April 17, 1973
Page 12671
DAVID BRODER ON SUBURBIA
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, in this morning's Washington Post David Broder has written an intriguing column, "Suburbia: Vitality, Selfishness," in which he casts aside some frequent misconceptions about metropolitan growth in recent years and points out the competing trends of suburban vitality on the one hand and suburban insularity on the other. As Mr. Broder argues, the political decisions we make in the next few years will go a long way toward determining finally whether we are doomed to a pattern of chronically sick inner cities that are surrounded by vital, self-contained suburbs or whether we can develop "healthy communities within a healthy metropolitan area – not the systematic sacrifice of the whole for the sake of the most privileged of the parts.
I commend Mr. Broder's column to my colleagues and ask unanimous consent that it appear in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
SUBURBIA: VITALITY, SELFISHNESS
(By David S. Broder)
PHILADELPHIA.– Until I listened to the discussion last week at "the Temple University conference on the suburban reshaping of American politics," I had – as you may have – a rather distorted picture of the pattern of population growth in the last two decades.
As Daniel J. Elazar, director of Temple's Center for the Study of Federalism told us,
"the contemporary image of American urbanization is one of masses of people living is very large cities, in unprecedently large local political jurisdictions far removed from the decision- making process, with no real chance to participate in the governance of their communities."
The facts, he pointed out, are just about exactly opposite: "The major beneficiaries of metropolitanization in our generation have been cities in the 10,000-100,000 range."
Cities of this size have grown more rapidly in number, in absolute population and in percentage of the United States population than any other category. We all know that the proportion of Americans living in rural areas has declined in the last half century. Fewer of us realize that the proportion living in cities over 1 million was lower in 1970 than in 1920, while the proportion living in small and medium-sized cities went up almost 50 per cent.
Much of this growth, Elazar demonstrated has come from the incorporation of new and independent political jurisdictions within the growing metropolitan areas.
"The political meaning of suburbanization lies in just this phenomenon," he said. "People sought suburbanization for essentially private purposes, revolving around better living conditions. The same people sought suburbs with independent local governments of their own (in order to) preserve those life styles ..."
The politics of these communities focuses on zoning, police and schools. The politicians they produce – including Richard Nixon of Whittier, Calif. (pop. 72,683) and Spiro Agnew of Towson, Md. (pop. 77,799) – are sympathetic to the passion of these suburban citizens for protecting their way of life against any threat of alteration from "outsiders."
Most of the political scientists at the conference accepted Elazar's description of "suburbanization," but there was stiff argument about the implications of this process for the future of American society and politics.
In Elazar's lyrical vision, these small suburban cities offer opportunities for developing a variety of life styles and "avenues of local self-government" that may revive, in our metropolitan civilization, "the kind of local liberty characteristic of the American town of an earlier (frontier) age."
Others are a lot less sanguine about the situation. Robert C. Wood, president of the University of Massachusetts and the last Democratic Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, said the suburban communities are "a source of institutional weakness in our urban society," because they "insulate a minority in a position of privilege in the metropolitan region" and "promote conflict in areas such as housing and education, rather than facilitating solutions."
Many others at the conference argued that as the suburban communities become ever more self- contained, depending less on the central cities for new migrants, for jobs, entertainment, recreation facilities or newspapers, they will grow ever more selfishly independent and less willing to shoulder a portion of the responsibility for those left behind in the older cities.
This argument defines what is probably the central issue in our domestic policy debate – the course of the metropolitan areas for the balance of the century. I came away from the Temple conference convinced of the profound merits of both sides of the argument, and concerned that the Nixon administration seems to enjoy only one of them.
There is a strong sense of political vitality and citizen participation in the small-city suburbs, a feeling shared by thousands of "new activist" housewives and house owners that they do have a voice in the decision making of local institutions. Mr. Nixon has recognized the importance of this demand for "community control" and has moved to meet it through revenue-sharing and other "New Federalism" programs.
But it is also true that the existence of 20,000 units of local government within our 225 metropolitan areas constitutes an enormous barrier to the equitable distribution of jobs and education of taxes and amenities among our people.
And this is a problem the administration has not really addressed in its policies. In the next year, there will be a whole new national debate, and important new legislation, on housing, education and taxes, and the goal, this time, must be development of healthy communities within a healthy metropolitan area – not the systematic sacrifice of the whole for the sake of the most privileged of the parts.