# Why do liberals hate suburbs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 31, 2013, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965 "2013-07-31T02:31:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/381 "2013-08-08T17:23:42Z")
> [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](#): > > No, but the family that moves from the city to the suburb because they don’t want their children around the sort of people you find in the city, you know, Those People, you know who I mean, certainly sound racist. Right. If by “those people” you mean people of a certain race and not poor people or other groups of people not specifically connected by race. And when you find those people, go call them racist. > [@](#): > > Still not seeing why you need to go to the suburbs for that You don’t have to go to the suburbs. You go to higher income areas. That could be suburbs, it could be private schools. Anywhere that self selects for higher income will do it. But some suburbs have the other side benefits of those other factors. And once you get the ball rolling in a certain area, it becomes more expensive/desirable to live there, and it perpetuates it self. This is a feature, not a bug. > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Are you willing to concede that _some_ portion of white flight is motivated by race? Yes, there are racists in this world. Acknowledged. They also live in cities and pretty much everywhere. Calling wide swathes of people racist for wanting to live in a certain environment is pretty fucktarded, though. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/382 "2013-08-08T17:29:29Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > For me to deny something, you’ll first have to demonstrate what it is I’m supposed to deny - the obvious racial connotations. They were identified in this post: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=16552740&postcount=370](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=16552740&postcount=370) Or is it really just a coincidence that those areas, and people, that \*\*bump \*\*identified are mostly if not all black (or at least nonwhite)? ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/383 "2013-08-08T17:44:58Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > They were identified in this post: > > [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=16552740&postcount=370](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=16552740&postcount=370) > > Or is it really just a coincidence that those areas, and people, that \*\*bump \*\*identified are mostly if not all black (or at least nonwhite)? It sounds like \*\*Bump \*\*is talking about income based choices. You are the one making it about race. That’s my interpretation - \*\*Bump \*\*can speak for himself. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/384 "2013-08-08T17:56:42Z")
Sorta relevant…but liberal activist Matt Damon is sending his kids to private school-which oddly conflicts with his professed love of public schools. I wonder why he advocates public schools for HIS kids, but public for everybody else. Presumably, Matt likes city life…which is why he lives in a suburban community. Odd that!😃 ---
**Author:** ![eg8576736](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@eg8576736](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eg8576736)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/385 "2013-08-08T18:11:57Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > There are a great many liberal positions that I can understand, even if I may disagree with them, but there’s one I don’t understand the motivation for: what is the reason behind the liberals’ “war on suburbs”? I’m not a “liberal” in the classic sense, but you may be referring to anti urban sprawl campaigns, which in my view should be focused on preventing human overpopulation and constant economic expansion aka “growthism.” Efforts to control urban sprawl merely with building restrictions are superficial since they ignore the root cause of population pressure. Once one understands that the world is _finite_ (still not clear to many) it should be evident that people can’t keep expanding to mythical greener pastures, and should live sustainably on the acreage that’s already developed. This will require the end of perpetual “economic growth” but that’s got to be a good thing on a finite planet. I’m also greatly concerned about a new type of suburban sprawl in the form of giant wind turbines purporting to be “green” but occupying huge swaths of rural land and inflicting their looming presence, annoying sounds and shadow flicker on the landscape. In a perfect world, 400 foot wind turbines would be confined to city limits in places where their power is needed most. Due to the geography of wind patterns, they have become suburb-enablers, often hundreds of miles from the suburbs themselves. ---
**Author:** ![eg8576736](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@eg8576736](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eg8576736)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/386 "2013-08-08T18:16:41Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I assume that is directed at me. I am a moderate libertarian so I would not ever truly support a limit on the number of children people can have in a political sense. From a scientific standpoint however, I truly believe that overpopulation is exactly the core problem and fixing that is the only thing that would work if it was possible at all. Everything else is just a child’s Band-Aid on a chainsaw injury. That is why I don’t support most Progressive type urban measures when it comes to the environment. I like the environment too even more than most in a realistic way but the proposed measure are just like bailing out Titanic with a spoon only so people can pat themselves on the back and control others while India and China spew fossil fuels in a more globally polluting way than we ever would in the U.S. if we burned them ourselves. Good point about overpopulation as the root cause, but cities that at least _try_ to restrict sprawl (like Portland, Oregon) are keeping the landscape-wrecking effects at bay as much as possible until such a time when growth might cease altogether. Why do nothing at all when something can be done? The downside can be more traffic congestion, but I see that as a price to pay for discouraging runaway growth, which inevitably leads to more congestion and perpetual, mindless road construction. Adding and widening freeways can only go so far, as evidenced by places like Los Angeles. