Tax Increment Financing Contrasting Effects Essay Research — страница 5

Americans looked at the home and an ideal American setting for the home evolved. In Jackson=s piece on suburbanization he identifies three figures who influenced this change in attitude that I am discussing. They are Catherine Beecher, who simply offered some ideal plans for the American dwelling, Andrew Jackson Downing who dealt with the art of landscape and from his ideas came the yard and garden, and Calvert Vaux who developed some ideals for American suburban architecture. Although I have identified only three, there were many more figures that helped reflect this overall change in the attitudes of Americans on where they wanted to live. Over time, Detroiters began to move out to the suburbs as the city became undesirable and today thoughts of the city being an undesirable

place continue, with some suburban dwellers only going to the city for a special occasion. In 1990, it is believed that about 60% of Detroiters would like to move out of the city if they could. Detroit=s central city and the surrounding suburbs have evolved into two different places, simply symbolizing inequality and the power of the past of the mighty industrial city. As the two grew apart, some differences evolved in race, family stability, income, political preferences, education, public safety, business, and employment. The difference of race is the obvious one, with the central city having roughly 80% African-American today. The table on the next page explains four types of suburbs in Detroit Limmer (14) and shows there growth from 1970-1980. The four types are growing and

contiguous to the city of Detroit, declining and contiguous, growing and noncontiguous, and declining and noncontiguous. Notice how types 3 & 4 and how 3 grew faster than 1 and how 4 declined slower than 2, which were the two groups consisting of suburbs connected to the city. In essence, the farther away from the city one goes, the faster it is increasing and the slower it is decreasing. Limmer (15) Family stability in the city has over the last fifty years been transformed and today urban families are extremely unstable, often consisting of single parent homes and multiple family homes, with many of that in the suburbs also. However, generally in the suburbs there is primarily homes owned by both parents, often living around others in the same social class. Income reflects

off of this as well, as I mentioned earlier, income in the city of Detroit was $11,000 less than that of the suburbs. While I was in Detroit getting some information for this paper, I would come to the conclusion that there is a much larger difference today. Political differences include in Detroit include, naturally within the city of Detroit, a large democratic city, probably one of the largest democratic majority cities in the United States. On the other hand, locals call the well-off area to the north the Aconservative haven@ or ADisneyland@. Some areas of the suburbs of course have evolved into blue-collar suburbs and evolved into largely democratic counties such as Macomb to the northwest. Growing up in Detroit, I can tell you that the urban schools in Detroit make those in

Waterloo look acceptable. The schools are barred, with sometimes no playground, and decaying infrastructure. When I moved out to the suburbs, I was behind my classmates and it took virtually two years to just catch up with the others in the class. I remember being amazed at my new school having 3 floors with an elevator and a swimming pool, and not enclosed by a wire fence that is barely standing. Public safety is another aspect that was of our interest when moving from Detroit. Public safety was a major concern in our neighborhood, with many times me not being allowed out after dark. In suburbs, many crime rates are lower in suburban areas, but judging by this past Tuesday in Colorado, often suburban crimes are much more devastating and reflect our aching moral Limmer (16)

values. Employment within the city of Detroit is lowering, although it has lowered to roughly 25%. In the suburbs, unemployment is virtually nonexistent, with many of the suburban dwellers making more than enough money. Oakland county to the north is the second richest county in the country. When employment within the city grows, it doesn=t grow any more than five percent, and growth in suburbs in extraordinary, with more than enough jobs available for suburban dwellers. Retail sales within the suburbs have logically grown as the population of suburbs grew. Suburban malls were spreading rapidly in the community and are continually being constructed. In the last four years, the Detroit metropolitan area has constructed a mall slightly larger than the Mall of America and another