On Nov 13, 2009, at 6:43 AM, James Heartfield wrote:
> That's not what annoys me. What annoys me is when it seems that the
> left gives up on trying to convince the suburbs, small towns and
> exurbs, as it often does, suggesting that suburbanites are natural
> voting fodder for the right. That is why we have a Tory
> administration in London now - because Boris Johnson used the
> 'doughnut' strategy of campaigning in the suburbs while Labour's Ken
> Livingstone tried to rally the inner city. That is understandable,
> but ultimately self-defeating. All the evidence is that de-
> densification is the underlying trend, which no amount of smart-
> growth has succeeded in counter-acting. If the left gives up on the
> suburbs, then it gives up on winning. (Sorry to sound like Kevin
> Philips, but on that, if not on many other things, he had a point)
There are suburbs, and there are exurbs. Older, denser suburbs in the U.S. shouldn't be written of by a left, broadly defined. Not at all. But the rural areas and distant suburbs/exurbs/edge cities are mostly reactionary, and there's no point in trying to cultivate them.
Doug