Tag Archives: suburbs

Can buses attract wealthier, more educated residents?

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Amanda Hess discusses ways in which bus lines could attract wealthier, more educated riders:

Can a city build a less stigmatized bus? After all, the racial and class bias attached to city buses has little to do with the vehicle itself and everything to do with the riders on it. Garrett and Taylor note that though “bus ridership declines with rising income, the use of streetcars, subways, and commuter railroads tends to increase with higher income.” As the blog Seattlest put it in 2006: “If the actual goal is to get people out of their cars and onto transit by choice, no one’s going to give up the hybrid for a damn bus.” But it was not always this way. When public buses were first introduced in Washington, D.C. in the early 1900s, many riders viewed them as a more comfortable, “modern” alternative to the existing streetcar system. By the 1960s, the city’s streetcar lines were abandoned and dismantled. In 2009, D.C. began laying track for a new line of (exorbitantly expensive) streetcars, including along some “blighted” corridors of the city, all of them already served by city buses. The plan was targeted less at getting commuters where they needed to go and more at coaxing them to move in this “new,” exciting way—maybe even to parts of town they previously avoided.

Choice commuters want a transit solution that seems modern, even if it’s actually old school. Really, they want a transportation choice that feels made for people just like them. And there’s no reason—as Salon’s Will Doig has argued—that buses can’t achieve a similar reversal as the revitalized streetcar. In major cities from Colombia to China, Doig says, the bus has risen to become “a form of what people see as upper-class transit.” In Mexico City, “the [Bus Rapid Transit] system has come to be seen as the upper-class form of transit because it’s perceived as safer and cleaner” than the subway. As Doig notes, making buses that beat the subway often means making them act more like trains—streamlining routes and limiting stops; making bus and train routes appear more equivalent on transit maps; renaming bus lines after colors instead of numbers; cordoning off dedicated bus lanes to avoid traffic congestion.

While some of these improvements are practical, overcoming the stigma is also a matter of gimmickry that doesn’t help anyone get to work any faster. In the United States, the DOT has noted that bus rapid transit systems can benefit from “an articulated brand identity” that helps improve “the image that choice riders have of transit.” Newer bus lines targeted at choice commuters are often painted in bright, contrasting colors with the city’s existing buses. These new bells and whistles don’t come cheap, and discretionary commuters aren’t eager to finance the cost—remember, they don’t have to be there. Meanwhile, existing bus commuters are left with no choice but to accept fare increases, even if their buses aren’t getting any better—actually, even if they’re getting worse.

What is the point of public transportation? Is it a social service to help those most in need? Or is it an environmental initiative to get drivers out of their cars? And can it ever be both? “Unlike any other public transit around town,” reads the advertising copy for the DC Circulator, a fleet of cherry-red buses that run on five limited routes, arrive every ten minutes, cost a buck a ride, and have successfully courted the most elusive bus demographic—60 percent of Circulator riders hold college or graduate degrees, and 18 percent bring in over $80,000 a year. But it appears to have attracted these new riders without losing sight of the city’s captive riders. Thirty-four percent of Circulator riders are black, and 44 percent make under $40,000 a year. After several years of operation, the Circulator finally cut some lines around the Smithsonian and Convention Center and expanded its service to some predominantly black neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River. A train could not be so easily diverted.

Interesting discussion. It reminds me of some of the efforts to introduce buses into the Chicago suburbs through PACE and other organizations since at least the early 1970s. Even when introduced to heavily trafficked routes, such as shuttling commuters from train stations to other parking areas or large workplaces, the buses have had difficulty attracting riders. I suspect even when the buses are free and ultra convenient, suburbanites would tend to turn them down. Why? Two reasons, one of which Hess discusses. First, there is some sort of stigma attached to buses. Second, certain people would rather (and can) pay more for the freedom and alleged convenience that driving offers. Of course, these two issues can be intertwined. But I think this is tied to the American love of the automobile and the cultural emphasis we place on not being tied down by transportation options that seem more out of our individual control.

