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ABSTRACT
TOWARD A POLITICAL ECONOMY OF METROPOLITAN AREAS
BY

Patrick James Ashton

The purpose of this paper is to develop a political economy
of metropolitan areas as a context for studying suburbs. The his—
torical treatment of suburbs by social scientists is examined and
criticized on two grounds: (1) The predominant focus on suburbs as
independent units of analysis has obscured important interrelation-
ships among communities in the metropolis; and (2) The overly narrow,
single-discipline character of this research has resulted in an
artificial division of labor and a subsequent lack of comprehensive
analysis. Political economy is suggested as a more systematic and
comprehensive method of understanding the meaning of the metropolis
for those who reside in it.

Thus the metropolitan economy is the starting point for sys-
tematic analysis. It is seen as divided into three distinct sectors:
monopoly, competitive and state. Each of these sectors is differen-
tiated along four key dimensions: (1) the technical conditions of
production, (2) the social relations of production, (3) the quality
of living conditions of the work force, and (4) the social composition
of the labor force. Politically independent suburban municipalities

are viewed as the means by which certain class and status groups

Patrick James Ashton

attempt to protect and expand privileges which accrue to them
because of their location in the metropolitan economy. The origin,
development and perpetuation of suburbs for this purpose are examined,
along with the conflicts and contradictions produced by this process.
The characteristics of the residents of forty-three suburban
municipalities in the Detroit metropolitan area are examined to
determine if the spatial distribution of privilege can be observed
from census data. The discovery of some significant variations among
communities leads to a strengthened conviction that metropolitan
political economy provides the best context for understanding the

meaning of suburbs for the lives of their residents.

TOWARD A POLITICAL ECONOMY OF METROPOLITAN AREAS

BY

Patrick James Ashton

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Sociology

1975

To My Parents
who, in their own way,

made this possible

ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Rick Hill, my
advisor, for his intellectual stimulation, thoughtful advice and
constant support. Though not responsible for the content of this
work, he certainly has had an important influence on it. Thanks
are also in order for the other members of my committee, Kay Snyder
and Jim McKee. Their cogent criticisms and supportive attitude are
deeply appreciated. In addition, I have been greatly aided in my
graduate studies by my colleagues in this department. Bill Barclay,
Teddie Gamso and Len Berkey in particular have been important sources
of intellectual and emotional support. I appreciate both their help
and their friendship. Finally, I wish to thank my friend and wife

Roxana, who knows the meaning of this work better than anyone else.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
LIST OF TABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V
LIST OF FIGURES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
CHAPTER
I INTRODUCTION: THE SUBURBAN PHENOMENON. . . . . . 1
II THE CONTEXT OF SUBURBIA. . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
The Metropolitan Economy . . . . . . . . . . 15
Technical Conditions of Production . . . . . . . 16
Social Relations of Production . . . 19
Quality of Living Conditions of the Work
Force. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Social Composition of the Labor Force. . . . . . 23
The Spatial Distribution of Privilege. . . . . . . 28
The Roots of Modern Suburbs. . . . . . . . . . . 30
Mechanisms for the Protection of Privilege . . . 41
Conflict and Contradiction in the Metropolis . . 43
III AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION: THE CASE OF DETROIT. . . . . 48
Why Detroit? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
The Classification Scheme. . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
The Dependent Variables. . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Results and Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
IV CONCLUSION: THE FUTURE OF SUBURBS. . . . . . . . 81
FOOTNOTES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
LIST OF REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

iv

LIST OF TAB LES
Table Page

1. Metropolitan Distribution of the U.S. Population,
1900-1970. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

2. Profit Rates of All U.S. Corporations by Asset Size. . . . 18
3. Estimated Mean Annual Percentage Changes in Popu-

lation and Employment for the Central Cities

and Suburban Rings of 40 Large SMSA's (1950

central city boundaries) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

4. Statistical Scope of the Present Study . . . . . . . . . . 55

5. Distribution of Municipalities by Percentage of
White Collar Employment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

6. Percentage of Sales, Assets and After-Tax Profits
Accounted for by the Four Largest Firms in Each
Industry for 19 Selected Industries, 1962. . . . . . . . 6O

7. Composition of Sectors by Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

8. Distribution of Municipalities by Percent Employed
in Monopoly and Competitive Sectors. . . . . . . . . . . 65

9. Classification of Municipalities by Occupational
Status and Sector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7O

10. Mean Social Composition of Municipalities by
Status and Sector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

11. Mean Income Differences by Status and Sector . . . . . . . 78

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page

1. Map of the Forty-three Municipalities in the
Present Study Plus the City of Detroit. . . . . . . . . 54

2. Spatial Distribution of Municipalities by
Occupational Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

3. Spatial Distribution of Municipalities by
Sector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

4. Spatial Distribution of Middle Status Munici-
palities by Sector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

vi

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION: THE SUBURBAN PHENOMENON

One of the most striking and significant social phenomena of
the twentieth century United States has been the growth and prolifera-
tion of the suburbs--small to moderate size municipalities outside the
corporate limits of the large central cities, politically independent
but economically and culturally dependent on them. Although suburbs
existed to some extent in the nineteenth century, it was only in this
century that they developed into significant social phenomena. As far
back as the Civil War, the populations of large Northeastern cities
like Boston, New York and Philadelphia were spilling over the cities'
corporate boundaries. But spatial expansion was limited by the rela-
tively undeveloped modes of transportation. With the advent of rail-
roads, suburban communities began to spring up along the spokes of
the major routes leading from the hub of the city.

However, it was really the development of the automobile as a
relatively cheap and universal mode of transportation at the beginning

0f tfllis century which made the large-scale development of suburbs
POSSiible. In 1900, only 10.7 percent of the U.S. population lived

in 53tfl3urbs (see Table 1, page 2). In 1920, when Americans owned nine
milJLiJDn autos, suburban growth exceeded that of central cities for the
firsrtl time and suburbs accounted for almost 15 percent of the total
nMiOnal population. By 1930, when 26.5 million automobiles were in

l

Table l.-—Metropolitan Distribution of the U.S. Population, 1900-1970.

 

Year Percentages
Central cities Change by decade Suburbs Change by decade

 

1900 21.0 ---- 10.7 ----
1910 25.0 19.1 12.7 19.0
1920 28.9 15.6 14.8 16.5
1930 31.8 10.1 18.0 21.6
1940 31.6 -0.6 19.5 8.3
1950 32.3 2.2 23.8 22.1
1960 32.6 0.9 30.7 24.9
1970 31.4 -3.7 37.6 22.5

 

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census. Adapted from Masotti and Hadden
(1974:7).

circulation, the growth rate of suburbs was more than double that of

central cities. Although the central cities lost population in the

depressed thirties, suburbs actually gained 8.3 percent.

After World War II, the stored-up demand for housing, the
easy availability of FHA and VA insured mortgages and the growing
decentralization of commerce and industry combined to initiate a
frenzy of suburban growth. By 1950, the suburban growth rate was
mOITB than ten times that of the central cities and nearly one in four

Americans was a suburbanite. Eighty-four percent of the nation's
t““3rrty-eight million person population increase in the next decade
usciki place in metropolitan areas, with suburbs alone accounting for

64 IPGarcent (Sobin, 1971:24). Urban insurrections and fear of street

crime contributed to a precipitous decline in central city population
in the 19605 and further increased migration to the suburbs. In 1970,
seventy-six million Americans lived in suburbs--almost 57 percent of
the total metropolitan population (Masotti and Hadden, 1974:5-6).
The 1970 census confirmed that, for the first time in American history,
more people lived in suburbs (37.6 percent) than in either central
cities (31.4 percent) or rural areas (31.0 percent).1

The explosive growth of suburbs since 1900 can also be docu-
mented by the expanding volume of social commentary, novels, short
stories, and both popular and social scientific research concerning
suburbs. A trickle of books and magazine articles in the first few
decades of this century turned into a veritable deluge of material
after 1950. Not surprisingly, the stated aims and conclusions of
these studies varied over time. Given the limitations of time and
space, I must necessarily confine myself to those popular and social
scientific studies which have made major contributions to the research
and debate concerning suburbs.2

The first sociological study of the automobile-induced suburbs

was The Suburban Trend by Harlan Paul Douglass which appeared in 1925.

 

In this seminal work Douglass called the suburb "a footnote to urban

Civilization affecting the nearby countryside . . . . It is the city

trYing to escape the consequences of being a city while still remain-
ing ii City. It is urban society trying to eat its cake and keep it:

toofl' (1925:3-4). Ignoring his own dire assessment momentarily, he
went on to characterize suburbs as

11he most promising aspect of urban civilization . . . . Formed
c>ut of the dust of cities, they wait to have breathed into them

the breath of community sentiment, of neighborly fraternity and
peace. They reflect the unspoiled and youthful aspect of urban
civilization, the adolescent and not yet disillusioned part of

the city, where, if at all, happiness and worthy living may be

achieved, as well as material well-being (1925:36-7).

Douglass' contradictory assertions stood essentially untested
for over twenty-five years. It was not until after World War II, when
suburban migration became a stampede, that a social scientific litera—
ture concerning suburbs began to accumulate and social critics sat up
and took notice. The first studies were invariably explorations of
specific suburban communities. The findings from one particular
community were then assumed to be generalizable to the entire suburban
phenomenon. (Sometimes this assumption was made by the writer, some-
times by the writer's audience, often by both.) Thus was born what
came to be called "the Myth of Suburbia."3

Thirty years after Harlan Douglass examined the movement out
of cities, Auguste Spectorsky studied those who moved out the greatest
distances--the exurbanites. These people, he found, were artists,
editors and successful businessmen who wished to escape the "rat-race"
of the city for the tranquility of the countryside. Thus they moved
to farms a good distance removed from the city, their place of
employment. But they had escaped from one rat-race only to find them-
selves enmeshed in another. Spectorsky noted a high degree of
insecurity, compulsive socializing, clique-forming and competition
among these people. The exurbanite, he said, has a personal equation
in which there is "one constant, his insecurity; one steadily growing

value, his obligations; one steadily diminishing factor, time"

(1955:269).

If Spectorsky's book laid the basis for a "Myth of Suburbia,"
William H. Whyte did the most to popularize it through his study of
The Organization Man (1956). Whyte devoted the seventh chapter of his
book to the residence and lifestyle of The Organization Man. He looked
at Park Forest, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago which was predominantly
populated by young junior executives on the way up. Whyte criticized
the intense competition, superficial social relationships and dulling
conformity which he found there. "Social adjustment and togetherness"
were the primary values of the community and Whyte showed how they
manifested themselves in the lives of the Organization Men, their
wives and children. Because Whyte's book achieved such a wide cir-
culation, many Americans assumed that he had accurately summed up the
entire phenomenon known as suburbia. Indeed, more than a decade later
Scott Donaldson characterized Whyte's account as "the single most
influential statement in the attack on the American suburb"
(Donaldson, l969:2).

Another popular study of suburbia which enjoyed a wide cir-

culation in the 19505 was John Keats' The Crack in the Picture

 

Window (1956). In it he examined the housing and the residents of
suburbia and found them both uniformly dull and boring. Another book
on suburbia which appeared in the same year as those of Keats and

Whyte was Crestwood Heights (Seeley, Sim and Loosley, 1956).

 

Although its circulation was far more limited than that of the afore-
mentioned volumes, it is nonetheless extremely important because many
social scientists regard it as the first complete study of suburban

social life. The authors examined an upper middle class suburb

outside Toronto, Canada populated primarily by business and profes-
sional people. They attempted to probe all aspects of suburban life,
with a special emphasis on child-rearing practices. They noted that
the rigorous and rigid pace of the business world deeply penetrated
the social life of the residents. Children were taught the value of
the constant acquisition of new objects and that the appearance of
success was more important than the reality of it. While the authors
attempted to conduct their research with appropriate scientific
objectivity, the fact that they considered many of the attitudes,
norms, and values which they found in Crestwood Heights almost patho-
logical inevitably fueled the Myth of Suburbia.

In 1958, Robert Wood published Suburbia: Its People and Their

 

Politics. Although ultimately critical of suburbs, this work marked
a break with the traditional attack on suburbia. In a sophisticated
analysis of the meaning and function of local suburban governments,
Wood recognized that the maintenance of these seemingly inefficient
local political units represented the desire of suburbanites for local
identity in the best tradition of Jeffersonian small-scale direct
democracy. Ultimately, however, Wood noted that political fragmenta-
tion would greatly hinder the solution of basic suburban problems.

Bennett Berger's 1960 study, Working Class Suburb, struck a

 

major blow at the "Myth of Suburbia." First of all, it contradicted
the popular notion that all suburbanites were middle class white
collar workers. Secondly, Berger showed that urban residents bring
their values and life styles with them to suburbia and transplant them

there, rather than automatically acquiring new values and behavioral

patterns. This work did a great deal to spread the notion that
suburbia was a much more complex social phenomenon than had previously
been indicated.

The 19605 produced a number of studies which were explicitly
critical of the "Myth of Suburbia." While the authors of these works
admitted the existence of problems in suburbia, they saw these prob-
lems as no more serious or extensive than those of the large cities.
William Dobriner was one of these people. "Suburbs certainly possess
a structural reality and a distinct ecological position within the
metropolitan area," he noted in 1963, "but it is questionable whether
they have developed a way of life critically different from the urban
pattern" (Dobriner, 1963:25-6). Dobriner prefers to see each suburb
as a specialized subsystem of the metrOpolitan area. Individual
suburbs can vary a great deal and it is important to make distinctions
based on social class composition (the most critical variable),
employment patterns, and type and age of housing. Writers and social
critics who fell for the Myth did so because they overlooked these
variables, Dobriner concludes (1963:25-8).

Another important critique of the "Myth of Suburbia" was the
work of Herbert Gans. He studied the new suburb of Levittown, New
Jersey from its inception onward through participant observation and
questionnaire techniques. Gans published his findings in 1967 in

The Levittowners. What he found was that people's basic lifestyles

 

were not changed by the move to suburbia, and the small changes which
did take place were planned before the move. Gans said he saw no

evidence of compulsive socializing, excessive conformity or intense

competition among the Levittowners. Reflecting Dobriner somewhat, Gans
concluded that new communities were essentially shaped by their popu-
lation mix.

