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Suburban poverty grows where burbs were paradise
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When the suburban boom took off in the US in the 1950s, many middle class families moved to those communities as a way to escape the country’s increasingly crowded, dirty and financially strapped cities.
But now, as many American cities are gradually being revitalized and the suburbs have expanded outward, some of these former refuges for the middle class are becoming more and more like the places that early suburbanites were trying to escape.
Fueled by the lure of cheap, aging housing stock and low-cost mortgages offered during the height of the housing boom, the rate of those living in suburban poverty has grown substantially over that last two decades. More than 15 million people currently live in poverty in the suburbs, compared with 12.8 million in the cities, according to a book released by the Brookings Institution in May.
“Despite the fact that “poverty in America” still conjures images of inner-city slums, the suburbanization of poverty has redrawn the contemporary American landscape,” authors Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube write in “Confronting Suburban Poverty in America,” noting that the number of poor suburbanites grew by 64 percent between 2000 and 2011.
What does this growth in suburban poverty mean for the suburbs? What impact will it have on businesses located there? And how will it affect the revitalization of the cities these suburbs surround?
Pushed over the line
One cause of the uptick in suburban poor is the cyclical effect brought on by the financial crisis, according to Wharton real estate professor Gilles Duranton, who adds that many suburban residents were pushed over the poverty line — defined as US$22,314 for a family of four in 2010 — during the economic downturn. “When the economic situation worsens, there is a shift in the poverty rate, but the already poor remain poor,” he notes.
William H. Lucy, a professor of urban planning at the University of Virginia, says that a decade ago, many typical suburbanites were turning their noses up at the modest housing stock of the close-in suburbs (around 1,100 square feet for the average home built in the 1950s) in favor of newer homes that tended to be double the size of those built 50 or 60 years ago.
They moved to the further-out “exurbs” for newer, bigger houses, despite the fact that “the two things these older homes have going for them is that they are closer to the urban centers and better built,” Lucy states.
Meanwhile, as the housing stock of the postwar suburbs aged and became less desirable for the typical suburbanite, it also became more affordable. Lower-income people looking for alternatives to apartments moved in. This shift has not necessarily driven down the cost of housing in these older suburbs, but dwellings there are cheaper when compared to those in the city and exurbs.
During the initial rise of the suburbs following World War II, the downtowns of many big cities were reduced to rows of empty storefronts and scenes of blight. But many cities have won back a growing upper-income audience, thanks to empty nesters looking to downsize and young adults who are drawn to the convenience of living in an urban area.
“Thirty years ago, you got married right out of college and moved to the suburbs,” Duranton notes. “Now, people are waiting for 10 years after graduation to settle down in the suburbs. So there is a much bigger demographic group of grownups with some education and some means choosing central cities and contributing to gentrification.”
Very rich vs very poor
Still, there is a large portion of very poor people living in the city centers, particularly as city governments in recent years have tried to protect and maintain the few low-income housing options that do exist. In fact, the poverty rate in the cities is still considerably higher — 21 percent compared with 11 percent in the suburbs.
“Poverty did not trade one location for the other, but instead affected both cities and suburbs as it grew,” Kneebone and Berube write in their book.
Consequently, cities are becoming more divided between rich and poor. However, US cities still have a long way to go until they become like many of their South American or European counterparts — where the very rich live in the city center and the very poor live in the close-in suburbs.
What may help prevent this trend, according to some experts, is the lack of widespread public transportation in the United States, forcing the poorest of the poor who cannot afford a car to stay in the cities. Still, governments and residents need to be aware of this trend, accommodating all income levels in all locales.
This picture — of the very rich living in the city center while the very poor are relegated to the outskirts — “may be extremely unlikely, and it’s different for every city,” Lucy says. “But the question is, how far and how fast are we going in that direction?”
Adapted from Knowledge@Wharton,http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu. To read the original, please visit: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=3320
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