Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The American metropolitan area is a city spread out like no other city in the
world. Urban sprawl is an old phenomenon in the United States. It began with the
arrival of mechanized transport when the first trams and railways were built, during
the second half of the 19th century. Nowadays, housing is mostly individual and
high density is seen as restrictive in metropolitan areas. These urban regions are also
socially fragmented and polarized, with strong racial and community segregation (see
Chapter 4). Social contrasts are often stark between one neighborhood and another,
and this contributes to greater inequalities since high crime rates and low-quality
education tend to coexist with poverty. Since crime and poor education services are
two flaws that the middle class flee, unlimited and chaotic urban sprawl ensues.
Generally, the American city is politically fragmented. Metropolitan areas usually
have several suburban municipalities (incorporated areas), which compete fiercely
with each other to attract high-income populations and non-polluting companies.
Competition between a city's center and its suburbs is one of the engines of urban
sprawl, as well as a factor of the crisis of the American city that is emptied of its
taxpayers by the flight of the white middle class towards the suburbs (white flight).
This situation is not new to the United States [MAS 93]. One theory of research
advocates returning to a model for a city that is closer to European ideals (Congress
for New Urbanism). David Rusk recommends the annexation of suburbs as a
political solution to the problem of the crisis of cities [RUS 03].
American cities are also very diverse. For David Rusk, the crisis of the city is more
severe in the highly fragmented metropolises of the Northeast, with their older urban
policies, than in what he calls the elastic cities of the South and West which were able
to continue annexing wide stretches of land, thanks to more recent urbanization. It
would be misleading, however, to say that the political unification of a county is
enough to solve the problems of the city. First, the scale of urban sprawl is such that
metropolitan areas now spread over several counties, sometimes even several states,
increasing the complexity of political fragmentation and making the establishment of
true metropolitan governance unrealistic. Second, even within the framework of a
unified city government, economic, social, cultural, and racial polarization exists in all
US cities; therefore the problems of poverty and neighborhood isolation, poor
education, access to employment, and security issues actually concern all big cities.
This issue is important enough to require two chapters. This chapter attempts to
illustrate geographical diversity and general aspects, through a detailed study of
urban sprawl, supported by a few case studies selected from major US cities.
1
Chapter 8 focuses on the tensions that shape US cities.
1
. This study was based on a sample of 20 consolidated metropolitan areas the populations of
which exceeded 2 million inhabitants in the 2000 census.
