Stressed Suburbs
- Posted by ryan on January 20th, 2010 filed in Cities
Carter Dougherty at Real Time Economics writes up an interesting new Brookings report on povery in suburbs:
The country’s largest metro areas saw their poor population grow by 25% between 2000 and 2008, according to the report, faster than primary cities and well above the poverty growth in small cities and rural areas. “As a result, by 2008 large suburbs were home to 1.5 million more poor than their primary cities and housed almost one-third of the nation’s poor overall,” the report says.
Part of this is simple math. The nation’s suburban population grew 12.5% between 2000 and 2008, compared with 3.9% in primary cities and 2.4% in rural America. Meantime, over the past decade cities have attracted young professionals and empty nesters that tend to be wealthier and whiter.
From the report, here’s the section focused specifically on the Washington metro area:
- In 2008, 120,669 people in the primary city lived below of the poverty level ($21,834 for a family of four), compared to 251,096 poor in the surrounding suburbs. This represents a significant decrease for the city compared to 2000, and a significant increase for the suburbs.
- The poverty rate—the share of the total population living below the poverty line—showed a significant decrease in the city and no change in the suburbs over this time period. In 2008, the suburban poverty rate was 5.8 percent compared to a primary city poverty rate of 13.3 percent.
- In 2008, 32.5 percent of poor individuals across the metro area lived in the primary city compared to 67.5 percent in the suburbs. Compared to 2000, this is a significant increase in the suburban share of the metro area’s poor.
- Using a broader definition of “low-income,” 231,896 individuals in the primary city—or 25.6 percent of the population—fell below 200 percent of the federal poverty level in 2008, compared to 648,395 (14.9 percent) in the suburbs.
- Based on increases in unemployment throughout 2009, we project that the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV metro area may experience an increase in its poverty rate of approximately 1.4 percentage points.
It’s interesting to me that the primary city (defined as the District, Arlington, and Alexandria) experienced an absolute decline in the number of poor, and not simply a decline in the poverty rate.
There are a few interesting things to think about here. One is what the dynamics of this shift look like. Is poverty relatively concentrated within individual suburban counties or is it more distributed? Rising poverty levels in mixed-income jurisdictions can produce tipping points, which lead to transformative and sometimes chaotic migration patterns. We saw this in urban centers from the late 1950s to the early 1990s. Will we see it in some suburban areas?
A related point is how suburban areas will handle the fiscal ramifications of the change. Are they more or less able than central cities were to handle increased service needs on a stable or declining tax base? My sense is that suburbs may struggle significantly. For one thing, suburban infrastructure is cheap to build but very costly to maintain (because there’s so much of it and it’s so spread out). As it ages, bills for basic maintenance will rise considerably. For another, suburbs coasted for a while on the fact that residents were largely well-off and healthy, from stable families. That made educating, treating, and policing suburban communities relatively cheap. This will shift as poverty grows. Lower density may make policing much more expensive in suburbs, if in fact crime levels do approach those in primary cities.
And what will suburban poverty mean for the poor? I think that concentrations of poverty in central cities — home to governments, business districts, and iconic locations — made the plight of the very poor harder to ignore. Will the suburban poor be out of sight and therefore out of mind? Suburbs are also less walkable than primary cities, with far fewer public transit options. How will the poor survive in places where they’re a breakdown away from total isolation? Will American suburbs become more like Parisian banlieues?
My sense is that suburban poverty is relatively concentrated in places that already had relatively low incomes. Fairfax County, in other words, is unlikely to flip to suburban dysfunction and suffer white flight. But this is a trend worth watching closely. I don’t think urban depopulation at the middle of last century was appreciated as the incredibly disruptive force it proved to be.
January 20th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
A friend of mine just got back from a developing country where there is a high concentration of poverty and little infrastructure. He said it wasn’t uncommon for seven people to squeeze into a Toyota Camry or for a whole bunch of guys to hop in the back of a pickup truck and cruise around. Although technically illegal in this country, it just goes to show that people become resourceful when they need to be.