Perhaps the most virulent critic of the "Myth of Suburbia" has
been Scott Donaldson. He unequivocally states that the "largely non-
sensical" onslaught against the suburbs "contains little that is intel-
ligent or constructive; for the most part, it is composed of whopping
irrelevancies, galloping overstatements, and poorly concealed animosi-
ties" (Donaldson, 1969:l). He worries that in the end the suburbs
may succumb to this unfair attack out of demoralization and despair.
Donaldson's work is both an attempt to dispel the myth and raise the
spirits and pride of suburbanites.

The urban insurrections in the 19605 did much to rekindle
interest in the flagging study of urban sociology. And studies of
the large metropolitan cities could hardly fail to analyze the
expanding suburbs. In addition, when the 1970 census confirmed the
fact that a plurality of Americans had become suburbanites, increasing
numbers of social scientists and social commentators were drawn to
investigating this phenomenon. Drawing fruitfully on the debate of
the fifties and sixties, these newer analyses tended to be broader in
scope. They viewed the problems of suburbia as complex and inter-
dependent and thus were usually more realistic.

Dennis Sobin's The Future of the American Suburbs is one such

 

work. Sobin wonders if suburbs can continue to exist in their
present form, both because of their internal difficulties and the

larger interdependent problems of the metropolis. "The ills fostered

by the suburbs extend beyond suburbia," he writes.

In large measure many of the problems of the cities can be
directly attributed to the suburbs, for suburbia has helped to
bring about the economic crisis, the jobless situation, the
deterioration of public services and the perpetration of ghettoes
in cities. It has helped to do this by drawing the affluent

from the city, by discriminating against black people, and by
diverting federal and state funds from the city (1971:93).

Several readers have appeared recently which deal with the
question of policy for the suburbs. One such collection is Cities

and Suburbs, edited by Bryan Downes (1971). Another is The End of

 

 

Innocence, edited by Charles M. Haar, who served as chairman of
President Johnson's Task Force on Suburban Problems (Haar, 1972). For
Haar, the important questions which must be answered include:
What are the implications for American society of what is taking
place in suburbia? What are the portents of the coming wave of
suburban growth? Can we guide, direct, or exhort the coming

growth so that it will accord with our vision; and if we can,

are we willing to accept the responsibility and undertake the
task?" (l972:ii).

The responsibility of planning, Haar says, requires a "loss of inno-
cence" in order to completely recognize the fully interdependent
nature of the metropolis and the nation. Whether he does so con-
SClously or not, Haar revises Harlan Douglass' characterization of the
suburbs of half a century ago as "the unspoiled and youthful aspect
of urban civilization, the adolescent and not yet disillusioned part
of the city," by stating that "Our infancy and childhood are over:
neither nature, nor the frontier, nor the unfettered pursuit of indi-
vidual interests will sufficiently protect us from ourselves"
(Haar, 1972:185).

If one recurrent theme could be said to run through this

varied literature on suburbia, it would be this: Each author, whether

10

critic, defender or disinterested researcher, has attempted to come to
grips with the meaning of suburbs for the lives of their residents.
They have tried, with varying degrees of success, to understand the
attitudes, values, lifestyles and lifechances of thise Americans who
live in suburbs. The uneven quality of the insights gained is a
result of a fundamental methodological difficulty: While suburbs are
part of an interdependent metropolitan system, they have most often
been studied as relatively independent units of analysis. Research
has focused on individual suburbs or groups of suburbs without
examining how the lives of these particular residents are directly
and indirectly tied to those of all the other residents of the
metropolis. Nor is this the sole fault of suburban research. Studies
of cities and urban problems have consistently overlooked the suburbs
and their interconnections with the problems studied.4

Focus on suburbs as relatively independent units of analysis
has introduced an additional methodological failing. The assumption
is made that if enough microsocial studies of independent units are
done, they will somehow add up to a coherent and comprehensive
picture of the whole phenomenon. Examining the possibilities for
future research, Maurice Stein epitomizes this position when he
states: "The whole effort at developing a sociological interpretation
of suburbia will rest upon the accumulation during the years to come
of a series of studies of different kinds of suburbs" (Stein, 1960:
199). While it is true that social science research is cumulative,

it must be research which examines the full microsocial range of a

ll

phenomenon, which takes into account as many fine details and dis-
tinctions as possible while remaining comprehensive.

If studies of cities and suburbs are limited because of their
narrow scope, one would expect the literature on metropolitan areas to
remedy this difficulty. However, most metropolitan research goes too
far in the other direction. That is, in an attempt to achieve a broad
scope of analysis, the authors of these studies have overlooked impor-
tant distinctions between and among suburbs and cities. For example,
Masotti and Hadden have written extensively about the complexities of
suburbia. Yet, when they choose the metropolis as the context for
their research, they fail to establish the meaning of these complexities
in the larger whole (Hadden, Masotti, and Larsen, 1967). Similarly,
Blake McKelvey's analysis of the growth and development of metropolitan
America fails completely to take the suburban phenomenon into account
(McKelvey, 1968). Even a very comprehensive and excellent comparative
and historical analysis like that of Hans Blumenfeld neglects the
subtle differences between city and suburbs (Blumenfeld, 1967). A
metropolitan study which does touch on conflicts between and among
cities and suburbs is John Bollens' examination of St. Louis
(Bollens, 1961). Unfortunately, he does not analyze these differences
in a sufficiently systematic manner.

Social science research on suburbs and their place in the
metropolitan context is further impaired by the artificial division
0f labor among the social sciences. Sociologists and social
Psychologists have studied attitudes, values and lifestyles of

suburbanites but, as noted earlier, they have failed to examine the

12

full complexities of the metropolis. Economists have traditionally
had a metropolitan focus to their research but, on the whole, they

too have neglected the dynamics of conflict among competing interests.5
Political scientists have been the group most likely to take account
of the conflicts arising out of the growth and development of

suburbs.6

They have analyzed how the divergent needs and goals of
cities and suburbs clash and compete in the metrOpolitan arena.
However what is often missing from their analysis is a thorough
examination of the bases for divergent interests, the origin of com-
peting needs and goals. This is due to their omission or super-
ficial treatment of the economic element.

In order to comprehensively analyze the meaning of suburbs
for the lives of their residents, then, we need a methodology which
will take into account social, political and economic factors and
which will View suburbs not as independent units of analysis, but as
interdependent parts of a comprehensive whole. More importantly, it
must be a mode of analysis which has as its starting point the most
fundamental of human activities: the way in which people satisfy
their basic human needs. No research purporting to analyze people's
lives and life chances can overlook this fundamental activity. For
here are rooted the origins of power and control (and thus conflict)
in society. The methodology of which I speak is that of political
economy. Very simply, political economy is "the study of the social
laws governing the production and distribution of material means of
satisfying human needs" (Lange, l963zl). Political economy begins

with the most fundamental human activity and then seeks to explain

13

the relationships of individuals and groups of individuals to one

another. It roots the origin and dynamics of conflict among various
interests in a society in the bedrock of production relations. Thus,
it attempts to reveal the laws of motion of society (Eaton, 1949:
1-4) .7
The methodology of political economy, then, is indispensable
to a truly fundamental and comprehensive analysis of the meaning of
suburbs for the lives of their residents. But the methodology impels
us to look beyond suburbs themselves, to consider the entire metro-
politan context. What is needed is a political economy of metro-
politan areas. Unfortunately, relevant research in political
economy is currently rather scattered and uneven. The present paper
is an attempt to bring together and synthesize those works which,
because of their political economic methodology, can bring insight
and clarification to metropolitan analysis. O'Connor (1973) is the
most important of these endeavors and is relied on heavily throughout
the remainder of this paper. Although he does not deal specifically
with metropolitan areas to a great extent, O'Connor's work is crucial
for comprehending the nature of advanced capitalism in the United
States, and the conflicts generated within it. Working independently,
Bluestone (1968, 1972) has reached several parallel and ancillary
conclusions. Harvey (1972) and Sinclair (1972) clearly demonstrate
how spatial relationships are generated by economic ones, although
neither of them talk specifically about suburbs. Williams (1967)

shows how suburbs protect the privileges of certain groups in the

14

metropolis and Gordon (1971) shows that fundamental urban problems

are rooted in the metropolitan economy.

Thus this paper attempts to develop a political economy of
metropolitan areas as a context in which to study suburbs-—their
growth and development and their implications for the lives of the
people who live in them. No theory will be conclusively proved or
disproved here, nor will sophisticated techniques of data manipulation
be employed. Rather an attempt will be made to illustrate the utility
of political economy for understanding both the dynamics and human
meanings of suburbs in metropolitan areas. Rather than a conclusion,

I hope that this is a beginning.

CHAPTER II

THE CONTEXT OF SUBURBIA

The Metropplitan Economy

 

When we speak of a metropolitan economy, we are essentially
considering the national economy as a whole, for the U.S. economy
i§_a metropolitan economy. Over two—thirds of the nation's population
and labor force reside in the metropolis. The headquarters of almost
all the large corporate organizations are there, as well as a vast
majority of all financial institutions and wholesale and retail
establishments (Bollens and Schmandt, 1965:109).

Following O'Connor (1973:13), I would observe that economic
activities in the metropolis are divided into two broad groups:
industries organized by private capital and those organized by the
state. Production and distribution in the private sector are further
divided into industries organized along competitive and monopolistic
lines.8 Richard Hill (1973:16) has pointed out that each of these
sectors--competitive, monopoly and state-~can be differentiated along
four key dimensions: (1) the technical conditions of production;

(2) the social relations of production; (3) the quality of living
conditions of the work force; (4) the social composition of the labor
force. Since the state sector tends to have features of both the

monopoly and competitive sectors, it is my intention to first

15

16

differentiate the latter two sectors along these dimensions, then

return to an analysis of the state sector.

Technical Conditions of
Production

 

 

The most striking difference between the monopoly and com-
petitive sectors is the degree of concentration inherent in each.
Monopoly sector industries are dominated by a handful of firms9 and
characterized by high cost of entry while competitive sector firms
face a great deal of competition and relative ease of firm entry.

The reasons for this difference flow directly from two differing con-
ditions of production. Monopoly sector industries are highly capital
intensive and ordinarily very large in order to take advantage of
economies of scale. Increases in an already high rate of productivity
are tied more to capital investment and technological progress than
to growth of employment. Furthermore, markets for monopoly sector
goods are generally national and international in scope. Thus the
desire to protect huge capital investments and the flexibility
introduced by large markets, coupled with large size and difficulty
of entry give monopoly industries both the motivation and the

ability to control price competition in their sector.

The situation of competitive sector industries is the oppo-
site: low capital-to-labor ratios allow for ease of entry and thus
lead to overcrowding and fierce competition. Increases in productivity
are achieved in small increments and are generally tied to an expansion
of the labor force. The market for competitive sector commodities

is often local or regional. Frequently demand is highly unstable

17

and/or seasonal. The difficulty in achieving economies of scale, ease
of firm entry and unstable markets thus comspire to prevent competi—
tive sector firms from achieving any significant degree of control
over their respective industries.

Profitability also varies in the competitive and monopoly
sectors. Monopoly sector firms tend to have both higher absolute
profit levels and higher rates of profit. For example, in 1969 the
one hundred largest industrial corporations in the United States
accounted for over 58 percent of all after-tax profits (Edwards,

Reich and Weisskopf, 1972:154). Moreover, Table 2 shows that the
more capital intensive a firm, the higher its relative profit rate.

A major explanation for both higher absolute and relative profits
lies in the differing structure of monopoly and competitive indus-
tries. By their very nature, industries in the monopoly sector have
a great deal of control over their market and are thus not strictly
subject to the laws of supply and demand. Increased costs can be
passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices and declining
demand will not necessarily lower the price of monopoly sector com-
modities. In fact it usually leads to an increase in prices in order
to maintain projected profit margins.10

In the competitive sector, on the other hand, profits are
much less stable because they are subject to market forces. Increased
costs often must be absorbed by the firm in order to maintain a com-
petitive position, thereby reducing profits. In addition, decreasing

demand in an industry must often be met by reduction in prices by the

18

Table 2.--Profit Rates of All U.S. Corporations by Asset Size.*

 

 

 

 

Asset class Year

(lower limit) 1937 1949 1961
$0 -8.2 -3.4 -4.9
$50,000 1.8 7.4 6.4
$100,000 3.9 10.5 8.2
$250,000 4.9 12.9 8.1
$500,000 5.3 13.5 9.4
$1,000,000 6.0 14.3 9.8
$5,000,000 6.0 13.9 10.2
$10,000,000 6.9 14.6 10.6
$50,000,000 5.4 13.9 11.2

 

*Total profits or losses before taxes were divided by equity
to obtain the profit rate, which is expressed as a percentage.

Source: U.S. Treasury Department, Internal Revenue Service.
Adapted from Edwards, Reich and Weisskopf(l972:154).

19

individual firms in order to retain their competitive shares of the
market.

The higher absolute and relative profitability of the monopoly
sector, along with its greater stability of profits, begets an ever-
increasing share of capital investment. For, according to the "law
of uneven development," capital is reinvested in those areas which
have proven to be most profitable in the past. This investment tends
to change the quality of the factor in a way that makes further
investment even more profitable. Rich firms are made richer by this
process and poor firms are left to fend for themselves. Thus the gap
between the monopoly and competitive sectors increases secularly

(Bluestone, 1972:65-6).

Social Relations of Production

 

The social relations of the monopoly and competitive sectors
are based on their respective technical conditions of production. An
important set of social relations is found in the division of labor
in the two sectors. In the monopoly sector, sophisticated and complex
production processes require a large number of trained technical and
supervisory employees. Huge organizational bureaucracies are created
as monopoly sector firms expand in both size and scope. Moreover,
high profitability and the ability of these firms to pass the
increased costs of bureaucracy on to the consumer encourage this
development. By way of contrast, competitive sector firms (1) have
less need for large organizational bureaucracies because of their
generally smaller size and scope; and (2) are financially unable to

Support such bureaucracies because of their very competitive position--

20

costs must always be kept to a minimum. Competitive sector entre—
preneurs and employers simply cannot afford the luxury of finely
differentiated work roles which accrues to their monopoly sector
counterparts.

