The Conservative Case Against the Suburbs

[M II A II R II K]

The Conservative Case Against the Suburbs


October 15, 2014

By CHARLES MAROHN



Read More: http://www.theamericanconservative.c...t-the-suburbs/

In his recent column, “Why Suburbia Irks Some Conservatives,” the prominent urban geographer Joel Kotkin creates and then slays a number of straw men in defense of suburban development patterns and all that is right and good in this country. This, unfortunately, is a lament that too often goes unchallenged, ceding a large swath of the American experience in the process. It is time for conservatives to confront the true nature of the suburbs.

- America’s suburban experiment is a radical, government-led re-engineering of society, one that artificially inverted millennia of accumulated wisdom and practice in building human habitats. We can excuse modern Americans for not immediately grasping the revolutionary ways in which we restructured this continent over the past three generations–at this point, the auto-dominated pattern of development is all most Americans have ever experienced–but today we live in a country where our neighborhoods are shaped, and distorted, by centralized government policy.

- The Interstate Highway Act was a grand vision to connect the entire country with a world-class highway system. This undertaking was finished three decades ago, but policymakers found transportation spending such a seductively simple way to create short-term jobs and growth that we continue to expand it aggressively.

- American governments continue to be obsessed with maximizing people’s capacity to travel, even as they ignore minimizing the amount people have to travel. Not only must American families pay the taxes to support this continually-expanding system, but to live in it they are required to purchase, maintain, and store a fleet of vehicles even as they endure heightened sensitivity to oil price fluctuations (and support the military adventures that result).

- In an effort to prop up our suburban experiment, we now have the Federal Reserve owning the mortgage-backed securities market while Republicans in Congress champion “pension smoothing” as a way to pretend an insolvent federal highway trust fund can continue to build more roads. As with any over-centralized effort, a lack of appropriate feedback mechanisms allows the system to continue barreling down its present course–until it buckles under its own insolvency. Our suburban experiment has an expiration date.

- Kotkin argues for the popularity of subsidies for highways and dispersed single-family homes when he claims the suburbs, “represent the epitome of the American Dream and the promise of upward mobility.” This is a pleasant platitude, but is it true? --- If it were, we should expect the typical American to actually enjoy more upward mobility than those in other societies. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Research shows that most Western European and English-speaking nations have higher rates of mobility than the United States, despite living at much higher densities.

- The sad reality is that, despite the marketing, the suburbs were never about creating household wealth; they were about creating growth on the cheap. They were born under a Keynesian regime that counted growth from government spending as equivalent to that coming from private investment. Aggressive horizontal expansion of our cities allowed us to consistently hit federal GDP and unemployment targets with little sophistication and few difficult choices.

- That we were pawning off the enormous long-term liabilities for serving and maintaining all of these widely dispersed systems onto local taxpayers–after plying municipalities with all the subsidies, pork spending, and ribbon cuttings needed to make it happen–didn’t seem to enter our collective consciousness. When all those miles of frontage roads, sewer and water pipes, and sidewalks fall into disrepair–as they inevitably will in every suburb–very little of it will be fixed. The wealth necessary to do so just isn’t there.

- To quote the late columnist Earl Wilson, “Modern man drives a mortgaged car over a bond-financed highway on credit card gas.” Debt-to-income and debt-to-assets ratios for U.S. households have grown steadily during suburban expansion. --- That’s because there is an enormous ante required to participate in Kotkin’s version of the American dream. Two cars. Two incomes. Home, work, daycare, school, milk, and fun all require an enormous investment in time behind the wheel every day. It should be no surprise that younger Americans, burdened with student loan debt and having diminished job prospects, are less and less willing to tie themselves to a 30-year mortgages with two car payments.

- Where Kotkin sees a “forced march towards densification and ever more constricted planning augurs,” I see the unwinding of our great suburban experiment. As government’s ability to subsidize this artificial pattern of development wanes, a return to more traditional living arrangements is inevitable. For thousands of years, cities have been engines of wealth creation. In America, they are becoming that again.

- This leads us to a final truth: cities desperately need conservatives. These are places that have been abandoned to the left for decades. Many urban dwellers are hungry for better government. They want a more responsive bureaucracy. They favor unwinding many of the stifling regulations and perverse subsidies that have built up over the years. They are angry with the political patronage systems run by a governing class that has been unchallenged for decades. Why would conservatives cede this ground so easily?

