Inner Suburbs1

Angélica Camargo Sierra

Universidad Externado de Colombia
angelicapcamargos@yahoo.com

Abstract:

The inner suburbs refer to areas located after the inner city and before the peripheral
regions. In the United States, the inner suburbs had their greatest growth after the World
War II and in the Latin America cities in the 60s and 70s. In general terms, the cities are
undergoing a back to the city process, the central areas are being repopulated and inner
suburbs are growing faster than the far peripheries. However, the inner suburbs are facing
a process of decline, aging both population and urban infrastructure, deterioration and
devaluation of housing are some of the most common problems in these territories. They
require attention from local and national governments primarily aimed at rehabilitation
and revitalization.

Keywords: Urbanization, urban geography, housing.

Introduction

The Inner suburbs, in spatial terms, refer to the area of the city that is usually located after
the central city, and before the peripheral regions (fringe) of metropolitan areas. In
temporal and historical terms they generally refer to the first urban suburbs developed
between the 50s and 80s in the majority of United States, Europe and Latin America cities.
Also, they had been named in many ways: inner ring suburb, older suburbs, first suburbs,
first tier suburbs and recently “innerburbs” (Ward et al.2015). Characteristics of Inner
Suburbs in the United States and Latin America are the central topics that will be
discussed in this text.

The Urban Growth processes in United States and Latin America

In the case of US cities, during the first half of the 20th century,growth was concentrated
2
on the central city; the economy of the cities was based on their centers and the
industrialization processes. “Cities were the center of metropolitan gravity dominating the

1
For citation: Camargo, Angélica. 2019. “Inner suburbs”. In: Orum, A.M (ed) . The Wiley Blackwell
Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies. Wiley-Blackwell. (Submitted and accepted version). Published
version available in:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0516?fbclid=IwAR1ArezWy_4K5uGVY5SIc
JHo_zKgblNKzJv_OAOT3UtbCJ9f71SCOB4dMB4
business, cultural and intellectual life of the nation”. (Short et al. 2007, 641). After World
War II, urban centers enter into a process of significant deterioration, associated to
criminality, unemployment and poverty; problems that motivated a depopulation along
with an accelerated growth of suburban areas, a process that has been denominated as
“boom suburb”(Doucet 2010).

Although the American suburbs, existed since the beginnings of the century, they were
initially conceived as a form of settlement with a hygienist character, in order to get away
from the problems of the city. Boom suburb flourished in this context mostly due to the
search, by the middle classes, of a life style based on the "traditional suburban dream,
with a large house, multi-car garage and plenty of safe and secure spaces for children to
play” (Doucet 201, 1). Some theories explain the suburbanization by a process of upward
social mobility of the population, while others by a getaway done by the elite to the
deteriorating conditions of the cities (Lee and Leigh 2005; Nivon 2003). But in any case
reinforced by the ambitious policies of controlled land use and infrastructure construction
in suburban areas, "the characteristics associated with it (the suburb) became the
cornerstone of Anglo-American planning ideology” (original text in Spanish) (Nivon 2013,
18). According to Ward (2012), some cities grew more than the 600% in this first wave of
suburban expansion that had its best impulse between the years 1950 and 1980, during
the 90s near the 60% of the US urban population lived in the suburbs.

To understand with detail this process of suburbanization in United States, Short, Hanlon
and Vicino (2007) identify four stages that correspond to different moments of time. The
first stage, late 19th century to early 20th century, that they called, suburban
utopia, basically characterized by the image of suburbs as an ideal of healthy living,
populated by the bourgeoisie of the time and in response to the rapid industrialization of
the cities. The second stage corresponds to time of the Boom Suburb after World War II
between the years 1945 and 1960, the accelerated urban growth generated
homogeneous typographies and geographies of suburbs in the called cookie-cutter
style. In the third posterior stage, the authors cite studies that revealed a process of
population diversification in the suburbs between 1960 and 1980. “The Identification of
working class suburbs (Berger 1968), and rise of black suburbanization (Schnore et al
1976) contributed to the sense that the suburbs were not only the residences of white,
middle-class families” (Short, Hanlon and Vicino 3007, 643). Finally, the last stage is
referred to as a process of decline of the first suburbs and the emergences of new ones in
increasingly remote areas more far away from the center, which occurred from the 80s
onwards.