The wage contract represents a very important social relation
between capital and labor. But its conditions differ enormously
between the monopoly and competitive sectors. Capital intensity, high
labor productivity, stability produced by concentration and high pro-
fit levels, and high public visibility create the structural condi-
tions impelling and enabling monopoly sector firms to pay significantly

11 High labor

higher wages than those in the competitive sector.
intensity, low productivity and profit margins, and competition in
the market on the other hand constrain competitive sector firms from
paying high wages. In addition, low public visibility lessens the
pressure on them to do so. In 1968, O'Connor notes, ten million
workers in the United States earned less than $1.60 per hour,
including 3.5 million who were paid less than $1.00 per hour. Two-
thirds of these workers were employed in retail trade and services--
both highly competitive industries (O'Connor, 1973:14-5). Similarly,
Bluestone (1972:68) has found that the wage differential between
"high-wage" and "low-wage" industries has increased secularly. In
1947, in the set of industries with the lowest wages, the average
hourly rates were 75 percent of the average in high wage industries.
In 1966, the ratio had fallen to 60 percent. Furthermore, the low

wage industries granted smaller wage increases (in both percentage

and absolute terms) in all but four years of the period.

21

However, the technical conditions of production are necessary
but not sufficient conditions for higher wages in the monopoly sector.
Ultimately, higher wages are strongly correlated with the level of
unionization. Of course the extent to which workers can organize
and successfully bargain for better circumstances is also determined
to a certain extent by the technical conditions of production.
Physical and geographic concentration of production facilities, the
relatively inelastic demand for labor and high productivity per
worker combine to create a climate conducive to unionization in the
monopoly sector. On the whole, blue collar workers in this sector
have exploited these conditions advantageously and are now almost
completely unionized. Recently, white collar workers in monopoly
sector industries have begun to organize also.

The need for monopoly firms to create a stable labor force
in order to rationalize the planning process and their ability to
pass on increased wage costs to the consumer allows these employers
to accept union movements. On the other hand, workers in the com-
petitive sector are faced with this dilemma: their wages tend to be
low and do not keep up with the cost of living. However, if they
attempt to raise their wages through collective bargaining, they may
price their employer out of the competitive market and thus lose
their jobs when the company folds. For this reason and others
mentioned above, unionization and wages tend to be low in the com-

petitive sector.

22

Quality of Living Conditions
of the Work Force

 

 

The quality of life for workers in the monopoly and competi-
tive sectors of the metropolitan economy can be analyzed in terms of
two categories: (1) job security and advancement, and (2) social and
working conditions. Both of these dimensions are rooted in the
technical conditions and social relations of production. Two features
of the monopoly sector--its huge capital investment and its relatively
inelastic demand for labor--contribute a great deal toward maintaining
a relatively stable workforce. Unions prevent arbitrary layoffs and
provide benefits (or get the firm to provide benefits) when they do
occur. Seniority and tenure systems protect jobs and provide oppor—
tunities for advancement. In contrast, employment in the competitive
sector is often temporary or seasonal, and the demand for labor is
highly elastic. Coupled with the low level of unionization, these
conditions contribute to a highly unstable employment picture for
workers in this sector. Hiring, firing and advancement are often done
on very particularistic criteria and workers have little recourse
unless overt racial or sexual discrimination can be proved.

In addition, structural conditions in the competitive sector
contribute to a great deal of underemployment. According to govern-
ment usage, the underemployed include: those unemployed, those
working full time at very low wages, those who want to work full time
but can find only part time work, and those who want to work but have
dropped out of the labor force. David Gordon (1971:58) notes three
defining characteristics of underemployed workers: low wages, low

skill levels, and random, frequently unpredictable patterns of work.

23

Each characteristic reinforces the other to create a self-perpetuating
cycle of underemployment. These workers, because of their own per-
sonal and social characteristics or the structure of the industries

in which they find employment, become locked in a cycle of deprivation
at the same time that other workers find security and advancement in
monopoly sector jobs.

Because of greater public visibility and a higher level of
unionization, jobs in the monopoly sector tend to be safer and less
subject to arbitrary discipline than those in the competitive sector.
Strict work rules provide for workbreaks, sickleave and paid vacations
for monopoly industry workers. Very few competitive sector workers
have all of these benefits. Recently, monopoly sector unions have
put increasing emphasis on health care and pension provisions in their
collective bargaining agreements. Most workers in competitive
industries are not likely to have extensive medical and dental
insurance, and until very recently saw pension plans completely wiped
out when companies went out of business. Although recent government
legislation will protect a majority of pension plans for workers
with seniority, the benefits gap between monopoly and competitive
sector workers is not likely to close.

Social Composition of the
Labor Force

 

 

An examination of the labor force employed by monopoly and
competitive sector industries shows that significant distinctions can
be made by sector. The monopoly sector labor force is relatively

homogeneous; it is disproportionately composed of white male workers.

24

This is logical when we consider three points: (1) jobs in the monopoly
sector invariably carry the greatest status, highest wages and most
benefits; (2) white Anglo-Saxon males have traditionally been the most
privileged group in the U.S. labor force; (3) the stability of
employment inherent in the structure of monopoly sector industries
and the job tenure and protection from labor market competition
afforded by strong unions serve as effective weapons in the service
of the status quo.

Workers in the competitive sector, on the other hand, are
disproportionately black, Chicano, female and at either extreme of
the age continuum of the labor force. Part of the heterogeneity of
this work force is explained by the nature of employment in the com-
petitive sector. Its frequently seasonal and temporary nature has
obvious appeal to students, working mothers with children, older
people supplementing social security and/or pension income and moon—
lighters. Nevertheless, minorities are concentrated in the com-
petitive sector to an extent great enough to cause us to look for a
structural mechanism by way of explanation.

The operation of dual labor markets is just such an explana-
tion. Michael Piore (1970:90-4), who has done extensive analysis of
manpower allocation and labor markets, argues that

the role of employment and the disposition of manpower in the
perpetuation of poverty is best understood in terms of a dual
labor market. One sector of that market, . . . the primary
market, offers jobs which possess several of the following
traits: high wages, good working conditions, employment stability
and job security, equity and due process in the administration of
work rules, and chances for advancement [i.e. jobs in the

monopoly sector]. The other, or secondary sector, has jobs which,
relative to those in the primary sector, are decidedly less

25

attractive. They tend to involve low wages, poor working con-

ditions, considerable variability in employment, harsh and often

arbitrary discipline and little opportunity to advance [i.e. jobs

in the competitive sector] (Piore, 1970:91).
Minority workers tend to be trapped in secondary, or competitive sector
jobs for two self—fulfilling reasons. First, their entrance into the
work force at the level of competitive sector employment tends to
develop behavioral traits which are not conducive to upward movement
into the primary sector. For example, punctuality and a high degree
of on—the-job discipline are often not essential in competitive sector
industries. Association with others who do not possess these traits,
especially through ghettoization, tends to reinforce and perpetuate
alternate behavioral patterns which make these people unacceptable to

12
monopoly sector employers.
Secondly, minority workers who do possess the behavioral

traits necessary to work in the monopoly sector are kept out of the
primary labor market because they possess the superficial physical

or social characteristics of secondary workers. Piore calls this

phenomenon statistical discrimination. Secondary workers are thus

 

confined by "gatekeeping" institutions like employment agencies and
labor service pools to employment in the competitive sector while the
status of white males is protected through their privileged access
to primary labor markets.

According to O'Connor (1973:17-8), there are two major sub-
divisions in the state sector of the economy: production of goods
and services organized by the state (e.g. education, health and
welfare) and production organized by industries under state contract

(e.g. highway construction, military and aeronautical equipment).

26

State-organized production tends to have the structural features of
the competitive sector. It is labor intensive; expansion of pro-
duction depends upon expansion of employment. State-contracted
production is organized along monopoly sector lines. It is capital
intensive and highly concentrated. High profits are guaranteed
through cost-plus contracts. Productivity, however, tends to be low
because the unique nature of many of the products militates against
economies of mass production and the lack of incentive in the guaran-
teed profit plan.

Wage levels in both subgroups of the state sector tend to be
high. This is due partly to the high level of unionization at the
Federal level and increasing unionization at the state and local
level. But more importantly, wage levels reflect the political
process. Workers in state~contract production are already members of
monopoly sector unions and workers in state-organized production have
successfully extended monopoly sector pattern bargaining to their own
union contracts, in spite of their low productivity. Job security
and opportunity for advancement in state-contract industries resembles
that of the monopoly sector. Workers in state-organized production
have achieved these benefits through the civil service system.

Because of political pressure for equal opportunity and the
resultant government regulations, minorities are employed by the state
in significantly greater numbers than in the monopoly sector. High
public visibility of both state-organized and state-contract indus—
tries results in a movement of some blacks, women and other minor-

ities into positions of power. However, it is still possible to see

27

the operation of the dual labor market in the state sector. Blacks,
women, Chicanos, students, etc., are funneled through the secondary
labor market into the menial blue collar and low-status clerical jobs
in this sector. To the extent that the civil service system can be
circumvented (and often in the course of its normal operation), white
males are channeled through the primary labor market into high-paying
decision-making positions. Since wages in the state sector are sig-
nificantly higher than in the competitive sector, access of minorities
to state jobs represents an absolute gain. However, since they tend
to be concentrated in the lower-status occupations within the sector,
relative inequality is perpetuated.

The structure of the metropolitan economy which I have just
described is crucial for an understanding of the lives of the people
who live and work in the metropolis. For the nature of the production
and distribution relations into which these people enter in the process
of earning a living provides a framework for the development of a sys-
tem of stratification. It is a system based on both class and status
distinctions.l3 White collar workers in the monopoly sector have dif-
ferent access to high-paying and rewarding jobs than do their
counterparts in the competitive and state sectors. A small business-
man in a competitive industry has a very different range of investment
and production decisions than does the president of a huge monopoly
corporation. While the nature of clerical work may be similar, it is
rewarded in a different fashion in the state and competitive sectors.

And so on. The inequalities manifest in the metropolis have their

origins in the organization and dynamics of production relations.

 

28

Furthermore, this class and status stratification has a spatial
dimension. For the geographic organization of space in the metropolis
"is the result of human activity as it unfolds in a particular cul-
tural, social, economic, political and technological setting," says
David Harvey (l972:l). The material base of this activity, as we have
seen, is located in the structure of the metropolitan economy. The
various claims on space in the metropolis and the uses to which it is
put reflect the different locations of classes and status groups in
that economy. It shall be the purpose of the remainder of this paper
to examine the location of these groups and to show how their economic

position brings them into conflict with one another.

The Spatial Distribution of Privilege

 

The basic thesis of this paper is that political fragmentation
in the metropolis, evidenced by the proliferation of relatively small,
independent municipalities at the fringes of large cities, is not an
irrational, unplanned and uncontrolled development. Rather it is the
result of very rational, self-serving attempts on the part of certain
class and status groups to protect and maintain a certain degree of
privilege. While it is quite true that many urban neighborhoods have
easily identifiable class and status characteristics, the important

difference in suburbia is political independence. Suburban municipal-

 

ities are sufficiently small and manageable enough that a class or
status conscious group of residents can use their governmental power
to defend, and often to expand their privilege.

There are two basic incentives for the protection of space in

the metropolis. First, strategic locations can be appropriated by

29

various groups in order to protect or improve their competitive posi-
tion in production and/or consumption. But once these areas are
acquired, they must be safeguarded, notes Oliver Williams, "for the
curse of urbanism is the instability of site advantages. A variety of
social institutions, of which the municipality is one, help to protect
the place of advantage for its constituents and to slow down the
forces of change" (Williams, 1967:302). Secondly, class and status
groups can stake out relatively vacant territory outside the city and
erect the walls of political independence to keep out those people
sufficiently different from themselves so as to challenge their
cherished values.

Those lifestyle values which depend upon location for their

realization [e.g. education, recreation] are the major sources

of metropolitan politics . . . . The more nearly the suburb

specializes [i.e. attains a homogeneous population] the easier

it is, politically, to maintain the primacy of the values prized

by the dominant type of sociospatial unit (Williams, 1967:303).
Political conflict in the metropolis is thus rooted in the competing
interests of various spatially arranged class and status groups, and
location in space therefore has extensive ramifications for the lives
of metropolitan residents.

Before analyzing the roots of the spatial distribution of

privilege in the metropolis and some of its present contradictions,
a brief word is necessary about how the approach of this paper differs
from other related work in this area. First of all, I have shown in
the Introduction why I believe that analysis of metropolitan areas
must take place within the framework of political economy-~an avenue

which only a few studies have taken in the past. Secondly, I view

the process of suburbanization as a conscious, rational attempt on

30

the part of some groups in society to protect and/or expand their
resources. This process is inevitably accompanied by political con-
flict and coercion. A number of social scientists, especially from
the Human Ecology school, have tended to reify the process of suburban
growth. By describing it as a logical outcome of a relatively con-
stant natural process and by their use of concepts like invasion and
succession, they tend to overlook the very real political conflicts
which often accompany spatial changes. This perspective was stated
in perhaps its most extreme form by pioneer suburbanologist Harlan
Douglass.
The suburb is a natural process of sifting and of the more or
less efficient disposal of the specific elements of urban life
in separate places. It is a series of areas devoted to partial
and limited segments of the broad interests and activities
necessary to civilization. It is a set of specializations with
a geographical basis (Douglass, 1925:121).
Finally, research on class and status in suburbs has been almost

entirely in terms of how "suburbs" or "the suburban ring" differ from

the central city (e.g. Schnore, 1965; Dobriner, 1963).

The Roots of Modern Suburbs

 

As noted in the Introduction, suburbs existed around large
cities as far back as the middle of the nineteenth century. Because
of the limited nature of the transportation system, though, only the
rich could afford the time and transport costs involved in living
"in the country." The growth of urban rail systems allowed middle V///l
class urbanites to move out into "streetcar suburbs." But the real
impetus for suburban migration came at the end of the nineteenth

century with the growth of industrialization in urban centers and

31

the great waves of immigrants arriving in the cities from Eastern and

Southern Europe. Out of these two processes arose the motivation for

the accelerated suburban migration of both the upper and middle

classes. O'Connor (1973:125-6) describes it this way:
By the last half of the [nineteenth] century immigration and
industrialization had decreed the central political fact in the
growing urban centers: the elementary division of classes under
capitalism--capitalists and workers. But men of property were
relatively few in number and divided among themselves. Scan-
dalized by rampant corruption and unable to control their environ-
ment, the upper classes sought refuge in the villages on the
periphery of the city, where market forces were pushing out the
farmers . . . . For the great majority in the middle classes--
commercial property owners and businessmen, independent profes-
sionals, and the new corporate retinue--the city became a waste-
land which they could not control and therefore could not enjoy.
Hence they became suburbanites-~to control their environment (in
particular to get more space), acquire political autonomy and
escape from big-city politics.

