Outside Cleveland, Snapshots of Poverty’s Surge in the Suburbs

[FarCenter]

PARMA HEIGHTS, Ohio — The poor population in America’s suburbs — long a symbol of a stable and prosperous American middle class — rose by more than half after 2000, forcing suburban communities across the country to re-evaluate their identities and how they serve their populations.

The increase in the suburbs was 53 percent, compared with 26 percent in cities. The recession accelerated the pace: two-thirds of the new suburban poor were added from 2007 to 2010.

“The growth has been stunning,” said Elizabeth Kneebone, a senior researcher at the Brookings Institution, who conducted the analysis of census data. “For the first time, more than half of the metropolitan poor live in suburban areas.”

As a result, suburban municipalities — once concerned with policing, putting out fires and repairing roads — are confronting a new set of issues, namely how to help poor residents without the array of social programs that cities have, and how to get those residents to services without public transportation. Many suburbs are facing these challenges with the tightest budgets in years.

“The whole political class is just getting the memo that Ozzie and Harriet don’t live here anymore,” said Edward Hill, dean of the Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/us/suburban-poverty-surge-challenges-communities.html

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As cheap and abundant transportation fuels become a thing of the past, US metro areas will become more like others around the world. The wealthiest will reside in the city center, and the poorest will be in the suburbs.

[HughBeaumont]

1. Many of Cleveland's close Eastern suburbs are hurting.

I used to work near the Bedford/Warrensville Hghts area and got a front row seat to the decline, Randall Park Mall in particular. Less and less people would go there every year, more stores would close almost as soon as they set up shop. The place smelled like mothballs, old basements and piss near it's end. You can't expect people who've been laid off or have had their wages cut or have had no raise in years to shop.

Everyone pays the price for the American Capitalists' decision to make a killing over making a living.

[Cirque du So-What]

2. With a commensurate decline in funding for public transportation

the suburbs could become an even more isolated place for the impoverished to reside.

[FarCenter]

3. Public transportation in the suburbs is also inefficient

Not dense enough to support light rail. Buses aren't as energy efficient in gallons/passenger mile as rail, and in the suburbs they run very empty a lot of the time.

Some suburbs that are denser and closer in may grow, become more dense, and become "edge cities" that form transportation hubs on rail circumfrential rings paralleling the interstate rings.

[gordianot]

4. Why Why oh Why would anyone ever consider voting for a Republican?

Middle class goes to hell!