A city is an economic, political, social, and technological center within a greater metropolitan region made up of many smaller suburbs and exurbs that are very intricately linked to the central city. Over time, the city has become less of an autonomous unit and more of a part of something bigger, the metropolis.
This is because many peoples’ daily schedules are increasingly bringing them across municipal boundaries, urban problems and issues are extending into the suburbs and exurbs, the cities and their ‘burbs are becoming linked in various economic and social networks, and ultimately the once-clear lines between what is urban, suburban, or rural are becoming more blurred.
Early Metropolitan Areas
However, when these metropolitan regions first began to be formed with the introduction of the suburbs, this was not the case. Many Americans began to move into single-family homes in the suburbs in great numbers beginning in the early twentieth century so that very large cities such as Boston began losing population as early as 1930.
The public’s general opinion of the suburbs is captured very effectively through Ebenezer Howard’s three magnets of the town, the country, and the town-country. The town-country magnet was meant to represent all of the good things from both city and country living without any of the flaws. Plus, it was easy to make suburban life appealing in the eyes of the public when city life was depicted as the spawning grounds for vice, immorality, temptation and sin in a sort of anti-urban societal backlash.
Interdependence of the Cities and Suburbs
At that point in time, suburbs were overwhelmingly residential and the residents of these suburban neighborhoods were very dependent on the city for jobs, stores and entertainment. However, despite their dependence on the cities, suburbs still used fiscal zoning techniques to zone out the poor and competed for tax base not only with the cities, but with other suburbs as well.
In addition, the so-called “secession of the successful,” as described by Robert Reich in 1991, left cities without a large proportion of their tax bases once people who could afford to move did move. These types of early urban-suburban divisions made it easy to distinguish between the city and the suburbs along lines of race, infrastructure upkeep and private wealth.
Understanding the Definition of a City in a Metropolitan Context
Knowing the background information pertaining to the early divisions between what is considered the suburbs and what is considered the city makes it even more significant to now recognize the city as no longer a separately distinguishable unit, but rather as a part of a whole within the metropolitan context. The social connections and economies of suburbs and cities have become so intertwined that it would today be impossible to study and understand either a city or a suburb out of their metropolitan context.
In light of this relatively newer way of defining what a city is, urban planners have been trying reduce the lingering negative effects of fragmented municipal fiscal mercantilism on sloppy planning and social inequity by proposing more spatially concentrated planned metropolitan regions. However, according to Anthony Downs, this would only be possible under “a governance system that centralizes power over the land use patterns in each metropolitan area in a single governing body with authority over the entire area.”
Some organizations, such as regional transportation councils, fill this role to a certain limited extent. However, in the future we may see more of a focus on regionalist approaches to solving some of the metropolitan problems mentioned earlier. If so, the real-world significance of city borders may eventually fade to the extent that anyone asking “What is a city?” would be doing so in a purely historical context.
References:
- Downs, Anthony. “The Need for a New Vision for the Development of Large U.S. Metropolitan Areas.” The City Reader, Fourth Edition. Ed. LeGates, Richard T. and Stout, Frederick. New York, NY: Routledge, 2007. pp. 245-255.
- Howard, Ebenezer. “The Town-Country Magnet.” The City Reader, Fourth Edition. Ed. LeGates, Richard T. and Stout, Frederick. New York, NY: Routledge, 2007. pp. 314-321.
- Orfield, Myron. “Fiscal Equity.” The City Reader, Fourth Edition. Ed. LeGates, Richard T. and Stout, Frederick. New York, NY: Routledge, 2007. pp. 287-299.
- Paulsen, Krista. Introduction to the Metropolis class discussions. University of North Florida, Jacksonville, FL. 17 September, 2009 – 22 September, 2009.
- Reich, Robert. “Secession of the Successful.” New York Times Magazine. p. 16. 20 Jan. 1991.
- Rybczynski, Witold. City Life. New York, NY: Touchstone, 1995.
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David Boston - Hey! A bit about me: I'm a young American activist, researcher, student and aspiring writer, and I've met the love of my life, Caitlin. ...