Even though in the case of Latin American cities you may also identify a process of
suburban expansion between the 50s and the 80s, in some cases one decade after the
cities of United States the characteristics of this process of urbanization are substantially
different.
One of the particularities of the urbanization in Latin America is its speed, in half century it
pass from the 30% to the 75% of population living in cities, something which took almost a
century in United States and in European cities more than two. This fast process of
urbanization was associated on one hand to the accelerated demographic growth, on the
other to the sum of high industrialization and deterioration of the countryside that
motivated an accelerated process of migration from the country to the city (Jaramillo
2008; De Mattos 2002). In short, during the period between the 50s and 80s, the
peripheries of Latin American cities were populated because of the internal migration of
middle and mostly low income people (Lattes 1993; Bordsdorf 2003). In some countries of
the south region of the continent like Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, the peripheries were
also populated by low income migrant population from neighboring countries such as
Bolivia and Paraguay.

These first peripheries identified as inner suburb in the Latin American cities (Ward 2012),
were occupied mainly by low income population, their consolidation and growth
happened in very particular and mostly similar conditions in cities of the Latin American
region. In most cases, due to the limited supply in housing and land, and the lack of
capacity of the local administrations to face the huge urban growth, families were forced
to occupy or invaded land irregularly, auto constructing their house with local workforce
or even the same members of their household, and then through community efforts
providing road infrastructure and services. Although nowadays these areas are
generally well-stablished, this process took more than two decades of social struggle and
public interventions, with very high cost both for the society and local governments
(Ward, Jimenez and Di Virgilio 2015; Gilbert and Ward 1985).

Although Latin American cities also presented a process of decay and depopulation of
urban centers around the 60s, unlike the United States cities, the middle and upper
classes moved to places close to the center in the majority of the cities, creating central
urban sectors of high rent (Bordsdorf 2003).

As a result of this process of accelerated urbanization, the tension generated by the

weakness of the state apparatus and economic structure to respond the demand for jobs
and constructed space led to particular growth dynamics in Latin American cities. Salaries
were generally low, informal economic activities proliferated and an acute inequity of
income deepened during the decades 80 and 90 with the implementation of neoliberal
economic policies. The city kept growing rapidly with speculative real estate capital, even
though population growth rates began to stabilize (Jaramillo 2008).

The results of this process of urbanization in Latin American were highly polarized and
fragmented cities, in which the poorest population had to occupy the urban peripheries in
highly precarious conditions and vulnerability. Meanwhile the upper classes located in
zones near the center and middle classes in intermediate spaces.

Back to the city movement and the inner suburb decline

In the previous description of growth process in the cities, is present an analysis model
based on peripheries and center, whose antecedent is the outline of concentric rings
originally proposed by Burgess (1929). This model can explain both the general process of
urban growth, such as suburbanization, also shaping the inner suburbs and the emptying
of the central areas. However, as other studies have noted, growth patterns and urban
settlement have been getting more complex in the last decades, reaching a stage of urban
transition. This stage is characterized by a slower and endogenous demographic growth,
mainly fueled by the natural growth of population, with less importance to the process of
internal migration (that in the case of Latin American cities had been particularly relevant)
and whose axis constitutes intrametropolitan residential mobility. It is also characterized
by a higher demographic growth in the inner cities, which, in general, even though not
completely, is related to a process of gentrification and to the re-densification of
pericentral zones or inner suburbs. Synthetizing this new stage of urban growth, its central
characteristics can be denominated as a back to city movement. (Dureau et al. 2016; Ward
2012)

This back to city movement seems to be determinate by many aspects, in part; it’s linked
to the process of globalization and with the promotion of urban sustainability (Lang and
Lefurgy 2007). On one hand, the preferences and representations of people have been
changing. In the case of the United States, suburban dream seems to lack the same
validity as before. Young professionals and some recently formed couples prefer to live in
the center of the cities, search for houses near their workplaces and find alternative forms
of mobility such as walking or cycling (Urban Land Institute 2012). The changes in urban
occupational structure, particularly the rise of technical and professional occupations in or
close to central cities, often attract young highly educated people who do not have
children and may not intend to have them.

