

Definitely find better dining in the 'burbs than in the urban center.

And there is diversity, if you count Oriental and Indian-subcontinent people as "diverse".

You don't have to drive--if you have the ability, desire, and time, you could bicycle. The time can be an issue on that front, though.

furious_a said...

Freder is pissed off at the suburbs b/c they lack sufficient opportunities for the public sector and community organizer graft that are the air hose for his preferred blue-state smart-city walkable governance model.

Christy said...

Baltimore is a renaissance city. When I moved there in 1975, warehouses in the inner harbor had been torn down and replaced with the Inner Harbor, full of trendy shops and restaurants. The City and business leaders sponsored street performers. Young professionals were buying $1 houses and renovating. Couldn't go to the gym without overhearing conversations about repointing brick. Eventually Camden Station, the B&O rail yard adjacent to all those razed inner harbor warehouses was torn down and replaced with Oriole Park at Camden Yards; the new football stadium followed.

I repeat, Baltimore is a renaissance city. We see how that turned out.

furious_a said...


Lead by example, Mr. President! Enroll your daughters in Marion Berry High School!

Michael K said...

"so the government confiscates money from earners like me and re-distributes it to them, the takers"

So, it's OK to give it to the teachers' unions but not OK to give 2/3 of it to private schools.Got it.

You're living in the right place, Inga.

amielalune said...

For Pete's sake, how many conservatives (under the age of 80) actually want to go back to the 50's? Stupid, stupid liberals.

Skeptical Voter said...

The idea that school boards are accountable to the voters? Hardy har har. In Los Angeles, and in most of its suburbs, school boards are captive to the teacher's unions. It costs a ton of dough to run for the school board in a city the size of Los Angeles--or Chicago--or New York. Who do you think comes up with the campaign contributions to finance those elections?

And even when you go into the suburban school boards, you'll often find that school board membership is concentrated among residents of a small part of the community. My suburban school board has 5 members--elected "at large" from the entire city. But they live in a tiny geographic part of the city--none of them live in the neighborhoods where large portions of the ethnic groups that now make up a majority of the students in the district reside. So, not surprisingly, there's a move to divide the city into 5 electoral "districts" with roughly the same population in each district. If that happens, at least three--if not four--of the five current Board members will lose there seats. Maybe you could gerrymander things so that two of those seats are safe, but it's more likely than only one will be "safe".

But big district or small district, the idea that the school board members are "accountable to the community" is to laugh.

The Godfather said...

I haven't read Jacobs' book since I was in college (a couple of years after it was published), so correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe that she predicted what demographic patterns would be 50+ years into the future. She was describing how cities could and should function as desirable places for ordinary folks to live -- particularly if the urban renewalists and other "reformers" of her day could be defeated.

The reformers won. They imposed high taxes on real estate, sales, and (where permitted to do so, as in NYC) incomes. The really poor didn't pay much of the higher taxes, and the really rich considered them chump change. The high taxes funded lots of government agencies that hired lots of government employees, almost all of whom belonged to unions, which negotiated higher pay contracts from the city governments in return for contributions to the city politicians. And the taxes got even higher. And the quality of the schools got poorer. The rich didn't care: Like the Obamas and the Clintons they sent their kids to private schools (they could afford to); the poor didn't have any choice.

But the middle class had a choice, and they voted with their feet. They moved to the suburbs, where the taxes were lower, real estate was cheaper, and the schools were better (or at least safer).

Now Obama wants to force the suburbanites to import all the problems they left the city to avoid. Most of the voters are in the suburbs. If they really understood what the Democrats have in mind for them, and if the Republicans could become the champions of the suburbanites, the political landscape would look like 1864 - 1928.

Dumb sh*t Republicans will probably blow the chance.

Michael K said...

After some experience in local government, I have to confirm the above comment and will add that local city councils are, for the most part, not representative of the city. I lived through an interesting exercise in political science in the small city where I live. A group of us organized a reform movement after a number of decisions were made that we thought endangered the fiscal health of the city. We succeeded over a period of about six years, in over throwing the inbred and unresponsive city council and replacing it with what we thought were more representative members.

Once in office the new members made new friends and did a fair imitation of the old council. The reform group eventually gave up. Lord Acton was more right than even he knew.

sane_voter said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Michael K said...

I spent a few days with a Dutch surgeon in the 70s after a convention in San Francisco. After the convention was over, he wasn't scheduled to go home right away so we invited him to go to a USC pep rally the night before a football game. It was a Friday night and the band and about 400 people were there.

He later told me it one of the most interesting experiences he had had in America. He was a professor and spent a lot of time here but with other professors. He said that the Americans there were drinking and cheering and there was martial music playing. He told me that, in Germany, even in the 70s, it would not be safe to be stranger among them. At the pep rally, he said everyone was friendly and he felt comfortable. He said it taught him a lot about Americans.

As we were walking across San Francisco later, about 1AM. I mentioned that it was not safe to do this alone. There were four of us. He chuckled and told me he had been in the Dutch underground and had killed several Germans with his bare hands. I told him I felt much safer with him there.

Unknown said...

------Are you kidding Frederson? You tried to find a conservative telling people where to live and you came up with Democrat George Wallace? HE HAS BEEN DEAD FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS. The clip you link to came from the 1960s---


hahaha Lefties are so stuck in the '60s. hahahhh.

Big Mike said...