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/387 "2013-08-08T19:12:20Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > So the family that moves from the city to the suburb because they are willing to commute further in order to get more house and more space for less money are racists. Got it. No, it’s more complicated than that. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > . . . right now I’m in the middle of James Leowen’s [_Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism,_](http://www.amazon.com/Sundown-Towns-Hidden-Dimension-American/dp/0743294483) which is mainly about residential segregation by race but also covers the general sociology of post-WWII American suburbanization. Will post some relevant excerpts later. From Chapter 5, “Sundown Suburbs”: > [@](#): > > Why did this happen? The American rush to the suburbs wasn’t just to avoid African-Americans. Indeed, it wasn’t _primarily_ to avoid African-Americans. It took place in metropolitan areas with few African Americans as well as areas such as Detroit whose core cities became majority-black. Families moved to the suburbs for two principal reasons: first, it seemed the proper way to bring up children, and second, it both showed and secured social status. That is, Americans saw suburbs as the solution to two problems: having a family and having prestige. Suburban dwellers wanted to raise their children to be safe, happy, and well educated in metropolitan areas. They also wanted to be upwardly mobile and to display upward mobility. > > The two functions were closely related, since “living well” begets status. As the twentieth century wore on, Americans told themselves increasingly that children need their own grass to play on and their own trees to play under, and families need their own plots of earth to put down roots.\* Today this idea is so firmly embedded in our national culture, at least that of our lower-upper and middle classes, as to seem “natural.” Of course by “natural” we really mean so deep in our culture that we do not – perhaps cannot – question it. And, of course, communities that embody such “obvious” values are by definition better – hence, more prestigious – places to live. > > \ > > **Blacks as a Key Problem to Be Avoided** > > African Americans’ low prestige has long posed a danger to white status. Andrew Hacker, author of _Two Nations,_ identified the status threat in 1961: > > > [@](#): > > > > If there is one word which hangs over the heads of millions of white – and Northern – Americans it is that they cannot afford to live in close proximity to Negroes. The single social fact which can destroy the whole image of middle class respectability is to be known to reside in a neighborhood which has Negroes in it. > > In the early 1970s, among many items inquiring about relationships with African Americans, “‘Having a Negro family as next door neighbors’ was one of the most objected to,” reported social scientist Thomas Pettigrew. Writing in 2000, historian Stephanie Meyer pointed out that race still plays the key role: “Many whites remain reluctant to accept African Americans as social equals. They refuse to accept African Americans as neighbors.” > > In addition to status concerns, white suburbanites also worry that African Americans are less intelligent, more prone to crime, and a threat to property values. That last concern – property values – rephrases the status issue as a very real pocketbook problem: whites feel an African American next door may make their home less desirable when they go to sell it. The solution to this familiar blacks-as-problem thinking proves the same in the suburbs as in independent towns: keep them out. The rest of the chapter describes how blacks were frozen out of the suburbanization, except for a very few prewar black-majority suburbs. There were restrictive deed covenants against selling suburban homes to blacks, real-estate agents who simply would not sell blacks homes in white neighborhoods, and for decades the Federal Housing Administration fiercely discouraged mixed-race neighborhoods by various means. Jews were also frozen out, to a lesser degree. None were allowed in Levittown even though Levitt was Jewish. - Of course, as has already been mentioned in this thread, middle-class employment is so insecure these days, and moving so often necessary, that nobody can be sure of putting down roots even in a given state. And, if putting down roots is your intention, you should not be concerned with your home’s market value anyway – you’re not planning to sell it, and if the value goes down, maybe your property taxes go down too. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/388 "2013-08-08T19:33:15Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No, it’s more complicated than that. > > From Chapter 5, “Sundown Suburbs”: > > The rest of the chapter describes how blacks were frozen out of the suburbanization, except for a very few prewar black-majority suburbs. There were restrictive deed covenants against selling suburban homes to blacks, real-estate agents who simply would not sell blacks homes in white neighborhoods, and for decades the Federal Housing Administration fiercely discouraged mixed-race neighborhoods by various means. Jews were also frozen out, to a lesser degree. None were allowed in Levittown even though Levitt was Jewish. > > - Of course, as has already been mentioned in this thread, middle-class employment is so insecure these days, and moving so often necessary, that nobody can be sure of putting down roots even in a given state. And, if putting down roots is your intention, you should not be concerned with your home’s market value anyway – you’re not planning to sell it, and if the value goes down, maybe your property taxes go down too. I now repost a link that was ignored earlier. What do you think of these suburbanites: > **['It's not my fault you paid $250,000 and I paid a buck'](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna41810267)** > > Three years ago, Lamar Grace left Detroit for the suburb of Southfield. He got a good deal — a 3,000-square-foot colonial that once was worth $220,000. In foreclosure, he paid $109,000. What do you think of middle class black suburbanites who are horrified by lower-class ghetto blacks moving into their neighborhoods? Are they just racists? Have they just bought into racist myths? Or do they know something many of us would prefer not to acknowloedge? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/389 "2013-08-08T19:50:53Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > I now repost a link that was ignored earlier. What do you think of these suburbanites: > > ['It's not my fault you paid $250,000 and I paid a buck'](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/41810267/ns/us_news-life/t/its-not-my-fault-you-paid-i-paid-buck/) > > What do you think of middle class black suburbanites who are horrified by lower-class ghetto blacks moving into their neighborhoods? > > Are they just racists? Have they just bought into racist myths? Or do they know something many of us would prefer not to acknowloedge? I think they regard ghetto blacks the same way white Americans used to regard **all** blacks (and some still do). It’s about class, not race, relating to the same concerns noted above (property values, unsavory neighbors, etc.). And, perhaps the black suburban middle class even has some extra status anxiety compared to whites – “It took our family six generations to get out here, don’t you come in and screw it up for us now!” But, in the next chapter, “Underlying Causes,” Leowen, through a whole lot of statistical analysis, demonstrates that class could not account for the whiteness of most suburbs, because the disparity remains even if class/income is corrected for. “Rich whites have been much more suburban than rich blacks; poor whites have been much more suburban than poor blacks.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/390 "2013-08-08T22:33:22Z")
From Neal Stephenson’s [_Snow Crash_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash) (set in a dystopian future where every gated community in America has become an independent state): > [@](#): > > The franchise and the virus work on the same principle: what thrives in one place will thrive in another. You just have to find a sufficiently virulent business plan, condense it into a three-ring binder — its DNA — xerox it, and embed it in the fertile lining of a well-traveled highway, preferably one with a left-turn lane. Then the growth will expand until it runs up against its property lines. > > In olden times, you’d wander down to Mom’s Café for a bite to eat and a cup of joe, and you would feel right at home. It worked just fine if you never left your hometown. But if you went to the next town over, everyone would look up and stare at you when you came in the door, and the Blue Plate Special would be something you didn’t recognize. If you did enough traveling, you’d never feel at home anywhere. > > But when a businessman from New Jersey goes to Dubuque, he knows he can walk into a McDonald’s and no one will stare at him. He can order without having to look at the menu, and the food will always taste the same. McDonald’s is Home, condensed into a three-ring binder and xeroxed. “No surprises” is the motto of the franchise ghetto, its _Good Housekeeping_ seal, subliminally blazoned on every sign and logo that make up the curves and grids of light that outline the Basin. > > The people of America, who live in the world’s most surprising and terrible country, take comfort in that motto. Follow the loglo outward, to where the growth is enfolded into the valleys and the canyons, and you find the land of the refugees. They have fled from the true America, the America of atomic bombs, scalpings, hip-hop, chaos theory, cement overshoes, snake handlers, spree killers, space walks, buffalo jumps, drive-bys, cruise missiles, Sherman’s March, gridlock, motorcycle gangs, and bungee jumping. They have parallel-parked their bimbo boxes in identical computer-designed Burbclave street patterns and secreted themselves in symmetrical sheetrock shitholes with vinyl floors and ill-fitting woodwork and no sidewalks, vast house farms out in the loglo wilderness, a culture medium for a medium culture. …. > The only ones left in the city are street people, feeding off debris; immigrants, thrown out like shrapnel from the destruction of the Asian powers; young bohos; and the technomedia priesthood of Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong. Young smart people like Da5id and Hiro, who take the risk of living in the city because they like stimulation and they know they can handle it. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/391 "2013-08-08T22:48:28Z")
