suburban history

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• SOURCE: Bloomberg CityLab
  1/14/2021
  

  How Fear Took Over the American Suburbs

  Historian Kyle Riismandel's new book “Neighborhood of Fear” examines the cultivation of a white suburban culture of vigilantism and the political exploitation of fear of community change in the late 20th century. 

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• SOURCE: Jacobin
  1/2/2021
  

  Stop Worrying About Upper-Class Suburbanites

  by Lily Geismer and Matthew Lassiter

  Two suburban historians argue that the changing demographics and political composition of American suburbs mean the Democrats' strategy of courting white moderates will foreclose building the ethnically and economically diverse coalition they need to win. 

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• SOURCE: Bloomberg CityLab
  11/17/2020
  

  How Suburbs Swung the 2020 Election

  by Richard Florida, Marie Patino and Rachel Dottle

  The noted urban theorist points out that assumptions about suburban voters haven't kept up with the changing demographic realities of America's suburbs, which house a majority of the population and differ from each other as much as they do from central cities. 

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  11/7/2020
  

  Georgia’s Political Shift – a Tale of Urban and Suburban Change

  by Jan Nijman

  If Georgia is demographically and politically becoming unlike neighboring Republican strongholds like Alabama and Tennessee, it has, in some respects, moved in a similar direction as Arizona, where the two major metropolitan regions of Phoenix and Tucson make up over 80% of the state’s population, and where Democrats have improved their standing in recent years.

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• SOURCE: Bloomberg CityLab
  11/3/2020
  

  Pittsburgh's Suburbs Try to De-Karen the 2020 Election

  by Brentin Mock

  White suburban women have been important liberal activists since Trump's election, but still face difficulty in creating coalitions with communities of color in metro areas like Pittsburgh where segregation and inequality are rampant. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/30/2020
  

  In Michigan, a Suburban County That Flipped Blue Isn’t Looking Back

  Oakland County, which was solidly red 12 years ago, is solidly blue, becoming a prime example of the changes that are taking place in many of the nation’s suburbs.

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• SOURCE: New York Magazine
  10/26/2020
  

  Two Visions of the Suburbs Are on the Ballot. Both Are Myths

  While Donald Trump imagines American suburbia as affluent, homogenous and imperiled by liberal housing policies, Joe Biden ignores the fact that separate suburban municipalities work to segregate Americans by race and class and perpetuate different levels of access to opportunity.

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• SOURCE: Blooberg CityLab
  10/21/2020
  

  In a Land of Cul-de-Sacs, the Street Grid Stages a Comeback

  Land use planners in unlikely places-the Texas suburbs--are revisiting the idea of gridded street plans as solutions for car dependence and traffic. 

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• SOURCE: Brookings Institution
  10/15/2020
  

  Why is Trump Obsessed with Suburbia?

  by Willow Lung-Ammam

  Trump and Carson do not want white America to see itself as recipients of federal welfare policies that made suburbs possible, profitable, and desirable–from Federal Housing Administration loans and interstate highways to mortgage interest deductions. Instead, they position white suburbanites as defenders of democracy.

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• SOURCE: Gothamist
  10/5/2020
  

  Are Trump And Biden Fighting About Abolishing The Suburbs, Or Desegregating Them?

  Beneath the rhetoric rests a genuine policy debate over the extent to which the federal government needs to push municipalities to undo segregation. This debate has been going on since 1968, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act.

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• SOURCE: Bloomberg CityLab
  9/21/2020
  

  A Neighborhood’s Race Affects Home Values More Now Than in 1980

  by Brentin Mock

  The real estate industry has adopted appraisal standards in response to fair housing laws that are, on the surface, race-neutral. But they don't account for the ways that racism has lowered the sale value in diverse neighborhoods, and still penalize Black and Latino homeowners. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/3/2020
  

  How Trump Is Using Westchester to Stir Up Suburban Fears

  The bitter history of a federal lawsuit demanding that Yonkers, NY create low-income housing (which would allow more nonwhite residents to live in the city) informs Donald Trump's campaign pledges to protect the suburbs from evils he associates with fair housing laws. 

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• SOURCE: UCLA Center for the Study of Women
  9/2/2020
  

  The Real Suburbs: Unpacking Distortions and Truths about America’s Suburbs

  by Becky Nicolaides

  A leading historian of American suburbs points to the fine-grained changes in the L.A. metro area that confound Donald Trump's 1950s version of the suburban dream. Do the suburbs he's pandering to even exist today? (Photo by author)

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/26/2020
  

  The Daily: Trump's Suburban Strategy (audio)

  Trump has used recent protests to double down on a suburban strategy based in fear of crime and disorder. Writer Emily Badger investigates whether it will work. 

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  8/9/2020
  

  Trump and the Suburbs: Is He Out of Tune with America's Increasingly Diverse Voters?

  Demographers and political strategists say Trump is promoting a vision of America’s suburbs with aproned housewives, leafy cul-de-sacs and picket fences that no longer exists.

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• SOURCE: Politico
  8/6/2020
  

  Trump Doesn’t Understand Today’s Suburbs—And Neither Do You

  Suburbs are getting more diverse, but that doesn't mean they’re woke. Historian Thomas Sugrue says if you want to understand where American politics is going, look how suburban whites are sorting themselves out.

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• SOURCE: Bloomberg CityLab
  7/30/2020
  

  What Does Trump Think the ‘Suburban Lifestyle Dream’ Means?

  In his ongoing campaign to paint racial desegregation as a bid to “abolish the suburbs,” the president is pushing a vision of suburban voters based on a dated demographic reality. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  7/30/2020
  

  Why Trump’s Blunt Appeals to Suburban Voters May Not Work

  “[Nixon's campaigns] understood something about race that Trump doesn’t understand,” [Matthew] Lassiter said. “Voters don’t want racial privilege challenged, but they don’t want to be explicitly reminded that racism is underneath their position.”

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• SOURCE: Bloomberg CityLab
  6/19/2020
  

  In Suburbs and Small Towns, Racial Justice Takes Center Stage

  These protests reflect the demographic shifts and diversification of U.S. suburbs and exurbs in recent decades, a challenge to the stereotype of a monochromatic suburbia.

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• SOURCE: Time
  2/18/20
  

  Why Suburban American Homeowners Were Accused of Being a 'Profit-Making Cartel' in the 1970s

  As low-density suburbs arose on the edge of every city, low-cost houses with abundant space and creature comforts became a singular symbol of progress and proof that the American way was winning.