Once the American Dream: Inner-Ring Suburbs of the Metropolitan United States

9. Fixing Inner-Ring Suburbs

9 Fixing Inner-Ring Suburbs T he existence and effectiveness of suburban reinvestment strategies are an understudied area in the academic literature (Lucy and Phillips 2000b). Few studies have been done to determine what approaches have been taken, and even fewer attempts have been made to decipher the potential impacts of reinvestment or redevelopment of inner-ring suburbs on any meaningful scale. Some studies have examined strategies for particular metropolitan regions. A recent example is a study of local policies to revitalize Baltimore’s inner-ring suburbs (Vicino 2007). This study documents the positive effects of Baltimore County’s investment in its old suburbs. According to this study, the county’s reinvestment strategies were well-tailored to each innerring suburb and focused on revitalizing housing and local infrastructure . This study’s results show that plans for each suburb were useful in designing specific strategies and policies. What this study suggests is that declining suburbs, even within the same metropolitan area, have many unique features, issues, and problems. One plan may work in one suburb but not in another. Specific planning options that address decline in unique areas would take far more than just a chapter to adequately address and are, Fixing Inner-Ring Suburbs / 133 in many respects, far better suited to case analysis. Therefore, in this chapter , I focus on critically assessing broad policy initiatives rather than determining the effectiveness of specific reinvestment programs or assessing solutions on a suburb-by-suburb basis. Broad types of policies related to decline among inner-ring suburbs exist at various levels of government. I explore different policies that, often inadvertently, and in most respects inadequately, deal with the issue of decline among inner-ring suburbs. National Policy Currently, little in the way of national urban policy is aimed specifically at curbing decline in U.S. metropolitan areas, and, since the 1980s, federal assistance to declining cities has been greatly reduced (Dreier, Mollenkopf , and Swanstrom 2004). The few existing federal programs aimed at urban decline include such initiatives as the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), Urban Action Grants, Empowerment Zone funding, and Hope VI projects. These initiatives focus on revitalizing central cities. As they stand, they have little impact on many inner-ring suburbs, since these areas often do not qualify for federal monies targeted to the most deprived metropolitan communities (Fitzgerald and Leigh 2002; Puentes and Orfield 2002). For instance, the CDBG program funds a variety of development projects benefiting low- and moderate-income areas. Municipalities with populations over fifty thousand are entitled to an annual CDBG grant. Unfortunately , many suburban communities have fewer than fifty thousand residents and therefore are not eligible for direct allocations. The Hope VI program focuses on redesigning public-housing projects. Through Hope VI, federal monies have been used for large-scale redevelopment or demolition of public housing. However, public-housing projects are generally not located in inner-ring suburbs. Inner-ring suburbs are largely composed of privately owned, single-family residences, and therefore Hope VI initiatives have little impact in these areas. The Empowerment Zone program offers tax incentives for businesses in designated communities. Beginning with eight cities in 1994, the Empowerment Zone program grew to include fifteen more cities in 1999, followed by an additional nine cities in 2001. So far, Empowerment Zone communities are urban rather than suburban. In short, current federal programs to alleviate distress in communities do not cater to ailing inner-ring suburbs. 134 / Chapter 9 So far, only one failed attempt has been made on a federal level to provide assistance specifically to inner-ring suburbs. In May 2005, Senator Hillary Clinton introduced the Suburban Core Opportunity Restoration and Enhancement (SCORE) Act (S.1024) with a companion bill in the House of Representatives (H.R. 2347), which was cosponsored by congressional representatives Peter King (R-NY) and Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY). The SCORE Act would offer economic and tax incentives to revitalize older suburbs across the nation. The core of this bill would provide $250 million in a “reinvestment fund,” a federal trust fund to provide grants to ailing suburban communities seeking reinvestment dollars. However, SCORE never became law, because it was rejected by the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. It is too early to say whether this bill will be reintroduced. If it is reintroduced and passes, it would have to provide more than $250...