Opening up the Suburbs

An Urban Strategy for America

By: Anthony Downs

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Paperback | 1 July 1977 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
150 Pages

Edition Type
New edition

Dimensions(cm)
2.02 x 1.3 x 0.2

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In this fast-paced, fact-filled short book, Anthony Downs takes a close look at a national problem of increasing importance&;opening up the suburbs to the poor. After marshalling the arguments in favor of introducing low and moderate income housing in suburban areas where it is not now possible, he presents the suburbanites&; case against change. He finds legitimate claims and fears on both sides. Mr. Downs believes it is possible, however, to devise public policies that will reconcile the objectives and legitimate desires of both poorer Americans desiring to upgrade themselves by entering the suburbs and wealthier Americans desiring to protect the quality of their hard-won suburban life. He proposes the concept of balanced communities as well as other public policies to effect this reconciliation.

As the nation moves into the decade of the seventies, the pressures of expanding population on the suburbs are bound to increase. Anthony Downs provides here a thoughtful analysis of the problems that are coming and practical proposals for dealing with them, which will interest the professional planner and the involved citizen alike.

Industry Reviews

This housing strategy probably won't work, according to its progenitor, the chairman of the board of the Real Estate Research Corporation of Chicago and a consultant to foundations including RAND, Brookings and Ford. Yet Downs feels Americans must be made to try. "Opening up the suburbs" - don't think about Cicero - means letting in poorish people, even if smaller lot sizes and lower housing standards ensue. Ghetto-dwellers would enjoy the educational and cultural advantages of suburban life and the urban crisis would fade away. Could the present suburbanites tolerate this migration? Downs throws out some appeals to self-interest: the employable poor would become more productive and ghetto riot dangers would end; new construction jobs would multiply while only small zoning-type changes need occur. The question of financing the whole business on a significant scale is generally ignored, except for brief advocacy of "direct housing subsidies" which would irritate middle-class suburbanite taxpayers still more. Downs warns that "Anyone who opposes opening up the suburbs is thereby implicitly opposing any effective means of improving big-city crisis ghetto conditions," but he himself seems defeated by the hard-cash angle at the very beginning. (Kirkus Reviews)

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