Suburbs sprang up as havens from urban decay. Now some are finding the decay is following them out of town.
Just look at Upper Darby, a stone’s throw away from the devastation of west Philadelphia.
Tumbling property values have dragged down Upper Darby’s tax base and forced up tax rates. The once quiet streets are a little more threatening. Cash-strapped schools are jammed with troubled youngsters from dozens of nations. And many homeowners are suddenly desperate to sell.
“I guess you could say Philadelphia’s problems are moving in,” says District Justice Mary Alice Brennan.
It’s the same story of suburban decay in other communities right outside big cities, as the middle class that created them flees to farther-out areas.
There’s Park Forest, Ill., still fighting to hang on. The devastation of Chicago’s Harvey suburb makes the troubles of many inner cities pale.
West of St. Louis, some older suburbs find themselves with abandoned buildings and dying shopping centers. And Cleveland loses 7,000 households a year, as developers build 11,000 higher-priced units annually in the expanding outer suburbs.
“People automatically assume that the patterns of residential decline that consume many inner-city neighborhoods are going to stop at the borders,” says Myron Orfield, a Minnesota legislator and expert on suburban decay.
“The irony is that as social and economic problems cross particularly into blue-collar and middle-class suburbs, they tend to pick up speed.”
Big cities, at least, can summon resources to deal with these problems. They have downtowns or historic districts to revitalize. They boast universities, orchestras and museums. Inner-ring suburbs, however, aren’t equipped to handle inner-city trauma.
Orfield is at the core of a movement among economic development experts to address the future of inner-ring suburbs. The first step, he says, is for distressed suburbs to admit they have more in common with cities than with country-club suburbs. That awakening is beginning to take place in Upper Darby.
A working and middle-class community of 85,000, Upper Darby used to be a refuge for Italians, Greeks and Irish immigrants who had scraped together enough money to get out of Philadelphia. Residents of the single-family stone homes and row houses were identified by the parish they lived near: a St. Bernadette’s girl or a Holy Cross guy.
The old culture is changing as new immigrant groups fleeing the city settle in Upper Darby. Now, the school district absorbs students of more than 50 nationalities, from Albanian to Hmong. The most common surname in the schools is Nguyen; Smith runs a distant second.
While many locals insist that race relations are peaceful in Upper Darby, some residents are openly uneasy with the newcomers.
“I notice with the type of people who move out here–whether they’re white or black–it just brings the class of the neighborhood down, to be frank with you,” says Carl N. Johnson, a white, 35-year-old power-company technician.
Residents’ worries take a toll. So many homes are on the market that it could take 18 months to clear the inventory, says Bobbi McGettigan, managing partner of Carr Real Estate Co.
Home prices on the working-class East Side have tumbled 15 to 18 percent over the last five years, and even in tony Drexel Park they have fallen 10 percent.
Johnson and his wife paid $84,000 four years ago for a three-bedroom row house. They might get $60,000 for it now.
Falling home values have pulled down the town’s property-tax base, the lifeblood of schools, police and other services. The township’s assessed property value has fallen 5.2 percent since 1990.
During the same period, property tax rates have risen. Upper Darby township and Delaware County rates have grown 34 percent, and the school district rate has jumped 55 percent. But that still isn’t enough to serve the influx of students. The student body surged to 11,400 in 1997-98 from 9,000 in 1991-92.
Within the schools, needier students are toting more serious personal problems. At Stonehurst Hills elementary, more than 350 of the 750 students qualify for a new subsidized-lunch program.
Like city kids, the teens of Upper Darby have shown an increasing tendency to get drunk, get disorderly and get arrested.
“When I was a kid, kids didn’t talk that way to adults, much less to a cop,” sighs Sgt. Jim Reif, the 35-year-old commander of the police mountain-bike unit.
In Upper Darby and elsewhere, development experts are starting to rally support for radical solutions. In St. Louis, a coalition of churches and other organizations is advocating limits on building outside the suburbs, to force developers to turn their attentions inward. Orfield urges tax-base sharing among rich and poor communities.
Delaware County Councilman Wally Nunn, a conservative Republican and investment banker, believes schools shouldn’t have to rely on local property taxes for funding. He wants to abolish property taxes and raise state income taxes to finance schools equitably. The current tax system “is the liver cancer of the inner-ring suburbs,” he says.
But such broad solutions remain far off for places like Upper Darby. Pushing solutions that force wealthy areas to share their tax take would require inner-ring suburbs to build a political coalition with cities. And most inner suburbs see themselves as having little in common with rough-and-tumble cities.
A not-in-my subdivision attitude often dominates the debate. A few years ago, Upper Darby officials recognized the area needed a homeless shelter. But the officials built the shelter in the only part of the township that juts into west Philadelphia.
At first, the city irritably refused to provide sewer hookups for the facility. An accord was eventually reached, allowing the shelter to be built.
A rise in crime, and particularly a mugging in a good neighborhood, got Upper Darby officials thinking about new ways to keep the peace. Now, the police are taking a good cop-bad cop approach to youth crime. Officers hand out police trading cards–with pictures of officers posing next to motorcycle, cruiser, bike or alert German shepherd–that they say are surprisingly popular with youths.
Then there’s bad cop. Last year the town adopted a New York City-style “zero-tolerance” policy, under which teens caught drinking, fighting or loitering are given the choice of a trial or a stern dose of community service.
The schools are taking matters into their own hands, as well. Not long ago, a nearby school district offered Upper Darby a chance–for $1,000–to remove spare parts from an elementary school slated for demolition. Upper Darby employees even scavenged lightbulbs and doorknobs.
