City and Suburb: Neighborhood Communities and Governmental Responsiveness

During my adult life, I've lived in cities on both coasts and in suburbs, both inner ring and farther out. While I speak here only from my own personal experience (a dangerous detour into anecdotal musings from an empiricist), I don't recognize the descriptions of community and connection and responsiveness attributed to urban and suburban settings in some of the postings.

When I lived in cities (and I lived in a typical urban setting of apartments, not detached house neighborhoods), people generally lived as strangers right next to each other, rarely showing any concerns about their geographic area outside the door to their own apartment. Social connections were formed in non-geographic ways, by groups of friends from church or work or otherwise. By contrast, each suburban neighborhood in which I have lived has been a community of families in which everyone, to a greater or lesser extent, participated in the community, knew their neighbors, relied upon each other, etc. And, of course, for those who work in a metropolitan setting, the suburb provides the greatest opportunities for raising children with the kinds of opportunities that many of us experienced in an earlier generation: safe play areas, the ability to roam the neighborhood playing with all the kids in the area, bike riding on non-busy streets, open spaces of green lawns, etc.

Moreover, while my urban neighbors generally saw care for the unfortunate as the duty of their municipal and state governments (which were hardly worthy of that reliance), my suburban neighbors have been active community leaders, volunteers for public services, contributors, etc. Those in need not only have not been neglected, but have been more effectively served. In my current community of Eden Prairie outside Minneapolis, we have one of the largest gatherings of Somali immigrants in the country, who are becoming well integrated into the work force, the schools, etc. Indeed, I would guess that the Somali immigrant experience in the Eden Prairie suburb has been much more positive and progressive than it would have been in most urban settings.

While I am sure that others have had different experiences in both urban and suburban settings with respect to community in general, I feel more confident in saying that one of the signal differences between urban and suburban settings is the responsiveness and accountability of local government. When there recently was a matter of concern in my neighborhood, I not only felt comfortable contacting the chief of police but was able to spend a half an hour discussing with him the trends in the area and learning about the thoughtful policies the police were adopting to deal with certain impacts of commercial development nearby. I've had the same experience in other suburbs, actually knowing members of the city council, seeing that officials elected and appointed responsive to their constituents, etc. That definitely has not been my experience in urban settings, where officials most often are remote (partly by attitude, partly because of the large numbers of persons in the city which prevents creating relationships with very many), where governmental offices are bureaucratic and coldly unresponsive, etc.

From the standpoint of subsidiarity, I submit we are more likely to find it working well in rural and suburban communities than in the typical urban setting.

Greg Sisk (blogging from Rome)