Whenever possible, the Clintons expressed empathy with suburban and small-town voters. In contrast, the Obama administration seems almost willfully city-centric. Few top appointees have come from either red states or suburbs; the top echelons of the administration draw almost completely on big city urbanites—most notably from Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. They sometimes don’t even seem to understand why people move to suburbs.
Joel Kotkin analyzes the Massachusetts election results in the context of a war against suburbia. Read the entire article here.
3 comments:
I guess that explains why "American Beauty" was so critically acclaimed.
>>Although widely hailed as “progressive,” these policies would herald a return to the kind of crowded renter-dominated metropolis that existed prior to the Second WorldWar.>>
Keen observation overlooking the change from an agrarian (one-income)family model to an urban (two-income) model. After an explosion of growth in the Fifties (thanks to women remaining in the workforce) land costs adjusted upward to a new demand level. Over time a second income has become obligatory, not optional.
Suburbia is to Yuppies, Buppies, BoBos, DINKs and Scuppies what private schools were to white people in the Sixties. They don't all have "leafy back yards." Even a suburban/exurban anthill or rabbit warren (apartments, gated communities, condos) is preferable to mixing with "those" people.
This is a David Brooks/ Matt Taibi conversation. http://bit.ly/8GCRsr
This study will have a few minutes in the spotlight thanks to an editorial in this morning's NY Times.
I thought of this link immediately when I came across it.
http://bit.ly/5pXyTo
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