- If conservatives want to identify with the artificial paradigm of an urban left and a rural right meeting on the suburban battlefield, we will continue to empower a progressive governing minority in a country that is solidly conservative. Instead of abandoning America’s growing urban centers to the left, we must see the inherent conservatism rooted within traditional neighborhood patterns of development. These are our people. They are there just waiting for us to speak to them.

.....

[fflint]

I concur with much the writer's ideas, especially in terms of how radical, hubristic, and risky it was to intentionally pivot an entire society away from our great urban centers and toward the imposition of suburbia on a continental scale--all without a good understanding of what would happen as a result.

His more explicitly partisan political stuff is more appopriate to the Current Events section, but I will say the conservative post-war abandonment of urban centers he notes was coupled with urban dwellers' rejection of conservatism, which he doesn't note. We are not 'their people,' as even a cursory glance at top-ticket election results proves. That said, I do think it would be healthy for conservatives of this guy's ilk to get more involved in conserving our cities for future generations' benefit, a goal I think everyone across the spectrum should embrace.

And it's nice to see someone take on that two-bit Kochsucker Joel Kotkin from the right, for a change. We always knew he was a fraud, and now we know who pays him to wave the petroleum flag.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by fflint

Kochsucker

nicely done.

[xzmattzx]

I've wondered that "final truth" from the article myself. What if conservatives moved into cities and began having influence in city politics? Why live only in the suburbs? Thinking that cities are only for those that lean left becomes a circular argument where it leans left because those that don't lean left don't live there. Conservatives in cities could be better politically, too, no matter your party. With the one-party system in place in many cities, complacency, stagnation, and corruption can be too common. If residents would vote for a Democratic candidate no matter what, then what's to stop those politicians from doing whatever they want at the expense of the citizens, or do nothing at all for the citizens?

[ardecila]

Conservatives already do live in cities. They always have, but especially in the Millennial generation where everyone is moving to cities to seek opportunity, regardless of political preference. These people simply do not participate in the local Democratic politics. Plenty of people, it turns out, are willing to move to places where they disagree with local politicians. Yes, millennials did vote in overwhelming numbers for Obama in 2008 but that was an anti-Bush vote as much as anything; Obama's 2012 victory relied more heavily on minorities.

fflint, I'm not sure your viewpoint is really representative of America... You sit in America's wealthiest and most progressive left-wing city, but not every city is like yours. SF attracts people from across the country precisely because it is a place that rejects traditional values like none other. You will not find this kind of consistent leftward lean among the white populations in Chicago, Boston, or even LA.

[llamaorama]

If residents would vote for a Democratic candidate no matter what, then what's to stop those politicians from doing whatever they want at the expense of the citizens, or do nothing at all for the citizens?

Well this is indeed a problem.


That's why you'd hope for the politics of such an area to evolve a little; with competitive party primaries where you can choose between candidates who, in a multi-party system would run under very different banners. Modern progressives, greens, populist left reformers, techno/civil libertarians, all basically have to be Democrats in our system but they can have nothing in common except a propensity to form alliances with the established wing which would literally happen if this was a multi-party country. Ideally there'd be more independent candidates as well, but that's always an uphill climb.

I guess these days the Democratic party just seems like the bigger tent of the two. There are a handful of D's which are fairly conservative but there are basically no liberal R's. Sometimes at a state or local level, there are plenty of sane local representatives who are Republicans because that's the only way you can win, but in reality they seem fair on things like school funding and occasionally are behind progressive measures. Unfortunately these types are also often under threat from tea party challengers. If a politician says ISIS is illegally crossing the Mexican border and spreading Ebola in Texas and that's why we all need guns, they are probably a product of this trend.

[599GTO]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Conservatives already do live in cities. They always have, but especially in the Millennial generation where everyone is moving to cities to seek opportunity, regardless of political preference. These people simply do not participate in the local Democratic politics. Plenty of people, it turns out, are willing to move to places where they disagree with local politicians. Yes, millennials did vote in overwhelming numbers for Obama in 2008 but that was an anti-Bush vote as much as anything; Obama's 2012 victory relied more heavily on minorities.

Millennials voted for him both times, overwhelmingly so. Also, minorities can be millenials too.

fflint, I'm not sure your viewpoint is really representative of America... You sit in America's wealthiest and most progressive left-wing city, but not every city is like yours. SF attracts people from across the country precisely because it is a place that rejects traditional values like none other. You will not find this kind of consistent leftward lean among the white populations in Chicago, Boston, or even LA.

Is that supposed to be a bad thing? San Francisco is a breath of fresh air and it's wonderful to have such viewpoints to counter the tired and thankfully declining ideals of American traditionalism.