At the same time, the suburb is no longer the unproblematic place that it used to be and
the central city represents increasing benefits and amenities. This is the result of
revitalization processes done in the center by the public policies that appeared in the 80s
(Ward 2012), “for many professional middle-class households, their aspirational housing
dream is now an urban, gentrified dream” (Doucet, 2010, 1). The trend in Latin America is
similar; the urban centers are being repopulated and gentrifying, although metropolitan
peripheries are continuing to expand, with populations with low, middle and high income
(Dureau et al. 2016).

In the whole American continent, demographic changes also include the stabilization of
urban growth rates, reduction in the size of households, increase in the age of marital
unions and lower levels of fecundity. Censuses in United States have shown that central
cities have grown faster than the suburbs, some of which have even lost population
(William and Phillips 2001). In the case of Latin American cities last censuses show that
pericentral zones are densifying and that urban centers have reversed the process of
depopulation.
As a result of these changes, current reality of urban socio-spatial configuration is diverse,
heterogeneous and has changed regarding the notions and traditional trends. In
the Anglo-Saxon case the notion of rich suburb and poor city is not as clear in recent
studies (Doucet 2010). As in the cities of Latin America, the trend has generally been the
opposite: rich centers and poor peripheries(Dureau et al. 2016).

In the context of these transformations and urban reconfigurations, the inner suburbs
present specific characteristics in both United States and Latin America.

One of them is population growth and densification among these areas: nearly 18% of the
population of United States lives in Inner Suburbs (Puentes and Warren 2006; Ward,
2012). In the case of Latin America there is no precise measure, but studies in some cities
indicate that almost the 25% of the population remain in them (Ward, Jimenez and Di
Virgilio 2015).

In physical aspects, they are characterized by a general deterioration of the houses that
have lost their value in the real estate market, in addition to the aging of the
infrastructure and changes in the land use, issues that affect in a similar way both
contexts.

In the case of United States, one important aspect that relates to the social composition, is
a growth in immigrant populations and ethnic minorities, “now first suburbs are highly
racially diverse—more diverse than the nation as a whole—and growing more so. They are
also home to more and more foreign-born residents, by 2000, about 29 percent of all
immigrants in this country were in first suburbs” (Puentes and Warren 2006, 2). Even
though some are experiencing an increase in the levels of poverty, others are still
accommodating middle income populations, mainly white and with high educational
levels. “There are, in fact, a wide range of suburban experiences and realities” (Puentes and
Orfield 2002, 2).

Recent research in 11 cities of the Latin American region shows that, even though themajority of
the habitants had improved their life conditions, they keep having low income and unstable
employment situations. Homes that were built without fulfilling technical specifications, have had
a very intensive use over the years and are now damaged. They have also been subdivided and
densified, resulting often in overcrowding. Aging of the population is a situation present in the
inner suburbs both in Latin America and United States.(Puentes and Warren 2006; Ward, Jimenez
and Di Virgilio 2015).

Although in United States possibilities of residential mobility are much higher than the case of
Latin America, (where the possibility of selling large, old and dilapidated housing is very low) in
some places housing property also has been losing value in recent years, in some cases is possible
to find a large number of vacant properties (Mitchell 2013).

Despite the challenges that inner suburbs represent, it is possible to identify certain advantages
and potentials: easy access to central city, rise of a few new centers of employment, mix of uses
and good accessibility and public transport.
Nevertheless, the challenges to public policies are great, in the first place is necessary to view the
importance of the Inner suburbs areas for the cities, its sustainability and future. As described by
Puentes and Ourfield (2002, 5), their intermediate situation has caused them to located in a kind
of policy blind spot “between the center cities that always garner some measure of attention
(positive and negative) and newly developing suburbs on the fringe that are the popular focus of
the war against sprawl”.

As claimed by Ward and others (2015), the Latin American case requires a whole new generation
of habitational policies that orientate the rehabilitation of these zones and that acknowledge their
importance in the configuration and future of the cities.

See also

EURS0449, EURS0118, EURS0145, EURS0159, EURS0179, EURS0331

References

Borsdorf, Axel. 2003. “Cómo modelar el desarrollo y la dinámica de la ciudad

latinoamericana” EURE, 29(86), 37-49.