Thus, according to O'Connor, class conflict was put on a metropolitan

basis.

The great numbers of immigrants arriving in the cities in the
late nineteenth century were bound to generate some degree of tension
and hostility in the native residents. But this conflict was
exacerbated by changes which the great waves of immigration precipi-
tated in productive technology and the supply of labor. As Sennett
and Cobb (1972:12-3)l4 point out, labor was in short supply before the
great waves of immigration. Machines were developed to perform
relatively unskilled jobs, freeing the somewhat scarce workers to do
the more complex skilled tasks. The influx of destitute immigrants
in the late nineteenth century created a huge pool of unskilled

laborers. Since these foreigners were desperate for work at any

wage, it became cheaper for the industrialists to employ these

32

laborers to do unskilled tasks than it was to utilize current
machinery. Under these conditions, machinery was developed to replace
skilled labor. Middle class urban residents thus had two specific
sources of hostility toward the immigrants: (1) they contributed, even
if indirectly, to the elimination of skilled jobs; and (2) the skilled
craftsmen among them increased the competition for better jobs. Faced
with cultural conflict, competition for housing and jobs and the loss
of political control, the native urban middle class began to seek out
greener pastures. The suburb, with its opportunity for political
independence and control, was an appealing solution. Gregory
Singleton (1973:45) sums it up like this:

Residential segregation, industrialization, and the challenge

of ethnic and labor groups to middle-class control of the city

created a class consciousness which was expressed in many ways,

including the 'flight' to the suburbs. By the end of the nine-

teenth century, the middle-class suburb, in spite of the fact

that other kinds of suburbs existed, became a social category.

The twentieth century began with some extremely important and
deeprooted changes in the U.S. economy which gave further impetus to
suburban migration. Essentially, the metropolitan economy began to
take the shape which I have described in the previous section. Huge
corporations emerged through mergers to dominate particular indus-
tries. A new group of class-conscious managers took over from the old
independent capitalists. The union movement was born amidst tremendous
conflict. The state was enlisted in rationalizing decision making and

15 The state

protecting profits in the emerging monopoly sector.
sector itself began to grow, literally exploding in size and importance

in the post-Depression Roosevelt years.

33

The meaning of the developing metropolitan economy for the
growth of suburbia is this: Differentiation and growing complexity in
the structure of production and distribution was accompanied by dif-
ferentiation of labor markets and further stratification of the labor
force. Technical skill alone was no longer sufficient to ensure
access to greater economic rewards. Increasingly it came to matter
who a worker was employed by, the industry in which this employer was
located, and the place of this industry in the larger economic
structure. Workers with access to the primary labor market and thus
to more rewarding jobs sought ways to protect this privilege.
Migration to the suburbs provided one answer. Here they could con—
solidate their gains and reproduce themselves in ways which reinforced
and expanded their privilege, effectively protected by the walls of
political independence. Life chances, already distributed unequally,
then became more systematic in their unequal distribution.

Two key features of my argument should be emphasized here.
First of all, I am not arguing that all communities on the fringes of
large cities are the result of conscious decisions on the part of
specific groups to incorporate and protect some degree of privilege.
Rather I am saying that the ability to achieve a measure of control
over the environment, which was impossible to obtain in the central
city, has been and is now an important causal factor in the movement
to the suburbs and the growth of political incorporation.16
Secondly, I am not arguing that all or even some suburban communities
are completely homogeneous by class, sector or occupation. With

Oliver Williams I note that

34

any municipality can absorb a certain degree of internal diver-
sity and still maintain a dominant style. In fact, a certain
degree of internal diversity is often required for the maintenance
of daily activities. However, a scanning of the range of mean
values describing any municipal characteristic in a metropolitan
area will quickly establish that real diversity (specialization)
exists (Williams, 1967:307).

Furthermore, there is evidence that as the structure of pro-
duction and distribution in the metropolis becomes progressively more
complex and labor markets more intricately stratified, the spatial
distribution of privilege becomes increasingly manifest. In a 1965
study of the Philadelphia metropolitan area, Williams and his col-
leagues found that differentiation by social class was increasing
more rapidly among suburbs than among towns and townships in the
area. They indicate that this was due to the more recent establish-
ment of middle and lower-middle class suburbs alongside of the older
elite communities (Williams et al., 1965:49-53). Similarly, in a
study of governmental inequality in U.S. metropolitan areas based on
1960 census data, Hill (1974:19-24) discovered that the degree of
fiscal inequality among municipalities in a given metropolitan area
covaried with:

1. the age, size and population density of the metropolitan area

2. the degree of inequality in the distribution of income among
families in the metropolis

3. the degree of segregation by social class in the metropolis

4. the extent of segregation of housing by quality in the
metropolitan area

5. the number of municipal governments in the metropolitan
community.

The division of the metropolitan economy into monopoly, com-
petitive and state sectors, along with the changing nature of work

under advanced capitalism, constitutes a further impetus to the growth

Of incorporated municipalities as protectors of privilege. According

35

to David Gordon (1971:63-6), traditional class distinctions have been
blurred by the increasing complexity of the economy. The need of

the capitalist class for stability and legitimation and the need of
certain workers to consolidate and protect privileged access to the
more rewarding sectors of the economy has led both of these groups

to seek new mechanisms of stratification by status.

What specific changes have occurred to render class distinc-
tions less meaningful? First of all, Gordon says, the growth of
competitive sector service industries has eroded the distinction
between owners and workers in this sector, since they often perform
the same kind of work. Secondly, the growth of bureaucratic methods
of production has undermined a number of traditional distinctions.
For example, the formerly clear relationship among wages, productivity
and manifest labor skill has become hazy. Worker productivity is
increasingly based not on measurable, "objective" skills, but on
length of job tenure and grasp of complex organizational nuances.

In this situation legitimation of unequal rewards becomes increas-
ingly problematic. Thus managers are led to create a complex system
of relatively meaningless job classifications in order to foster

an illusion of mobility and differentiation. The use of non-
monetary incentives and fringe benefits has placed further emphasis
on arbitrary status distinctions. Finally, the increasing reliance
on educational requirements as hiring standards has intensified
stratification by status in the labor force.

The important implication of these changes is that as status

distinctions become more significant in the economy, workers

36

possessing privileged characteristics will move to consolidate, protect
and reproduce these distinctions over time. The move to the suburbs--
not just any suburb, but one whose residents possess appropriate

status characteristics--is a way of doing this. In their chosen
suburb, status groups can engage in the types of lifestyles and con—
sumption patterns which reinforce their status. And they can use the
educational system to ensure that their own particular attributes

are reproduced in their children.

Probably the strongest and most significant factor propelling
suburban growth in the twentieth century has been the decentralization
of the means of production and distribution in the metropolis. Two
interrelated forces were at the heart of this process: the automobile
and the assembly line. The flexibility introduced by the use of
trucks as a major means of transport meant that manufacturing and
wholesaling concerns no longer had to locate along major rail lines
or waterways. They could move out from the central city in order to
be nearer their sources of supply and/or areas of distribution. At
the same time, the new assembly line technique of manufacturing,
developed to its fullest extent by Henry Ford, was not well adapted
for use in the multistory industrial plants which then existed in the
center of the city. The assembly line was most efficient in a
sprawling, one story building. Since there were few vacant parcels
of land of any great size within the city, industrialists naturally
turned their attention to the open spaces beyond the fringes of the

residential areas. And the concurrent development of truck technology

37

made it feasible and efficient to expand industrial production in
this way.17

The continuing decentralization of production and distribution
facilities has obviously meant a continuing dispersal of employment
opportunities. And the growth of private automobile ownership has
permitted selected groups of workers to follow these jobs. A number
of people who have studied suburbs, including many of those discussed
in Chapter I of this paper, have tended to see the automobile as a
causal factor in the development of suburbs, or at least a semi-
independent variable. While it is true that upper and working class
people did and still do move to the suburbs for all the reasons dis—
cussed previously, there can be no doubt that the major spur toward
suburbanization of the population was the decentralization of production
and distribution. The automobile was a facilitating factor, not a
causal one. After careful investigation, John Kain (1968:17) informs
us that "the locational decisions of most manufacturing firms are
largely unaffected by the distribution of metropolitan population.
Manufacturing determines the locational process of urban households,
not vice-versa." Furthermore, he presents data, which I have
reproduced here in Table 3, to show that in fact employment has
decentralized more rapidly than population.

Initially, metropolitan decentralization took place primarily
in terms of durable goods manufacturers in the monopoly sector. The
automobile industry was the early leader. After the sluggish
Thirties, decentralization picked up again. While World War II had

a stimulating effect on the entire economy, nowhere was its influence

. a
Table 3.--Estlmated Mean Annual Percentage Changes

38

in Population and

Employment for the Central Cities and Suburban Rings of 40
Large SMSA's (1950 central city boundaries).

.—

—_ _ — ‘-
...-- ‘_—-——.-_.

-q “ho—.....-“ --.. H _

u- _ -__.._

Central City Suburban Ring

 

 

 

Item 1948- 1954- 1958- 1948- 1954— l958-
1954 1958 1963 1954 1958 1963
Employment
, b
Manufacturing 1.9 -1.7 —O.4 13.2 6.9 6.0
WholesalingC 0.8 0.2 -0.2 24.9 16.6 15.1
Retailing -0.6 0.1 -2.0 11.3 13.5 13.4
Services 1.6 3.9 0 9 18.0 16.6 13.5
populationd 0.2 0.1 -0 5 8.7 6 4 5 5

 

aSimple, unweighted
changes.

averages of individual city percentage

bData pertain to 1947-1954.

CWholesaling data available for 39 SMSA‘s only.

dObtained by interpolation and extrapolation of 1940,

1960, and 1965 data.

Source: U.S. Bureau of the

1950,

Census. Cited in Kain (1968:13).

39

more heavily felt than in the durable goods industries. In the eight
years 1938-46, the government built on the average over two and one—
half billion dollars worth of industrial buildings per year (Kain,
1968:7). This figure was over 2,000 percent higher than the govern—
ment average for the previous eight year period and over twice the
average of private industry. Lacking space in the cities, most of
these plants were built on their outer rims. Because there were
restrictions on construction during the war years, workers who would
ordinarily move into the area and erect protective municipalities
could not do so. When the war ended, the government sold its indus-
trial facilities back to private industry. Many of these production
facilities continued in the state sector under state contract work.
A number of them also returned to the private sector. The important
point is that they were an attractive lure to certain groups of
workers. And when residential building controls were lifted, a
stampede to inhabit these areas was created. This interpretation
helps explain the relatively high mean annual percentage increase in
manufacturing and wholesaling employment and population growth in the
suburban ring in the postwar period (see Table 3).18
Even if one accepts the fact that, for the most part, industry
decentralized into outlying areas and then workers followed, the con-
ventional wisdom holds that retail outlets were the last to decen-
tralize. There is without a doubt a great deal of truth to this
view. The first residents of suburban areas, while they might live
very close to their jobs, nevertheless often had to travel great dis—

tances to shop. Also, the changing location of ethnic group oriented

40

retail outlets can be traced, following their clientele across the
metropolitan area. However, with the growth of huge retailing outlets,
and particularly with the development of the shopping center in the
late 19505, this situation changed somewhat. These huge, multimillion
dollar investments require a great deal of land, capital and advance
planning. Increasingly, these centers are being built in relatively
sparsely populated areas, with full confidence that (l) the surrounding
area will be appropriately settled by some future date, and (2) that
the huge centers with their built-in competitive advantages (malls,
entertainment, exhibits, tremendous variety, etc.) and economies of
scale can draw customers out from presently existing retail outlets.19
Although a rather large literature on metropolitan decentrali-
zation exists, most of it is phrased in terms of differences between
central cities and suburban rings (e.g. Vernon, 1959; Schnore, 1965;

Birch, 1970). The concern of the present paper is with the

selectivity of metropolitan decentralization. I am interested in the

 

particular locations to which urban manufacturing, wholesaling and
retailing plants move. It is important to understand how this

becomes both a cause and a result of stratification in the metropolis.
Certain groups of workers gather around particular production and
distribution facilities and erect a wall of political independence--
the suburban municipality--around themselves. Other groups, seeking

to reinforce or expand privilege already gained through incorporation,
selectively entice various industries to locate within their boundaries
:hlcarder to increase the tax base. The next section will examine the

Imxflnanisms used for protecting special privilege in suburbs and a

41

final section will discuss conflicts and contradictions which arise

as these policies are pursued.

Mechanisms for the Protection
of Privilege

 

 

Economic decentralization, increasing differentiation of dis-
tinct industrial sectors and labor markets, and changes in the nature
of work have produced a variety of status differences among workers.
Those groups in the labor force which possess characteristics that
give them privileged access to the most rewarding jobs have sought to
consolidate and expand their prerogatives. Three major mechanisms have
been employed to accomplish this purpose. They are: (l) single-class
developments; (2) zoning, land and building codes, and (3) racial
discrimination. Each of these mechanisms will be dealt with in turn.

A very large proportion of suburban growth has taken the form
of tract developments. In the first two decades of this century, for
example, Henry Ford developed several new communities in the Detroit
area as dormitories for his workers. Single-class tract developments
in the years following World War II were the basis for the Myth of
Suburbia. Today, with an increasing emphasis on leisure and recrea-
tional activities, many suburban developments are taking the form of
elaborate townhouse, apartment or single family condominium subdivi-
sions. Not only are the prices of the units aimed at a particular
class of worker, but the amenities which are provided are designed to
appeal to the specific tastes of various status groups. Thus some
developments have golf courses and private lakes, while others have

bowling alleys and outdoor swimming pools. Some clubhouses are

42

designed for cocktail parties, while others are more amenable to
beer blasts. Thus class and status are important in these new
suburban developments.

In examining the metropolis it should be clear that there is
not a direct one-to-one correspondence between class interest and its
spatial expression. This is so because production relations are

translated spatially through real estate, land development and banking

 

interests. And these groups have their own unique and overriding
motivation-—profitability. However, it happens that it is highly
profitable to construct upper and middle single-class developments
and to maintain the class character of older neighborhoods. As a
result there is generally a good fit between class interest and its
spatial distribution in the metropolis.

