The authoritarian tendencies of the suburbs

August 8, 2017 11:35 AM

"The modern suburb in America began as a means of providing abundant and comfortable housing to white Americans and has now evolved into a carefully tuned media surround — replete with ubiquitous screens running alarmist commercial media — that seeks to sustain that apartheid at any cost. But just as the media elevated a man to the presidency only to have him turn around and name it the “enemy of the people,” the built environment of suburbs is riven with contradictions that will ultimately be its undoing." The Authoritarian Surround, the politics of the suburbs by David A. Banks.
posted by The Whelk (18 comments total)

the built environment of suburbs is riven with contradictions that will ultimately be its undoing.

All things contain the seeds of their own destruction

Pairs well with Americans think they live in a democracy. But their workplaces are small tyrannies.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:44 AM on August 8, 2017 [10 favorites]

The author here seems to be working from a flat and largely theoretical understanding of what American suburbs are, ignoring their diversity in the service of a polemic straight out of 80s punk. I'm writing this in Largo, Maryland, for example, which began its suburban life postwar as an almost exclusively white and middle class community, but is now over 90% African American and largely working class. 31 miles away is the wealthier, much whiter DC suburb I grew up in, which in some ways does conform to his thesis, but is still far from an exclusive preserve of screen-addled fascists. In between are dozens of suburban communities with a lot of political, racial, religious, and ethnic diversity, many of which are in the process of becoming more diverse, and of breaking out of (or attempting to, in any case), a car-centric, anti-mixed-use-zoning model (sidewalks, for example, are being added to a 1960s neighborhood for the 1st time ever a ten minute walk from me).

I've certainly been to suburbs that seem like preserves of the squeamish, conservative, potential concentration camp employee (Northern Virginia, I'm looking at you), but, at least around here, they're not the majority.
posted by ryanshepard at 11:56 AM on August 8, 2017 [27 favorites]

Yeah, I'm from Houston which was recently rated as the most ethnically diverse city in the country, and Pearland and Missouri City, two of its suburbs, are the most diverse areas in the Houston region.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:00 PM on August 8, 2017 [4 favorites]

The migration of poverty (and thus, unfortunately, racial diversity) to the suburbs in the last 25 years or so is, I thought, a fairly well-accepted phenomenon.
posted by praemunire at 12:19 PM on August 8, 2017 [8 favorites]

It's probably not fair to characterize the stereotypical American suburb based on what it looks like in the absurdly diverse and urban Houston. We're kind of unusual here.
posted by uberchet at 12:21 PM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

Older suburbs are more diverse everywhere I've lived in Texas, because they're cheaper and as we all know, people of color get paid less and have less wealth.

Our current suburb is majority hispanic and AA, with most of the white ppl being retirees who moved here in the 50s and didn't leave.
posted by emjaybee at 12:25 PM on August 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

The migration of poverty (and thus, unfortunately, racial diversity) to the suburbs in the last 25 years or so is, I thought, a fairly well-accepted phenomenon.

Are you referring to the Pearland/Missouri City example? Because that's completely wrong, those areas are quite affluent.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:26 PM on August 8, 2017

The author here seems to be working from a flat and largely theoretical understanding of what American suburbs are, ignoring their diversity in the service of a polemic straight out of 80s punk.

Hah, I was going to say "that guy down at the coffee house," but you're right. I'm not sure who holds the values this piece is tilting at. I mean, yes, there are people who 100% lurve the burbclave concept and there are places for them, but this piece... I guess if you're gonna put "suburbia" and "fascist" together, you've got a particular bent. I think there are some good points, but done to death with sinister overtones and ulterior motives that are kind of sketch.

You can't talk fascist suburbia without mentioning HOAs and exclusionary covenants.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 12:30 PM on August 8, 2017 [7 favorites]

I think the author is making the point that the suburbs are inevitably becoming the home for diversity and marginalized people. I think he's being much more hopeful than I can be and he isn't giving enough weight to the power of increasingly consolidated media, and a militarized police force, to keep people in line. Yes, the people who can no longer afford to live in the cultural oasis of the cities, and particularly their children, can see (in some cases) the control exerted over them but I think their disillusionment will be channeled in far more destructive ways, for instance in placing their hopes in a politician who promises to tear down the old order while doubling down on tribalism and isolation. BLM is a hopeful sign and I agree that it is significant that Ferguson is a suburb, but BLM resonates with the people who are already woke and the rest of the American (mostly but not all white) suburbanites are writing it off as more black people looting and burning up shit despite that being a false narrative put forward by the consolidated media.

I hope I'm wrong, I hope people get it together. I think the end of cheap oil certainly will change the dynamic but the US military is powerful enough to make sure that the American suburbs are the very last places in the world that will have to face a post-oil world.

I think Banks has an interesting argument but I just don't think he presents enough evidence to convince me that things will go the way of revolution or evolution into something sustainable.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 12:39 PM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]

Are you referring to the Pearland/Missouri City example? Because that's completely wrong, those areas are quite affluent.

No?

