'First' Suburbs Growing Older and Poorer, Report Warns

I found this article on the New York Region section of the New York Times today and thought it was interesting, as it really talks about U.S. suburbs in general "'First' Suburbs Growing Older and Poorer, Report Warns By BRUCE LAMBERT Published: February 16, 2006 Half a century ago, millions of young white couples left America's central cities for greener places to build homes and rear families. Their move created booming commuter communities and a new way of life. Comparing Older Suburbs to the Nation But that idealized picture has been transformed and the future of those pioneering suburbs is in jeopardy, according to a study issued yesterday by the Brookings Institution, a research group in Washington. Now home to 52 million people, the early suburbs — like Nassau and Westchester Counties in New York, Bergen and Hudson Counties in New Jersey and Fairfield County in Connecticut — are struggling with unexpected and often unrecognized problems that demand new solutions and leadership, the report said. "Neither fully urban nor completely suburban, America's older, inner-ring 'first' suburbs have a unique set of challenges — such as concentrations of elderly and immigrant populations as well as outmoded housing and commercial buildings — very different from those of the center city and fast-growing newer places," the report said. Echoing an earlier era's worry that the decline of cities threatened entire regions, the report said, "A recent survey of urban scholars ranked the deterioration of first suburbs as one of the most likely influences on metropolitan America for the next 50 years." Solving the problems will not be easy, said Bruce J. Katz, a vice president of Brookings. "First suburbs are caught in a policy blind spot," ignored by traditional urban assistance for cities. Also hurting them is "the new attention lavished on fast-growing outer suburbs," he said at a forum on the report in Washington. Those newer suburbs include Rockland, Orange and Suffolk Counties in New York, but many of the newer and healthiest suburban communities are in the Sun Belt. The first suburbs once led the nation in population growth. But now the growth of many has slowed to a trickle. Some have even lost population, while newer suburbs are galloping ahead. The traditional married-with-children family now accounts for only 27 percent of the households in the aging suburbs. The average household size was 2.7 people in 2000, down from 3.2 in 1970. Once-youthful suburbanites are graying. On average, they are now older than the rest of the country. The 65-and-over segment in the original suburbs has been growing at nearly double the national rate. The housing they live in is also older now than the national average. The face of the early suburbs, which to some were initially a retreat from increasingly multiracial cities, has also changed. Those suburbs are now more racially diverse than the nation as a whole. From 1980 to 2000, the percentage of minority residents in those suburbs doubled; black, Asian and Hispanic residents now make up a third of the population there. The first suburbs are also drawing more immigrants than the cities, the historic destination for the foreign born, the study said. Those suburbs had 9 million immigrants in 2000, eclipsing the 8.6 million in the adjoining primary cities. "The enormous inflow of foreign-born residents is literally transforming many first-suburban communities," the report said. "First suburbs are just now starting to come to grips with these new trends." By many measures, the older suburbs remain strong — some are among the nation's richest communities — with employment, education levels, income and home prices all exceeding national averages. But even those indicators show the older suburbs lagging as the competition catches up, with New York and many other cities in revival mode and newer suburbs flourishing farther out. Median income stagnated in the older suburbs in the 1990's, while rising elsewhere. A troublesome 45 percent of Hispanic students are dropping out of suburban high schools. "Alarming" pockets of poverty have emerged, counter to national trends, the report said. Among all first suburbs, the number of census tracts where 20 percent or more of the residents lived below the poverty line more than tripled from 1970 to 2000. The report, titled "A Fifth of America," focused on 64 counties where suburbs bloomed before and after World War II. They include communities around New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Miami, Chicago, Detroit, Dallas, Los Angeles and Seattle. "Think the Levittowns or, from television, Robert Petrie's New Rochelle, N.Y.," the report said. Skip to next paragraph Comparing Older Suburbs to the Nation Just as city problems prompted urban renewal, the report called for efforts for older suburbs. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Representative Peter T. King of Long Island have introduced a bill for federal assistance of $250 million to older suburbs for economic redevelopment programs. Speaking at Brookings, Mrs. Clinton said, "Most first suburbs don't qualify for existing federal programs." The report urged first suburbs to provide more apartments and assisted living for the elderly, integrate the influx of immigrants, promote business development and combat poverty and blight. Hurdles include the fragmented, parochial and often competing local governments, the report said. Suburban leaders need to cooperate, devise solutions and maximize their political clout, it said. The report praised coalitions like the First Suburbs Development Council in the Cleveland area, state efforts promoting planning in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and multigovernment alliances in Los Angeles. The report also cited the "new suburbia" proposals from the Nassau County executive, Thomas R. Suozzi, who spoke at the forum. He has called for reviving Long Island's small downtowns and creating a high-rise hub in Uniondale. Suburban leaders at the forum agreed that older suburbs need to build housing that more people can afford, a challenge because of diminishing vacant land. Beyond the common problems, the study found that "first suburbs are also often quite different from each other." Immigrants were generally rare in the Midwest but common in California. Suburban Dade County, outside Miami, had the highest Hispanic population, 56 percent. Hudson County, N.J., was next at 47 percent. Nearly half of the Asians in first suburbs were clustered in four California counties. Blacks were 62 percent of the residents of Prince George's County, Md. But the report cautioned seekers of the suburban dream: "The experience of today's minorities in first suburbs may not represent the same upward mobility transitions that it did for whites in earlier decades." ">