Just curious, how do you feel about gun ownership, incandescent lightbulb ownership, toilets that use more than 1.6 gallons per flush, or big SUV’s that get poor gas mileage?
Thanks, this answer was very helpful. I could’ve guessed the environmental reasons, but the “white flight” bit was new information for me. I didn’t realize that some thought of us suburbanites as racist for where we live.
Yes there are- and there are even more kinds of suburbs than that!
If you don’t care to click on my link, here it is in a nutshell: there are a lot of middle class BLACK suburbs in this country, and their middle class black residents generally fled from cities for exactly the same reasons middle-class white folks did. And middle-class black people in places like Southfield, Michigan are are no more eager to live among lower-class blacks than people in Grosse Pointe are.
If the govt can show me data that particular items or behaviors lead to a negative impact on public health (health, environment, protection of vulnerable groups etc), then I support govt oversight to minimize and negative impact to society. Thats not intrusive but govt serving the public good.
You realize that many conservatives feel the exact same way about things like out-of-wedlock births, drug use, etc., right?
ISTM that “wedlock” isn’t really a useful term any more; more like "wedpaperclip"…
Of course I do. That’s why the data is important, so it’s not a liberal/conservative idea but scientifically determined and empirically supported.
Plus, I was answering a direct question that didnt cover those topics.
Let’s see: three of your five cites are to one right-wing writer. A fourth is just one sentence by Obama. (And remember when Clinton said the era of big government was over? I guess he must’ve declared war on big government.) And the fifth cite is a bit extensive, which you don’t cite any particulars from.
IOW, you’ve got nothing.
Yeah, except the “war on women” really does hurt women, and the War on Poverty really did reduce poverty, and the War on Drugs has many of the attributes of a real war. You’d have to give instances of a “war on ____” that merely expressed dislike.
You didn’t? That goes back to the first post-WWII suburban developments. If you wanted to buy a suburban home you got a mortgage-deduction tax break – if you were white. Blacks were almost entirely frozen out of the suburban migration, at least at that period. In those days most white people simply did not want blacks living in their neighborhoods. That also applied pre-suburbia, when blacks in many towns could live only in certain all-black neighborhoods, and home-deeds often included restrictive covenants against selling the home to anyone not of the white race (“When they move in, the property values go down!”), and there were many Sundown Towns, most of them not in the South.
See post #55. Even in a tiny town like Lake Helen, one quadrant (the word applies – the town had a square layout and was divided into four town-council districts of equal area) was mostly-black and at least once I heard it referred to as “Coloredtown.”
Liberals are in a bit of a quandary when it comes to their love of cities. They love culture. Which to them is museums and libraries and ethnic murals. But they have a romanticized view of true city life. The draconian policing, the food deserts, the pollution, the terrible public schools, are things I would think liberals would not enjoy. What it boils down to is liberals like certain parts of the city. Often these are upper middle class liberals who have moved into a newly renovated home in a trendy part of the city so that they can walk to happy hour. They live in homes previously inhabited by working class folks who lived in the city because they had few choices, and they imagine they are somehow connected to those individuals. They see a picture of children playing in an open fire hydrant and feign comradery, but they don’t send their children to school with those children.
They claim that the city is ethnically diverse, but the neighborhoods are just as homogenous as those in the suburbs, if not even more so. They claim the city has more amenities, but healthy food is relegated to the trendy districts I mentioned. They must be talking about libraries and museums again. I drive through the city and see chicken boxes and liquor stores.
First we heard liberals don’t live in the suburbs, and now it turns out they don’t live in the city either.
Funny how ‘Liberal’ is always used as a Mythical Other by those on the right, to whom All Evils can be acribed.
They live in trendy enclaves in the city mostly. I never claimed they don’t live in the suburbs though.
Recognizing that liberals and Democrats aren’t the same exact thing, this is still an absurd claim. I am sure you know how people vote in U.S. cities and we’ve already established that the suburbs are split fairly evenly between Democrats and Republicans.
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I never claimed they don’t live in the suburbs though.
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Several other posters suggested it since it’s related to the premise of this thread. They’re not living in floating green cities yet.
It’s almost like you’re living in the same universe as liberals, you’re so close!
I don’t understand a lot of this post, but one thing that jumps out immediately is that you seem to think that liberals are all white and wealthy. It is possible that working class people of color will also identify as liberals. How do they fit in to this fantasy you have constructed of what liberals are?
Liberals in general don’t hate suburbs. However, to one extent or another, liberals recognize serious problems caused by the creation and maintenance of suburbs, especially in terms of inefficiency/waste of (1) time, (2) resources, and (3) energy as well as increased (4) consumption and (5) pollution.
As has been stated above, a lot of these problems fit under the heading of sprawl problems.
Maintaining suburbs increases the basic cost of living not only for those who choose to move out to the suburbs, but it makes life more expensive for everyone. The hardest consequences are felt by those at the lower ends of the socio-economic scale because they can least afford it. An urban area modeled on an urban sprawl model makes basic necessities more expensive, and it robs the poor particularly of time in commuting, which makes everything harder.
It also increases public costs in terms of road maintenance, cleaning, provision of utilities.
One of the worst things about American-style suburbs is zoning exclusivity. The fact that so many neighborhoods are residential-only zoned means that there are no nearby conveniences. Every basic need requires driving somewhere.
I wouldn’t mind my suburban neighborhood as much if there were more things within close walking distance. And by close, I mean within a quarter mile. You should be able to pop out for basic necessities like milk, bread, soap, light bulbs, tea/coffee, etc., and be back within 10 minutes on foot.
Are you serious?
Yes, three of the articles were written by Stanley Kurtz, but in them he cites others such as Investors.com and FOX News.
The most prominent liberal in the country says “The days where we’re just building sprawl forever, those days are over.”
The Sierra Club (I think you’d have a hard time finding many who would deny that, as an organization, they’re on the liberal side of the spectrum) calls suburbs “irresponsible, often poorly-planned development that destroys green space, increases traffic and air pollution, crowds schools and drives up taxes” - and that was just in the first sentence.
There’s the previously-cited Krugman article in which he says, “… the new research on social mobility suggests that sprawl — not just the movement of jobs out of the city, but their movement out of reach of many less-affluent residents of the suburbs, too — is also playing a role. As I said, this observation clearly reinforces the case for policies that help families function without multiple cars.”
Got news for you. While the CMEC may repeatedly slam Obama as a “Liberal” (among other words which they apparently don’t know the meaning of), Obama is NOT a Liberal. If you took a wider, more honest look at how he’s been governing this nation, you would see that he is actually center-right.
Of course they do, and few people take them seriously.
Boy, this thread is full of stereotypes. For one thing, homeowner’s associations are found in cities as well – they exist in every condominium complex. Second plenty of liberals live in the suburbs as well as the city. In fact, the most left-wing person I personally know lives in Irvine, California. She just likes the big house and yard.