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Twentieth Century Metropolitanization
Twentieth Century Metropolitanization
Pages 7-46
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From page 7... ...
As metropolitan population spread over a wide area and economic and social institutions expanded in scope, governmental units and programs TWENTIETH CENTURY METROPOLITANIZATION 7
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On the one hand, the provision of governmental services on a fragmented geographical basis, though generally successful in meeting urgent immediate needs, unduly reinforced the tendency toward population dispersion in metropolitan regions. On the other hand, the proliferation of units aggravated the fiscal and social inequities within the metropolitan community as a whole.
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From page 9... ...
A large part of the increase in the metropolitan population has been accounted for by a relatively small number of urban centers, even though the total number of metropolitan areas continues to increase. In recent decades, however, the large centers in the North and Northeast have accounted for a declining proportion of metropolitan growth, and the most rapid growth has occurred in the metropolitan areas of the South and Southwest.
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, using the 1960 population distribution, calculated that 95 percent of the country's population lived within the daily commuting field of a metropolitan city. Major transportation routes open up the metropolitan area and hence additional employment opportunities for the nonmetropolitan population.
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As economic activity grew, the intensive users of space -- busiTWENTIETH CENTURY METROPOLITANIZATION 11
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For nearly a hundred years after 1820, as industry expanded and the urban population grew, abetted by migration first from Europe and then from rural America, the older, more centrally located residential areas tended to be taken over by more intensive industrial and commercial users. With the passage of time, population growth in the innermost zones of the central city slowed and then population declined, as residences were replaced by industrial and commercial uses.
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Decline in Density Despite the increase in the population of metropolitan communities, the rapid rate of movement toward the periphery has resulted in a general decline in population density. At first the deconcentration in TWENTIETH CENTURY METROPOLITANIZATION 13
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From page 14... ...
For several decades, the metropolitan zones outside the central cities have been growing more rapidly than the central cities. Between 1910 and 1970 the portion of the metropolitan population living in the central cities decreased from 75 percent to 45 percent.
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On the other hand, people with lower incomes, less education, and fewer skills have been statistically overrepresented in the central cities. A similar selective process has been at work with 1An SMSA -- Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area -- is a county or group of contiguous counties which contains at least one central city of 50,000 inhabitants or more or "twin cities" with a combined population of at least 50,000.
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From page 16... ...
, in Streetcar Suburbs, noted that by 1900 the lower class was being left behind in the central city while the middle and upper classes moved to the outer ring. Within this ring, the band closest to the city contained the lower middle class, the next closest, the upper middle class, and the wealthy were found farthest out.
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From page 17... ...
Elsewhere, both the highest and lowest classes may still be statistically overrepresented in the city. Moreover, it is important to understand that while most research has focused on central city-outside central city differences, the range of differences among suburbs is even greater.
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Fineiings In the process of metropolitanization, there has been suburban selectivity of the higher socioeconomic groups. As multicentered metropolitan communities evolve, however, socioeconomic variations among suburbs will probably be of increasing significance: 18 TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF METROPOLITAN AMERICA
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Total SMSAb Total Central City Total Outside Central Yeara Population Population Population City Population 1900 12.1 7.8 6.8 9.4 1910 11.1 7.3 6.9 8.1 1920 10.3 7.2 7.3 7.0 1930 10.2 8.1 9.0 6.4 1940 10.2 8.6 10.1 6.0 1950 10.7 10.0 13.1 5.7 1960 11.4 11.7 17.8 5.2 1970 12.3 13.7 21.9 5.5 aData for 1900-1960 refer to the coterminous United States, whereas data for 1970 include Hawaii and Alaska. "Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area.
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From page 20... ...
In moving to the suburbs, the greatest number of blacks move to large black areas adjacent to the city, in effect forming a segregated overflow from the black area of the central city they left behind. The next largest number move into more distant all-black subcommunities -- racial enclaves.
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From page 21... ...
There then began a trend of blacks, especially middle-class ones, moving from the central cities to the suburbs. Mismatch in Location of Jobs and People While the net effect of the deconcentrating movement of population is to diminish the educational and occupational levels of those living in the central cities relative to those living in the suburbs, numerous high-level occupations remain in the central city.
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From page 22... ...
Moreover, plants can be located to take advantage of newly attractive truck expressways and suburban business areas. The changes in the comparative advantages of city versus suburban location have resulted in a large increase in suburban manufacturing, while central city manufacturing has declined or, at best, held its own.
