# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![leftfield6](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leftfield6/32/18780_2.png) [@leftfield6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leftfield6)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/41 "2013-07-31T13:50:42Z")
Pish-posh. Doesn’t the OP know that our _ **war** _ is with _ **Christmas** _??? You know, as a liberal, I’m not nearly as into the whole “gotta be at war all the time” concept as the righties are. But just to play into your weak argument, I’ll say I fecking hate Christmas in the Suburbs!!! ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/42 "2013-07-31T14:00:19Z")
I think the stereotype is liberals hate the traditional stereotypical suburb. This is basically new (post-1970 or so) development, probably in planned communities with a limited selection of architectural styles and with a HOA governing the neighborhood. Shopping and other service businesses are not walkable, and in fact the suburb itself while it may have sidewalks will have no convenient walking connections to the shopping areas–which are often large strip mall/shopping center deals. But to me that’s not really the suburbia I know. I’ve basically lived in either a major city center or what I’d call a “bedroom community” most of my life. A traditional bedroom community is usually a well established town/small city, they aren’t really suburbs but instead are towns that have existed for generations and have become convenient to the larger city as technology has improved transportation and the city itself has grown. Living in these communities, you aren’t living in a cookie cutter neighborhood, but usually have a wide range of options including lots of nice older homes (some even pre-20th century), as well as the ability to buy a range of different types of new construction. Since these communities are traditionally towns/cities in their own right, they usually have a little main street area and if you live near that you can easily walk to do regular activities like go to the supermarket, get your hair cut, doctor’s visits etc. Depending on where we’re talking about, these communities will sometimes have public transit links to the major city nearby, but most people drive in from these places to work in the city itself. These communities I think strike a nice balance. Housing prices are far more affordable, and you usually get a yard in the deal. You can walk to a few local taverns/pubs/dive bars and they have more of a traditional “neighborhood” feel than the weird canned/house-in-a-box feeling from the planned suburbs. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/43 "2013-07-31T14:15:53Z")
It’s true, I am a liberal and I am waging a war on the suburbs. My chief weapon in the fight, ist to fake a reason why I can’t go to your cookout and to make fun of the Olive Garden. I also kind of roll my eyes when you stand on the left on the escalator in the Metro. I will report to the Hague for my war crimes trial. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/44 "2013-07-31T14:28:44Z")
Just Ask a Question and stand back without ever having to prove there is a problem while ideological rivals can’t help themselves from clashing over what should be done about it. This thread is a case study on how crap like Voter ID controversies start. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/45 "2013-07-31T14:30:40Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I think this take is slightly out of date: > > [New Census Data Show US Cities Growing Faster Than Suburbs](http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/06/28/new_census_data_show_us_cities_growing_faster_than_suburbs.html) > > [USA TODAY](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/03/american-cities-to-millennials-dont-leave-us/1744357/) Those articles just say that the trend is decreasing somewhat in terms of the past, not that it’s going away. Saying that the trend of 90% of young couples move to the suburbs is now down to 70% isn’t pointing at it going away at all. And to some degree, there needs to be a better definition of “suburbs” as well. Dallas and I’m guessing most other cities that grew in the 20th century, don’t have the dense city-center like New York, San Francisco, etc… so the term “suburbs” needs to be defined, because in both Houston and Dallas, there are areas of single family homes with yards very close to the “downtown” area, just like there are high density apartments well out into the “suburbs”. Or for that matter, one of the most ghetto, poor and violent parts of Houston (Alief/SW) was actually a middle/upper middle class suburb 25-30 years ago. Is it still a suburb, or is it something else? ---