I do wonder where a public discussion of mass transit as a social service would go…

Culture affects how one gives directions

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A new study suggests that Europeans and Americans have different ways to give directions:

The researchers brought test participants into a lab and presented them with a map of a small district containing 17 landmarks and 29 streets. These wayfinders were then assigned a starting point and a destination and asked to provide directions to someone navigating the area. Half the time they were told the navigator was driving; the other half they were told the navigator was just looking at a map.The different navigator conditions were meant to encourage different types of directions. Hund and colleagues believed wayfinders would offer drivers more first-person descriptions (including landmarks) and would offer map-readers more third-person descriptions (including street names and cardinal directions).

These conditions did have some impact, but what really influenced the type of directions was the culture of the wayfinder. Americans were far more likely, across all tests, to give navigators a street name or a cardinal direction (i.e. north, east, south, or west). Dutch wayfinders, on the other hand, provided far more landmarks and left-right turn-descriptors…

The researchers note that many of the Dutch wayfinders became frustrated when asked to give map-readers directions. “They realized there might be a more effective way of describing the route on the map, but never came up with the idea to switch from left-right descriptors to cardinal terms,” Hund and company write. They suppose the Dutch would have improved considerably if given enough time to convert cardinal directions into relative terms — equating “east” with “right,” for instance.

I’ve wondered if it isn’t the culture that matters but rather the spatial arrangement of the places of which someone is familiar. For example, a good number of major Americans cities are laid out in grids. Think of Manhattan: the avenues are north-south, the numbered streets are east-west, and this makes it easy to find a lot of different routes to the same place. In contrast, some older settlements such as some older sections of European cities and several American cities like Boston are more prone to have winding streets that are more aligned to the topography. If you are from a grid area, you are used to giving cardinal directions because they are easy to follow. If operating in a less grid-like format, landmarks matter more as one can remain oriented even if the streets don’t seem to be headed in that direction.

I’ve also wondered how this changes in the suburbs. Are landmarks as easy to identify and utilize? Without as many tall buildings plus a landscape that contains more repetitive features (even if the strip malls and big box stores look different, they are not as distinctive), noteworthy landmarks can be hard to find.

A third option: are Americans used to traveling longer distances for each trip, making it more difficult to use verbal turn-by-turn directions?

 

SI columnist doesn’t like having “sports sociologists” commenting on football and concussions

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A Sports Illustrated columnist takes issue with some recent comments from a sociologist about the future of football considering the growing knowledge about concussions:

Jay Coakley, a “sports sociologist” at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, recently said to a New York Times reporter, “”Football is really on the verge of a turning point here. We may see it in 15 years in pretty much the same place as boxing or ultimate fighting.”

A few things about that:

(1) Can we do a story on this topic now without input from a “sports sociologist”?

(2) That’s crazy.

That puts the NFL in a nice, hedge-rowed suburban box. That’s not where the NFL lives.

I haven’t done a study. Maybe someone has. But I’ve covered the NFL for close to 30 years. It is not Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. A majority of its players — and certainly, its stars — did not grow up with free and easy access to golf courses, tennis courts or any of the other options that parents evidently will be turning to now. I did a book with the former Chad Johnson. He grew up in the Liberty City neighborhood of Miami, host of the pre-Super Bowl riot in 1989. Chad wasn’t exactly hanging out at Doral, practicing flop wedges.

Chad is more typical of the league than not. This isn’t to say parents or guardians of kids playing football in places like Liberty City are OK with their charges getting concussed. It’s to say that opportunities there are constricted, but the talent is not. If you want to declare, as Coakley did, that football faces UFC-status, you must also ignore the sociology of the game. Which is a strange thing for a sociologist to do.