[fflint]

Originally Posted by ardecila

fflint, I'm not sure your viewpoint is really representative of America...

The conservative partisan's assertion "These are our people" is not obviously true when pondering America's urban populations generally.

Indeed, the opposite seems more likely true. Consider electoral results for top-ticket races like the presidency: generally, city residents consistently vote for the more liberal candidate, while voters in the suburbs and rural areas generally don't. Even far from the East and West coasts, urban counties will oftentimes be islands of blue in an ocean of red, e.g. Austin, El Paso, Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston going Democratic in 2012 while pretty much the rest of Texas away from the borderlands went Republican. It's not like city dwellers don't have knowledge of, or the opportunity to vote for, the more conservative presidential candidate--it's that they consistently choose not to do so. That doesn't mean everyone in a city who votes Democratic is as liberal as I am, but I think it does mean this guy is indulging in wishful thinking.

You sit in America's wealthiest and most progressive left-wing city, but not every city is like yours. SF attracts people from across the country precisely because it is a place that rejects traditional values like none other.

The San Francisco you describe--the 'left coast city' of radical nonconformists living in communes or whatever--has been supplanted by a city of mostly apolitical, ambitious, well-educated type-A personalities seeking their fortunes. Nowadays, there are plenty of other cities as progressive, or more so, including Oakland, Portland, Seattle, and Boston. A good friend insists Minneapolis is as well. It's not a very high bar anymore.

You will not find this kind of consistent leftward lean among the white populations in Chicago, Boston, or even LA.

As a Boston native who lived there both as a child and as an adult, I found Boston proper's white population to be consistently liberal (ditto for surrounding cities Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline, Newton, etc.) relative to the rest of the nation. Personal experiences aside, they certainly vote liberal. I don't know where you are getting your ideas about white Bostonians.

As for Los Angeles, where I went to college, I tend to agree most whites living in LA proper are not consistently "left-leaning"--but they do vote Democratic consistently. And while there are certainly some conservative whites living in the city of LA, they're just one small part of a huge mix--a mix that delivered an outsized 69.7% of votes to Obama from LA County overall, let alone the city proper--and so I don't buy the idea Angelenos are this conservative guy's "people" either. I don't know enough Chicagoans to have an opinion.

Again, not everyone in a city who votes for Obama is as liberal as I am, but given there was a clear conservative alternative candidate and city dwellers generally didn't bite, I see no evidence supporting this guy's wishful thinking that somehow urbanites are just lapsed conservatives waiting for a right-wing hero to lead them to the promised land.

[nei]

Originally Posted by fflint

The conservative partisan's assertion "These are our people" is not obviously true when pondering America's urban populations generally.

Indeed, the opposite seems more likely true. Consider electoral results for top-ticket races like the presidency: generally, city residents consistently vote for the more liberal candidate, while voters in the suburbs and rural areas generally don't. Even far from the East and West coasts, urban counties will oftentimes be islands of blue in an ocean of red, e.g. Austin, El Paso, Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston going Democratic in 2012 while pretty much the rest of Texas away from the borderlands went Republican. It's not like city dwellers don't have knowledge of, or the opportunity to vote for, the more conservative presidential candidate--it's that they consistently choose not to do so. That doesn't mean everyone in a city who votes Democratic is as liberal as I am, but I think it does mean this guy is indulging in wishful thinking.

A large part of cities = liberal is from having a higher % of minorities, the difference is much weaker once you look at only the white non-hispanic population. The hip, transplant districts of cities do tend to be more liberal than other spots, though they're often not centers of liberal activism. The more "native" white areas often don't vote that differently from suburbanites in the same metro. Don't know about Texas to judge the cause.

[kool maudit]

u.s. conservatives have never realized that you cannot be both a traditionalist and a hyper-capitalist, as capitalism is the engine that subverts tradition.

[M II A II R II K]

I guess you can also find liberals in the monotonous suburbs somewhere.

[eleven=11]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

u.s. conservatives have never realized that you cannot be both a traditionalist and a hyper-capitalist, as capitalism is the engine that subverts tradition.

great article makes lots of good points
Henry Ford made lots of cars so horses could stop polluting
the city streets that's a good thing.
Technology was and is a good thing, but humans are still screwing
up the planet really good/bad. The younger generation will have to
learn to fix stuff that's not getting fixed or better.
However u.s. conservatives seem very against anything.