**Author:** ![skylyn12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f8ce5/32.png) [@skylyn12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skylyn12)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/46 "2013-07-31T14:34:29Z")
I have noticed (both in posts here and in real life) how liberals tend to greatly generalize the suburbs even in the face of contrary evidence. I generally believe that most liberals are better able to see things without generalities or stereotypes getting in the way with the suburbs being one area that they cannot. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/47 "2013-07-31T14:59:25Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Why? At heart, all liberals love “Central Planning” it is the same mentality that gave the world “collective farms”, and ministries of planning. Liberals love to control people-and you cannot do that if the proles have their own houses and cars- you need to herd them all into “public housing projects”-where they can experience the benefits of collective conciousness, and class solidarity! All hail the people! Do you even know what an HOA is? Here’s a hint- they’re really popular in the suburbs, and they let other people tell you what you can do with your house. Guess it kinda shoots a hole in your little theory, huh? I’m a fairly flaming liberal, I make no secret of it. I also live out in the country, and I fuckin’ hate cities. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/48 "2013-07-31T15:29:05Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > I always thought of the suburbs as the most “controlled” places. They’re the closest thing we’ve got to a Matrix. True. Just try painting or ornamenting your house in a way the homeowners’ association doesn’t like. You’ll get a knock on the door, and a finger pointing to a clause in your deed-covenant, and litigation if you don’t back down. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/49 "2013-07-31T15:30:30Z")
> [@pullin](#): > > \*One of the quotes: _The suburbs are bland, sterile wastelands filled with racist white people who work soul-crushing jobs to buy electronics and uncreative landscaping._ [**Some** are, certainly.](http://www.amazon.com/Searching-Whitopia-Improbable-Journey-America/dp/1401322689) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/50 "2013-07-31T15:31:55Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > Marxists feel contempt for the bourgeoisie, and I do think some of that has had an impact on what could be called the liberal aesthetic. And the suburbs are certainly associated with the bourgeoisie. > [@Alessan](#): > > Which is ironic, as “bourgeoisie” means “city residents”. OTOH, Marx felt contempt (or pity, at least) for the “idiocy of rural life” – and he was not being at all unfair, for his time. It’s much different in the Information Age, of course. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/51 "2013-07-31T15:38:22Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Suburbs and urban sprawl is the ultimate answer to the threat of nuclear war. Kind of interesting when you think about it. Small, compact congested cities could be taken out with a single mid-yield warhead. Today it would take dozens of warheads to do serious damage to the typical metropolitan area. True. I remember Heinlein remarking on that in an essay in the '50s. Seems an anachronistic concern now, though. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/52 "2013-07-31T15:52:11Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Was completely unaware that “liberals” hated suburbs. What new Teahadist propaganda is this? I think it comes down to this: Cities frighten conservatives. Electorally/politically, I mean. See [_The Emerging Democratic Majority,_](http://www.amazon.com/Emerging-Democratic-Majority-Lisa-Books/dp/0743226917/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375285261&sr=1-1&keywords=democratic+teixeira) by Judis & Teixeira, identifying “ideopolises” – citys-as-centers-of-idea-exchange – as the basis for same. And, culturally, it has always been the case that the countryside is more religious and socially conservative and rather distrustful of the city-slickers. See [this “red-blue” map](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gastner_map_purple_byarea_bycounty.png) showing the 2008 presidential results by county, and shaded from red through blue to purple. A clear pattern emerges: The geographic divide is not North v. South nor East v. West nor Coasts v. Heartland, it is City vs. Countryside. Urban areas are mostly blue, countryside red. And history American and foreign teaches us that, whenever a political conflict comes down to City v. Countryside, the City usually wins and usually deserves to win. [This map](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cartlinearlarge.png) is a cartogram of the above with the size of each county adjusted to reflect its relative population. With that adjustment, note how that great sea of red shrinks to insignificant rivulets trickling through the purple and the blue. (Note also how Florida now looks even more like a . . . well, never mind.) As for the suburbs/exurbs – they’re **purple.** They’re the **battleground.** Claiming liberals “hate” them (which has some little basis in fact, as discussed throughout this thread) can be heard as implying liberals hate not merely suburbs but suburbanites (which also has some little basis in fact, but considerably less of it); which is a good talking point when fighting over those votes. ---
**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:** [July 31, 2013, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/53 "2013-07-31T16:06:00Z")
I’m reasonably liberal and I’m a suburbanite at heart. Heck, I live in the suburbs now. I even have long conversations with my neighbors over the back fence (weather permitting). There are things about suburbia I don’t like, but then there are things about urban and rural living I don’t like either. You pays your money, etc etc. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/54 "2013-07-31T16:06:55Z")
