The New Suburbanization

Challenge To The Central City

Penny Peace, Thomas M Stanback Jr

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000303957
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In this book fourteen large metropolitan economies are examined to show how industrial composition and jobs have changed in central cities and suburbs since 1970. Driven by the shift in emphasis from goods toward services, both central cities and suburbs have undergone dramatic changes. The analysis shows that many large central cities have experienced wrenching transformations as a result of low growth or declines in employment and population. However, these cities have continued to be the focal point of economic activity within the metropolis, becoming more narrowly specialized in high-level services, which have yielded higher average earnings. These cities are becoming increasingly dependent on commuting suburbanites for their experienced and educated labor force. In the suburbs, the cumulative effect of continuous growth since World War II has brought a different sort of transformation. The composition of employment has broadened, with sharp increases in commuting from areas outside the suburbs. Major new centers of business, consumer, and social services have developed, giving rise to agglomeration economies and posing new challenges to the social and economic structure of the central city. The book also examines employment opportunities in central cities and in suburbs with special emphasis on jobs for blacks, women, and young workers. Analysis reveals the increasing importance of educational qualifications and the role of part-time work and focuses on the problems central city blacks face in gaining employment. The prospects for city dwellers seeking suburban jobs are often limited by housing and transportation restrictions. The book closes with a critical review of suggested policy alternatives that might increase access to employment for these workers.

1
The Changing Metropolis

As we move into the final decade of the twentieth century, economists are focusing their attention on the central cities of our largest metropolitan economies where homelessness, unemployment, and poverty contrast sharply with the bustling prosperity of many central business districts. For the most part, however, their eyes remain diverted from the burgeoning suburbs, where the largest share of the U.S. populace is housed (46 percent, compared to 31 percent living within the municipal boundaries of central cities and 23 percent within nonmetropolitan areas)¹ and where, for decades, both employment and population have been growing at a more rapid pace.

Central Cities and Suburbs Within the Metropolitan Economy: Symbiosis and Competition

In spite of their high visibility, central city economies do not stand alone. City and suburb, linked in a symbiotic yet competitive relationship, together constitute an economic system—the metropolitan economy. This symbiotic relationship is complex: The central city draws heavily upon the suburbs for its work force yet sends a substantial number of its resident workers daily to jobs outside its boundaries, and suburbs depend heavily upon the streams of income provided by the wages and salaries of commuters. Each subeconomy supplies the other with services and, to a lesser extent, with goods. Many suburban service and goods-producing organizations are branches of central city firms, often related in highly cost-effective intrafirm arrangements in which functions that require greater space and more routine labor, or that do not depend on the network of personal relationships possible within the city, are thrust outward to the suburbs.

Yet there is competition—competition for jobs and direct competition between central city and suburban firms themselves. For many firms in the city, suburban workers may be available as an alternative, and on average a better-educated, labor supply. Moreover, the movement of firms to the suburbs or the establishment of branches or back offices reduces the demand for the city's labor. At the same time, the growth of the suburbs creates new outlying markets that justify the birth of new firms and nonprofit organizations, reduces the suburbs' reliance upon the city's firms and institutions as suppliers of goods and services, and broadens the locational options for firms.

It is in the very nature of the capitalistic system that firms continuously seek out new locational and operational strategies and new sources of labor. As the suburbs grow and develop, they open up new opportunities for firms and institutions to operate successfully in activities that were previously regarded as uneconomic. This suburban developmental process has been cumulative, driven not only by decades of relatively rapid suburban growth but by the major transformations that have taken place within the national economy. It is a major thesis of this study that the suburbs of large U.S. metropolises are today in the midst of a new phase of development—one that is more advanced than in the past— in which their economies are being significantly broadened, and that this development is altering the relationship between central cities and suburbs, bringing about new opportunities for both symbiosis and competition.

The Purpose and Plan of the Study

The principal objective of this study is to examine the changing structure of central cities and suburbs as reflected in the industrial composition and earnings of their work forces and to explore the implications of these developments on employment opportunities, especially for those minority groups within the central city that are most disadvantaged in gaining access to jobs that pay well and offer reasonable opportunities for advancement. The analysis treats both city and suburbs, contrasting employment characteristics and noting, where possible, differences in developmental patterns. Fourteen large metropolitan areas (see Table 1.5 for a list) are studied, with special emphasis given to the four largest, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles.

The following sections provide background for the analysis in subsequent chapters. The first highlights some of the principal factors that are transforming the U.S. economy and propelling rapid change and the restructuring of central cities and suburbs. The second briefly sketches the evolution of the suburbs from their early role as bedroom communities to their more complex development today. The third and fourth deal briefly with two major aspects of central city and suburban development: employment and population change and the increasing importance of commuting.

Chapter 2 examines differences in the industrial composition of central cities and suburbs and analyzes patterns of change in the composition, structure, and functions of employment. Chapter 3 examines worker earnings in the various industry groups and discloses differences between central cities and suburbs as regards tendencies to upgrade activities through the use of better-paid and more skilled and experienced workers. Chapter 4 presents evidence of the development of new agglomerations of economic activity within the suburbs and assesses the significance of these new centers within the metropolitan economy. Chapter 5 analyzes a different data set for the four largest metropolitan areas in 1980 and 1985, comparing the labor force characteristics of central cities and suburbs. Chapter 6 examines the labor market problems of central cities and suburbs and considers several alternative approaches to bringing about increased employment and improved mobility of minorities.

Services, Technology, and the Changing Nature of Work

The growth and development of metropolitan economies are being driven by a larger transformation within the national economy and, indeed, within much of the world economy. This larger transformation has involved fundamental changes in what is produced, in how the processes of production are organized and carried out, and in the nature of work and the demand for labor.

In terms of what is being produced, there has been a major shift toward educational, health, and public services as well as the introduction of a variety of new private-sector consumer services.

In terms of how we produce, there have been fundamental changes in the way productive activity of all types is carried out—changes involving greater emphasis on planning, product design, distribution, finance, merchandising, advertising, government, and public and customer relations. These new arrangements have brought about a spectacular rise in the importance of a variety of intermediate services, including transportation, communication, wholesaling, finance, and various professional services such as accounting, legal counseling, management consulting, and advertising. The share of gross national product originating from these intermediate services has risen from 29 percent in 1947 to over 40 percent today.²

Although a number of factors have contributed to these transformations, including the opening up of broad national and world markets, improvements in transportation, increases in purchasing power, and the role of women in both the marketplace and the labor force, it is important to recognize that a major factor, both as cause and catalyst, has been the dramatic development of the new electronic technology.

The new service economy, coupled with the rapid adaptation of computer-telecommunications technology, has wrought fundamental changes in the nature of work. Blue-collar factory employment has declined at the same time that design, planning, control, and managerial functions have risen in importance within manufacturing firms, and the increasing importance of intermediate services has created a host of new employment opportunities for white-collar workers. To this has been added the increasing need for managerial, professional, sales, clerical, and service personnel in the social and consumer services.

Although computerization has simplified many tasks, there is surprisingly little evidence of de-skilling. To the contrary, what is taking place within many firms and organizations is a trend toward the elimination of routine work and a redefinition of jobs. Wo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• 1 The Changing Metropolis
• 2 The Industrial Composition of Employment
• 3 Earnings Levels
• 4 Agglomeration Economies and the Development of Cities and Suburbs
• 5 Population and Work Force Characteristics
• 6 Problems in City and Suburban Labor Markets
• About the Book and Author
• Index