[memph]

Is it possible that "urban conservatives" are more fiscally conservative and not so much socially conservative? In Toronto for instance, even putting aside the suburban parts of the city that elected Rob Ford, the wealthier white collar university educated neighbourhoods of North Toronto which are not that suburban, more like family oriented streetcar suburbs with yuppy TODs mixed in (and mostly white), aren't that left leaning. They tend to vote Liberal in provincial and federal elections and almost never vote NDP.

Liberals in Canada are typically more centrist (by Canadian standards) while the NDP is the real leftist party, although they took a more populist and less leftist turn in the most recent Ontario elections.

Anyways, I think North Toronto and similar neighbourhoods are going to vote pretty strongly for John Tory (moderate conservative), while the older historically working class neighbourhoods will vote for Olivia Chow (left-wing) and the post-WWII suburban neighbourhoods will mostly vote for Doug Ford (Rob Ford's brother) although probably not all of them. Some of the most high immigrant neighbourhoods and more white collar neighbourhoods might not vote for Doug Ford.

This is how Toronto voted in the 2011 federal election. Yellow = NDP, Red = Liberal, Blue = Conservative

http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspo...s-toronto.html

Although there is a big chunk of Old Toronto that voted NDP, you did have TOD neighbourhoods voting Liberal and Conservative, and the Jewish corridor along Bathurst (including TOD and streetcar suburbs) voting strongly Conservative. Plus a few small pockets in Downtown that didn't vote NDP including Yorkville (multi million dollar condos) voting Conservative. The Malvern/Rouge area voted strongly NDP despite being the newest of Toronto's suburban neighbourhoods, built from the 70s-00s.

[Xelebes]

Originally Posted by fflint

I concur with much the writer's ideas, especially in terms of how radical, hubristic, and risky it was to intentionally pivot an entire society away from our great urban centers and toward the imposition of suburbia on a continental scale--all without a good understanding of what would happen as a result.

His more explicitly partisan political stuff is more appopriate to the Current Events section, but I will say the conservative post-war abandonment of urban centers he notes was coupled with urban dwellers' rejection of conservatism, which he doesn't note. We are not 'their people,' as even a cursory glance at top-ticket election results proves. That said, I do think it would be healthy for conservatives of this guy's ilk to get more involved in conserving our cities for future generations' benefit, a goal I think everyone across the spectrum should embrace.

And it's nice to see someone take on that two-bit Kochsucker Joel Kotkin from the right, for a change. We always knew he was a fraud, and now we know who pays him to wave the petroleum flag.

I think what this conservative, one Mr. Marohn, is saying is that there is a lot of conservative people in cities. The biggest problem is that those conservative people are not represented by the Republican Party in the national scene or in many, if not most, state Republican Party. This is especially problematic because the Republican's like to parade themselves as the conservative choice. The truth is that the Republican Party represents only a specific brand of conservatives (populist, Dixie) and that other conservatives are chased into the Democratic Party (conscious, Yankee.)

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Conservatives already do live in cities. They always have, but especially in the Millennial generation where everyone is moving to cities to seek opportunity, regardless of political preference. These people simply do not participate in the local Democratic politics. Plenty of people, it turns out, are willing to move to places where they disagree with local politicians. Yes, millennials did vote in overwhelming numbers for Obama in 2008 but that was an anti-Bush vote as much as anything; Obama's 2012 victory relied more heavily on minorities.

fflint, I'm not sure your viewpoint is really representative of America... You sit in America's wealthiest and most progressive left-wing city, but not every city is like yours. SF attracts people from across the country precisely because it is a place that rejects traditional values like none other. You will not find this kind of consistent leftward lean among the white populations in Chicago, Boston, or even LA.

This is kind of bullshit, ardecila, and this Pew study shows why. Yes, Millennials are more likely to identify as "Independent" (as opposed to "Democrat" or "Republican) but, despite that, they are also more likely to identify as "Liberal" (as opposed to "Conservative") and also more likely to vote "Democrat." 66% of Millennials voted for Obama in 2008; 60% voted for him in 2012. (Moreover, as another commenter noted, Millennials are disproportionately non-white.) Support for same sex marriage, marijuana legalization, citizenship for undocumented workers, and even bigger government is disproportionately high among millennials, higher than any other age cohort. These are decidedly liberal causes. While a handful of truly small-government conservatives support the aforementioned social issues, big-C/movement Conservatives absolutely do not. In fact, opposition to them has become a defining feature of modern-day conservatism. As someone with libertarian inclinations, I'm sympathetic to the desire of publications like Reason to find green shoots among our generation, but Millennials' fondness for bigger government (53 to 38!) very clearly proves it to be a bunch of magical thinking.

