Harry Moroz
The New Narrative: Cities Aren’t Cesspools
That Barack Obama won the “city vote” – 83% of Philadelphia County, 76% of Chicago’s Cook County, 68.5% of Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County – is no surprise. The victory was no small affair, either: The Telegraph notes that Obama bested Kerry’s 2004 performance in big cities by 11% and in small cities by 10%. But will this support translate into a federal policy that recognizes the primacy of the nation’s cities?
Recent history is certainly not on the side of city dwellers.
After Reagan’s neglect of urban areas, the 1992 L.A. riots forced Bush I and Congress to negotiate an unlikely election-year urban agenda. The Houston Chronicle described the momentous undertaking with lyrical flourish:
For one fleeting moment, it was as if a window had flown wide open after being frozen shut for years. Political leaders dusted off the hoary notion of an urban agenda. The nightly news bristled with tales from the inner city. Many Americans hoped that, somehow, the stubborn dilemmas of crime and poverty that so dehumanize urban life would be tackled with a renewed public will.
The rhetoric – indeed, the events – that mobilized action on urban issues after the riots portrayed cities as concentrations of misery, poverty, and crime. This was a revival of the “urban crisis” language employed during the Johnson and Carter administrations. But Bush I and Congress eventually gave up on their urban brethren. The Chronicle sighed:
Yet except for a flurry of local efforts, nothing much has happened at all…“It takes more than one riot to get people's attention…” said Edwin Dorn, a researcher at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Conservatives, from Reagan through our now defeated Republican presidential candidate, have taken advantage of this “urban crisis” language to portray urban residents as (un-American) moochers of federal welfare. A 1992 post-riot Heritage Foundation article typifies the criticism that has hamstrung federal urban policymaking:
Today’s welfare system, and the irresponsibility it demands as the price for government aid, is perhaps the leading cause of the destructive social and economic environment in America’s inner cities- the environment that made the Los Angeles riots a possibility.
Conservatives thus seized on the urban crisis language used to motivate support for federal urban policy and used it against its proponents. To flourish, cities need only be “liberated” from the “paternalistic and oppressive welfare state”. Indeed, this notion of the oppressive welfare state won over Bill Clinton.
But in his campaign, Obama cultivated, in a few speeches and a sprawling urban policy document, what Newark Mayor Cory Booker calls a “new narrative” for federal urban policymaking. The gist is that cities aren’t cesspools; in fact – surprise! – cities are crucial social, economic, and cultural engines.
This new narrative suggests that a “window” to address urban policymaking has been opened, “even” in the absence of calamitous rioting. There is no need for the “welfare state lobby” to come to the rescue of New York, L.A., and Chicago; the conservative myth of the infested city, encouraged by liberal urban crisis rhetoric, is dead. Cities, and all those urbanites who voted for Obama, are at ground zero of the nation’s economic recovery and prosperity.
Harry Moroz: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 12:59 PM, Nov 06, 2008 in Cities | Community Development | Economy | Election 2008 | Progressive Agenda | Urban Affairs
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Harry, the 1990s were possibly the best decade for American cities since the 1920s. The federal government ignored them, but they suddenly gained population - partly because of immigration, and partly because the upper middle class returned from the suburbs. This trend has mostly continued into the 2000s, so that now in many East Coast cities, people are worried about gentrification more than white flight.
There are two main exceptions to this rule. One is that this revitalization is true mostly in primary cities: New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston. Secondary downtowns - Newark, Trenton, Baltimore, Providence, Oakland - are still depressed, and many are still losing population. The other is that these revitalized cities have Latin American levels of inequality. New York's lower middle class is still leaving; its population nowadays consists mainly of poor blacks, recent immigrants, and the educated upper middle and upper classes.
Posted by: Alon Levy | November 6, 2008 09:33 PM
From the previous comment:
"New York's lower middle class is still leaving; its population nowadays consists mainly of poor blacks, recent immigrants, and the educated upper middle and upper classes."
There's a feeling of compartmentalization here, not one that I would always disagree with, but one that struck a chord. I mean, are these groups all mutually exclusive, or what? Do they all hold animus toward each other? Could recent immigrants also be educated and upper class? Could recent immigrants be poor blacks? What I'm pushing against here is the simplification that has come to dominate city demographic narratives, one that emphasizes the discontinuity of a perceived static population rather than the fluidity of an evolving one. No, not a dream world, true, but certainly not as old skool as the comment makes it sound either.
Posted by: justin | November 10, 2008 04:31 PM
Regardless of the demographic shifts that have occurred in cities, policymaking that has viewed cities as "in crisis" has done little to revive (or to strengthen) urban areas. That said, understanding, as you point out, who lives in our cities - and why - is a necessary step in this policymaking.
Posted by: Harry Moroz | November 11, 2008 10:18 AM
There's a feeling of compartmentalization here, not one that I would always disagree with, but one that struck a chord. I mean, are these groups all mutually exclusive, or what? Do they all hold animus toward each other? Could recent immigrants also be educated and upper class? Could recent immigrants be poor blacks?
They're not mutually exclusive, or exhaustive, but the overlap is pretty small. There aren't many immigrants in New York who are part of the educated upper middle class, and those who are tend to be socially the same as the native-born educated class: they're liberal, they tend to live in gentrified neighborhoods in Manhattan and Brooklyn, they often look down on the suburban American dream, etc.
I don't think there's much animus among the groups I've described. In fact, traditionally, the liberals would be a coalition of the educated upper middle class and the black lower class, and the moderates and conservatives would be based on the ethnic white lower middle class. This is changing mostly because the lower middle class either is priced out or advances to upper middle class status, blacks are entering the middle class in large numbers (and sometimes assimilate to what it views as good living), and Hispanic immigration is changing the city's demographics.
What I'm pushing against here is the simplification that has come to dominate city demographic narratives, one that emphasizes the discontinuity of a perceived static population rather than the fluidity of an evolving one.
Well, both are happening. For example, black New Yorkers really are entering the middle class in unprecedented numbers. On the other hand, most of the changes in neighborhood character don't come from deslumming, i.e. the existing population getting richer, but gentrification, i.e. richer outsiders displacing the existing population. We'll only know just how much either contributes in 2010, when the Census Bureau publishes census tract-level demographic data.
Posted by: Alon Levy | November 11, 2008 11:38 PM
why should we have 4 classes of americans??? we are a country of 1, so why the classes..does it matter if you are rich or poor..so you live in city, does that mean you are un american?? kinda stupid to have classes..most people would rather work than free load..but because of so called class, they are not as smart as high class but they put their sweat and hard earned money to survive.and they spend what they can to help shop owners survive, is this wrong??? i dont think so, you live city or out in country setting..so what !! thats your choise..i pefer the country setting..and i dont miss the city 1 bit..and as you young 1s get older to will realize, that it dont make a damm where you live..i have lived in NYCITY,and MIAMI,FLORIDA, and now i live in central Florida..and why?? because i wanted to get away from all that RUSH HR TRAFFIC,24/7.. and its much quiter in country setting..the only time it gets bad is when yankees come down for winter..and i put up with it because they spend their money down here..and my cost of living drops..so if you think city living is your bag, live with it..and if you think country or small town is way to go do it..who cares! thats your business..live the way you want just dont cry about it..end of story..THEY CALL ME RICK.
Posted by: RICK | November 13, 2008 11:18 AM