American Metropolitics: The New Suburban Reality / Edition 1

by Myron Orfield

Overview

"In 1998, Myron Orfield introduced a revolutionary program for combating the seemingly inevitable decline of America's metropolitan communities. Through a combination of demographic research, state-of-the-art mapping, and resourceful, pragmatic politics, his groundbreaking book, Metropolitics, revealed how the different regions of St. Paul and Minneapolis pulled together to create a regional government powerful enough to tackle the community's problems of sprawl and urban decay. Orfield's new work, American Metropolitics, applies the next generation of cutting-edge research on a much broader scale. The book provides an eye-opening analysis of the economic, racial, environmental, and political trends of the 25 largest metropolitan regions in the United States—which contain more than 45 percent of the U.S. population. Using detailed maps and case studies, Orfield demonstrates that growing social separation and wasteful sprawling development patterns are harming regional citizens wherever they live.

With detailed maps of conditions in each metropolitan region, comprehensive data on existing conditions and voter attitudes, and bold, innovative strategies for change, American Metropolitics is an important book for anyone concerned with the future of our cities and suburbs.

"

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815702498
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	03/27/2002
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	221
Product dimensions:	7.48(w) x 9.29(h) x 0.60(d)
Lexile:	1510L (what's this?)

About the Author

Myron Orfield is Executive Director of the Metropolitan Area Research Corporation, a Minnesota State Senator, and an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota Law School.

What People are Saying About This

Robert D. Atkinson

Myron Orfield's new book, American Metropolitics: The New Suburban Reality attempts to broaden the traditional definition of urban policy to include the suburbs. Orfield, a Democratic state senator from Minnesota, has made a name for himself as "the master cartographer of metropolitan America's changing demographics." ...

The bottom line for Orfield is that he wants America's metropolitan areas to have significantly less diversity among jurisdictions in terms of racial makeup, income, tax base, commercial and industrial development, and infrastructure provision. To get there, Orfield falls back on the old liberal solution of transferring resources from the "have" communities to the "have nots." Orfield urges activists to do what he did successfully in the Twin Cities: Build a coalition of the poor and middle-income suburbs and the central city against the rich suburbs.

Neal Peirce

In a 1993 column, I featured the breakthrough inspiration of Myron Orfield, a then-barely 30 Minnesota legislator getting ready to upset the apple cart of how Americans think about suburbia. . .Nine years later, Myron Orfield has become the most influential social demographer in America's burgeoning regional movement. Major national foundations, regional activist organizations, universities, business groups, local governments and Catholic archdioceses have commissioned studies on their regions from the Metropolitan Area Research Corp. that Orfield founded and heads. Now the Brookings Institution has published Orfield's second book American Metropolitics: The New Suburban Reality analyzing the disparities among the suburbs that surround America's 25 largest metropolitan areas... In short, Orfield is saying, no one's really happy. The only way to a better future: rules to foster less fearsome competition for businesses that bolster tax base, more metropolitan-wide tax-base sharing, constantly increasing state assistance, and restraints on profligate and environmentally destructive sprawl development.

Editorial Reviews

"Whether you agree with his policy prescriptions or not, Orfield has found a way to illuminate the most critical —and, often, most baffling —battlefield in American politics." —David S. Broder, The Washington Post, 5/1/2002

"Orfield lays out a comprehensive regional agenda which challenges civic leaders to step beyond parochial solutions and to act regionally to pursue fundamental reforms." — Smart Growth Network Newsletter, 5:3, 2002

"Myron Orfield is the new guru of regional approaches to the issues of growth and decline facing cities and their suburbs.... What makes Orfield's message so compelling is that he presents the problem not just from the perspective of cities, but also from the suburbs view." —Eric Siegel, The Baltimore Sun, 5/2/2002

"'American Metropolitics'... will take [it's] place, along with Orfield's first book ('Metropolitics'), as [a] useful brick in the wall of reform." —Michael Tomasky, Columnist, New York Magazine, The American Prospect, 9/9/2002

"'American Metropolitics' is a flashback to a time when solid research dominated policy debate. Orfield... has written an intelligent and insightful book detailing the challenging nature of the suburbs of major metropolitan areas and what that means socially and politically.... Orfield's 'American Metropolitics' offers cutting-edge research and does for the nation what his earlier book 'Metropolitics' did for the Twin Cities.... By offering pragmatic tactics and strategies to combat the seemingly inevitable decline of metropolitan areas, Orfield's work offers hope for the hopeless, and new directions for those too tired to dream dreams." —Bob Hulteen, Director, Twin Cities Religion and Labor Network, Sojourners, 9/1/2002

From the Publisher

What's the sound of a policy wonk clapping? I don't know. But with the publication of Myron Orfield's American Metropolitics, I suspect we're about to find out what a herd of them sound like.... an intelligent and insightful book detailing the changing nature of the suburbs of major metropolitan areas and what that means socially and politically.
—Sojourners

Bob Hulteen

The notion that suburbs are the key battlegrounds of American politics has become so accepted it is almost a cliche. But the anatomy of suburban life and suburban elections remains much harder to define...No one has done more to explore that mystery than a Minnesotan named Myron Orfield . . . The distinctions Orfield draws among suburbs, and the way the varieties show up on his maps in shades from dark red to orange to bright blue, explain why the battle for suburban votes is so challenging -- and why cliches about "soccer moms" or "New Economy voters" are often so misleading. They fail to capture the complexity of today's suburban reality. . . Whether you agree with his policy prescriptions or not, Orfield has found a way to illuminate the most critical -- and, often, most baffling -- battlefield in American politics. That is no small achievement.
—Suburbs In a New Light

David Broder