> [@leftfield6](#): > > Pish-posh. Doesn’t the OP know that our _ **war** _ is with _ **Christmas** _??? Pssst: You didn’t get the memo? We already **won** that one. Christmas has been canceled indefinitely. Here’s wishing you a happy and depraved SatansYule! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/55 "2013-07-31T16:16:05Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I think the stereotype is liberals hate the traditional stereotypical suburb. This is basically new (post-1970 or so) development, probably in planned communities with a limited selection of architectural styles and with a HOA governing the neighborhood. Shopping and other service businesses are not walkable, and in fact the suburb itself while it may have sidewalks will have no convenient walking connections to the shopping areas–which are often large strip mall/shopping center deals. > > But to me that’s not really the suburbia I know. I’ve basically lived in either a major city center or what I’d call a “bedroom community” most of my life. A traditional bedroom community is usually a well established town/small city, they aren’t really suburbs but instead are towns that have existed for generations and have become convenient to the larger city as technology has improved transportation and the city itself has grown. > > Living in these communities, you aren’t living in a cookie cutter neighborhood, but usually have a wide range of options including lots of nice older homes (some even pre-20th century), as well as the ability to buy a range of different types of new construction. Since these communities are traditionally towns/cities in their own right, they usually have a little main street area and if you live near that you can easily walk to do regular activities like go to the supermarket, get your hair cut, doctor’s visits etc. > > Depending on where we’re talking about, these communities will sometimes have public transit links to the major city nearby, but most people drive in from these places to work in the city itself. > > These communities I think strike a nice balance. Housing prices are far more affordable, and you usually get a yard in the deal. You can walk to a few local taverns/pubs/dive bars and they have more of a traditional “neighborhood” feel than the weird canned/house-in-a-box feeling from the planned suburbs. I hear ya. Once when I was a reporter for the Daytona Beach _News-Journal,_ my beat included [Lake Helen,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Helen,_Florida) a century-old town, pop. ~1,000, too small to have even one traffic light. Within the town limits was some farming, some retail commerce, no industry (there had been some industry in the past, pre-WWII). It was something like you describe only less so, with a (very) small main-street retail area. The whole thing was suburban-density, but still compact enough to be walkable. All the children in town **walked** to the elementary school. (How many schools can claim that any more?) Some residents worked in town, but it was mostly a bedroom community for commuters to Orlando. Adjacent, and dwarfing Lake Helen, was and is [Deltona,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deltona) also a bedroom community, but a cookie-cutter PUD embodying all the very worst stereotypes of suburban town-planning: No streets, only roads, if you know what I mean – curving-and-recurving roads, walking around impossible, and not even any retail not in strip-mall form and hardly any of that. The Lake Helenites, BTW, were almost all old Florida Cracker families. Most Deltonans came from New York. I know this because they had a local directory of residents categorized by state-of-origin. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/56 "2013-07-31T16:23:23Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > To sum up what several others have said, I’d say “diversity” is something liberals tend to seek/be more comfortable with. Most kinds of diversity – ethnic (in terms of residents), cultural (films, food choices, art options), and architectural – are greater in urban areas than in suburban or rural ones. Yes, ethnically diverse residents live in suburbs, but the density of diversity is lower – you don’t have to rub shoulders with so many people, and therefore you don’t have to encounter so many _kinds_ of people. I grew up in New York City. I now live in a quasi-suburban neighborhood in Austin, TX. I say “quasi-suburban” because it’s technically well within the city limits, but is indistinguishable in most respects from a suburb (single family homes, car-oriented, lots of strip malls). So I feel qualified to say… the notion that cities are more “diverse” than suburbs is ludicrous. My current neighborhood and the local school that my son goes to are the kinds of place that liberal hipsters sneer at as “lily-white.” And yet, byu ANY standard, there is FAR more ethnic, religious, and socio-economic diversity in my quasi-suburban neighborhood than I ever saw in New York City. You scoff, no doubt. New York has millions of black people, and millions of Jews, right? But I never knew or met any of them. My neighborhood and my church were overwhelmingly Irish and Italian when I was growing up. As time went by, there were a LOT more Greeks, but since they weren’t Catholic and didn’t go to Catholic schools, I rarely saw them or interacted with them. Until I went to college, at least 90% of the people I dealt with every day were Irish or Italian. By contrast, my 9 year old son has had classmates and friends of almost every ethnicity and religion. At his backyard birthday parties, we’ve had Korean, Salvadoran, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, African-American, Iranian, Indian, Mexican and Jewish kids. Our “lily-white” suburban neighborhood offers my son a hell of a lot more diversity than my old blue-collar urban neighborhood ever offered me. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/57 "2013-07-31T17:10:29Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > The person making a claim as unequivocal as it is broad cites nothing, references no train of thought, and doesn’t bother to return, while the rest of you are sifting through the chicken entrails for a debate topic. > > If it wasn’t meant to be a joke this OP is still the SDMB’s version of, “why did the chicken cross the road?”…which is still a ‘debate topic’. Sorry, wasn’t trying to abandon the thread. I actually had a nice reply typed up last night with cites, but my computer crashed. I should have some of those cites re-located and posted here shortly. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/58 "2013-07-31T17:15:44Z")
> [@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”? Yes, please describe this war. It’s hard to say much about it until we know what you’re talking about. > [@ralph124c](#): > > Why? At heart, all liberals love “Central Planning” it is the same mentality that gave the world “collective farms”, and ministries of planning. Liberals love to control people-and you cannot do that if the proles have their own houses and cars- you need to herd them all into “public housing projects”-where they can experience the benefits of collective conciousness, and class solidarity! All hail the people! > Funny how the rich liberals do not want to experience these benefits for themselves! (THEY live in mansions out in the country). That’s funny, because government control and central planning, under the rubric of ‘zoning,’ with minimum lot sizes, parking and setback requirements, height limits, and restrictions on where businesses can locate, is the reason suburbs are the way they are. Oh, and the government subsidies in the form of highway spending. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/59 "2013-07-31T17:17:02Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > I grew up in New York City. I now live in a quasi-suburban neighborhood in Austin, TX. I say “quasi-suburban” because it’s technically well within the city limits, but is indistinguishable in most respects from a suburb (single family homes, car-oriented, lots of strip malls). > > So I feel qualified to say… the notion that cities are more “diverse” than suburbs is ludicrous. > > My current neighborhood and the local school that my son goes to are the kinds of place that liberal hipsters sneer at as “lily-white.” And yet, byu ANY standard, there is FAR more ethnic, religious, and socio-economic diversity in my quasi-suburban neighborhood than I ever saw in New York City. > > You scoff, no doubt. New York has millions of black people, and millions of Jews, right? But I never knew or met any of them. My neighborhood and my church were overwhelmingly Irish and Italian when I was growing up. As time went by, there were a LOT more Greeks, but since they weren’t Catholic and didn’t go to Catholic schools, I rarely saw them or interacted with them. Until I went to college, at least 90% of the people I dealt with every day were Irish or Italian. > > By contrast, my 9 year old son has had classmates and friends of almost every ethnicity and religion. At his backyard birthday parties, we’ve had Korean, Salvadoran, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, African-American, Iranian, Indian, Mexican and Jewish kids. Our “lily-white” suburban neighborhood offers my son a hell of a lot more diversity than my old blue-collar urban neighborhood ever offered me. [But then are are other sorts of suburbs.](http://www.amazon.com/Searching-Whitopia-Improbable-Journey-America/dp/B003D7JV8Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375290998&sr=8-1&keywords=whitopia) ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/60 "2013-07-31T18:05:41Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > What leads you to believe that liberals, as a group, hate or have declared war on, suburbs? > [@MEBuckner](#): > > OK, so in other words, I’m joining in on the calls of “Cite?” regarding a “liberal war on suburbs”. [Obama: Days of sprawl ‘are over’](https://www.cnu.org/cnu-salons/2009/02/obama-days-sprawl-are-over) [How Obama Is Robbing The Suburbs To Pay For The Cities](http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/08/13/how-obama-is-robbing-the-suburbs-to-pay-for-the-cities/) [Sierra Club whitepaper](http://www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/whitepaper.asp) [Regionalism: Obama’s Quiet Anti-Suburban Revolution](http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/354734/regionalism-obamas-quiet-anti-suburban-revolution-stanley-kurtz) [Burn Down the Suburbs?](http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/312807/burn-down-suburbs-stanley-kurtz) ETA: “war on suburbs” was just following the linguistic structure of the day: whenever someone dislikes someone, it’s “war on \_\_\_\_\_\_” (ie “war on women”) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965.md?page=4)