A few thoughts:

1. I’m not sure what this writer has against sociologists. Jay Coakley is a sociologist who has written a lot in the sociology of sports, including being a co-author for a textbook on the subject that is now in its 11th edition. Perhaps the writer doesn’t think sociologists are qualified to talk about this specific subject? Perhaps the writer doesn’t think academics can really talk about sports? Both of these ideas seem silly: sociologists of sports do study things such as these and perhaps have more data and evidence to argue on this topic than the accumulated observations of journalists.

2. The writer argues that Coakley is suggesting football is more of a suburban sport (remember: a majority of Americans live in suburbs) while he suggests more NFL players come out of more desperate urban situations and will continue to see football as one of the only ways out, concussions or not. Both commentators could be right: perhaps there will always be some people who will want to play football while those with other options, given their class and income, choose other sports or vocations. But, having a sport with only lower-class urban residents could still change the sport; at the least, talents like Tom Brady would never become part of the game.

New census data suggests many American big cities now growing faster than their suburbs

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New census data suggests demographic patterns not seen since before the 1920s: big cities growing faster than their suburbs.

Driving the resurgence are young adults, who are delaying careers, marriage and having children amid persistently high unemployment. Burdened with college debt or toiling in temporary, lower-wage positions, they are spurning homeownership in the suburbs for shorter-term, no-strings-attached apartment living, public transit and proximity to potential jobs in larger cities.

While economists tend to believe the city boom is temporary, that is not stopping many city planning agencies and apartment developers from seeking to boost their appeal to the sizable demographic of 18-to-29-year olds. They make up roughly 1 in 6 Americans, and some sociologists are calling them “generation rent.” The planners and developers are betting on young Americans’ continued interest in urban living, sensing that some longer-term changes such as decreased reliance on cars may be afoot…

Primary cities in large metropolitan areas with populations of more than 1 million grew by 1.1 percent last year, compared with 0.9 percent in surrounding suburbs. While the definitions of city and suburb have changed over the decades, it’s the first time that growth of large core cities outpaced that of suburbs since the early 1900s…

In all, city growth in 2011 surpassed or equaled that of suburbs in roughly 33 of the nation’s 51 large metro areas, compared to just five in the last decade.

Note: this is from one year of data, 2010 to 2011, it is hard to know whether this is a big trend or not. The different in population growth was 0.2%, not inconsequential but not exactly a big shift either. We’re not exactly at the end of the suburban era just yet.

Let’s say these numbers hold for a few years. It would be interesting to see how suburbs respond. It would also be helpful to see if the people who are moving to the city are doing so from inner-ring suburbs, exurbs, or somewhere in between as these different types of suburban communities would likely respond in different ways. I could imagine scenarios where built-out larger suburbs, places like Naperville, push for denser and taller developments in order to try to attract residents.

A few sociological answers to why American kids are “spoiled rotten”

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A recent piece in the New Yorker asks “Why Are American Kids So Spoiled?” Here appear to be the crux of the problem:

With the exception of the imperial offspring of the Ming dynasty and the dauphins of pre-Revolutionary France, contemporary American kids may represent the most indulged young people in the history of the world. It’s not just that they’ve been given unprecedented amounts of stuff—clothes, toys, cameras, skis, computers, televisions, cell phones, PlayStations, iPods. (The market for Burberry Baby and other forms of kiddie “couture” has reportedly been growing by ten per cent a year.) They’ve also been granted unprecedented authority. “Parents want their kids’ approval, a reversal of the past ideal of children striving for their parents’ approval,” Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbell, both professors of psychology, have written. In many middle-class families, children have one, two, sometimes three adults at their beck and call. This is a social experiment on a grand scale, and a growing number of adults fear that it isn’t working out so well: according to one poll, commissioned by Timeand CNN, two-thirds of American parents think that their children are spoiled.

The article is primarily built around anthropological comparisons with “the Matsigenka, a tribe of about twelve thousand people who live in the Peruvian Amazon.” But I think there are also some sociological answers to this issue.