Suburbs and the New American Poverty

The New Suburban Poverty

(first-page Google results, just sayin')
posted by praemunire at 12:50 PM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

I think the author missed their true calling of writing stereo instructions.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:58 PM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

The author here seems to be working from a flat and largely theoretical understanding of what American suburbs are, ignoring their diversity in the service of a polemic straight out of 80s punk

Bullshit. You're a white suburban punk just like me.

(That said, I've really come to deplore these sort of—I don't know—feuilletons, where the author gestures toward some vague thesis, drops some theoretical vocab, adduces a few surveys or studies, and waxes hyperbolic*, all in the service of a political praxis in 5000 words or less. Every one them reads like a smart bar room monologue that will never see the editor needed to really extract whatever insights might actually lie within.

*"The architecture we associate with the suburbs — strip malls and detached single-family homes — perfectly maps onto fascists’ desire for order, categorization, and control."

Really? Perfectly? I thought the problem was precisely that it was all directionless, ennui-ridden sprawl?)
posted by octobersurprise at 1:43 PM on August 8, 2017 [13 favorites]

The working class suburb I live in (and to be fair, it's one that's struggled since the housing crash, so maybe not most people's idea of the picture perfect suburbia, part of the reason I agreed to move here when all the other suburban homes we looked at gave me the creeps) is racially mixed at almost exactly 50/50 white to black residents, with a number of Hispanic and openly gay households all standing right alongside the handful of houses with Trump signs and more traditional white Southern working/middle class types. Maybe suburbs in general suck, but this neighborhood is pretty much a model of diversity working in action. I'm moving this month against my will, but personally, I'm glad I didn't let my anti-suburban prejudices keep me from moving here. My kids have both gotten to play with other kids that look nothing like them from the time they could barely speak on and I think there's a great value to that sort of experience.

But then, these days, there are also those more exclusive, gated and deed restricted communities. I think those are really where the trouble's coming from, as the culture in those seems to have an Us vs. Them bunker mentality built right in.
posted by saulgoodman at 3:08 PM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm writing this in Largo, Maryland, for example, which began its suburban life postwar as an almost exclusively white and middle class community, but is now over 90% African American and largely working class

Isn't his final premise that this is what's increasingly going to happen?

What will replace the authoritarian suburb in a near-future America is the present urban reality of the rest of the world: a dense center of rich elites surrounded on all sides by a dispossessed suburban fringe.
posted by atoxyl at 3:22 PM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

The thing is, you don't have to get all the way to an "exclusive preserve of screen-addled fascists" to create a motivated bloc of easily manipulated voters. You can change the outcomes of close elections with a little push here, a little nudge there. You only need some screen-addled fascists.

It's not a new idea that a person's environment can effect a person's behavior, moral judgements, pangs of conscience, etc. It's an idea that's implicit (and even explicit sometimes) in architecture and urban planning. The effects on individuals don't have to be large to become large (enough) in aggregate.

Which is not to say that the prevalence of American suburbs is part of a long term plot by mustache-twirling conspirators. But if the structure of the places we live can change our assumptions and attitudes, then we should expect the overwhelming scale, ubiquity, and homogeneous practice of American suburban development to have some effect on our assumptions and attitudes.

Most of the criticism I've seen of suburban development avoids looking at such things and instead enumerates specific complaints - "suburbs are boring" or "suburbs are disguised segregation." Those criticisms are are true enough. But this ("suburbs appeal to and re-enforce authoritarian tendencies") is the first time I've felt like suburban criticism was getting to the root of something, getting at a "why" rather than a "what."
posted by Western Infidels at 3:25 PM on August 8, 2017 [4 favorites]

What will replace the authoritarian suburb in a near-future America is the present urban reality of the rest of the world: a dense center of rich elites surrounded on all sides by a dispossessed suburban fringe.

Largo has been majority black since at least the 1990s, and the process was well underway even before that. It's working and lower middle class, not poor (though there is some poverty) - they just built a Wegman's, for Christ's sake! Economic diversity is also part of the suburban landscape regionally around here ... I really don't see much evidence of the uniform, fascistic strawman one or its trajectory that he's arguing for.

I mean, if anything, many of the older, close-in, 1st wave suburbs are now re-gentrifying as the city becomes unaffordable.
posted by ryanshepard at 4:45 PM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

What will replace the authoritarian suburb in a near-future America is the present urban reality of the rest of the world: a dense center of rich elites surrounded on all sides by a dispossessed suburban fringe

I'm trying to parse out to what extent the US is unique here, and what might be the author's own knowledge and research lagging behind. The word I kept searching for in the article (to no avail) was 'gentrification'.

From a Canadian context, the entire piece read as between 10 and 20 years out-of-date, and the notion that suburbs are areas of "enforce(d) demographic homogeneity" is very opposite to reality here.

Take for example the very suburban neighbourhood of Taradale - complete with curvilinear streets, cul-de-sacs, and a poor Walk Score. Average property values sit around $400K (affordable for Calgary), and per the 2011 census, English was spoken most often at home in 39% of households. It's very mixed, and a majority of residents are immigrants (nearly twice the city average).

