Do Conservatives Have a Problem With Suburbia?

http://www.newgeography.com/content/004528-why-suburbia-irks-some-conservatives
 (https://www.cnu.org/sites/.../Conservatives&New_Urbanism.pdf)

Los Angeles urban sprawl
lasmogtown.com

Hello Everyone:

We are heading back to suburbia today after taking a brief sojourn to Paris, France for the Frank Gehry retrospective at the Centre Pompidou.  Ahh suburbia, that magical place with beautiful homes, happy and healthy families, and good schools.  Right?  Well not exactly.  Joel Kotkin, in his article "Why Suburbia Irks Some Conservatives," for New Geography writes, "For generations, politicians of both parties-dating back to at least Republican Herbert Hoover and Democrat Franklin Roosevelt- generally supported the notion of suburban growth and expansion of homeownership.  'A nation of homeowners,' Franklin Roosevelt believed, 'of people who own a real share in their land, is unconquerable.'"  Of course neither president was living during the home mortgage industry implosion.  So why exactly does suburbia irk some conservatives?

 Tyson Corner neighborhood
Tyson Corner, Virginia
tysonsliving.com

To begin, support for suburban growth has dramatically waned, especially among the self-proclaimed  FDR-esque progressives.  In my home state of California, Green partiers, planners, and their developer allies have supported legislation that puts the price of single family homes, the preferred living quarters of about 70 percent of adults, far above the buying capacity of most residents.  Operating under the radar is the antithetical view to suburbia-typically known as sprawl-which has been growing among old-school conservatives, like author-philosopher Roger Scruton, who do not make any effort to hide their animus toward the suburbs.  These old-school types actually prefer European-style planning laws that insist that people live in densely packed cities such as Paris or London instead of more spread out cities like Atlanta, Houston, or Los Angeles.  "...better places for the well-heeled tourist..."

London skyline
en.wikipedia.org

Joel Kotkin infers, "There may be more than a bit of class prejudice at work here.  British Tories long have disliked suburbs and their denizens."  Citing the 1905 book The Suburbs by poet T.W.H. Crossland, Mr. Kotkin writes that said tome "launched a vitrolic attack on the 'low and inferior species,' the 'soulless' class of 'clerks' who were spreading into the new, comfortable houses in the suburbs mucking up the aesthetics of the British countryside."  This seems to be quite the opposite of the historic American view of the suburbs as the goal of upward mobility.  Ironically, many British conservatives, like Mr. Scruton and his American counterparts, frequently inhabit the lush countrysides and would prefer that these soulless class of clerks stay as far away as possible.  Despite this, in their zeal to protect their turf, there is little, if any concern, that they have embraced legislation that contributed to the housing inflation in cities like London and San Francisco.

Union Square
San Francisco, California
sanfrancisco.about.com

 Conservative criticism of the suburbs is not solely based on aesthetic discontent, it is usually founded on specific social and environmental issues.  "There's no telling how many marriages were broken up over the stress of suburb-to-city commutes," states conservative writer Matt Lewis in a recent issue of The Week.  In Mr. Lewis's estimation, the problem with the suburbs is it is anti-family.  Well now, this is a switch, the American suburbs have long be touted as the ideal place to raise a family.
What is apparent is Mr. Lewis and his fellow "retro-urbanist conservatives" are mimicking the philosophies of the smart-growth coterie and urban planners.  Mr. Kotkin notes, "If he actually researched the issue, he would learn that the average commutes of suburbanites tend to be shorter, according to an analysis of census date by demographer Wendell Cox, than those in denser transit-oriented cities..."

Paris, France
all-that-is-interesting.com

 Matt Lewis and other conservatives have looked to the perceived anti-social elements of conservatism-a favorite motif of new urbanists.  One example, in a report titled "Conservatives and the New Urbanism: Do We Have Something In Common," the late conservative activist Paul Weyrich argued in favor of "forcing 'traditional designs for the places we live, work and shop,' which 'will encourage traditional culture and morals,' such as community and family."
Once again, Joel Kotkin takes the research to task, writing, "...suburbanites, as University of California researchers found, tend to be more engaged with their neighbors than are people closer to the urban core.  Similarly, a 2009 Pew study recently found that, among the various geographies in America, residents in suburbia were more 'satisfied' than either rural or urban residents."