1. American culture has long emphasized children. While this article seems to suggest some of this is tied to recent technological and consumer changes (we can buy so much stuff so cheaply), this stretches back further than the consumeristic 1980s to today. This reminded me of the Middletown study, an in-depth examination of Muncie, Indiana that started in the 1920s. In the first study published in 1929, here are a few of the findings regarding children (and these are from my notes so there are some summaries and some quotes):

-growing problem of “early sophistication” where young teenagers (12 to 14) act like grown-ups (135) – part of this is the relaxation of traditional prohibitions between interactions of boys and girls (137) – greater aggressiveness and less modest dress of girls (140) – parents are unsure and puzzled about what to hold children to (if they could even do that ) (143) – parents increasingly devoting more of their lives to and sacrificing for the children (146-147) – mothers eager to get their hands on any resource that will help them train their children (149) yet there is “a feeling that their difficulties outrun their best efforts to cope with them” (151)

-the school provides the most formal and systematic training (181) – the school now has more responsibility where this task may have fallen to the family in the past (190)

-“If education is oftentimes taken for granted by the business class, it is no exaggeration to say that it evokes the fervor of a religion, a means of salvation, among a large section of the working class.” (187) – “Parents insist upon more and more education as part of their children’s birthright; editors and lecturers point to education as a solution for every kind of social ill…” (219) – “Education is a faith, a religion, to Middletown.” (219) – education is not desired for its content or the life of the mind but rather as a symbol: “[seen] by the working class as an open sesame that will mysteriously admit their children to a world closed to them, and by the business class as a heavily sanctioned aid in getting on further economically or socially in the world.” (220)

In other words, the Middletown study hinted at an American world that was starting to revolve around children: teenagers were gaining independence (particularly with the introduction of the automobile) and education was a growing community emphasis as it represented future progress for younger generations.

Researchers in the early mass American suburbs also noted the emphasis on family and children. The classic study of Crestwood Heights (1956) as well as some work by Dennison Nash and Peter Berger (early 1960s) showed that suburban life was organized around children. People moved to the suburbs for their children, particularly the increase in open space, the better schools, and safety. Other more recent researchers (such as Eileen Luhr) have also noted this emphasis in contemporary suburbia.

Overall, these studies suggest that the emphasis on children is not necessarily new in the United States. The form that it takes might have changed but this is not simply the result of recent trends and this is also intertwined with the important processes of consumerism, suburbanization, and education which also have a longer and more complicated history.

2. This reminds me of Annette Lareau’s two types of parenting (see Unequal Childhoods): concerted cultivation (middle-class and up) and the accomplishment of natural growth (working-class and below). Lareau argues that there are benefits of both styles of parenting (as well as disadvantages) and I wonder if some of this “spoiledness” could be beneficial down the road. What the journalist is describing seems to fit some of Lareau’s description of concerted cultivation: parents cede authority to children as the children are taught to ask questions and assert their interests and children are pushed by parents into all sorts of activities to develop their skills. Here are my notes on what Lareau says are the advantages of this:

children become adept at using language, activities are said to teach them skills that will prepare them for later opportunities/jobs/school, parents help them access new things in school and activities, they become assertive and challenge institutions to help them, institutions often made up of same kind of people so these kids fit in

And my summary of the disadvantages:

feel a sense of entitlement, little talk about money so children have little idea what things cost (in terms of money and time), parents spend a lot of time sacrificing for children, conflict can arise with professionals (school teachers and administrators in particular throughout the text), conflict between siblings and limited contact with extended families

Doesn’t this sound like this article is arguing? While there are clearly disadvantages to this way of raising children (and the differences are perhaps made more stark in comparing this to past childrearing strategies, or even the relative lack of childhood several hundred years ago), there are also advantages. Overall, Lareau suggests children raised under concerted cultivation are better prepared than their counterparts to join the adult world. Even from a young age, these children are taught to challenge institutions and given skills that serve them down the road.

Based on Lareau’s findings, is the story all bad? Perhaps not. When I read critiques like this, I always wonder if there is a little generational bias present: “these young people of today just aren’t like we were in our day.” I suppose time will help us figure this out, particularly as we see how today’s youths handle adulthood and what they are able to accomplish.