Once particular status groups move to an area and incorporate,
there are a number of legal methods they can use to keep poorer and
lower status groups out. First, they can raise the cost of building
by specifying minimal quality standards for construction materials and
techniques which are far above the industry minimum. Or they can con-
trol development through selective municipal expenditure on roads,
sewers, drains, educational facilities, etc. The biggest weapon in
the arsenal of those who wish to protect the "character" of their
municipality is the ability to zone. Large-lot zoning effectively
raises the cost of both land and housing. Setting up minimum or
maximum dwelling sizes excludes certain other groups. The number and
type of multiple dwellings can be closely regulated. Furthermore,

the ability to zone is a two-edged sword. Not only can various

43

groups be excluded from a municipality, but industry can be lured by
the prospect of special developments and services (e.g. industrial
parks) and property tax breaks. Even with tax breaks, industry pro-
vides important revenue to suburban municipalities. If enough
industry can be recruited, individual property taxes can remain rela-
tively low while assuring residents that the quality of schools will
be such as to reproduce privilege over time.

The third method for maintaining privilege for particular
groups of workers is racism. By excluding about one quarter of the
labor force on the basis of skin color, certain groups of privileged
white workers maintain their competitive position. And while the
more blatant forms of discrimination have been outlawed by the courts
or legislature, sophisticated practices such as redlining by banks
and mortgage companies and covert agreements by realtors not to show
houses in particular areas to blacks continue. Thus racism, along
with single—class developments and discriminatory zoning and code
regulations, remains a viable basis for maintaining equality within
a community and therefore privilege in relation to other communities.

Conflict and Contradiction
in the Metropolis

 

 

The spatial distribution of privilege through the institution
of the politically independent municipality represents a continuing
source of conflict in the metropolis. This political fragmentation is
a source of conflict precisely because it has serious implications for
the lives of metropolitan residents. Hill (1974:27) finds that

inequality among governments in the metropolis is rooted in income

44

inequality among families. And family income inequality, he observes,
"is translated through the dual mechanisms of residential segregation
and political incorporation into inequality in the distribution of
fiscal resources among municipal governments in the metropolis."
Fiscal inequality means that municipalities with greater tax resources
can provide those services which will insure a reproduction of their
privilege over time. Education is the most crucial service in this
regard. As noted earlier, employers in monopoly and state sector
industries are demanding higher levels of educational attainment as a
criteria for hiring. Those municipalities which possess higher tax
resources have a head start in ensuring that their residents will
obtain these credentials. A de facto recognition of this reality can
be seen in the fiery opposition to cross-district busing on the part
of suburban residents.

Even if, by some chance, access to quality education was dis-
tributed equally among metropolitan residents, the spatial distribution
of privilege would remain. For equality of training for employment
does not mean equality of access to employment. First of all, labor
market institutions--employment agencies, labor pools, etc.--are dis-
persed throughout the metropolis in a way which tends to maintain
the distinction between primary and secondary labor markets. Secondly,
employment itself is unequally distributed in the metropolis. Most
suburbs are constantly competing for decentralizing capital in order
to alleviate their property tax burdens.20 But municipalities with
better-than-average tax bases are in much better position to give

industries the property tax breaks which they have come to expect.

45

At the same time, higher status suburbs attempt to prevent the
employees of these industries from moving into the community. Thus,
not only do many workers fail to benefit from the property taxes

which their employers pay, but they often cannot live in the community
where they work.21

Those suburbs which are successful in attracting a large
amount of capital investment impose a further burden on those com-
munities which fail to do so. For example, residents of the latter
are forced to live with the noise and pollution of a nearby industrial
park in the former, even though they receive no property tax benefits
from it. Similarly, when one municipality succeeds in attracting a
massive retail development, its neighbors are forced to expand their
municipal services (road construction and maintenance, police pro-
tection, etc.) and preside over a decline in their own retail facili-
ties (and thus their tax base) while receiving no property tax bene-
fits. Thus while individual residents of neighboring suburbs might
benefit from new employment opportunities, the community as a whole
suffers a setback.

Besides the class divisions among suburban municipalities,
lifestyle divisions are also present. As I noted earlier, some com-
munities are developed in such a way that their recreational and
leisure facilities appeal to particular status groups. In addition,
the differentiation of the metropolitan economy tends to promote and
reinforce various lifestyle differences in the labor force. The
frequently odd hours, the temporary or seasonal nature of the work,

and the general instability of competitive sector employment makes

46

long term credit purchases extremely difficult for this group of
workers. Unable to consume leisure and recreational goods at the
same rate and in the same style as workers employed in the state and
monopoly sectors, they often find life intolerable in some communities.

In order to overcome many of the conflicts and contradictions
inherent in the political fragmentation of the metropolis, many urban
planners and monopoly sector industrialists have argued that metro-
politan government is more rational and efficient. But as I have
shown, political fragmentation serves an important function in main-
taining privilege for certain groups in the metropolis. Analysts of
the metropolitan reform movement have pointed out that it has con-
sistently failed because the privileges it would destroy are vitally
important to those who possess them (see Greer, 1963; Williams et al.,
1965; Donaldson, 1966). Undaunted by their failure to gather local
support, the advocates of metropolitan reform have turned to state
legislatures and the federal government to impose it from above. But
their chances of getting any legislation passed to this effect are
dim and growing dimmer. Given proportional representation, suburbs
have been gaining control over state legislatures as their populations
increased. At the federal level, suburban congressmen formed a
plurality for the first time in the ninety-third Congress.22

Thus it appears that political fragmentation will continue to
be a prominent feature of metropolitan areas in the United States.
This is so because it continues to represent an effort by certain
groups in the metropolis to protect and maintain privileges which

accrue to them because of the nature of the metropolitan economy.

47

Because other groups are less privileged, and because of the contra-
dictions inherent in this fragmentation, conflict will also continue

to be an important feature of the metropolitan political economy.

CHAPTER III

AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION: THE CASE OF DETROIT

What I have tried to show in the previous section is that
suburbs are a spatial expression of the attempt by certain groups in
the metropolis to protect and expand privileges which they possess
based on their relationship to the metropolitan economy. I have
attempted to illustrate the mechanisms by which privilege is pro-
tected, and some of the conflicts arising out of this situation. If
the analysis which I have developed seems to be logically and intui-
tively correct, then the next question is: can the spatial distribu-
tion of privilege be discovered empirically? The first step is to
operationalize the meaning of privilege. Obviously, social class--
the ownership or nonownership of means of production--is one important
distinction. Another important one is that between manual and non-
manual labor. And, since the most fundamental and penetrating
characteristic of the metropolitan economy is its division into
monopoly, competitive and state sectors, a third important dimension
would be sector location.

There are two basic approaches to an investigation of the
empirical distribution of privilege. One way would be to focus on
the residents of the various municipalities. What is their location
in the metropolitan economy? What are their incomes, ages, educational
levels? Where do they stand in relation to the other residents of the

48

49

metropolis? To what extent is their municipality homogeneous? The
second empirical approach to the differential distribution of privi-
lege would be to focus on the municipality itself. What are the
physical resources that exist within it? That is, the nature and
size of industrial developments, age, size and quality of the housing,
extent of retail development, opportunities and limitations for
expansion, amount and quality of municipal services, size of tax

base and rate structure. These represent some of the questions which
have to be addressed by each of these approaches.

Thegmethod of study undertaken in this paper is essentially
the first apEESEEh. I intend to focus on the characteristics of
suburban residents, and to define their municipalities in terms of
these characteristics. Since I am basically concerned with the
meaning of suburbs for the lives of the people who reside in them,

I feel that this is an altogether appropriate way to begin the

'C‘fia
analysis. Thus I intend to answer three questions in the present
research: (1) Based on the characteristics of their residents, can
municipalities be classified by class or status and sector? (2) How
would municipalities so classified differ from one another? (3) What
is the meaning of these differences for the lives of the people
studied? I must emphasize, however, that no absolutely conclusive
answers to these questions will be produced. The present study is a
tentative exploration of a relatively uncharted area. I say
uncharted because, to my knowledge, no other work approaches the

subject in the manner set forth here. And yet, as I have argued in

the previous two sections, I believe that the political economic

50

approach to the suburban phenomenon is the one most likely to bear
substantive fruit. Thus I intend this research to serve as a beacon
for those who would refine the analysis of metropolitan political

economy and hopefully produce more substantive results.

Why Detroit?

 

The focus of my research is on suburbs in the Detroit metro-
politan area. This area was selected for several important reasons.

First of all, Detroit is the industrial metropolis par excellence.

 

It has a greater concentration of employment in one single economic
activity than any other major metropolis in the nation. About 40
percent of the Detroit metropolitan labor force is engaged in manu-
facturing. And within manufacturing, only Pittsburgh has a greater
concentration of employment in a single industry branch (Sinclair,
1972:15-6). But Detroit has been at the heart of the two most
important suburb-facilitating factors in this century: the automobile
and the assembly line. The world headquarters of the three major
automobile manufacturers are located in the Detroit metropolitan
area, as well as most of their research and engineering facilities
and a good portion of their fabricating and assembly plants.
Detroit's position at the center of the automobile industry is
illustrated by the fact that over 90 percent of the automotive
employment of the United States and Canada is located within a one-
shift truck drive of downtown Detroit (Sinclair, 1972:28-9).

Like the auto, the assembly line also got its start in
Detroit. In 1914, Henry Ford introduced the world's first continuous

moving assembly line in his newly-built Highland Park plant. This

51

development was to revolutionize production the world over. As we
have seen, it was also to lead to the decentralization of industry
and the growth of suburbs. Nowhere was this process clearer than in
the Detroit metropolitan area. Indeed, Highland Park itself was a
suburb of Detroit when Ford built his original plant there. Although
still an independent municipality, it is completely surrounded by

the City of Detroit today.

A second reason for focusing on Detroit is that it is a rela-
tively modern industrial phenomenon. Although it is the oldest
metropolis in the Midwest, Detroit did not really develop until the
beginning of this century with the birth of the auto industry. Thus
the connection between the economy and the growth and differentiation
of suburbs in the metropolitan area is perhaps clearer in Detroit
than anywhere else in the country. In addition, because of its
domination by a single industry and its relatively recent development,
the Detroit metropolitan area has a tendency to magnify the basic
conflicts and contradictions of all U.S. metropolitan areas. Robert
Sinclair puts it this way:

Detroit is distinctive and dominating in the role which it plays
in the world. It also tends to be overwhelming in its failures
and disasters. To a large degree, the city has epitomized the
achievements and disappointments of American urban society,
perhaps more so than the central, national and international
metropolitan centers which present a more attractive physical
image. Today Detroit is symbolic and representative of the ills
which beset American society in the 19705 (Sinclair, 1972:14).

A third reason for selecting the Detroit metrOpolitan area
as the focus of analysis is the relatively permissive Michigan state

policy on fringe incorporation. It is quite easy in this state for

a group to incorporate their territory, whereas annexation of one

52

area by another is a very difficult process. Thus the growth and
dynamics of politically independent municipalities should be mag-
nified in Detroit, the largest metropolis in the state.

A fourth reason for choosing Detroit as the context for this
research was the author's familiarity with the region. Born and
raised in Detroit, I think I have a strong feeling for the underlying
dynamics of conflict and cooperation in the metropolitan area. Since
the present research is exploratory in nature, sensitivity to fine
nuances of meaning and an intuitive grasp of the data are as impor-
tant (and perhaps mg£e_important) than empirical sophistication. My
personal knowledge of a great deal of the Detroit metropolitan area
was thus a strong asset in this research.

In sum, then, the Detroit metropolitan area was chosen as
the focus of this research because it was expected that the spatial
distribution of privilege would be more extensive and fully developed
here. Thus, it was hoped, the underlying conflicts and contradictions
would be readily apparent. But presumably the difference between
Detroit and other metropolitan areas in the United States would only
be one of degree. The basic structure of the metropolitan economy
as laid out previously in this paper is presumed to be relatively
constant from metropolis to metropolis. The actual extent to which
the situation in other metropolitan areas differs from that in the

Detroit region, however, remains an empirical question.

The Classification Scheme

 

This study focuses on forty-three suburban municipalities in

the Detroit SMSA with populations greater than ten-thousand. Only

53

four municipalities of this size are excluded from the study.
Obviously, Detroit is omitted because it is the central city of the
metropolis. Pontiac was excluded because it also is a central city.
While much smaller than Detroit (1970 population--85,364), Pontiac
is an old city which exhibits most of the characteristics of Detroit--
industrial base primarily in the auto industry, central business dis—
trict ringed by deteriorating slums, large black population, and
suburbs of its own. The third community excluded was Drayton Plains,'
the largest of Pontiac's suburbs. It is also beyond effective com-
muting distance from Detroit. Since my intent was to examine class
and status differences arising from and interacting with the economy
of Detroit, I limited the scope of analysis to municipalities within
commuting distance of it. The final community excluded from this
study was Mt. Clemens. Lying beyond effective commuting distance,
this city is a financial and industrial center in its own right.

In spite of the fact that two large and populous central
cities have necessarily been excluded from the actual analysis,
Table 4 indicates that this study still embraces over 43 percent of
the total population, total number of families, total labor force
and total employed persons over sixteen years old, and over 90 per-
cent of the municipalities over 10,000 in population in the Detroit
SMSA. Figure 1 shows the geographical relationship of the forty-
three municipalities in this study.

The analysis was limited to incorporated municipalities with
populations greater than ten-thousand because the census data was

too sparse for smaller communities. On the basis of data from the

54

 

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Fig. l.--Map of the Forty-three Municipalities in the Present Study
Plus the City of Detroit.

Note:

Unlabeled areas on this and subsequent maps are communities too
small in population to be included in this study.

55

Table 4.—-Statistical Scope of the Present Study.

 

 

 

 

Percentages

Item Total Excluded Areas
SMSA Study Detroit & Remainder Total

Area Pontiac of SMSA
Population 4,199,931 43.5 38.0 18.5 100.0
Families 1,043,897 44.0 37.6 18.4 100.0
Labor Force 1,669,730 43.8 38.2 18.0 100.0
Employed persons, 1,570,953 44.5 37.5 18.0 100.0
16 years +

Municipalities 47 91.4 4.3 4.3 100.0

over 10,000 pop.

 

Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census: PC(l)-C24
General Social and Economic Characteristics--Michigan, 1970.