De Mattos, Carlos. 2002. “Transformación de las ciudades latinoamericanas: ¿Impactos de

la globalización?” EURE, XXVIII.

Doucet, Brian. 2010. “Inner Cities, Inner Suburbs, Outer Suburbs: geographies, changing
preferences”. Accessed February 8th, 2016.
http://www.geographyjobs.com/articles/inner_cities_inner_suburbs_outer_suburbs_geo
graphies_changing_preferences.html

Dureau, Francoise; Lulle, Thierry; Souchaud, Sylvain and Contreras,

Yasna. 2016. Movilidades y Cambio Urbano: Bogotá, Santiago y Sao Paulo. Universidad
Externado de Colombia.

Gilbert, Alan and Ward, Peter. 1985. Housing the State and the Poor, Policy and Practice in
Latin American Cities. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Jaramillo, Samuel. (2008). “Reflexiones de la ´informalidad´ fundiaria como peculiaridad

de los mercados de suelo en América Latina”. Territorios, Núm. 18-19, 11-53.

Lattes, Alfredo. 199). “Urbanización, crecimiento urbano y migraciones en América

Latina”. Notas de Población (62), 211-260.

Lee, Surgie and Leigh, Nancey. 2005. “The role of inner-ring suburbs in metropolitan smart
growth strategies. Journal of Planning Literature 19 (3), pp. 330–46.

Mitchell, Joanna. 2013. “Revitalizing the First-Suburbs: The Importance of the Social
Capital-Community Development Link in Suburban Neighborhood Revitalization, A Case
Study” JCES Vol. 6 No. 2
Nivón Bolan, Eduardo. 2003. “Las contradicciones de la ciudad difusa”. Alteridades, vol.
13, núm. 26, pp. 15-33

Lang, Robert and LeFurgy, Jennifer. 2006. Boomburbs: the rise of America’s accidental
cities. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press.

Phillips, David and Lucy, William. 2003. “Suburbs and the Census: Patterns of Growth and
Decline.” in Redefining Urban & Suburban America: Evidence from Census 2000, Vol. I. B.
Katz and R. Lang, eds. Washington: Brookings Institution.
Puentes, Robert and Warren, David. 2006. One-Fifth of America: A Comprehensive Guide
to America’s First Suburbs. The Brooking Institute. Survey series.

Puentes, Robert and Orfield, Myron. 2002. Valuing America’s First Suburbs:
a policy agenda for older suburbs in the midwest. The Brookings Institution Center on
Urban & Metropolitan Policy.

Short, Jhon; Hanlon, Bernadette and Vicino, Thomas. 2007. “The Decline of Inner Suburbs:
The New Suburban Gothic in the United States”. Geography Compass. 1/3 (2007): 641–
656.

Urban Land Institute. 2012. Shifting Suburbs: Reinventing Infrastructure for Compact
Development. Washington, D.C.: Urban Land Institute.

Ward, Peter; Jimenez, Edith and Di Virgilio Mercedes. 2015. Housing Policy in Latin
American Cities: A New Generation of Strategies and Approaches for 2016 UN-Habitat III.
New York: Routledge, Research in Urban Politics and Policy Series, 2015.

Ward, Peter. 2012. Housing and Urban Regeneration in the First Suburbs and “Innerburbs”
of the Americas. International Encyclopedia of Housing and the Home pp. 559-572.
Elsevier.

Suggested Readings

Berube, Alan; Singer, Audrey; Wilson, Jill and Frey, William. 2006. Finding Exurbia:
America’s Fast-Growing Communities at the Metropolitan Fringe. Washington, DC: The
Brookings Institution Press.

Katz, Bruce; Lang, Robert, and Berube, Alan. 2006. Redefining Urban and Suburban
America: 3 Volumes Evidence from Census 2000. Washington, DC: The Brookings
Institution Press.

Hudnut, William. 2003. Halfway to everywhere: A portrait of America’s first-tier suburbs.

Washington, D.C.: Urban Land Institute.
Peiser, Richard and Schmitz, Adrienne. 2007. Regenerating older suburbs. (editors)
Washington, D.C.: Urban Land Institute.