January 20th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Replace disruptive with disintegrative in that last sentence.
This ain’t the farm Lester. Cities and Suburbs require huge logistical support. Suburbanization taxed the existing system. The fields of radishes used to run right up to the city walls.
But then those “Independent”, fake-campfire kinda folks “decided” they didn’t want Little Janie going to school with Coloreds. “We have subsidised fuel, highways and cars Martha. We might as well use ‘em.”, they “thought”.
C
BN since we have blind spots. It is worse than we think.
January 20th, 2010 at 11:56 pm
A related point is how suburban areas will handle the fiscal ramifications of the change. Are they more or less able than central cities were to handle increased service needs on a stable or declining tax base?
Given the constant stream of negative commentary and quasi-racist finger-pointing that we city-dwellers enjoyed for the last half century, I’m absolutely certain the folks out in the ‘burbs will no just what to do to address any problems that their new demographic reality present.
Good luck with your new hordes of entrenched generational poverty, and the resultant collapse of your public school infrastructure, exurbanites! I’m sure you’ve got it all figured out.
January 21st, 2010 at 12:21 am
And by “no” I mean “know,” you know…
January 21st, 2010 at 10:06 am
Did the Brookings study provide any data about the demographic differences between “city” and “suburban” poor? There is no doubt that in the D.C. suburbs, a relativley high percentage of “nouveau” poverty is concentrated among immigrants, especially those who work in the building trades.
January 21st, 2010 at 10:34 am
Suburban poverty is nothing new. Look at LA. Or look at how the exurbs used to be before the bubble. Or just read Pohl&Kornbluth from 60 years ago…
January 21st, 2010 at 1:05 pm
I find comments like Oboe’s depressingly tribal, and naive. If Oboe imagines that a relative inversion of poverty rates is going result in a radical wealth redistrition s/he will be disapointed. We’re merely geographically redistributing the problem as the suburban empty nesters and their children move to more walkable urban areas and largely displace the poor and their children. Those in deterioriating exurbs that can afford to move to a nicer suburb or city will.
This, it seems to me, is unlikely to lead to a significant net increase in societal welfare.
The suburban poverty effect is likely to be ‘lumpy’ as Ryan would write, with some marginal suburbs tipping into poverty and others remaining aloof. Poor suburbs will be more financially stressed than cities for the simple reason that they lack the tax revenue of a central business district.
January 21st, 2010 at 5:06 pm
Thing is, oboe, many of you city dwellers are the ones being pushed out into the burbs to form the new suburban poor demographic.
January 21st, 2010 at 5:36 pm
Brookings ignored differences between the Favored Quarter and outside the Favored Quarter. Very different stories. Brookings also didn’t look at urban form, either.
Basically, the “suburban” poor are being increasingly concentrated in car-dependent places outside the Favored Quarter. And yes, that includes Fairfax County south of U.S. 50. It’s not about the political boundaries. It’s about Favored Quarter and urban form. These include places within the political boundaries of the District like most of wards 7 and 8.
January 21st, 2010 at 6:06 pm
At least as far as Washington is concerned, I don’t read the story as being about the suburbs. The poverty rate in the suburbs grew from 5% and change to 5% and slightly more change. There’s a big increase in the absolute number of poor, but there’s a big increase in the total population: people have moved into the Washington area, mostly into its suburbs, and some of them were poor.
The big story here is about the primary city — DC, Arlington, Alexandria. DC has been growing rapidly, it’s almost back to 600K. Arlington and Alexandria are two of the five fastest growing jurisdictions in VA. Between the three jurisdictions, they’ve added not that far from 100,000 people. But in the face of that growth, the absolute number of poor people actually dropped by 13,000. Gentrification. Not just in DC, either. Look at what’s been happening north and east of Shirlington. Poor people are being pushed out of the primary city.
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:41 pm
So instead of having concentrated poverty in housing projects located on valuable urban real estate you have dispersed poverty living on cheap real estate in car dependent suburbs. Is that about right?