1970 census, then, an attempt was made to classify each of the forty-
three municipalities by the class and sector of employment of their
residents. It was quickly observed that no formal definition of
class could be operationalized from the census data. Thus I decided
to use a measure of occupational status as the best equivalent to
social class. Percentage of employed persons over sixteen years old
working in white collar occupations was selected as the measure by
which to determine the occupational status of each municipality.
This measure was chosen because it had the highest standard deviation,
and thus the greatest range of variability, of all occupational
measures.

After examining the distribution of municipalities on this

variable (Table 5), I decided to establish two arbitrary breakpoints

56

Table 5.--Distribution of Municipalities by Percentage of White Collar

Employment.

Beverly Hills 84.9 Riverview 47.0
Grosse Pointe Farms 82.1 Warren 46.7
Grosse Pointe Woods 80.3 Madison Heights 46.3
Birmingham 80.1 Westland 45.8
Grosse Pointe Park 73.8 Center Line 44.8
Southfield 73.4 East Detroit 44.3
Oak Park 72.8 Southgate 42.7
Farmington 70.5 Roseville 41.8
Troy 64.5 Garden City 41.3
Royal Oak 62.3 Highland Park 40.6
Harper Woods 60.6 Lincoln Park 40.3
Livonia 60.1 Wayne 40.3
Dearborn 56.9 Melvindale 38.7
Plymouth 55.6 Wyandotte 37.7
Allen Park 53.7 Taylor 37.6
Trenton 53.3 Inkster 36.8
Berkley 52.5 Hamtramck 35.4
St. Clair Shores 52.5 Hazel Park 34.5
Sterling Heights 51.6 River Rouge 29.8
Clawson 51.1 Ecorse 26.3
Dearborn Heights 50.6

Fraser 49.0

Ferndale 48.0

Mean = 52.1
Standard Deviation = 14.7

 

57

in order to divide the communities into those of upper, middle and
lower status. Upper status communities were defined as those having
more than 70 percent of their employed persons in white collar jobs.
Lower status municipalities were those whose white collar residents
were less than 40 percent of the community's employed persons. Each
of these breaks was at, or very close to, one standard deviation unit
from the mean. Furthermore the divisions came at natural gaps in the
distribution and made good intuitive sense based on my knowledge of
the Detroit metropolitan area. Figure 2 shows the spatial distribu-
tion of these status groups.

The next step was to see if the forty-three municipalities
could be differentiated on the basis of the industries in which their
residents were employed. A community with a high percentage of
employment in monopoly sector industries might then be classified as
a monopoly sector suburb. Similarly, a suburb with predominantly
competitive sector employment would be designated a competitive
sector suburb, and so forth. Absolutely clear differences were not
anticipated. Indeed, as Oliver Williams (1967:307) has pointed out,
in most cases "municipal boundaries do not operate as sharp demo-
graphic breakpoints. Any municipality can absorb a certain degree
of internal diversity and still maintain a dominant style." Thus,
it is the relative differences between communities that are important.
If a majority of residents of a particular suburb are employed in
the monopoly sector, for example, they are likely to possess certain
privileges which they will utilize the municipality to protect,

according to my analysis.

58

     

Dltkon‘

   
    

new“?

 

  

DETROIT

@

Key

22??? Upper Status

0 Middle Status

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

Lower Status

N
’1

 

Fig. 2.--Spatial Distribution of Municipalities by Occupational Status.

59

The question, then, was how to distinguish monopoly, com—
petitive and state sector industries. Based on the Census Bureau
classifications, two state sector industries were immediately noted:
public administration and educational services.24 Differentiation
of the competitive and monopoly sectors was somewhat more difficult,
however. Since the census figures are reported only in terms of
industries, not individual corporations, a measure was sought which
would distinguish the sectors on the basis of the industries which

compose them.25

Perhaps the most fundamental difference between the
monopoly and competitive sectors, from which their names are derived,
is that industries in the monopoly sector tend to be dominated by a
few large producers, whereas competitive sector industries are
characterized by a relatively large number of producers and a fair
amount of competition. Concentration ratios--the share of assets,
sales and/or profits controlled by the top few corporations--were
thus deemed to be a useful way to distinguish between monopoly and
competitive sector industries. Although they have some drawbacks,

I made the assumption that these ratios would in fact delineate
crucial differences between the sectors.

Table 6 provides the concentration ratios for nineteen
industries related to the Detroit metropolitan economy. There are
two important facts to note about these figures. First, these are
national figures, and therefore potentially misleading in some cases
in relation to Detroit. A classification scheme based on these

ratios must be tempered by the realities of the local metropolitan

economy. Secondly, the Bureau of the Census does not report

60

Table 6.--Percentage of Sales, Assets and After—Tax Profits Accounted
for by the Four Largest Firms in Each Industry for 19
Selected Industries, 1962.

—_——.———_—_———~— -
—.—.—————.——_——._—.—_ —.... —. _-

 

Industry Sales Total Assets Profits
Motor vehicles 80.8 79.7 89.1
Petroleum refining 50.3 50.1 54.3
Dairy products 42.9 48.8 73.9
Basic industrial chemicals 42.0 45.5 64.6
Alcoholic beverages 41.4 47.2 58.3
Primary iron and steel 40.2 48.0 44.3
Electrical machinery 34.4 35.6 44.4
Bakery products 33.6 39.6 52.8
Drugs and medicines 31.0 29.2 32.6
Other transportation equipment 30.3 44.2 51.6
Primary nonferrous metals 27.3 41.1 37.1
Lumber and wood products 21.2 31.0 48.6
Other machinery 20.6 24.3 39.6
Miscellaneous manufacturing 16.3 33.1 25.2
Other fabricated metal products 14.7 19.9 17.7
Metalworking machinery 14.5 16.3 19.1
Other food products 12.5 13.2 20.1
Furniture and fixtures 5.2 8.4 5.3
Apparel 4.9 7.7 7.4

 

Source: Bureau of Economics, Federal Trade Commission. Adapted from
Edwards, Reich and Weisskopf (1972:155).

61

industrial employment in identical categories. Thus some manipulation
is necessary in order to develop a classification system.27

The variables comprising each sector of the metropolitan
economy are listed in Table 7. The most obvious fact here is the
lack of variables to define the state sector. There is no way to
glean state-contract industry employment from census data. (These
workers would tend to show up under the monopoly sector classification.)
Except for educational services, no service industries can be iden-
tified within the state sector using census data. Furthermore the
two lone variables which can be identified with the state sector are
heavily biased toward white collar workers. Blue collar state workers
and almost all state service workers would fall into the competitive
sector, based on my classification scheme. It is safe to conclude, I
think, that the state sector cannot really be discovered through
census data. Thus it will be excluded from the rest of my analysis.
Since state-contract workers would fall into the monopoly sector
classification and state organized workers would fall into the com-
petitive sector, I am assuming that their effects tend to cancel each
other and that the distinction between monopoly and competitive
sectors is still worthwhile.

In general, the manufacturing industries classified in the
monopoly sector have concentration ratios greater than 25 percent—-
Blair's minimum standard of concentration (l972:ll-2)--and those in
the competitive sector have ratios lower than 25 percent. There is
one major exception in each case. First, in the monopoly sector,

various divisions of the machinery industry appear to have somewhat

62

Table 7.--Composition of Sectors by Industry.

~—

 

—_._.-——.--.

Competitive Sector

5.. _‘ _-.__

Monopoly Sector

State Sector

 

Competitive
manufacturing

Furniture, lumber
and wood products

Food and kindred
products

Textiles and fabri-
cated textile
products

Printing, publishing
and allied indus-
tries

Other durable goods

Other nondurable
goods

Trade, wholesale and
retail

Construction
Finance
Banking and credit
agencies

Insurance,
estate

real

Services

Trucking service
and warehousing
Other transportation
Business and repair
services
Entertainment and

recreation services

Hospital and health
services

Legal, engineering
and miscellaneous

Monopoly manufacturing

Transportation
equipment
Metal industries
Chemicals and
allied products
Electrical machinery
Machinery

Communications

Utilities and sanitary
services

professional services
Private households and
personal services

Public administration

Educational services

 

63

low concentration ratios nationally (Table 6). However, I have
classified the metropolitan Detroit residents who are employed in
these industries as monopoly sector workers because of the peculiar
nature of this industry in Detroit. A very high proportion of the
metalworking machinery produced in this area is produced for the auto
industry. Some of the production facilities are owned by the Big
Three, but most of the firms operate under contract to the auto pro-
ducers. Because of these close ties, the technical conditions and
social relations of production, the social composition of its labor
force and the quality of life of the workers in these two industries
are very similar. Thus I perceive the machinery industry in metro-
politan Detroit to be in the monopoly sector.

In the competitive sector, three food manufacturing indus-
tries--dairy, bakery and alcoholic beverages--have relatively high
concentration ratios. While a few corporations may dominate these
areas of food production nationally, my understanding of the Detroit
market is that it is relatively competitive. Nationally—known pro-
ducts face a good deal of competition from a large group of local
producers. And except for the alcoholic beverage industry, the
technical and social conditions of production and the social com-
position of the labor force resemble that of the competitive sector.
Thus I feel reasonably justified in classifying food manufacturing
in the competitive sector.

The remaining components of the competitive sector are pretty
straightforward. Trade, especially retailing, is labor intensive

and nearly always highly competitive on a local level. Many forms

64

of construction work are characterized by ease of firm entry and this
industry is usually quite competitive in each locality. While bank-
ing and insurance are quite concentrated on a national level, there
is a great deal of competition on the local level. In addition, these
industries are labor intensive--as are services, the final component
of the competitive sector.

In the monopoly sector, the communications industry is
dominated by workers employed by the telephone company--the monopoly

par excellence. Likewise utilities usually enjoy spatial monopolies.

 

It may be noted that sanitary services, which belong in the competitive
sector, are lumped together with utilities. Since the Bureau of the
Census reports its figures this way, there was nothing I could do
about it. Because I deemed utilities the more important variable,
and because I assumed it to have the greater proportion of employees,
the entire category was placed in the monopoly sector.

Based on the conceptual scheme just described, I calculated
the percentage of persons in each municipality employed in the
monopoly and competitive sectors. The results appear in Table 8.
Note that in only one case--Ecorse--does the percent of residents
employed in the monopoly sector exceed the percent of residents
employed in the competitive sector. On the one hand, this result
might have been anticipated from the greater number of measures of
the competitive sector in Table 7. On the other hand, the fact that
competitive sector employment nearly always exceeds monopoly sector
employment has two possible meanings: (1) that competitive sector

industries in fact employ a greater percentage of the labor force

65

Table 8.--Distribution of Municipalities by Percent Employed in
Monopoly and Competitive Sectors.

 

. , , Competitive Monopoly Competitive/
Munic1pality Sector Sector Monopoly Ratio
Ecorse 43.2 45.5 0.95
Sterling Heights 44.9 42.2 1.06
Wyandotte 46.9 43.2 1.09
Riverview 45.4 40.8 1.11
Warren 46.9 42.0 1.12
Center Line 46.2 40.0 1.16
Southgate 49.8 40.0 1.25
Hazel Park 51.0 40.1 1.27
Trenton 48.5 37.4 1.30
Taylor 51.6 38.9 1.33
Dearborn Heights 51.6 38.1 1.35
Lincoln Park 52.2 38.6 1.35
Madison Heights 53.3 37.6 1.42
Roseville 52.6 37.1 1.42
Inkster 52.4 36.3 1.44
Wayne 51.0 35.5 1.44
Garden City 53.6 37.0 1.45
Westland 52.9 36.4 1.45
Allen Park 52.1 35.7 1.46
Hamtramck 52.6 35.9 1.47
River Rouge 53.6 35.7 1.50
Melvindale 53.7 34.8 1.54
Dearborn 51.4 33.0 1.56
Clawson 54.7 34.2 1.60
Plymouth 50.9 31.8 1.60
Fraser 54.6 33.7 1.62
East Detroit 55.8 34.2 1.63
Livonia 54.5 32.8 1.66
Troy 53.7 31.0 1.73
Berkley 56.2 31.6 1.78
St. Clair Shores 56.6 31.6 1.79
Ferndale 56.2 31.3 1.80
Royal Oak 56.6 29.0 1.95
Highland Park 57.1 27.9 2.05
Beverly Hills 61.1 28.0 2.18
Farmington 56.7 25.5 2.22
Harper Woods 60.3 27.1 2.23
Grosse Pointe Woods 60.3 22.7 2.66
Birmingham 61.0 22.5 2.71
Southfield 67.2 19.6 3.43
Grosse Pointe Park 66.8 17.9 3.73

Table 8.--Continued.

66

 

_ . . Competitive Monopoly Competitive/

Munic1pa11ty Sector Sector Monopoly Ratio
Grosse Pointe Farms 66.9 17.8 3.76
Oak Park 71.8 14.2 5.06
Mean: 54.3 33.2 1.81
Standard Deviation: 6.1 7.2 0.82

 

67

than those in the monopoly sector, or (2) that the classification
system I have worked out is not an accurate reflection of reality.

The truth probably lies somewhere in between. Since com-
petitive sector industries are labor intensive, it is logical that
they would employ a larger proportion of workers than capital inten-
sive monopoly sector industries. However, the predominance of the
auto industry—-a monopoly sector employer—~in the metropolitan
Detroit economy might lead one to question the empirical finding of
greater competitive sector employment in its suburbs. Also, I have
already pointed out that not all workers in the state sector have been
captured by my inadequate measures of that sector. The fact that
the extent to which these workers are partialed out into the monopoly
and competitive sectors is unclear casts a modicum of doubt on the
findings. Nevertheless, since this study is exploratory in nature,
intended to discover if the origins of conflict in the metropolis
can be analyzed in this way, I feel justified in assuming that,
all things considered, there is a sufficient degree of validity in
these classifications.

Since competitive sector employment in each municipality is
nearly always larger than monopoly sector employment, a ratio was
employed to distinguish them. The distribution of monopoly sector
employment by municipality was used as a base because it had a
larger standard deviation than the distribution of competitive
sector employment, and therefore greater variance. Monopoly sector
municipalities were determined to be those suburbs with more than

35 percent of their residents employed in monopoly sector industries

68

and a competitive-to-monopoly sector employment ratio of less than
1.5. Conversely, competitive sector municipalities were those with
less than 35 percent employment in the monopoly sector and a
competitive—to—monopoly sector ratio of greater than 1.5. Since
River Rouge fell exactly in the middle, it was too difficult to
classify and thus I left it out of the subsequent analysis. Of the
remaining forty-two municipalities, twenty are classified in the
monopoly sector and twenty-two are classified in the competitive
sector. Figure 3 illustrates this geographically.

