# 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:** 21
**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 10, 2013, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/401 "2013-08-10T09:40:54Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Strange how you don’t recognize your own hypocrisy…but that’;s OK, incoherent ravings and all! What hypocrisy? Your argument fails in assuming that people who like public schools think everyone should attend one. Unless you’ve heard either Matt Damon or myself make that argument, there’s no hypocrisy. I’ve never had a beef with public schools; I attended an excellent (suburban!) one myself. It’s not my fault if the imaginary voices in your head say something different. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > That’s a bullshit rationalisation, IMO. It’s a tad fatuously expressed, yes, but it was a quick way to illustrate my real point: the fact remains that my daughter can get a better education at the school she’s at without taking anything away from the public school system (which is one of the concerns about the voucher system). There’s nothing wrong with a two-tier system _as long as the lower tier isn’t utter shit_. A decent basic set of public services for everyone; better and extra services for those that can afford them. What’s hard to understand about that? It’s the liberal philosophy in a free-market world. NHS for everyone; private healthcare system with better facilities for some. Police for all; private security for some. Etc etc. There’s a separate argument about those who can afford the upper tier paying taxes to support the lower one, which is usually the space this discussion falls into, but that’s another thread. ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/402 "2013-08-10T10:08:52Z")
You won’t get through to him, that same sort of “hypocrisy” was being bandied about when people noted that Warren Buffet believes the rich should have higher tax rates but they cunningly pointed out, Warren Buffet doesn’t _choose to pay more_ taxes, therefore he’s a hypocrite for thinking the tax system should be revised so the _all_ of the mega-wealthy _have to_ pay more. In other words there is something fundamental to the conservative brain that makes them unable to determine what is hypocritical. Doesn’t stop them from trying though. (BTW I believe that food stamps should be a thing that exists, yet I choose to not be on foodstamps myself! I’m a total hypocrite!) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/403 "2013-08-10T11:52:39Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > …and here comes the accusations of racism. How predictable. > > :rolleyes: You were the one said about how you want to only live with your own kind, and descrined everyone else in less than flattering terms. That’s “US vs THEM” thinking, and is the definition of bigotry. You stated a belief only people who are like you have value and that everyone else is some undesirable group. And then you used a racially loaded term such as thugs and welfare recipients. Don’t act like you didn’t know that those are code words used by racists. So you say bigoted things and use racist code words. What are we supposed to think? And, mind you, I don’t have that big a problem with monocultures. I think it’s possible to live in one and still not be a bigot. I think it’s a little harder, and a little diversity is good, but that full out multiculturalism is not necessary. It has value, but not everyone needs to live in that environment. Mostly because, well, multiculturalism is self-defeating. It destroys cultures by melding them into one megaculture. But that’s completely different from thinking that people who are different from me are thugs and moochers or what have you. You clearly hate some groups of people. It’s not that you want to be around people who are similar to you, but that you want to not be around people you deign inferior to you. And, even if you aren’t racist, that’s something you have in common with them. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/404 "2013-08-10T12:05:52Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > In other words there is something fundamental to the conservative brain that makes them unable to determine what is hypocritical. Doesn’t stop them from trying though. This is going too far. It’s you devolving into an US vs. THEM thinking on political grounds. You are taking something about a small subset or conservatives and extracting it to the whole. There are quite a lot of conservatives who know exactly what hypocrisy is. It just so happens that there’s a subset of conservatives who use the term without understanding it. This is only because it is a conservative buzzword. Heck, I know at least one self-professed conservative on this board who goes to great lengths trying to illustrate what hypocrisy really is. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/405 "2013-08-10T12:41:36Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Working class liberals, though they are very few, want to move out of the city because they cannot afford to live in the gentrified districts carved out by upper middle class liberals and send there children to private schools. They know the realities of city life including ruthless crooked police, bad schools, corrupt governments, and **food deserts**. Other parts of your posts have been addressed by many posters, but I want to address what I bolded above. How in the world do you think food deserts are a city-only problem? Suburban and rural communities also usually do not have any food stores within a mile away, and they are much less likely to be able to support specialty stores. Most of the U.S. is a food desert. ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/406 "2013-08-10T19:46:38Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > This is going too far. It’s you devolving into an US vs. THEM thinking on political grounds. You are taking something about a small subset or conservatives and extracting it to the whole. > > There are quite a lot of conservatives who know exactly what hypocrisy is. It just so happens that there’s a subset of conservatives who use the term without understanding it. This is only because it is a conservative buzzword. > > Heck, I know at least one self-professed conservative on this board who goes to great lengths trying to illustrate what hypocrisy really is. You’re right, and I apologize. But I only ever see conservatives do this “AH-HAH!” hypocrisy thing that isn’t even hypocrisy. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/407 "2013-08-10T20:03:58Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > That’s a bullshit rationalisation, IMO. > > So the people you want to get away from _are_ black. Just coincidentally, natch. Well alrighty then. Didn’t say that. I just said they could all be white because I’m white, and it doesn’t make any difference for the purposes of the discussion. I may be classist, but I’m not racist. But to a lot of people around here, they can’t separate the two things. I’d rather have black middle class neighbors than white trash neighbors, and I suspect almost anyone rational would, no matter their color. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/408 "2013-08-10T20:09:55Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > This is going too far. It’s you devolving into an US vs. THEM thinking on political grounds. 😕 I thought this whole thread started as “US vs. THEM thinking on political grounds.” In this case “US” was suburban conservatives and “THEM” was urban liberals who wanted all of “US” to die in a hail of gang gunfire and freshly baked baguettes. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/409 "2013-08-10T21:07:11Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I’d rather have black middle class neighbors than white trash neighbors, and I suspect almost anyone rational would, no matter their color. But a great many white Americans **wouldn’t,** even in this day and age. That is a fact. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/410 "2013-08-10T21:29:50Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > 😕 I thought this whole thread started as “US vs. THEM thinking on political grounds.” In this case “US” was suburban conservatives and “THEM” was urban liberals who wanted all of “US” to die in a hail of gang gunfire and freshly baked baguettes. I think maybe you (or me?) are getting this thread confused with [that one](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=698557). ---
**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 10, 2013, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/411 "2013-08-10T22:27:20Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But a great many white Americans **wouldn’t,** even in this day and age. That is a fact. Some people are racist therefore you are racist - is that it? I fail to see how the fact that there are racists in this world is relevant to calling someone in this thread a racist. You’ll have to explain that one. Otherwise it seems like you and others just enjoy calling people racists. It’s strange. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/412 "2013-08-11T00:24:53Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Some people are racist therefore you are racist - is that it? I fail to see how the fact that there are racists in this world is relevant to calling someone in this thread a racist. You’ll have to explain that one. Otherwise it seems like you and others just enjoy calling people racists. It’s strange. It is relevant, and worth pointing out in this discussion, because suburbanization and residential segregation by race, while separate phenomena, are also related phenomena, and we can’t **fully** understand the former without noting and understanding the latter, and the latter is undeniably a **problem.** That does not mean all white suburbanites left the city to get away from the blacks, but it is important to the important question of why they spent decades keeping them out of suburbia and why suburbia remains overwhelmingly white to this day. See [post #387.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=16553798&highlight=roots#post16553798) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/413 "2013-08-11T00:37:50Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > Is this a joke? Of course you can still go for a walk in the suburb. I usually drive somewhere to go walking first. You might want to think again about that statement. Think **hard.** > [@Debaser](#): > > On the contrary, it’s multiculturalism that’s the problem. It has proven to be a failure. Look at France. Suburbia **enhances** multiculturalism. Cities are melting pots. > [@Debaser](#): > > Says you. The vast majority of people want to be among their own kind. What’s the point of working hard in school, getting a good job and obeying the law if you have to then live among people who didn’t do these things? Setting a good example for them, for one thing. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/414 "2013-08-11T00:40:46Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > Here’s the fundamental thing I think you’re missing: Some people are different from other people, and that’s OK. Of course it is. And if someone very different from you wants to move in next door, that’s OK, too. > [@Debaser](#): > > There’s nothing wrong with people wanting to be around others that are like them. There is when they **exclude** those **un** like them. You have a right to live where you please, means permitting, but that is the **only** sense in which you have any right to choose your neighbors. > [@Debaser](#): > > You push those people too close together and you’ll get conflict. You get much more and worse conflict if you **separate** them, as history American and foreign shows. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/415 "2013-08-11T00:47:40Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > What attitude? That people should stick with their own kind? I’ve got news for you. The millions of illegal immigrants that we let come in every year have no problem sticking with their own kind. “La Raza” is their movement. Literal translation: The Race. Every wave of immigrants to America formed enclaves where they could talk to neighbors speaking the same language. But in large part they left the enclaves eventually. There are still some old Irish and Italian neighborhoods, quaint survivals where ethnic holidays and customs are celebrated, but you will also find plenty of Irish- and Italian-Americans in ethnically mixed neighborhoods. And in all-white suburbs, because they managed to get accepted as white; the result being that being Irish or Italian no longer holds one back in American society, as it once did. They got into the melting pot. It will be the same with Latinos eventually. > [@Debaser](#): > > You speak as if only white men like to stick with their own. In truth, white people are about the least likely to shamelessly prefer their own company. False equivalence. Whites are the only ones in American society with any skin-privilege; when they form Whitopias, [**and many do,** even today](http://www.amazon.com/Searching-Whitopia-Improbable-Journey-America/dp/B003D7JV8Y/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376182144&sr=1-1&keywords=whitopia), it is much more socially harmful than a Little Italy or a Chinatown. > [@Debaser](#): > > It’s like this all over the world. People want to stick to their own. > > [Buchanan had a good article on the subject recently.](http://www.humanevents.com/2012/08/21/pat-buchanan-the-new-world-disorder/) I’ve read several of Pat Buchanan’s books. You can get some very interesting viewpoints from him – but it is extremely foolish ever to take them seriously. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/416 "2013-08-11T00:54:27Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Progressive types and control freaks in general, I plead to you once and for all, drop the bigotry and the ill-founded assumptions and open your mind outside of your own little universe. The projection . . . it burns . . . ---
**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 11, 2013, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/417 "2013-08-11T01:02:37Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But a great many white Americans **wouldn’t,** even in this day and age. That is a fact. Is this a claim that most people wouldn’t want to segregate according to socioeconomic status (regardless of skin color) or that “a great many white Americans” would rather live next to White trash than a Black middle class family? If the former MHO is that most do self-segregate according to SES primarily and cultural group (be it Black, Hispanic, White, family nationality heritage, etc.) second and that more by wanting to have some critical minimal mass of those like them more than anything else. If the latter then I dispute your claim of “fact” and since you claim it as “fact” request some support of the claim. (And not just the cover of a book.) MHO is that such is very untrue, that very very few Middle Class and higher Whites would prefer to have “White trash” next door over the family that consists of say a Black accountant father and his marketing department honcho wife with their 2 to 3 studious children. Of interest to this portion of the discussion is [this article](http://www.nationaljournal.com/thenextamerica/demographics/robert-putnam-class-now-trumps-race-as-the-great-divide-in-america-20120702): > [@](#): > > Class Now Trumps Race as the Great Divide in America … “You say poverty to most ordinary Americans, most ordinary voters, they think black ghettos,” he continued, whereas over the last couple of generations “class, not race is the dominant – and becoming more dominant – dimension of difficulty here.” > > “Relatively speaking, racial differences controlling for class are decreasing while class differences controlling for race are increasing in America,” he said. “Non-white folks with a college education are looking more and more like white folks with a college education and white folks who haven’t gotten beyond high school are looking more and more like nonwhite folks who haven’t finished high school.” … ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/418 "2013-08-11T01:16:37Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Is this a claim that most people wouldn’t want to segregate according to socioeconomic status (regardless of skin color) or that “a great many white Americans” would rather live next to White trash than a Black middle class family? > > \ > > If the latter then I dispute your claim of “fact” and since you claim it as “fact” request some support of the claim. Once again, see [post #387](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=16553798&highlight=roots#post16553798): "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.” Do you really believe that has changed all that much since 2000? Going by the footnotes (it’s a very heavily footnoted book), Loewen is quoting from Meyer’s [_As Long As They Don’t Move Next Door: Segregation and Racial Conflict in American Neighborhoods._](http://www.amazon.com/Long-They-Dont-Move-Next/dp/0847697002/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376183722&sr=1-1&keywords=as+long+as+they+don%27t+move+next+door) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/419 "2013-08-11T03:02:05Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Of interest to this portion of the discussion is [this article](http://www.nationaljournal.com/thenextamerica/demographics/robert-putnam-class-now-trumps-race-as-the-great-divide-in-america-20120702): An encouraging sign if true – that is, encouraging if race is losing its social salience. But replacing racial bigotry with a color-blind contempt for lower classes is only slight improvement. ---
**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 11, 2013, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/420 "2013-08-11T03:07:26Z")
Hmm. Read that post and see nothing that supports your claim. In fact, in contrast to your claim that color matters _more than_ social status, your excerpt claims that even in the origins of the suburbs the prime focus was not to avoid African-Americans but to secure social status. > [@](#): > > wasn’t primarily to avoid African-Americans … 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. And sorry, quoting Loewen quoting a claim of Meyer that has little to do with the claim that color trumps class, is hardly supporting the claim. On many levels. And do I think that much has changed over the past 13 or so years? Yes, I do. I believe that the article I cited is correct: we are now more much divided by class than by race. A White trash neighbor would be much more objected to in almost every suburb, even one lily white, than a professional or solidly Middle Class Black family. Note: this does not claim that there are no racists, but the racist in suburbia is more worried now knows that his/her property value is not threatened by the Black family and is by the “trash” (not quite equal to just lower SES btw) family of whatever color, and that matters most to him/her. City or suburb Americans segregate into functional villages mostly according to class with other factors as secondary aspects. And self-segregation is not equal to contempt. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965.md?page=20) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965.md?page=22)