rural idiocy

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 03:42 PM 5/5/98 -0400, Charles Brown wrote:
>
>Jim Heartfield wrote:
>The number of people living in suburbs in the US has exceeded that
>living in cities since 1970 (US Department of Commerce, Social and
>Economic Statistics Administration, Bureau of the Census, Statistical
>Abstract of the United States, 1974, p 17).
>
>By my reckoning that means a considerable section of the US working
>class lives in so-called 'suburbs'. People in Britain are pretty snotty
>about the suburbanites, too. In Hampstead they are very arch about
>people from Essex and their 'Estuary English', mock-Georgian front oors
>and so on.
>
>___
> Just a comment on the cultural class stereotypes:
>  In metropolitan Detroit, there are working class
>suburbs, but in general the suburbanites are the 
>snotty ones in contrast with the City or inner city
>which is and has the image of Black and working class
>and poor. "Urban" is a code word for Black or Hispanic
>today, nationally. "Urban music" is Black music.
>There was white flight in the 50's, 60's and 70's.
>This was part of the territorial dispersal of the
>points of production.
>This "inner city" image is general around the big
>cities of the U.S., though Detroit has the
>biggest Black population percentage. 
> There are also rich suburbs (Grosse
>Pointe, Birmingham) . The working class suburbs are
>a bit better off than the City.
>
>   This seems to be somewhat different than
>what Jim describes in England.
>
>    I don't think you could say that car ownership is
>associated with "working class" and disgust with
>it as a typical middle class snobbery. Also, the 
>employed working class definitely considers 
>itself "middle class", which really complicates the
>issue under discussion.
>

When I was working on a paper on the organization of space, I recall
encountereing numerous references explicitly considering zoning and
suburban development as means of controllingt the working class.  Much of
it was written in the beginning of the 20th century, even by otherwise
famous architects like LeCorbusier, but there are also references from the
1950 by such 'public luminaries' like Richard Nixon who boasted that
suburban development would finish off communism.

To my recollection, the main idea behind suburbanization was physical
dispersion of the 'dangerous classes' and moving them away from the vital
urban centers to minimize the likelihood of a collective action.  I think,
however, that only the US was able to carry those designs through, partly
because unlike Europeans, Homo Americanus has no concept of space beyond
the immediate utilitarian dimension -- he tends to use and discard it as
any other commodity, partly because of the tremendous political clout of
land speculators, and partly because of higher population density in Europe
taht would make dispersed residential settlements a very costly proposition.  

The latter, BTW, might a probable factor explaining why most European
counttries opted for a political solution of the 'dangerous class' problem
-- representative democracy that give the working class a formal political
voice.  The US oligarchy felt that class war can be profitable (land
speculation, loans), even though it will ravage the cities and the
environemnt.  But after all why would they care?  After them - deluge.

Regards,

Wojtek