Table 9 presents the forty-two municipalities in this study
classified according to occupational status and sector. The scheme
is unbalanced in that there are no upper status monopoly sector
municipalities and only one lower status competitive sector munici-
pality. Perhaps this reflects a deficiency in the type and source
of data used to build this classification scheme. Census data by
municipality is not refined enough to trace certain classes of
workers. That is, it has a built-in lower status monopoly and upper
status competitive sector bias. This is especially true in a
metropolis like Detroit where a single monopoly sector industry
employs a large amount of manual workers. Blue collar competitive
sector workers are potentially "lost" in the reporting classification.
Similarly, monopoly sector managers and clerical workers are probably
numerically smaller than the white collar employees of the thousands
of small businesses and industries in the metropolitan economy.

Furthermore, the structural features of Detroit's economy may

69

     

DITKOH’

    
 
 
 

have“?

  

Olfkblf

63

Key

 

 

V Monopoly Sector
\

 

 

 

Competitive Sector

 

Fig. 3.--Spatial Distribution of Municipalities by Sector.

70

Table 9.--C1assification of Municipalities by Occupational Status

and Sector.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Occupational
Status Monopoly Competitive
N = 8
Beverly Hills
Birmingham
Grosse Pointe Farms
Upper N = O Grosse Pointe Park
Grosse Pointe Woods
Farmington
Oak Park
Southfield
N = 14 N = 13
Allen Park Berkley
Center Line Clawson
Dearborn Heights Dearborn
Garden City East Detroit
Lincoln Park Ferndale
Madison Heights Fraser
Middle Riverview Harper Woods
Roseville Highland Park
Southgate Livonia
Sterling Heights Plymouth
Trenton Royal Oak
Warren St. Clair Shores
Wayne Troy
Westland
N = 6 N = 1
Ecorse Melvindale
Lower Hamtramck
Hazel Park
Inkster
Taylor

Wyandotte

 

71

militate against large-scale employment in certain monopoly sector
categories like communications.

My classification scheme has, however, produced a relatively
balanced distribution of middle status monopoly and competitive
sector suburbs. There are a sufficient number of municipalities in
each classification to provide a basis for the emergence of signifi-
cant differences. Thus the final part of this analysis will concen-
trate on these twenty-seven middle status communities, illustrated
spatially in Figure 4. The eight upper status competitive sector
suburbs and the six lower status monopoly sector communities will
be included for purposes of comparison, along with the city of

Detroit.28

The Dependent Variables

 

I have consistently argued throughout this paper that suburbs
primarily represent the attempt by some workers to protect privileges
which accrue to them through their location in the metropolitan
economy. I have tried to trace the sources of these privileges, the
mechanisms by which they are protected, and some of the conflicts
arising from this process. If suburban municipalities can indeed be
classified on the basis of status and sector (and I think I have
shown that, to some extent, they can), on what dimensions would we
expect those classes of communities to vary? What critical dif-
ferences would emerge which would have important implications for
the lives of the residents of these two distinctive types of com—

munities?

 

72

  

Ilvchv
EMU-5

fl

‘OUTNFI‘LD

  
  

    

   
   
 

05‘

pl? sow

   

oer Row

  
   

‘A an:

 

oeflblf

   

@

   

INK$TIK

     

ECOR$E

1

Key

Monopoly Sector

 

 

Competitive Sector

 

N
T

Fig. 4.--Spatia1 Distribution of Middle Status Municipalities by

Sector.

73

There are two important areas in which we would expect monopoly

29 The first area of dif—

and competitive sector suburbs to differ.
ference is their social composition. This variation is rooted in the
differentiation of the metropolitan economy and the operation of dual
labor markets and is reinforced through the privilege-maintaining
mechanisms discussed in Chapter 11. Because the competitive sector
labor force tends to be disproportionately black, female, very young
and old, we would expect suburbs with large competitive sector popu-
lations to reflect this fact. In addition, because the residents of
monopoly sector suburbs are able to utilize exclusionary mechanisms
in order to protect their privileges, we would expect a greater con-
centration of the aged, the poor, and the blacks in competitive
sector suburbs.

The second area of difference between the residents of
monopoly and competitive sector suburbs lies in their access to
rewards. Analytically, this includes both monetary and nonmonetary
rewards. Realistically, however, the census data limits us to an
investigation of monetary rewards alone. Since occupational status
is being held constant, overall income ordinarily would not be
expected to vary significantly between the two classes of munici-
palities. However, because the technical conditions and social
relations of production differ in the monopoly and competitive
sectors, income was expected to vary within occupations by sector.
Thus the managers, craftsmen, etc., who reside in the monopoly
sector suburbs are expected to be more well-off monetarily than their

counterparts in competitive sector communities.

74

Results and Analysis

 

Table 10 graphically illustrates the differing social com-
position of monopoly and competitive sector suburbs. Controlling
for sex, the labor force of competitive sector communities, on the
average, is composed of a higher proportion of very young and old
workers than the labor force of monopoly sector suburbs, whether or
not status is held constant.30' 31 The percentage of females over
sixteen in the labor force is very similar in each group of com-
munities, although it is slightly higher in the middle status com-
petitive sector suburbs, as was expected. Surprisingly, the average
unemployment rates for middle status monopoly and competitive sector
communities are identical. The reasons for this are not clear. It
might be due to the systematic undercounting of the very categories
of workers who predominate in the competitive sector--blacks, women,
teenagers and the aged. Certainly it overlooks the chronic under-
employment which is characteristic of competitive sector workers.
Not so surprising is the fact that unemployment rates are inversely
related to status and that the central city of Detroit has the highest
unemployment rate of all.

The second half of Table 10 indicates that the general
characteristics of those who reside in monopoly and competitive sector
suburbs are indeed different. Holding status constant, race seems
to emerge as a significant difference. However, this measure is
somewhat unreliable because of the fact that nearly all of the black
population of middle status competitive sector suburbs is concen-

trated in one community--Highland Park. If this city were eliminated,

75

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76

the average percentage of blacks in middle status competitive sector
suburbs would actually be lower than that of middle status monopoly
sector communities. Also, lower status monopoly sector suburbs
emerge here with a relatively large black population. This is
undoubtedly due to the influence of the auto industry, a monopoly
sector industry which does employ significant numbers of blacks,
albeit in low-level positions.

Age is a much more reliable measure here, and it shows that
middle status monOpoly sector suburbs have the lowest average per-
centage of persons 65 and over. And these communities, on the
average, also have fewer economically deprived residents--i.e. fewer

32 fewer families below

families with annual income below $10,000,
the poverty level and on welfare or social security. The implications
of this particular distribution of the population are clear. Each

of these categories is composed of individuals who are the least pro-
ductive and require the most services. Competitive sector munici-
palities, in which they are predominantly located when status is

held constant, thus suffer a double burden: income and property values
are not as high and do not collectively increase as rapidly as those
in monopoly sector suburbs, and the fiscal resources of communities

in the competitive sector are disproportionately channeled into social
services. Thus monopoly sector suburbs are not only likely to have
lower tax rates, but they are able to channel more funds into such
things as education, which tends to reproduce their privilege over

time.33

77

Table 11 illustrates the differences in income of residents
of monopoly and competitive sector suburbs. Controlling for status,
median family income and mean wage and salary income are found to be
nearly equal for the two classes of municipalities, contrary to my
expectations. Perhaps the high incomes of some competitive sector
entrepreneurs help bring the income figures for their home suburbs
into parity with those of the monopoly sector suburbs. Then again,
these income figures may be deceiving in that they do not take into
account the monetary and nonmonetary fringe benefits which accrue
unequally to monopoly sector workers, especially at the white collar
level. In any case, more refined methods for the measurement of
income are needed in order to adequately probe this difference.

It is when income is examined by occupation that real dif-
ferences, and thus evidence of privilege, begin to appear. Managers
and professionals who are residents of middle status competitive sector
suburbs, on the average, have higher incomes than their counterparts
in monopoly sector suburbs. Self-employed professionals like doctors
and lawyers are probably responsible for this higher figure. While
it is true that top-level monopoly sector managers make astronomical
salaries (by middle class standards), middle level managers in this
sector, while receiving excellent incomes, have neither the flexi-
bility nor the opportunity to earn as much as the self-employed
professionals. Anyway, at this level, residents of competitive
sector suburbs are better off.

As we move down the occupational ladder, however, residents of

monopoly sector suburbs exhibit an increasing degree of privilege.

78

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79

Among middle status communities, residents of monopoly sector suburbs
who are craftsmen average four-hundred dollars more in yearly income
than craftsmen in competitive sector municipalities, while monopoly
sector operatives average three—hundred fifty dollars more. But
the difference between residents of middle status monopoly sector
suburbs and those in similar competitive sector communities is most
glaring at the level of laborers. Here the mean income differential
is more than sixteen-hundred dollars! Surely this reflects the
higher level of unionization and superior technical conditions of
production in monopoly sector industries. And this difference has
two important implications for the lives of the residents of the two
types of suburbs. First, it is not likely under these conditions that
the competitive sector worker will be able to achieve the same level
of consumption and acquire the same lifestyle as his or her counter-
part in the monopoly sector who averages sixteen hundred dollars more
yearly in the same occupation. Thus important status differences
are reinforced. Secondly, competitive sector laborers are less
likely than their counterparts in the monopoly sector to be able to
afford the kind of education or training which would qualify their
children for upward mobility. Thus not only are status distinctions
maintained, but access to more rewarding jobs is limited in general
to monopoly sector workers and specifically to residents of monopoly
sector suburbs.

No overall income disparity seems to exist between women
workers who reside in monopoly sector suburbs and those who live in

competitive sector municipalities, owing perhaps to a rather

80

universal discrimination against women workers. However, female
clerical workers in the competitive sector suburbs are slightly
better off, on the average, than those in monopoly sector communities.
From the limited nature of the data available, I can offer no sound
explanation for this.

A greater refinement of this variable would be necessary in
order to fully understand the process at work here. With regard to
female operatives, however, the process is relatively clear. The
highly unionized nature of the industries to which females from middle
status monopoly sector communities have access produces an average
five-hundred and fifty dollar disparity between their average annual
income and that of their opposite numbers in the competitive sector.

Taken together, these variables show, albeit rather tenta-
tively, a pattern of privilege in the metropolitan community. It is
a privilege which accrues to certain groups of workers because of the
structure and social relations of the industries in which they earn
their living. And it is a privilege which is given a spatial dimen-
sion through the institution of the politically independent munici-
pality. Hopefully this study has hinted at how the lifechances of
various metropolitan residents are inextricably bound up with the
distribution and limits of these municipalities. A more systematic
understanding of the mechanisms which maintain this privilege, and

the dynamics of conflict which arise over it, awaits further study.

CHAPTER IV

CONCLUSION: THE FUTURE OF SUBURBS

This paper represents an attempt to develop a political
economy of metropolitan areas as a context for studying suburbs. To
the extent that it has succeeded, a new path has been opened for those
who want to discover the meaning of suburbs for the lives of their
residents. To the extent that it has failed, this study demonstrates
the need for further research which is both more comprehensive and
more refined. In either case, we might fruitfully reflect on the
directions further inquiries could take.

Essentially I see four broad and overlapping areas of investi-
gation. First of all, suburbs need to be studied as independent poli-
tical units in an interdependent metropolitan economy. The historical
process of annexation and incorporation should be empirically investi—
gated in the context of a specific metropolis. When did annexation/
incorporation take place? How was it accomplished? What were the
sources of support and opposition? What were the long term results?
These are some of the questions which must be answered in order to
understand the historical origin of suburbs as independent municipal-
ities. The economic assets and liabilities of each suburban community
is another important research topic. What is the tax base of the
suburb? How does it compare with that of other municipalities? In
relative terms, is it appreciating or declining? What is the tax

81

82

rate structure and how does it compare with others? How does the
municipality allocate its resources? What are the origins and
dynamics of conflict over this allocation? What is the nature and
extent of municipal services? Finally, it would be necessary to
place all of these factors in the context of the metropolitan
economy.

A second focus for future research would be on the residents
of each suburb. Where did they come from? How long have they been
there? What are their demographic characteristics and how are they
related to the position of the residents in the metropolitan political
economy? What are the connections between the places where these
people work and the places where they live? Similarly, where do these
suburbanites shop and play and what are the implications of this?
These are some of the questions which must be answered in order to
understand the social dynamics arising out of the metropolitan
political economy.

A third area of investigation would involve a comparative
study of metropolitan areas. Hopefully this would give us a broader
perspective and a more systematic understanding of both the most
intransigent and the most ephemeral features of the metropolis. It
would also give us a better clue to the key dimensions along which
metropolitan economies vary.34 Robert Sinclair, for instance, sug-
gests that other metropolitan areas may show greater disparity in
income than Detroit because of greater diversification in their
local economies (1972:20). This suggestion, like the others men-

tioned above, is open to empirical investigation.

83

A final focus for analysis would be to investigate the pat-
terms of conflict and movement and change in the metropolis. What
are the fundamental bones of contention in the metropolitan political
arena? What groups support and oppose these issues and where are
they located in the metropolitan political economy? What are the
forces preserving the status quo? What are the origin and dynamics
of the forces of change? These are some of the fundamental questions
which must be answered in order to come to grips with the future of
the metropolis in general and suburbs in particular.

What, in fact, will be the future of suburbs in our metro-
politan areas? Wilbur Thompson (1973:423-5) presents a particularly
upbeat View. "The rich will get poorer and the poor will get
richer . . . when the suburbs come filtering down." That is, as
suburban housing ages and deteriorates, the lower classes will move
into it. The central city will be recycled as the rich move back
into it. The net effect of these changes will be the convergence of
median family incomes and the achievement of a "more normal distri-
bution" of income and resources in the metrOpolis. A fundamentally
contrasting view of what the "Great Society" can become was put forth
by President Johnson's Commission on Crimes of Violence:

If present trends are not positively redirected by creative new
action, we can expect further social fragmentation of the urban
environment, formation of excessively parochial communities,
greater segregation of different racial groups and economic
classes. . . and the establishment of the "defensive city," the
modern counterpart of the fortified medieval city, consisting

of an economically declining central business district in the
inner city protected by peOple shopping or working in buildings
during daylight hours and "sealed off" by police during nighttime
hours. Highrise apartment buildings and residential "compounds"

will be fortified "cells" for upper-, middle-, and high-income
populations living at prime locations in the inner city.