Time’s “The History of the American Dream” a limited overview

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Time’s latest cover story titled “The History of the American Dream” (here is the image and the story) seems to be the epitome of a piece that runs when there isn’t big news for the week (and they were just a day or two away from leading with the Jerry Sandusky verdict…). The article itself offers a limited history while repeatedly suggesting the idea of the American Dream is under attack because of economic and political realities. Here are a few quotes from the story:

The Dream is about liberty and prosperity and stability, but it is also about escape and reinvention. Mark Twain understood this. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn doesn’t flinch from the racism and greed of American life. If there is any redemption to be found, it comes from small moments of communion, of humanity. The novel concludes with the enslaved Jim’s being granted his freedom and Huck’s deciding “to light out for the Territory, ahead of the rest” — an enduring American impulse and an essential element of the American Dream.

The myth of the West was the myth of the nation: that all of us could light out for the Territory and build new, prosperous lives. The allure of the belief in the individual’s capacity to make his way — to cross oceans or mountains — only grew stronger as America grew older. Our center of political gravity has always been in motion from east to west (and, to a real extent, from north to south). Though the Census of 1890 declared that the frontier was no more, the idea of packing up and moving on to better things has never faded.

Yet there is a missing character in this popular version of the story of America’s rugged individualism: the government, which helped make the rise of the individual possible. Americans have never liked acknowledging that what we now call the public sector has always been integral to making the private sector successful. Given the American Revolution’s origins as a rebellion against taxation and distant authority, such skepticism is understandable, even if it’s not well founded. As we have with race, we have long proved ourselves quite capable of living with this contradiction, using Hamiltonian means (centralized decisionmaking) while speaking in Jeffersonian rhetorical terms (that government is best which governs least).

The best part of the article: it mentions the important role of government (though he could have included state and local governments as well). Jon Meacham discusses how the government supported the railroad as it granted charters, right-of-ways, and land to companies that wanted to make money and also happened to open up the interior. The contrast here is interesting and instructive: Americans claim to be individualists but the American Dream has been supported by government policies and monies for a long time.

A few things the article could have done better and both of these are tied to more recent understandings of what the American Dream means:

1. Meacham tries to take the big picture here going back to the founders and discussing the Civil Rights Movement. But he misses a key component of the American Dream as it is understood today: the connection to the American suburbs and homeownership. This movement has transformed the country from a land of frontiers to a suburban nation where since the early 1900s, those with opportunity tend to move out of the city to a place that offers some of the city and country.

2. Meacham also misses the role of consumption. Meacham is talking about big ideals in this story but for some Americans, the Dream means being able to live at a certain level. This is exemplified by an early quote in this story about the findings from a White House Task Force:

“middle-class families are defined by their aspirations more than their income. [We assume] that middle-class families aspire to homeownership, a car, college education for their children, health and retirement security and occasional family vacations.”

This is all about consumption, even if each of these objects could be argued to promote liberty, happiness, and human flourishing. The idea of the American Dream was sold heavily to the American public starting in the early 1900s by corporations who wanted to sell refrigerators, cars, radios, and other products. Indeed, the modern understanding of the American Dream is very much influenced by the rise of the mass-production economy as well as the economic prosperity America experienced.

Several reasons Americans may be moving toward rejecting sprawl

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An architecture writer sums up some of the arguments of why Americans might be starting to turn against sprawl:

In short, builders are recognizing that buyers (and renters, too!) value the neighborhood as much as — if not more than — the house. And what they want from that neighborhood might not be McMansions and four-car garages after all. Resale value may not in fact trump all else. Young and old, whether they’re in the city or the suburbs, want to walk to places like restaurants and shops. (And let’s stop talking about the integration of things like cafes, public transit and bike racks as “urbanizing” an area, which only reinforces the divide between two entities that are divided enough already.)

