More Environment, Energy & Transportation Policy Plays

Most policies to ease traffic congestion and urban sprawl focus on geographic extremes: reining in development on the outer fringe while luring jobs and people back to the urban core. Typically overlooked are those aging, inner-ring "first suburbs" that people pass through during their commutes. Many now confront what had been exclusively central city challenges: deteriorating and obsolete real estate, shrinking tax bases, problematic sewer and water systems, business disinvestment, and residents with modest or low incomes.

Studies have shown, however, that dollar for dollar it is far more economical to re-invest in first suburbs than to build from the ground up on the suburban fringes. The challenge for first suburbs is to awaken policymakers to such facts, and their residents and leaders are rising to the occasion. In the mid-1990s, for example, first suburb leaders in the Cleveland region created the Northeast Ohio First Suburbs Consortium (FSC) to tackle common problems. Now the group has grown to include 28 municipalities, with a total population of some 750,000 people, and has earned greater influence with legislators. The group has focused on two goals: revitalizing the retail sector and helping residents renovate their aging homes.

"We [try to stop] the cycle of build-and-abandon, and encourage rebuilding these older communities. One way to do that is to get communities to work together on redevelopment strategies, to 'brand' themselves as 'redevelopment-ready.' " -- Jim Townsend, Michigan Suburbs Alliance

On the retail front, FSC created the First Suburbs Development Council, a nonprofit corporation that helps member communities identify, prepare, and market retail development sites to private-sector developers. To help renovate housing stock, FSC created the Home Enhancement Loan Program (HELP), which allows homeowners in older suburbs to borrow money to repair or remodel their homes or rental properties at interest rates 3 percent below what a bank would offer.

Similar programs are sprouting up in other parts of the Midwest. For example, the Michigan Suburbs Alliance, a group of 25 communities surrounding Detroit, is forming a coalition of government agencies and banks to make it easier to buy and demolish eyesore properties, The Detroit News reports. Minnesota's "This Old House" program (which expired in early 2003 for new qualifiers, but remains for existing participants) provided a property tax break that helped people fix up homes built before 1958 and valued below $400,000. Backers say the program, which they hope to revive, was a great incentive for people to reinvest in older homes in Minneapolis and the first suburbs of Hennepin County. Similarly, the State of Missouri's Neighborhood Preservation Act provides tax credits to homeowners to offset the costs of investment in repair and construction of owner-occupied housing in moderate-income neighborhoods, such as those on the outskirts of St. Louis.

In May 2005, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) introduced the SCORE (Suburban Core Opportunity, Restoration and Enhancement) Act in the Senate, which would provide economic and tax incentives to revitalize first suburbs neighborhoods. The keystone of the act is a $250 million reinvestment fund that provides grants to eligible communities for "smart growth" initiatives.

Building up the first suburbs which are closer to employment, retail, and cultural centers than outer suburbs would not only help enrich the lives of America's working families but also help to preserve precious green areas in the outer fringes.

Resources For Action

Smart Growth America
www.smartgrowthamerica.org

Michigan Land Use Institute
www.mlui.org

The First Suburbs Consortium
www.firstsuburbs.org/index.htm

Suburban Core Opportunity, Restoration, and Enhancement (SCORE) Act of 2005
http://thomas.loc.gov/

Clean Water Infrastructure Financing Act of 2003
http://thomas.loc.gov/

Rebuild America Act of 2003
http://thomas.loc.gov/

Additional Reading

Robert Puentes and David Warren, One-Fifth of the Nation: America's First Suburbs, Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, The Brookings Institution, 2006
www.brookings.edu/metro/pubs/20060215_FirstSuburbs.htm

Robert Puentes and Myron Orfield, Valuing America's First Suburbs: A Policy Agenda for Older Suburbs in the Midwest, Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, The Brookings Institution, 2002
www.brookings.edu/es/urban/firstsuburbs/firstsuburbs.pdf

Contacts

Myron Orfield
Associate Professor of Law
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
University of Minnesota Law School
229 19th Ave. South
Minneapolis, MN 55455
(612) 625-7976
(612) 624-8890 (fax)
orfield@umn.edu