84

Suburban neighborhoods, geographically removed from the central
city, will be "safe areas," protected mainly by racial and
economic homogeneity and by distance from population groups with
the highest propensities to commit crime. Many parts of central
cities will witness frequent and widespread crime, perhaps out
of police control (Masotti and Hadden, 1973:452-3).

Regardless of whether either of these two visions ever comes
to pass, those who wish to comprehend the dynamics impelling the
destruction of suburbs and the impulses supporting their survival,
and the meaning of this clash of forces for the lives of suburban

residents, will do so in the context of a metropolitan political

economy.

FOOTNOTE S

The causes and consequences of suburban growth are discussed
more extensively later in this paper. For more comprehensive docu-
mentation and explanation of the origins and dynamics of suburban
growth see Schnore (1965:77-168), Wood (1958:54-87), Singleton
(1973:29-50), and Glenn (1973:51-78).

2A useful anthology of literary works and both popular and
social scientific studies regarding suburbs may be found in Sobin
(1971:5-9 and 27-39). An excellent anthology of fictional works
about suburbia may be found in Donaldson (1969:184-208). This work
also includes a relatively comprehensive annotated bibliography
(pp. 241-67).

3Two excellent analyses of the bases for this myth are:
Dennis Wrong, "Suburbs and the Myth of Suburbia" (Wrong, 1967) and
Bennett Berger, "The Myth of Suburbia" (Berger, 1961). Wrong sees
the political quiescence of the Eisenhower years as setting the
conditions for a search on the part of social critics for new critical
outlets. Setting their sights on the rapidly growing suburbs, they
thoroughly emphasized any negative aspect that could be found, often
doing so out of context. The political unrest and social movements
of the Sixties provided new outlets for social criticism, however,
and the castigation of the suburbs subsided. Berger believes the
myth was created when social critiques of specific suburbs, most
notably Whyte's study of Park Forest, Illinois, achieved widespread
circulation--not only in academic circles, but in the popular press
as well. Although perhaps true of some specific communities, these
descriptions became vastly overgeneralized through mass circulation.
It was left to people like Berger to refute these images with more
refined research in the 603.

4Often of course it is the stated intention of urban research-
ers to confine the scope of their analyses to the circumscribed limits
of a particular city or range of cities. With some research problems,
this is altogether fitting and proper. My critique here is of those
analyses which purport to deal with issues and variables which are
inherently part of a larger metropolitan complex, complete with
suburban nuances. Examples of urban studies which fail to formally
recognize the unique characteristics of suburbs are: Schmandt and
Bloomberg (1969), Weaver (1960), and Loewenstein (1971). An example
of urban research which does take some account of the suburbs is
Glazer (1960).

85

86

5For example, Jane Jacobs (1969) is imprecise in her use of
the terms city, suburb and metropolitan area and her analysis is con-
sequently diminished. Dick Netzer (1970) suffers from the same prob-
lem. Henderson and Ledebur (1972) begin their book with the sentence,
"The majority of our population now lives in cities." If by cities
they mean metropolitan areas, then this is quite true. Nevertheless,
it represents a consistent neglect of the subtleties of the metropolis.

6This is particularly true with regard to analysis of the
metropolitan reform movement. Greer (1963) is a good analysis of
the sources of support and opposition to this movement. Williams
(1965) is an empirical investigation of the forces for independence
among suburbs. Other worthwhile studies include: Danielson (1966)
and Sweeney (1958) in which various methodological approaches to
the study of the metropolis are discussed.

7Perhaps the best statement on the overall scope and task of
political economy is contained in Marx's famous Preface to his
Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy:

 

In the social production which men carry on they enter into
definite relations that are indispensable and independent of
their will; these relations of production correspond to a
definite stage of development of their material powers of pro-
duction. The sum total of these relations of production con-
stitutes the economic structure of society--the real foundation,
on which rise legal and political superstructures and to which
correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode

of production in material life determines the general character
of the social, political and spiritual processes of life. It
is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence,
but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their
consciousness (Marx, 1904:11-12).

8Barry Bluestone has also observed this development. "An
economic system based on private investment decisions," he states,
"tends to produce a dual economy both in the structure of industries
and in the structure of the labor force" (Bluestone, 1972:70). The
reason for this process lies in the "law of uneven development."
This law dictates that capital tends to be reinvested over time in
those particular product lines, machinery, geographical areas and
workers which promise the highest profits. Concentration of capital
tends to beget more concentration of capital and the gap between the
haves and have-nots grows over time (Bluestone, 1972:65-6).

 

9Technically, the correct term for this phenomenon is

oligopoly--control and domination of a market by a number of pro—
ducers and suppliers. However, since the U.S. government generally
addresses this matter under the heading of "monopoly" and since
oligopoly is a cumbersome word, I shall follow O'Connor and use
monopoly to designate the sector and the situation within an industry
where a few firms exercise control.

87

10The automobile industry is a prime example of both of
these features. In arguments with the Environmental Protection
Agency over the implementation of safety and pollution standards,
automotive executives have consistently argued that a major drawback
of installing the devices necessary to meet the standards would be
the increased cost to the consumer. And recently, when new car sales
have slumped because of the stagnating economy, spokesmen for the
industry have predicted further price increases to protect falling
profit margins.

11A more comprehensive discussion of these factors may be
found in Bluestone (1968:292-301).

12For an excellent qualitative discussion of this situation,
see Elliot Liebow's brilliant study, Tally's Corner (1967), especially
Chapter Two.

 

13The variable "class" is used here in its marxian sense.
That is, it is used to define an individual or group relation to the
means of production. But more than strict ownership or nonownership
is involved here. For the managers of the huge monopoly sector cor-
porations, while not owners in the narrowest sense, are almost in-
variably among the largest stockholders in the corporation and are
regularly and highly rewarded for corporate profitability. Thus
they engage in decisionmaking which is entirely congruent with that
of the old "captains of industry." It is appropriate, then, to
consider the highest level corporate managers as members of the
capitalist class.

"Status" is used here to designate social positions which are
accompanied primarily by particular styles of life and secondarily
by varying levels of prestige.

14Sennett and Cobb's book is an interesting and sometimes
very moving account of the psychic trauma of ethnic workers who have
thoroughly internalized the American Dream of mobility based on
ability and yet are doomed to failure by the structure of the
economic system. In an effort to resolve this dissonance they blame
themselves for their failures. The book is based on a series of
first-hand interviews in the Boston area.
15For a fascinating and insightful discussion of the partner-
ship between big business and government forged in the Progressive
Era, see Kolko (1963) and Weinstein (1968). Both of these works
are part of the so-called "revisionist" history which seeks to dis-
pel popular myths about our past through radical reinterpretation.

16The other side of this argument and the one that follows
may be found in Muth (1967). Muth finds that the distribution of
the population between the central city and its suburbs is “to an
important extent, though not solely, explainable by the same forces
that affect the spread of population within the city" (p. 296). He

88

also argues that the distribution of income and resources in the
metropolitan area is largely what it would be if there were no
political fragmentation.

17A parallel development is taking place in the second half
of the Twentieth Century. Advances in data processing technology
have made large, single-story or modular office buildings a more
efficient method of bureaucratic organization. And developments in
communication technology have made it feasible to decentralize this
particular type of production activity.

18A good illustration of this entire process is the case of
Willow Run. About twenty miles west of the city of Detroit, Willow
Run served as the major airport for Detroit prior to World War II.
During the war, the federal government built a huge bomber plant at
the airport, which was at that time surrounded by farms. Since
workers could not move out near the new plant on account of resi-
dential building restrictions, the government was forced to finance
a high-speed freeway from the west side of Detroit to the plant (one
of the first such highways in the country). After the war, the
bomber plant was sold to an automobile company and today fabricates
automobiles and automobile parts. The old industrial freeway has
been a major factor in the continuing residential sprawl west from
Detroit.

19Although this particular type of retail decentralization
has usually occurred in terms of huge multistore shopping centers
and malls, there is a recent trend toward primary retail decentrali—
zation on the part of a single firm. A recent newspaper article
told of the grand opening of a new "Meijer's Thrifty Acres" super
discount store in a relatively sparsely settled area thirty miles
west of Detroit. Modeled on the European "hypermarkets," this store
is the largest single-story retail outlet in the United States, with
over five acres of floor space. Even though the projected popula-
tion for the area has not yet materialized, the firm is confident
that it can be a factor in inducing this development.

20However, not all suburbs are competing for industry. The
residents of certain upper class residential suburbs, for example,
militantly oppose the introduction of industry into their municipality.
This opposition has essentially two motivations: (l) a desire to keep
local service costs down, and (2) a desire to increase the property
value of the already highly-valued large-lot single-family dwellings.
Both of these drives have the effect of keeping the tax rate low in
these municipalities. In addition, even if a suburb is interested
in attracting industry, the type of industry it can successfully
capture varies by class and status. Nearly every municipality
desires "clean" industries like office parks, commercial developments
and light assembly and manufacturing, but inevitably these industries
wind up in "clean" (i.e. white, middle—to—upper-class) suburbs,
while the lower status communities get to fight over the decentralizing
"dirty" industries.

89

21
David Harvey (1972:21-2) quotes the following analysis of
this problem from the Wall Street Journal (ll-27-70):

 

As housing costs have risen and as suburbs have become more
stringent in their zoning requirements, many suburban concerns
have found it increasingly difficult to find production workers
nearby . . . . Ford Motor Co., which has a giant assembly plant
in the northern New Jersey town of Mahwah, attributes some of
its 20% annual turnover in production employees to a shortage

of nearby housing for workers. Many of its 5,000 employees
travel to work from Newark, 30 miles away; New York City, 40
miles distant, and Jersey City, 45 miles away . . . . One large
industrial concern in the East with comparable problems has
begun to exert pressure on town councils, Chambers of Commerce,
and zoning boards to get more inexpensive housing suited for
production workers. So far they've had little luck. Says one
company official, "Town officials want the plant but they don't
want the hourly worker. They want the executive who will live
on two acres of land in an $80,000 home." Such corporate pressure
will probably increase, in large part because of suburban greed.
Eager to get more taxable assets, the towns are encouraging
business to settle there. In the fast-growing 400 square mile
area around Princeton, N.J., 20 local governments have zoned
enough undeveloped land for industrial parks and research
centers to support 1.2 million jobs. At the same time, the
undeveloped residential land in the area is zoned for such low
densities that it could house only 144,000 of the working
population.

22The numbers look like this: Of the 435 Representatives,
131 represent districts that are more than half suburban, 130 repre-
sent rural districts, 102 represent urban districts and 72 districts
are too mixed to classify. By way of comparison, only 96 districts
could be classified as suburban in 1966.
23Though the particular mix of industries in any given
metropolitan area would vary, I believe that the basic relationships
described in this paper would hold true. This is, of course, an
empirical question.

24Educational services is a subdivision of the service industry
category. The majority of people employed in this field are
teachers, administrators and service workers hired by state and local
governments. Thus it made sense to view it as a state sector cate—
gory. However, because the Census Bureau made no attempt to separate
out those people employed in private education, this measure is
somewhat open to question.

251f data were available by corporation, my task would be
greatly simplified. The structure of each corporation and its rela-
tionship to others in its industry could be examined according to
criteria which I have laid out earlier in this paper. Data on

9O

employment by sector would be more more exact. An attempt to cull
this data from corporate reports would be a worthy research project
for the future.

26In an informative discussion of concentration ratios, Blair
(1972:7-11) observes that they are:

Overstated when there is great substitutability of products from
other industries;

Understated at the industry level because of specialization by
individual companies;

Understated in terms of control over local and regional markets;

Overstated in that exports from foreign corporations are excluded.

Overall, Blair concludes that concentration ratios are relatively
accurate reflections of monopoly power.

27Following the Standard Industrial Classification system
(SIC), the Bureau of the Census reports industrial employment by
two-digit Major Industry Groups (e.g. manufacturing) and three-digit
Industry Groups (e.g. transportation equipment). Concentration
ratios are developed in terms of more specific four-digit Industries
(e.g. motor vehicles). For further explanation of the SIC, see Blair
(1972:7-9).
28The city of Detroit is included for purposes of comparison
with a large central city. According to the classification scheme
which I have proposed, Detroit would emerge as a middle status
competitive sector community.

29The differences between monopoly and competitive sector
suburbs were operationalized by calculating the mean score of the
group of municipalities falling into each category and then comparing
means for each variable. The number of variables on which the
sectors are compared and the relative sophistication of the vari-
ables was limited by the nature and form of census data. Every
effort was made to use every possible variable, or combination of
variables, which was conceptually relevant to the monopoly/competi—
tive sector distinction.

3OThe self-employment variable was used as a check on the
classification scheme. Since nearly all monopoly sector firms are
incorporated, self-employment is almost entirely a characteristic of
the competitive sector. If my classification scheme has in fact
captured the reality of monopoly and competitive sector municipalities,
self-employment should be significantly higher, on the average, in
competitive sector suburbs, particularly the upper status ones.
Table 10 shows that this is precisely the case.
31The city of Detroit is consistent with the findings for
middle status competitive sector communities, except in the case of
young males in the labor force, where it actually has a lower

91

percentage than the average monopoly sector suburb of equal status.
This is quite possibly due to a very high unemployment rate in the
city among young males (especially young black males) which would
tend to discourage them from even looking for work.

Ten thousand dollars in annual family income was selected
as a measure of deprivation because the Bureau of Labor Statistics
Moderate But Adequate budget for an urban family of four was set at
slightly over ten thousand dollars in 1970.

This appears to vary by class and status, however. A
number of lower status monopoly sector suburbs in the Detroit area
have very large tax bases and low tax rates, due to the presence
of a great deal of monopoly sector physical plant facilities.
Nevertheless, the achievement scores of pupils from these districts
are consistently among the lowest in the state. Obviously there are
intervening factors here like race, class and perhaps ethnicity which
require further study.

34The study by Hill (1974) is a step in this direction.

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HICHIGRN STATE UNIV. LIBRQRIES

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