Suburbanization

A suburban land use pattern

Suburbanization (or suburbanisation) is a term used to describe the growth of areas on the fringes of major cities. It is one of the many causes of the increase in urban sprawl. Many residents of metropolitan regions work within the central urban area, choosing instead to live in satellite communities called suburbs and commute to work via automobile or mass transit. Others have taken advantage of technological advances to work from their homes, and chose to do so in an environment they consider more pleasant than the city. These processes often occur in more economically developed countries, especially in the United States, which is believed to be the first country in which the majority of the population lives in the suburbs, rather than in the cities or in rural areas. Proponents of containing urban sprawl argue that sprawl leads to urban decay and a concentration of lower income residents in the inner city.

Causes and effects

Suburbanization can be linked to a number of different push and pull factors. Push factors include the congestion and population density of the cities, pollution caused by industry and high levels of traffic and a general perception of a lower quality of life in inner city areas. Pull factors include more open spaces and a perception of being closer to "nature", lower suburban house prices and property taxes in comparison to the city, and the increasing number of job opportunities in the suburban areas.

Improvements in transportation infrastructure encourage suburbanization, as people become increasingly able to live in a suburb and commute in to the nearby town or city to work. Developments in railways, bus routes and roads are the main improvements that make suburbanization more practical. The increase in the number and size of highways is a particularly significant part of this effect.

View of housing development near farm in Richfield, Minnesota, 1954

Government policies can have a significant effect on the process. In the United States, for instance, policies of the Federal government in the post-World War II era, such as the building of an efficient network of roads, highways and superhighways, and the underwriting of mortgages for suburban one-family homes, had an enormous influence on the pace of suburbanization in that country. In effect, the government was encouraging the transfer of the middle-class population out of the inner cities and into the suburbs, sometimes with devastating effects on the viability of the city centers. However, some argue that the effect of Interstate Highway Systems on suburbanization is overstated. Researchers of this vein believe city center populations would have declined even in the absence of highway systems, contending that suburbanization is a long-standing and almost universal process. They primarily argue that as incomes rise, most people want the range and choice offered by automobiles. In addition, there is no significant evidence directly linking the development of highway systems to declining urban populations.

Insurance companies also fueled the push out of cities, as in many cases, it redlined inner-city neighborhoods, denying mortgage loans there, and instead offering low rates in the suburban areas. More recently, some urban areas have adopted "green belt" policies which limit growth in the fringe of a city, in order to encourage more growth in the urban core. It began to be realized that a certain amount of population density in the center city is conducive to creating a good, working urban environment.

Race also played a role in American suburbanization. During World War I, the massive migration of African Americans from the South resulted in an even greater residential shift toward suburban areas. The cities became seen as dangerous, crime-infested areas, while the suburbs were seen as safe places to live and raise a family, leading to a social trend known in some parts of the world as white flight. This phenomenon runs counter to much of the rest of the world, where slums mostly exist outside the city, rather than within them. With the increasing population of the older, more established suburban areas, many of the problems which were once seen as purely urban ones have manifested themselves there as well. Some social scientists suggest that the historical processes of suburbanization and decentralization are instances of white privilege that have contributed to contemporary patterns of environmental racism.

Recent developments in communication technology, such as the spread of broadband services, the growth of e-mail and the advent of practical home video conferencing, has enabled more people to work from home rather than commuting. Although this can occur either in the city or in the suburbs, the effect is generally decentralizing, which works against the largest advantage of the center city, which is easier access to information and supplies due to centralization. Similarly, the rise of efficient package express delivery systems, such as (in the United States) FedEx and UPS, which take advantage of computerization and the availability of an efficient air transportation system, also eliminates some of the advantages that were once to be had from having a business located in the city.

Industrial, warehousing, and factory land uses have also moved to suburban areas. Cheap telecommunications removes the need for company headquarters to be within quick courier distance of the warehouses and ports. Urban areas suffer from traffic congestion, which creates costs in extra driver costs for the company which can be reduced if they were in a suburban area near a highway. As with residential, lower property taxes and low land prices encourage selling industrial land for profitable brownfield redevelopment. Suburban areas also offer more land to use as a buffer between industrial and residential and retail space to avoid NIMBY sentiments and gentrification pressure from the local community when residential and retail is adjacent to industrial space in an urban area. Suburban municipalities can offer tax breaks, specialized zoning, and regulatory incentives to attract industrial land users to their area, such as City of Industry, California.

The overall effect of these developments is that businesses as well, and not just individuals, now see an advantage to locating in the suburbs, where the cost of buying land, renting space, and running their operations, is cheaper than in the city.

This continuing dispersal from a single city center has led to other recent phenomena in American suburbs, the advent of edge cities and exurbs, arising out of clusters of office buildings built in suburban commercial centers around shopping malls and higher density developments. With more and more jobs for suburbanites being located in these areas rather than in the main city core that the suburbs grew out of, traffic patterns, which for decades centered on people commuting into the center city to work in the morning and then returning home in the evening, have become more complex, with the volume of intra-suburban traffic increasing tremendously.

By 2000, half of the US population lived in suburban areas.