Inglewood, on the other hand, is the oldest community in the city, features a trendy and sustainable* mixture of industry, residential and a walkable commercial strip - and was named the 'greatest neighbourhood in Canada' by the Canadian Institute of Planners. Average property values are over $700K, and the same census year found English spoken most often at home in 94% of households (the Walk Score, if people are curious, is an awkward average between a very walkable western section, and a less-walkable eastern. However, a multibillion dollar infrastruture project will bring light rail in the near-future to an area already quite walk-and-bike friendly, and adjacent to downtown).

This is of course only one juxtaposition in one Canadian city, but at least in Calgary, it is fairly representative of a pattern in which the hip, transit-oriented communities that share little-to-none of the urban design features this article identifies as fascist have gentrified and become increasingly homogeneous, and off-limits to a majority of the population. I would assume these forces are acting similarly in many US cities. The elephant in the room is cost of housing. The article touches on this:

This mismatch between stated preferences and actual buying trends might mean that millennials are changing, but it may also mean that — like all the trends associated with this generation — they are being forced to choose among the dregs of what previous generations left behind.

But the article doesn't, in my opinion, accurately convey the significance this plays. Living in a hip small apartment in a great area is more liveable and fun as a single person or couple than with a small or large family. Millennials and new immigrants with kids can have much more space - not to mention the asset of real property - by moving 20-30 minutes further from downtown. Rent in a pet-free 2-bedroom apartment where your neighbour bangs on the ceiling when your children are playing, or have a house, a yard, and a bedroom for each family member? For many people, that's hardly a choice at all.

So the suburbs sprawl, and many of the people living in them know full-well that they're missing out on the bike lanes, better transit, cool businesses, and the many well-documented advantages to living in a truly walkable community. It also means that the suburbs are increasingly the homes of poor-to-middle-class people, new immigrants, portions of the elderly - ie. have become the most diverse spaces in the city. They are also centres of business innovation, with licensed and unlicensed home businesses springing up to fill economic or cultural voids (childcare, specific kinds of food and clothing), and areas where residents are constantly doing battle with the architectural uniformity by putting up sheds, greenhouses, statues etc., often in contravention of bylaws. In many places in my city, the architecture and planning are among the only homogenous features of the suburbs, and talking about suburbia as a place of fascist replication ring very false. There are many critiques of the suburbs, but at least from what I've seen in Canada, this is a seriously outdated one.

I don't mean to come down too hard on this piece (and it does collect a variety of good background information), but I also found some of the conclusions to be vague and unsupported. Take where it talks about fictional depictions of suburbs increasingly focusing on 'derelict and dangerous' - negative - portrayals. The conclusion is this:

Any good authoritarian mind-set needs an external threat, and with the absolute numbers of violent crime descending, these fictional, more existential threats about the longevity of the suburban promise are a good replacement.

Earlier, the suburbs were described as stifling places of order and boundaries, and the article at various places connects white flight, redlining, fortress cities, media of fear - all phenomena that have encouraged suburban fear of areas outside of those neighbourhoods (often inner-city). But now with the opposite portrayal of suburbia, the author perpetuates the notion of suburbs being places of authoritarian reactionary control...which are somehow also "the locus of fear, alienation, and crime". I think if the author really followed that line of logic in good faith, they would arrive at a place where their 'near-future reality' was a lot closer (ie. now) than they have conveyed.

Finally (sorry for the giant post), this isn't clear to me at all:

As a result, in some suburban jurisdictions, one can be surrounded on all sides by miles of homes that are valued within a few thousand dollars of each other. This class segregation also translates to racial segregation, as even wealthy black families tend to live in poorer neighborhoods as compared with their white counterparts. A recent New York Times review of census data found that black families that earned above $100,000 “are more likely to live in poorer neighborhoods than even white households making less than $25,000.” The suburbs’ defining quality may not be its density or proximity to a city but how successfully those two qualities are brought to bear to enforce demographic homogeneity.

There obvious problems with areas of homogeneous housing prices, but I don't see how the two points in this paragraph are related: that some suburbs have highly fixed housing prices, and that middle-to-high-earning black families are more likely to live in impoverished neighbourhoods than poor white families. How would a white family with a low income afford a fixed-price suburb? And what prevents black families from purchasing there? Have I missed something obvious?
posted by AAALASTAIR at 5:13 PM on August 8, 2017 [7 favorites]

What I would most like to read is most like to read is a sober, considered, citation-heavy piece on the increasing diversification of the suburbs. The piece The Whelk posted today about gentrification hints at some of that, about how the reversal of white flight into the cities brought on by gentrification is leading to a contrary flux of people to the suburbs. This fits my experience to a T.

We live in a sort of middle-to-upper-middle class suburb outside of Chicago known for great schools and parks and my kid was the only born-in-the-USA white kid in his second grade class. And even he should probably come with an asterisk as his Mom is an immigrant and he speaks Hungarian as often as he does English.

I'm inclined to view this as a terrific thing, but there are more moving parts than I could get at by just looking around at my neighbors and their kids. I'm interested in possible ripple effects elsewhere.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:39 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]