People have begun to wake up to the fact that the more time spent in the car means poorer health and less time with their families — and they’re seeking shorter commutes. They’re interested in smaller homes that are easier to maintain (and less expensive to heat and cool). Young millennials and older baby boomers are also showing less and less interest in car ownership and a corresponding greater interest in public transit, walking and biking. And again, it’s likely that we’re all less interested in continuing to discuss “urban” and “suburban” as dueling polar opposites — and more interested in recognizing there’s mutual benefit to some overlap.

The aforementioned changes point to the fact that a paradigmatic shift in our concept of the American dream is underway. And this shift is not just because of the recession, says Gregory Vilkin, managing principal and president of MacFarlane Partners, quoted in that USA Today piece, “It’s no longer the American dream to own a plot of land with a house on it and two cars in the driveway.”

And here is her summary of the people still defending sprawl:

And yet … there are still those who are having none of it. And they are a vocal and often breathtakingly well-funded minority. For them, the sprawl that characterized the years leading up to the financial crisis remains a dream to strive for. Any threat to the McMansion of yore is equated to “feudal socialism” (I kid you not). And these opponents not only excel at mobilizing the troops but at mastering the message. Take a look at the rhetoric of, say, the Texas Republican party, which recently passed “Resist 21” in opposition to Agenda 21, the United Nations’ sustainable communities strategy adopted in 1992. Taken together, proclaims Resist 21, those strategies aspire to “the comprehensive control of all our population and its reduction to sustainable levels and the socialization of all activities by their relocation to highly restricted urban settlement centers.”

Nothing like cherry-picking the more extreme arguments…there is not much defense of the “traditional American suburbs” here. At the same time, I thought this was a decent summary of some of the arguments out there though, of course, it remains to be seen which side Americans will choose. Is “everyone” really interested in merging urban and suburban life? Opponents of sprawl can continue to tout the advantages of denser living but we don’t have the proof yet that we are headed toward a full “greatinversion” back to city life.

Another note: there is a small paragraph in this article suggesting that government could do more to promote alternatives to sprawl. This is true but one doesn’t have to go all the way to a Agenda 21 level of involvement. Local governments could provide tax breaks or incentives for denser (and more affordable) housing. Gas taxes could be raised. More money could be spent on mass transit. The government could revoke the mortgage interest deduction. Different levels of government could cede some of their own power (such as 45 mosquito abatement districts in DuPage County) in order to work together on a metropolitan level and solve problems together. And so on. The federal government helped promote suburban sprawl throughout much of the 21st century – what would happen if the playing field started tilting in the other direction? Is any attempt to provide alternatives to sprawl “feudal socialism”?

 

Australians love the suburbs

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Few countries in the world embrace the suburbs in the same way as Americans. One close contender is Australia: an Australian professor describes their enthusiasm for the suburbs:

Historian Graeme Davison asked if Australia was the first suburban nation. He knew the scientific answer didn’t matter. We were, whatever the carbon date, among the most enthusiastic of peoples to embrace the suburban promise. Despite the mythic outback imagery that Australia has vigorously exported and exploited, the record shows we like suburbs more than any other way of living. We enjoy living together more than we care to admit – but not too closely. The suburb struck the perfect balance between collective security and individual possibility. The great quilt of this human accord hugs the continental coastline. Sea change and tree change means no change, really – more suburbia, only in new places.

This has some interesting parallels to the American case: Americans liked their frontier imagery (though the mass urbanization of the 1900s weakened this). Americans like community (see the oft-quoted passages from de Toqueville about voluntary participation) but have always held this in tension with individualism. Americans like the balance between being close to urban amenities and yet having some yard in a smaller community. I’ve wondered before how much the fact that both the US and Australia are British settler nations factors into this embrace of the suburbs.

A reminder: just a few years ago, Australia passed the United States in having the largest average new houses in the world. However, I suspect since the average American new home has once again gotten larger, the US is back at the top of this list.