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Moreover, within the central city the retail trade of the central business district (CBD) has tended to increase much more slowly than that of the central city as a whole.
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Although reverse commuting is on the increase, labor may be short in a particular suburban area while at the same time there is a surplus in the city. As jobs move to the suburbs, residential and employment dis24 TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF METROPOLITAN AMERICA
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From page 25... ...
Thus, as the suburban drift of employment continues, the effect of residential segregation may be to increase the costs of employment for minorities or to reduce job opportunities or both. Findings As metropolitan areas develop, there is a tendency for the jobs best suited for the labor force of the suburbs to remain concentrated in the central city, particularly the downtown central business district, while the jobs best suited to the type of labor force locked into the central city move to the suburb Access to Metropolitan Opportunities The metropolitan community offers its citizens a wide selection of services and opportunities -- stores, amusements, public and private services in such areas as education and medical .care, and so forth.
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Access also declined among the older population, where 71 percent of women and 36 percent of men over 65 lacked primary access. Apart from income, age, ethnic, and sex differences in access to automobiles, there are many people for whom mobility is limited 28 TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF METROPOLITAN AMERICA
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From page 29... ...
The aged, the physically handicapped, and the poor, however, do suffer a deprivation of access, for these are the predominant groups lacking use of automobiles, which are now necessary for metropolitan mobility, particularly in low-density suburban districts. Proliferation of Governmental Units As the proportion of the metropolitan population living outside the central cities has increased to well over half, governmental units have TWENTIETH CENTURY METROPOLITANIZATION 29
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SMSA Total Outside Central Central City City Total Outside Central Central City City Chicago Philadelphia (Pa.-N.|.) Pittsburgh New York St.
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The physiTWENTIETH CENTURY METROPOLITANIZATION 31
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In contrast, in the same metropolitan areas, the central cities were expending $232 per capita for noneducational purposes in 1965, compared to an expenditure of $132 per capita by local governments outside the cities. One explanation for this difference is that part of central city noneducational expenditure reflects expenditures for suburban use of the central city, primarily use by commuters.
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As the cities were losing their advantage, the suburbs were building up an inventory of school facilities and improving the quality of services. After 1957 the central city-suburb educational expenditure gap widened.
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The poor who remain concentrated in the central city constitute a special charge on government not only in welfare costs but in other service sectors such as health, education, housing, and criminal justice. The upper-income groups, in contrast, represent an expanding resource with respect to taxation and also in TWENTIETH CENTURY METROPOLITANIZATION 35
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From page 36... ...
While the ratio of high to low incomes rises with size of metropolitan area, so does the difference between the central city and outside central city ratios, and at a more rapid rate. Central cities have proportionately more of the aged, the less-educated, and female-headed families (Table 8)
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The movement of population to the suburbs and hence to separate political units has aggravated fiscal and social inequities within metropolitan areas. Suburban Costs to the Central City A study (Hawley, 1951)
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Kasarda also showed that the number of suburbanites who commute to work in the central city has a direct impact on the total per capita operating expenditures for central city services. His detailed examination has shown that the suburban population in general and the commuting population in particular exert heavy costs on police, fire protection, highway, sanitation, recreation, and general administrative functions performed in the central cities.
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found TWENTIETH CENTURY METROPOLITANIZATION 39
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From page 40... ...
Among blacks, urban-to-rural migrants made up only 11 percent of the rural population, while rural-tourban migrants made up 21 percent of the black urban population. As metropolitanization gathers momentum, it reaches out to link and absorb formerly rural areas on the periphery of a metropolitan community.
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There are also other costs resulting from suburbanization that the suburbanite escapes because of the fragmented nature of metropolitan government. Eath taxing TWENTIETH CENTURY METROPOLITANIZATION 41
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There have been efforts to measure air pollution effects on land 42 TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF METROPOLITAN AMERICA
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Favorable credit arrangements and tax treatment for owneroccupied housing also may have contributed to a more decentralized urban pattern. In the older sections of the central city, it is more difficult to utilize these advantages of home ownership.
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In essence, the central city and the people who continue to reside there bear costs of suburban sprawl for which they are not compensated, while suburbanites receive some benefits for which they do not pay. Suburbanization may be said to have gone too far inasmuch as the costs are not fully borne by those who suburbanize and the present structure of government does not address the distortions that result.
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From page 45... ...
As growth took place, it was accompanied by an even more rapid deconcentrating movement of population and activity within the metropolitan area. The consequences for the metropolitan population as a whole were an unprecedented rise in standards of living and improvement in the quality of life.
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