EDIT: Never mind, negated by the other thread. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/392 "2013-08-09T00:58:27Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Sorta relevant…but liberal activist Matt Damon is sending his kids to private school-which oddly conflicts with his professed love of public schools. I wonder why he advocates public schools for HIS kids, but public for everybody else. > Presumably, Matt likes city life…which is why he lives in a suburban community. > Odd that!😃 I think you’ve just eclipsed **Starving Artist** as my favorite conservative. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/393 "2013-08-09T09:30:14Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > I think you’ve just eclipsed **Starving Artist** as my favorite conservative. I know! Incoherent post featuring a few jumbled facts tied together with a strawman to imply liberal hypocrisy but without any actual argument or relevance to the discussion at hand - what’s not to like about that? For the record, I’m in favor of good public schools but I send my kid to a private school because it was the best option for her and we can (barely, painfully) afford it. It’s a win-win - one less child in the overcrowded public system means a better student-teacher ratio in the public school AND a better student-teacher ratio for my kid. It’s the same argument I make for the UK healthcare system - I love the NHS but if you want special treatment you can pay for private. Nobody’s forcing anyone to do anything. Seriously - why do you hate the free market, **ralph124c**? ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/394 "2013-08-09T13:10:25Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I know! Incoherent post featuring a few jumbled facts tied together with a strawman to imply liberal hypocrisy but without any actual argument or relevance to the discussion at hand - what’s not to like about that? > > For the record, I’m in favor of good public schools but I send my kid to a private school because it was the best option for her and we can (barely, painfully) afford it. It’s a win-win - one less child in the overcrowded public system means a better student-teacher ratio in the public school AND a better student-teacher ratio for my kid. It’s the same argument I make for the UK healthcare system - I love the NHS but if you want special treatment you can pay for private. Nobody’s forcing anyone to do anything. Seriously - why do you hate the free market, **ralph124c**? Strange how you don’t recognize your own hypocrisy…but that’;s OK, incoherent ravings and all! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/395 "2013-08-09T13:36:15Z")
> [@eg8576736](#): > > I’m not a “liberal” in the classic sense, but you may be referring to anti urban sprawl campaigns, which in my view should be focused on preventing human overpopulation and constant economic expansion aka “growthism.” You know that’s gonna be an even harder sell politically. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/396 "2013-08-09T16:27:45Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > **Bone** , in another thread you recently identified yourself as a white male Texan, married with kids, who is considering fleeing the city of Dallas and its schools with “90 percent reduced school lunches” and made the following complaint: > So let me ask you: are those poor people in Fair Park white? I have never been to Texas, and I can’t seem to find demographic information online, but I do notice there’s an African American museum there. What about “south Dallas”? A little Googling seems to indicate that it is historically where the black population was segregated, and where the “Negro schools” used to be. I’m guessing it’s still mostly African American. What about those “Section 8 jerks”? Are they white? And the kids on reduced school lunch? They mostly white, or black? What’s it matter what color they are? They could be all white and it doesn’t matter a whit for the purposes of the argument at hand. The argument’s about not wanting to subsidize poverty and have my children learn values and behaviors I don’t agree with in school (by poor classmates), not about race. It’s unfortunate that race and socioeconomic class are so tightly linked in the US, but saying you don’t like one DOES NOT mean you’re automatically saying you don’t like the other. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/397 "2013-08-09T17:16:35Z")
A comment inspired by something I heard in the car just a bit ago, some architects being interviewed - The issue is less city vs suburb or exurb even than it is how much a community can function as a village. A village allows and fosters social interaction and the development of community; it is accessible and often more walkable. Some suburbs function that way, some do not. Some are built not with the people, but with the cars in mind. The people just need to adapt. Some cities consist of many overlapping villages, be they at the scale of a single high rise or a neighborhood, some do not. In some isolation within a crowd is the norm. I cannot speak for liberals or even all who are just slightly left of center (as I percieve myself) but I do see the lack of a community properly scaled for human interaction and connection as a cause of concern, wherever that shows up. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/398 "2013-08-09T17:17:15Z")
> [@bump](#): > > What’s it matter what color they are? They could be all white and it doesn’t matter a whit for the purposes of the argument at hand. No, your position would remain just as odious. ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/399 "2013-08-10T04:58:48Z")
'Course, when my family moved here, it was a small town surrounded by citrus trees. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/400 "2013-08-10T07:26:29Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > For the record, I’m in favor of good public schools but I send my kid to a private school because it was the best option for her and we can (barely, painfully) afford it. It’s a win-win - one less child in the overcrowded public system means a better student-teacher ratio in the public school AND a better student-teacher ratio for my kid. That’s a bullshit rationalisation, IMO. > [@bump](#): > > What’s it matter what color they are? They could be all white and it doesn’t matter a whit for the purposes of the argument at hand. So the people you want to get away from _are_ black. Just coincidentally, natch. Well alrighty then. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965.md?page=21)