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

5. Sidestepping Inner-Ring Suburbs

5 Sidestepping Inner-Ring Suburbs H ighland Park is an inner-ring suburb of Detroit. It was developed in the early 1900s, when the Ford Motor Company opened the first assembly line for the mass production of the Model T automobile. The Model T promoted national suburban expansion , and Highland Park excelled. Its population catapulted in its early years, growing from a mere 4,120 in 1910 to an astounding 46,599 by 1920. Then Ford closed its production plant in the 1950s, and Highland Park started to lose residents. In 1940, the population was around 50,000. By 1970, it had declined to about 35,000. Population loss continued, especially after the Chrysler Corporation’s world headquarters left the suburb in the 1980s. In 1980, Highland Park had about 28,000 residents, 60 percent of the number who lived there in 1920. By 2000, the population had dropped to about 16,700, a decline of more than 11,000 people. Highland Park lost about 4 out of every 10 residents between 1980 and 2000. Many of those residents left for greener pastures. They died, moved to other metropolitan areas, or moved to newer suburbs much farther out on Detroit’s metropolitan fringe. Not enough people in-migrated to replace those lost. Highland Park was sidestepped, in part bypassed 56 / Chapter 5 for Detroit’s outer suburbs, which expanded by more than 440,000 residents from 1980 to 2000. These outer suburbs experienced growth, while Highland Park struggled to retain its existing residents. The story of Highland Park is not unique. It is part of a larger story of population loss and stagnation among many inner-ring suburbs, especially those surrounding struggling cities, such as Detroit. It is also a story that contrasts with the tremendous expansion of outer suburbs. This chapter documents changes in population among the cities, inner-ring suburbs, and outer suburbs of the top one hundred most-populated metropolitan areas in the United States from 1980 to 2000.1 In each metropolitan area, outer suburbs grew enormously during this time period. Inner-ring suburbs grew to a far lesser extent, if they grew at all. At one time, cities were abandoned for their adjacent suburbs. Now, adjacent suburbs are being abandoned or bypassed for suburbs farther out. This metropolitan growth pattern of continued outward expansion has increased the vulnerability of many inner-ring suburbs to decline. A Broad Sweep of Population Change In the first half of the twentieth century, cities reigned supreme as the primary location of metropolitan growth in the United States. Cities were the gravitational centers of economic, cultural, intellectual, and home life for the nation. They were the backbone of the national economy. In 1950, almost two in every three metropolitan residents lived in cities. Since then, circumstances have changed dramatically, and suburbs have grown tremendously . Between 1950 and 1970, the suburban population doubled from thirty-six million to seventy-four million; by the end of the 1970s, suburbs were the dominant home of metropolitan residents (Beauregard 2006). From an analysis of a sample of 4,876 suburbs across the nation, I find that they grew by more than twenty-three million residents between 1980 and 2000. In contrast, the population of their cities increased by 8.1 million people (see Figure 5.1). For every one additional resident in the central cities, the suburbs gained three additional residents. However, in recent decades, not all suburbs grew. More than four fifths of suburban population growth occurred in outer suburbs, which expanded by almost twenty-one million residents from 1980 to 2000. In contrast, 1For definitions of inner-ring suburbs and outer suburbs, see Chapter 2. Sidestepping Inner-Ring Suburbs / 57 inner-ring suburbs witnessed a substantially smaller population increase of 2.5 million residents. In fact, in the decades between 1980 and 2000, inner-ring suburbs experienced less growth than did their central cities. Half the inner-ring suburbs across the nation lost population, while newer outer suburbs expanded (see Table 5.1). Outer suburbs essentially became the favored sites of development over the two decades, consistently attracting more and more residents. Inner-ring suburbs were in many cases bypassed. Regional Variation Beginning in the postwar period, the population largely shifted from cities to suburbs. In particular, the Northeast and the Midwest now possess many suburbs built during the 1950s and 1960s. The prevailing trend in the metropolitan areas...