Portraying fear and multiculturalism in the Australian suburbs

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An Australian playwright talks about what he saw in the suburbs that prompted him to write his first play titled Little Borders:

Several years ago, my family home in Adelaide was knocked down and rebuilt. The suburb was once a new development, built onto what had originally been swampland. Over the years, the house had begun to sink; the kitchen was slightly lower than the adjacent rooms, and a crack ran through the length of the ceiling. Despite the suburb’s swampy foundations, our street was pristine. It was quiet, lined with trees, and curved alongside a man-made lake. People jogged. They walked their dogs. They smiled at strangers.

While our family home was being rebuilt, we moved to a rental property in a nearby suburb. The house was on a main road. We woke up at night to the sound of motorists loudly hammering their horns. My brother and I started walking to the corner store barefoot, in board shorts, to buy frozen peas and schnitzels.

We came home one day to find the house across the street sealed off by police tape, with hazmat-suited officers wandering in and out. The same prostitute kept making conversation with me at the bus stop. She was very friendly-and liked that I was half-Maltese, as she herself was born in Greece and was planning to return there later that year – but it was still a bizarre culture shock.

When we finally moved back to our rebuilt home, I remained fascinated with the idea of suburbs that are geographically close, but socioeconomically divided. I overheard our smiling, jogging, dog-walking neighbours talking in racially incensed language about the new residents of the housing commission homes down the road, reminding each other to lock their cars at night.

At the same time, both major political parties were battling it out over the issue of asylum seekers, with each leader attempting to court votes by promising a stronger brand of xenophobia than their opponent. From both sides, the message was clear: Boat People are approaching fast, they pose a threat to our national security, and the only rational response is mass panic.

I became interested in exploring how these notions of class difference and fear of outsiders clashed with the image of Australia as an egalitarian nation that celebrates its multiculturalism. At some point in my research, I struck upon the idea of setting the play in a gated community, which gave these issues potency, etching them into the physical world of the play. It was from this point that Little Borders really started to take shape.

This sounds like it could be an interesting play. I wonder how much it will be able to escape common cliches about suburban life that have been bandied about around in the United States since the 1950s.

The description of the suburbs quoted above does hint at the changes that American (and apparently Australian?) suburbs have experienced in recent years: they are becoming more diverse in terms of race and ethnicity as well as social class. Of course, there has been an uptick in gated communities as some suburban residents don’t look on these changes fondly and there are still profound divisions between certain suburbs.

A question: are there any plays that see suburbs as good places? For example, you could flip the above story a bit and suggest that suburbs that were once closed off to “others” are now slowly opening up which means new opportunities for some. The suburbs will likely never be ideal but there have been some notable changes in recent years.

Similarity between US and France: right-wing voters in the suburbs

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Although American and French suburbs are often different kinds of places, here is one intriguing similarity: voters in both American and French suburbs have leaned to the right in recent elections.

Her strong showing gives her National Front (FN) hope of its first seats in parliament since the late 1980s. It also casts the spotlight on a new phenomenon: the success of the far right among lower middle class suburban voters.

“In 2012, the far-right vote has crystallized in these communities far from the big-city centers,” said Nice University sociologist Gilles Ivaldi.

In the past decade, soaring real estate prices have forced the working class and lower middle class out of urban centers and into soulless suburban housing estates, inconveniently far from their jobs and often with few public services.

These people are not the poorest of the poor, but squeezed between the bourgeoisie and an immigrant class living in drab tower blocks on the edge of the big cities, they fear they have the most to lose…

A study by the left-leaning Jean Jaures Foundation shows Le Pen scored the highest vote in suburban communities located between 20 and 50 km (12 to 30 miles) from metropolitan centers. In the cities, her score averaged less than 15 percent.

Could we see a political convergence of disaffected, conservative right-wing voters from suburbs on both sides of the Atlantic?

One big difference: this article is primarily about far right-wing voters in France who have a ways to go before becoming a sizable political presence compared to Republicans.