@Terry, don't pick on Freder. He's just pushing to us the same talking points that were pushed to him. Blame the researchers at whichever organization pays him to glom onto us like a lamphrey parasitizing a game fish. Those researchers are probably young Millennials who've never otherwise heard of George Corley Wallace. Yes, I know they should have stayed awake in their American History class, but, you know, it was so-o-o-o long ago.

@Unknown, I think you may be onto something. The old, not-retiring-anywhere-near-soon-enough professors today remember the 1960s with nostalgia. They were young, they rioted to end the war in Vietnam (which ended not because of the riots but because the American middle class hit its fed up point), there was free love, they stuck it to the Man, it was all good in their minds. So of course they want the neverending culture wars, Occupy movement, and tear it down, tear it down, tear it down.

Real human beings, not so much.

Kevin said...

"Those researchers are probably young Millennials who've never otherwise heard of George Corley Wallace."

Earlier in the thread there was a reference to Charles Leduff's book describing what happened to Detroit.

Although generally a fine book, it does have one howler - Leduff claimed that George Wallace won the Republican primary in Michigan in 1972.

Wallace, of course, won the Democratic primary in Michigan in 1972.

Freder Frederson said...

What's the median price of a home on the San Francisco Peninsula? In Plano, TX?

It's a hell of a commute from Plano to San Francisco. If you are going to compare urban cores with suburbs, then you have to compare San Francisco with the suburbs of San Francisco, not Dallas. And San Francisco suburbs ain't cheap either.

You are all pretending (or maybe under the mistaken belief) that the move of the middle class from the cities to the suburbs was a spontaneous decision by enlightened and fed up middle class people that had nothing to do with government policy (other than in response to poor decisions by city governments). This is simply not true. The suburbanization of the U.S. was based on specific government policies (home loans through the VA, focus on building interstates, etc.) that encouraged the growth of the suburbs.

Lewis Wetzel said...

The suburbanization of the U.S. was based on specific government policies (home loans through the VA, focus on building interstates, etc.) that encouraged the growth of the suburbs.
Hello? Democracy?
If only the peoples' government hadn't given the people money to buy houses and roads to drive on!
As has been noticed elsewhere (as in every 20th century history textbook), the forces that created large, densely populated cities in the 19th century no longer existed after the Second World War. Economic conditions and technology no longer required large armies of workers to be physically close to work, home, and retail centers. The suburbs are the result of technological and economic progress.

Douglas B. Levene said...

Freder is a testament to Orwell. I'm super impressed by how he characterizes ordinary voluntary exchange as control by, well, he doesn't say but I think he means The Man. Peace is war etc.

SGT Ted said...

Notice how when middle class people leave the cities, it's called "White Flight" and is attributed to whites being racist and then, decades later, when middle class people move into the city and bring up property values and lower crime rates result because the criminal underclass in those neighborhoods is economically displaced, it's called "Gentrification" and is attributed to whites being racist.

And, of course Liberty is just whites being racist.

I guess that world view allows one not to have to think too hard or hold some people accountable for their life choices, nor does one have to reflect that one's own alleged progressive political creed might not be living up to its own hype about caring for the poor or minorities. "Whitey" is always available to kick around and scapegoat, so why be bothered to actually think?

Peter said...

Urban advocates don't "suggest a return to the city," they've been at war with suburbs (and those who live there) for over half a century now. What they'd really like to do is not "suggest" a return to the city but to mandate it, by any means necessary. Perhaps they'd start by making automobile use unlawful (or as close to unlawful as possible) and then implementing massive transfer payments from suburbs to their urban cores but, ultimately, they'd be for whatever works to implement what they want.

For that matter, conservatives don't really "hearken for a return to the ’50s" (although some might want a Disney Version, a 1950s somewhat like the original but with the worst of the really bad stuff fixed).

Those who truly "hearken for a return to the ’50s" are aging trade unionists, those who can still remember the high-water mark of unionization in the USA.

SGT Ted said...

Progressive micro-management of urban areas has failed to produce the promised results and the perennial whipping boy is always white people who live elsewhere.

Rusty said...

As cities become unlivable for the middle class, the middle class move to the suburbs.
Chicago has been driving the middle class to the suburbs via property taxes.

gerry said...

Welcome to New York City!

I especially liked the quote, “These conditions are unsavory, at best — particularly when you’re looking out your window in the morning and see something like a drug deal happening. Or when you’re sitting in a classroom and someone urinates right in front of you,” said the Cooper Union professor. "I mean if I wanted to see someone shitting on the students I would be a professor at the University of Wisconsin."

Mitch H. said...

Wealth *is* freedom - the more of it you have, the greater your degree of freedom. Asperational jailers like Freder see that wealth and thus freedom is unevenly distributed, and decide to fix this problem - not by increasing wealth and thus the overall supply of freedom, but rather to destroy as much wealth as they can and use the temporary income stream to fund their prison blocks to keep the poor and working class from improving their lot.

Seriously, Freder, your solutions slightly reduce the wealth of the truly rich, abuse the middle class, and lock the lower and working classes into matrixes of misery and isolation. Your solutions are controlling, wasteful, and oppressive. Unlock the doors, put down your key-ring and let the people find their own damnations and solutions.

furious_a said...

If you are going to compare urban cores with suburbs, then you have to compare San Francisco with the suburbs of San Francisco, not Dallas.

"Peninsula", (reading is FUN-damental) and thanks for (unintentionally) making my point for me.