To be honest, I don't know why some libertarians or Independents continue to portray themselves as dispassionate observers and the two main parties as twin evils. In the past couple of decades, Democrats and liberals have moderated many of their stances (on guns, taxes, the free market, etc.) while the Republicans have grown more radicalized. IMO, the ideals of the former are, on the whole, much more in line with the "socially liberal, fiscally conservative" ethos that seems to define libertarians/the middle, and attempts to draw equivalencies between the two parties vis-a-vis support (or lack thereof) of individual liberties are intellectually dishonest.

[M.R.Victor]

Living in a major city that has just voted in a conservative mayor (having myself favored said conservative candidate as well) I would say I'm unconvinced there is a genuine correlation between city living and liberal ideals.

I don't see why city dwellers wouldn't value efficiency, or low taxes, or even support user fees as a way to pay for the services they use. Toronto certainly has no big love affair for its public sector unions, in spite of being generally seen as a progressive place. I think human beings tend to be primarily driven by pragmatism and self-interest, whatever form those may take. As for the political and ideological split, I think it more a matter of various political parties creating certain narratives to directly cater to different portions of the population.

[pdxtex]

nobody forced boomers (or more precisely their parents) to move to the burbs and drive everywhere (or have copious amounts of babies and raise their families there). they could have stayed in the city but unforseen social unrest , ww2, as well as cheap gas kind of drove them away. nobody is going to argue that walking around a grassy backyard in barefeet, in a bathrobe and sipping a coffee is unpleasant. its quite gentile and nice actually but it doesnt mean urban life has to stop at the city limits. the notion that all the action can only happen downtown in the CBD is stupid. city models based on a spoke and wheel are outdated. satellite cities have existed for millenia as well, we just forgot about a little thing called connectivity. as suburbs and the central city learn to play nice with each other once again, newer transit modes and urban/suburban cooperation will happen once again, helping get people out of their cars. at the same time, new more dense suburban development will probably start happening as well. i dont think the suburbs are just going to empty out. this whole rush back to downtown is great, but as we are seeing, demand has already exceeded supply, hence stupidly expensive rents and housing prices even in midwestern markets. and by US census estimates, the average commute time for a US worker is 25 minutes. big deal.....get back to me when its 45....

[pdxtex]

Originally Posted by M.R.Victor

Living in a major city that has just voted in a conservative mayor (having myself favored said conservative candidate as well) I would say I'm unconvinced there is a genuine correlation between city living and liberal ideals.

I don't see why city dwellers wouldn't value efficiency, or low taxes, or even support user fees as a way to pay for the services they use. Toronto certainly has no big love affair for its public sector unions, in spite of being generally seen as a progressive place. I think human beings tend to be primarily driven by pragmatism and self-interest, whatever form those may take. As for the political and ideological split, I think it more a matter of various political parties creating certain narratives to directly cater to different portions of the population.

are you convinced there is a coorelation between expensive city living and liberal ideals? ironically, the most left leaning cities are also the most cost prohibitive, with high income inquality and a huge lack of affordable housing. all those good times and good intentions create a life that isnt cheap! perhaps a bit of centrist leadership after all these years might help matters around the nation/s.......

[mhays]

I'd peg that on supply and demand more than anything.

New York, Boston, and San Francisco are the very definition of "hard to build stuff," due to a combination of horrific project entitlement processes, expensive requirements like inclusionary zoning, and expensive land. That makes them expensive far beyond pretty much anywhere else.

But cities that have moderate processes (relatively speaking), less expensive requirements, and more available land are far less expensive. Portland and Seattle for example, though Seattle might turn toward expensive requirements next year.

New construction is expensive. Portland and Seattle aren't cheap. But apartments and offices are half the price of Manhattan or San Francisco. The latter are more expensive to start with, PLUS there's a scarcity premium that means even the crappy places charge shockingly high rents.

Chicago is even cheaper. They encourage construction and make it relatively easy and cheap.

Then you have places where supply outstrips demand....most of the Midwest for example. Things are cheap as hell.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Ch.G, Ch.G

This is kind of bullshit...

Woah, missed this whole post.

Anyway, see Rauner's performance in the City of Chicago.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...GS02/141109851

Rauner only one one ward, but he had strong performance in many of the wards that are heaviest in (white) Millennials. Would these voters support a Tea Party celeb like Sarah Palin or even a dude like Mitt Romney to the same extent? Probably not. But I don't see how a rejection of the Republican Party's batshit-crazy excesses equals a rejection of conservatism generally, or an embrace of liberalism.