Suburban lawn
Baltimore, Maryland
Klaus Philipsen
archplanbaltimore.blogspot.com

By working against suburbia, said conservatives are, in reality, waging war on the middle class, which Mr. Kotkin say and yours truly agrees, "not necessarily a smart political gambit."  In general, typical suburban enclaves are home to about three-quarters of the urban population.  However, this number is still low, considering that most large American cities are suburban by nature with low mass transportation consumption and single-family built during the postwar auto-centric years. Thus, a mere 18 percent of major metropolitan residents actually live in dense transit oriented places.

Given this percentage, you might be tempted to think that conservatives would have an issue with the progressive agenda to go around preferences and market forces by restraining suburban and single-family home development.  These progressives might seize on a strategic opening to take the urban periphery, the one place still in play in the American political landscape.  By contrast, the "blue" cities and "red" rural areas have picked their teams and voted accordingly.  Therefore, tempted by their own class prejudice, some conservatives appear to willingly abandon the long cherished market forces.  The promulgation of Draconian is unnecessary  for density growth.  Case in point, in Dallas and Houston which have both liberal planning measures and economic growth, there has been a great increase n multifamily residences in comparison to Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, and New York.  Housing costs are lower.

Hyde Park, Illinois
findingdulcinea.com

Again, Joel Kotkin critically examines the research and concludes, "...few mainstream conservatives apparently bother to study such things, and, as prisoners of the conventional wisdom, embrace the notion that, on economic growth grounds, suburbs are becoming irrelevant."  Others, such as libertarian oriented economist Tyler Cowen infer that stagnate post-recession America has to adapt to the "new normal" of lower expectations.  Since middle-class opportunity seems stuck in a morass, the majority of financial interest see America as becoming a "rentership" society. Thus for those investing in multifamily residences, the death of the suburbs would be quite economically advantageous.  Mr. Kotkin writes, "It's hard for me, even as a nonconservative, to see how this trajectory works for the Right."

Northwest Washington D.C.
archfoundation.org

In Mr. Kotkin's estimation, "Renters, childless households, highly educated professionals, as well as poor service workers, clustering in dense cities are not exactly prime Republican voters."  Further speculating, "Without property, and with no reason to be overly concerned with with dysfunctional schools, the urban population tilts increasingly, if anything, further to the left."  Yet, it is the middle-class property owner and the upwardly mobile who find themselves without a party or philosophy to champion their cause.  Here, Mr. Kotkin takes to task the elite in the media and academia, urban planners, and conservative thinkers for having "...once again, missed a chance to build a broad popular coalition that can overcome the 'upstairs, downstairs' configuration that increasingly dominates the Democratic party."

Phoenix skyline
Phoenix, Arizona
en.wikipedia.org

The opportunity for either party to find a way to appeal to a coalition of middle-class property owners and the upwardly mobile that compose the suburban base.  Say what you will about Ronald Reagan or Margret Thatcher (I've said plenty on the former) but they understood the link between property ownership, democracy, and status.  The same can be said for more traditional Democrats from Franklin D. Roosevelt through Bill Clinton.

Whether or not you see the suburbs as paradise, they are the embodiment of the American Dream, holding out the promise of a better life.  This is not to say that the suburbs cannot be improved socially and environmentally.  Mr. Kotkin reports, "This already happening in new, mostly privately built developments where the 'ills' of suburbia-long commute distances, overuse of water and energy-are addressed by building new town centers, bringing employment close to home, the use of more drought-resistant landscaping, promoting home-based business and developing expansive park systems."  This all looks very promising, in light of a aggressive agenda that pushes denser housing and "create heat-generating concrete jungles."

In abandoning the suburbs, both Republicans and Democrats are engaging in a lethal electoral attack on the concerns and interests of the majority of Americans and their aspirations.  By insisting on denser housing and more constricted planning initiatives, not a return to solid republic virtues that link democracy to property ownership, the United States risks moving from a property ownership-based democracy to a feudal society.