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Title: The Slow Wave - The Changing Residential Status of Cities and Suburbs in the United States, 1850-1940

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2001

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Abstract: For several decades,scholars have tried to assess the changing patterns of residential status in cities and suburbs. Most studies of central-city decline relative to the suburbs focus on a limited period of time or analyze a small set of metropolitan areas, typically the oldest and largest. The availability of national census samples spanning several decades, including standardized metropolitan classifications,1 enable us now to examine metropolitan residential status patterns on a national scale over a broad span of time. Some scholars have argued that central-city decline occurred with industrialization as the affluent migrated to the suburbs. The results of this study indicate, however, that the status decline of central cities relative to the suburbs was a slow process, particularly for small metropolitan areas. As late as 1940, central cities were of higher status than the metropolitan fringe in most metropolitan areas. In the early decades of the twentieth century, urban cores were of lower status than outlying areas only in the oldest and largest metropolitan areas, but much of thisstatusredistribution was occurring within the political boundaries of central cities. In addition, although many in high-status occupations were migrating to suburbs, cities of all sizes continued to attract large numbers of high-status in-migrants in the years preceding World War II.

Url: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/009614420102700303

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Authors: Gardner, Todd

Periodical (Full): Journal of Urban History

Issue: 3

Volume: 27

Pages: 293-312

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Family and Marriage, Housing and Segregation

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