Governance and Opportunity in Metropolitan America (1999) / Chapter Skim
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2 Central Cities, Suburbs, and Metropolitan-Area Problems
2 Central Cities, Suburbs, and Metropolitan-Area Problems
Pages 22-39
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From page 22... ...
Finally, we examine strategies for building political support for central cities. SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION IN METROPOLITAN AREAS Metropolitan areas consist of central cities (municipalities of 50,000 or more residents)
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From page 23... ...
Paul549 21.6 13.5 New York213 2.5 1.0 Philadelphia877 17.8 7.4 Riverside-San Bernadino309 11.9 1.9 San Diego181 7.2 0.8 St. Louis789 31.7 12.5 Washington, D.C.169 4.0 2.7 Average 11.9 4.4 aBoston figures refer not to the Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area but to Boston' s New England Consolidated Metropolitan Area.
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From page 24... ...
There has also been some research on the geopolitical fragmentation of metropolitan areas (measured by the number of local governments per 10,000 people divided by the percentage of total metropolitan-area population residing in the central city) and the extent to which metropolitan-area government structure is dominated by the central city (with low levels of geopolitical fragmentation indicating central-city dominance)
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From page 25... ...
The conventionally used measure of segregation is the dissimilarity index, which
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From page 26... ...
Over the 1980s, another study reports that the average dissimilarity index between blacks and non-Hispanic whites fell from 70 in 1980 to 66 in 1990, and that 260 of the 318 metropolitan areas actually experienced decline in the index over the 1980-1990 period (Jargowsky, 1997~. Farley and Frey (1993)
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From page 27... ...
Economic segregation also exists throughout the entire metropolitan area and, unlike racial segregation, is growing. Using a dissimilarity index as a means of measuring the economic segregation of the poor in metropolitan areas (that is, the proportion of the poor who would have to move in order to achieve an even distribution of poor people by census tracts across the metropolitan area)
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From page 28... ...
The second class of explanations stresses "push" factors related to the fiscal and social problems of cities, such as high taxes, inadequate public schools and other government services, racial tensions, crime, and poor city amenities (1993: 137~. Clearly the two types of explanation are not mutually exclusive.
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From page 29... ...
argues that "public policies have played a central role in the development of a spatially differentiated metropolis in which blacks are separated from whites, the poor from the more affluent, the disadvantaged from economic and educational opportunity." The distinctively American political institutions that give rise to spatial patterns of residential location are local control of land use decisions, state laws permitting easy incorporation of municipalities, and a fiscal system that requires municipal governments to finance most of their local services from their local tax base (Danielson, 1976)
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From page 30... ...
Local government action permits and facilitates this spatial segmentation, and local control of land use is the critical linchpin that encourages fragmentation and thus results in economic stratification (Danielson, 1976~. Although research is sparse, comparative social policy experts frequently observe that the degree of economic segregation in urban areas is much higher in the United States than in many other western nations in which land use controls are not exclusively local (Berry, 1973; Sellars, 1998~.
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From page 31... ...
comments on the relative lack of segregation by race and class in Britain and Western Europe." There is evidence that the ease of municipal incorporation promotes the creation of large numbers of local governments, a precondition for income stratification by jurisdiction (Nelson, 1990; Burns, 1994~. The existence of more local governments permits households to sort themselves out by income, and research has shown that the number of local governments is associated with more income stratification.
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From page 32... ...
The traditional rationale for the economic contribution of cities is that agglomeration economies provide a competitive advantage for firms locating in cities; they are seen to be the driving force in the development of the metropolitan economy. Agglomeration economies are cost savings to firms that result from their locating in urban areas.
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, agglomeration economies have three causes: labor market economies, scale economies in the production of intermediate inputs, and communication economies. He observes that the last two of these clearly favor central cities.
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From page 34... ...
remain important and integral parts of their MSAs." Interdependence of Central Cities and Suburbs Many suburban residents appear to believe that their suburbs are functionally independent of the central city and that central-city problems do not affect them at all. This view is shared by some knowledgeable researchers as well.
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From page 35... ...
that central-city fiscal problems can impose costs on the entire region if inadequate spending on education leads to deterioration in the relative quality of public education and lowers the productivity of the workforce, since central-city residents are an important component of the metropolitan labor force. One study bases its claim for interdependence on positive correlations between central city and suburban per capita income and between central-city office space and downtown office space (Savitch et al., 1993~.
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From page 36... ...
Voith closes his paper by contending that (1995:21~: "The statistical evidence of complementarily is important because the long-run, gradual nature of the negative effects of urban decline makes it difficult for people to observe casually, let alone mobilize support for policies to prevent urban decline. In particular, the negative impact may be unrecognized by suburban residents because the suburb is performing so much better than its declining central city counterpart.
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From page 37... ...
This grouping could provide the core of a majority coalition on behalf of tax base sharing, regional housing opportunity, increased state aid, and other policy measures beneficial to central cities. Such a coalition, aided at times by cooperation with legislators who may have nothing directly at stake, constitutes a majority of state legislators in Minnesota and, Orfield contends, in other states with large metropolitan areas as well.
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From page 38... ...
To them, tax base sharing means lower property taxes and better services, particularly better funded schools. Regional housing policy means, over time, fewer units of affordable housing crowding their doorstep.
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From page 39... ...
The total number of PMSAs was therefore 326. 4 Increases in the proportion of the population living in high-poverty areas may result from an increasing number of census tracts being classified as high-poverty areas as nonpoor households move out, from an increasing incidence of poverty, or from an increasing propensity of the poor to move into such areas.
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