FROM THE PUBLISHER

In 1998, Myron Orfield introduced a revolutionary program for combating the seemingly inevitable decline of America's metropolitan communities. Through a combination of demographic research, state-of-the-art mapping, and resourceful, pragmatic politics, his groundbreaking book, Metropolitics, revealed how the different regions of St. Paul and Minneapolis pulled together to create a regional government powerful enough to tackle the community's problems of sprawl and urban decay.

Orfield's new work, American Metropolitics: A Comparative National Study of Social Separation and Sprawl, applies the next generation of cutting-edge research on a much broader scale. The book provides an eye-opening analysis of the economic, racial, environmental, and political trends of the 25 largest metropolitan regions in the United States—which contain more than 45 percent of the U.S. population. Using detailed maps and case studies, Orfield demonstrates that growing social separation and wasteful sprawling development patterns are harming regional citizens wherever they live.

The first section of the book, "Metropatterns," illustrates a common pattern of growing social separation and wasteful sprawling development throughout the country—a condition that limits opportunity for the poor (particularly people of color), diminishes the quality of life for most Americans, and threatens our fragile environment. It also shows how these patterns reveal the existence of three types of suburban communities—those at risk of social and economic decline, those struggling to pay for rapid growth, and a very small number of places that enjoy the benefits of economic growth with few social costs. Ironically, this last group is often the center of the movement against sprawl. "Metropolicy," the second section, analyzes past policies and programs that have attempted—and failed—to address the challenges of concentrated poverty, sprawl, and inequitable distribution of resources. Orfield lays out a comprehensive regional agenda to address these problems, with solutions for land use planning from a regional perspective, greater fiscal equity among local governments (with an emphasis on reinvestment in the central cities and older suburbs), and improved governance at the regional level that will help facilitate the development of policies to benefit all types of metropolitan communities. The third section, "Metropolitics," discusses examples of political strategies that have led to successful programs on land use planning, tax equity, and regional governance. Using detailed analysis of 1990's election data it identifies and maps the nation's swing political jurisdictions which are overwhelmingly in at-risk and growth-stressed suburbs. Finally, the book draws a new and incisive picture of the political structure of U.S. metropolitan regions, and lays out a series of strategies for moving regional reform efforts forward.

With detailed maps of conditions in each metropolitan region, comprehensive data on existing conditions and voter attitudes, and bold, innovative strategies for change, American Metropolitics is an important book for anyone concerned with the future of our cities and suburbs.

FROM THE CRITICS

Bob Hulteen - Sojourners

What's the sound of a policy wonk clapping? I don't know. But with the publication of Myron Orfield's American Metropolitics, I suspect we're about to find out what a herd of them sound like.... an intelligent and insightful book detailing the changing nature of the suburbs of major metropolitan areas and what that means socially and politically.

David Broder - Suburbs In a New Light

The notion that suburbs are the key battlegrounds of American politics has become so accepted it is almost a cliche. But the anatomy of suburban life and suburban elections remains much harder to define...No one has done more to explore that mystery than a Minnesotan named Myron Orfield . . . The distinctions Orfield draws among suburbs, and the way the varieties show up on his maps in shades from dark red to orange to bright blue, explain why the battle for suburban votes is so challenging -- and why cliches about "soccer moms" or "New Economy voters" are often so misleading. They fail to capture the complexity of today's suburban reality. . . Whether you agree with his policy prescriptions or not, Orfield has found a way to illuminate the most critical -- and, often, most baffling -- battlefield in American politics. That is no small achievement.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

In a 1993 column, I featured the breakthrough inspiration of Myron Orfield, a then-barely 30 Minnesota legislator getting ready to upset the apple cart of how Americans think about suburbia. . .Nine years later, Myron Orfield has become the most influential social demographer in America's burgeoning regional movement. Major national foundations, regional activist organizations, universities, business groups, local governments and Catholic archdioceses have commissioned studies on their regions from the Metropolitan Area Research Corp. that Orfield founded and heads. Now the Brookings Institution has published Orfield's second book American Metropolitics: The New Suburban Reality analyzing the disparities among the suburbs that surround America's 25 largest metropolitan areas... In short, Orfield is saying, no one's really happy. The only way to a better future: rules to foster less fearsome competition for businesses that bolster tax base, more metropolitan-wide tax-base sharing, constantly increasing state assistance, and restraints on profligate and environmentally destructive sprawl development.  — Neal Peirce

Myron Orfield's new book, American Metropolitics: The New Suburban Reality attempts to broaden the traditional definition of urban policy to include the suburbs. Orfield, a Democratic state senator from Minnesota, has made a name for himself as "the master cartographer of metropolitan America's changing demographics." ...

The bottom line for Orfield is that he wants America's metropolitan areas to have significantly less diversity among jurisdictions in terms of racial makeup, income, tax base, commercial and industrial development, and infrastructure provision. To get there, Orfield falls back on the old liberal solution of transferring resources from the "have" communities to the "have nots." Orfield urges activists to do what he did successfully in the Twin Cities: Build a coalition of the poor and middle-income suburbs and the central city against the rich suburbs.  — Robert D. Atkinson

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