Effects on psychological health

Historically it was believed that living in highly urban areas resulted in social isolation, social disorganization, and psychological problems, and that living in suburbs would be more conducive to overall happiness, due to lower population density, lower crime, and a more stable population. A study based on data from 1974, however, found this not to be the case, finding that people living in suburbs had neither greater satisfaction with their neighborhood nor greater satisfaction with the quality of their lives as compared to people living in urban areas.

Economic Impacts of Suburbanization

The economic impacts of suburbanization have become very evident since the trend began in the 1950’s. Changes in infrastructure, industry, real estate development costs, fiscal policies, and diversity of cities have been easily apparent, as “making it to the suburbs”, mainly in order to own a home and escape the chaos of urban centers, have become the goals of many American citizens. These impacts have many benefits as well as side effects and are becoming increasingly important in the planning and revitalization of modern cities.

Suburbanization’s impact on Industry in the city

The days of industry dominating the urban cores of cities are gone. Companies are increasingly looking to build industrial parks in less populated areas, largely to match the desires of employees to work in more pleasant areas. Also contributing to the flight of industry from the city are government economic policies that provide incentives for companies to build new structures, as well as the lack of incentives to build on “brownfield” land (previously used industrial land). As companies continue to build on pieces of land in less populated areas, it will become increasingly difficult to build in high-density areas. The main factor that causes this is that if any of the side effects of industry (noise, excessive lights, heavy traffic) affect residential areas, there is resistance from the homeowners. Another potential impact of industry leaving the city is that generally, when industry is separated from an urban area by some open space, as well as infrastructure, the open space between the city and the company becomes more intensely used. As this land becomes used more and more, the value of properties very often increases, causing many landowners in that open space to sell their land.

Consequences on Infrastructure

As suburbanization continues and America continues to sprawl, the cost of the required water lines, sewer lines, and roads could cost more than $21,000 per residential and non residential development unit, costing the American government $1.12 Trillion over the next twenty five years. Along with the costs of infrastructure, existing infrastructure suffers, as most of the government’s money that is dedicated to improving infrastructure goes to paying for the new necessities in areas further out from the urban core. As a result, the government will often forgo maintenance on previously built infrastructure.

Impact on Real Estate Development Costs

For residential properties, suburbanization allows for home prices to decrease, so people can drive until they can find an area in which they can afford to buy a home. However, these homes may lack certain things such as parks and access to public transit. Also, the prices of homes in downtown center usually decreases as well to compete with the inexpensive homes in the suburbs. One of the main benefits of living in the suburbs is that one gets a much larger piece of land than one would in the city. Therefore, as the size of lots increases, the supply of housing is more limited.

Fiscal Impact of Suburbanization

The fiscal deficit grows as a result of suburbanization, mainly because in less densely populated areas, property taxes tend to be lower. Also, because of the typical spread pattern of suburban housing, the lack of variety of housing types, and the greater distance between homes, real estate development and public service costs increase, which in turn increase the federal deficit.

Suburbanization’s Effect on Diversity within the City

In the 1950’s when the trend of suburbanization took hold, many of the people who left the city for the suburbs were white. As a result, there was a rise in black home ownership in central cities. As white households left for the suburbs, housing prices in transition neighborhoods fell, which often lowered the cost of home ownership for black households. This trend was stronger in older and denser cities, especially in the northeast and Midwest, because new construction was generally more difficult.

Benefits of Sprawl

There are many benefits to suburbanization, specifically for the homeowner. The household has the opportunity to have a larger lot and live in a less populated area, as well as become more involved in the community.(citation?) As the citizen becomes more involved in the community, there are inherently better schools and lower crime rates because the individual is able to have more of a say in the day to day operations of his or her local government. For companies, escaping the city allows them to use more land, satisfy their employee’s requests for more quiet work environments, and allows them to develop their business of cheaper land.

Side Effects of Suburbanization

While there are many benefits to suburbanization, there are also many negative aspects also. Because suburbs are more spread out, there are much higher transportation costs, as people are forced to often drive on freeways to get from community to community. There is also the cost incurred by local and federal governments to build the new infrastructure, many times at the expense of maintaining other existing infrastructure. There are often negative environmental aspects of suburbanization as well because the efficiency of the bigger lots is so low.

See also

• Urbanisation
• Counter urbanisation

References

Bibliography

• Garreau, Joel. (1992) Edge City: Life on the New Frontier New York: Anchor Books.
• Hayden, Delores. (2004) Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000 New York, Vintage.
• Jackson, Kenneth T.. (1985) Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States New York: Oxford University Press.
• Wiese, Andrew. (2006) "African American Suburban Development in Atlanta" Southern Spaces. http://southernspaces.org/2006/african-american-suburban-development-atlanta
• Wiese, Andrew.(2005) Places of Their Own: African American Suburbanization in the Twentieth Century Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
• Soule, David.(2006) "Urban Sprawl: A Comprehensive Reference Guide" London, Greenwood Press.
• Burchell, Downs, McCann, Mukherji.(2005) "Sprawl Costs: Economic Impacts of Unchecked Development" London, Island Press.
• Boustan, Margo. "WHITE SUBURBANIZATION AND AFRICAN-AMERICAN HOME OWNERSHIP,1940-1980". National Bureau of Economic Research January 2011 18