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There are several large, residential areas next to the incorporated cities, where I live. The people in them have fought hook and claw, to keep from being dragged into the cities. The cities have played dirty tricks on them, in some cases. In one area that would probably have incorporated as a separate city, the larger, existing city sneaked in and got the owners of the business and industrial sections to join, as an island, within the unincorporated section. This killed the future chances of having a separate city, as the commercial zone needed for an economic base, was gone.
The major school district here has carried-out a parallel program, of sucking-in smaller, rural districts right and left. They were enabled to do this, by a state law, that favored consolidation, regardless of the wishes of those in the smaller districts.
Cities SHOULD annex the suburbs. Then they appear safer than they really are.
Case in point: San Diego. San Diego annexed all the rich suburbs: La Jolla, Carmel Valley, Rancho Bernardo, Black Mountain Ranch... most of North San Diego is just one gigantic suburb filled with guard-gated communities. All of a sudden, you have all these ultra-rich suburbs with phenomenally low crime rates, so even if you have a few ghetto inner-city hoods, so what? the rest of your city is crazy safe, so you appear relatively safe overall.
Most urban areas and particularly downtowns have a higher crime rate because crime rates are calculated based on residential population which accounts for where people are for about half the day. If you calculate based on daytime and nighttime population things look much better. You also have to account for things like jails or stadiums that have an huge amount of crimes from people who don't live in the neighborhood. Lots of times if someone is say charged with violating parole that gets logged geographically as having happened at the courthouse. Where is the courthouse? Almost always in the inner city.
There are several large, residential areas next to the incorporated cities, where I live. The people in them have fought hook and claw, to keep from being dragged into the cities. The cities have played dirty tricks on them, in some cases. In one area that would probably have incorporated as a separate city, the larger, existing city sneaked in and got the owners of the business and industrial sections to join, as an island, within the unincorporated section. This killed the future chances of having a separate city, as the commercial zone needed for an economic base, was gone.
The major school district here has carried-out a parallel program, of sucking-in smaller, rural districts right and left. They were enabled to do this, by a state law, that favored consolidation, regardless of the wishes of those in the smaller districts.
How does annexation work there? The way annexation typically works is a local government simply exercises a right to annexation of property in its extra-territorial jurisdiction or otherwise annexes property via a vote. When a vote is involved only citizens can vote even if the citizens in the area to be annexed have any say in the matter. Businesses and industrial entities have no right to vote. Is there some other process by which the "existing city" can "get" owners of businesses and industrial sections to join"? These business and commercial properties may well have been targeted because they could not oppose or participate in voting.
^^To add, what was the deal with the schools? I remember waaaaay back in my childhood, Pennsylvania was on a big consolidation push so that all districts had K-12 schools. The previous system of some districts having only elementary schools, or schools just through junior high, was not very workable. I believe similar was going on here in CO before we moved here. I haven't heard of anything like that recently.
As energy costs rise, public utilities and infrastructure in outlying areas become unaffordable, especially the electricity that is lost as waste heat on miles of wire. Many large cities will abandon land that is in city limits. Suburbs will be farmland, slums, and ruins.
Grand Rapids, Michigan needs to hoover up the needless suburbs of Walker, Wyoming, Cascade, Kentwood, and grandiose Grandville. All they do is vote down increased bus service (can't have "those" people coming in!) and pretend they have their own downtowns. It's laughable.
I don't necessarily agree. If you build too many highways going away from the city center, you end up with a massive amount of sprawl. Then over time, the access to cheap land helps to lure businesses and residents away from the city center. It also exacerbates economic segregation.
Dallas tried the regionalism approach and with the exception of DFW Airport, it was a massive failure for the city. They tried it again with light rail (DART) with each DART member city -- Dallas and some of its suburbs -- allocating a portion of their sales taxes to light rail. Frisco, a suburb 30-40 min north, decided not to opt in and instead used their sales taxes to lure in economic development. Frisco openly competes with the city of Dallas and other DFW suburbs for economic development. "Regionalism" is currently a dirty word in Dallas city politics. The city is rebounding by focusing more on itself.
Dallas has always fought with its suburbs. DART is a dramatic exception from Dallas's history.
“Many don't realize this, but New York City used to be confined to simply the island of Manhattan. It grew by first annexing the Bronx in the 1870s, and then Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island in 1897, creating the five boroughs we know today.
The basic reasoning was that if cities or suburbs had grown into essentially one big lump, then it only made sense for that metropolitan area to be governed as a single unit. It's an idea that is long overdue for a return, as many small central cities today remain ring-fenced by wealthy suburbs sucking the life out of them.”
Good luck with that. My hometown has been trying to do it for several years now, and the wealthy suburbanites are simply not having it, and unlike the city, they have a lot more resources to fight it than the dilapidated urban core.
As energy costs rise, public utilities and infrastructure in outlying areas become unaffordable, especially the electricity that is lost as waste heat on miles of wire. Many large cities will abandon land that is in city limits. Suburbs will be farmland, slums, and ruins.
Dream on.
In MANY locations throughout the country cities have ZERO control over many of the utilities. Your scenario relies on cities being the provider of the utilities.
However, until cities start voluntarily de-annexing territory the ones that do maintain their own utility monopolies have the obligation to provide the service. So your scenario isn't particularly likely.
Also the definition of "suburb" on this forum is quite lacking. "Suburbs" that are other cities aren't bothered by your claim. "Suburbs" that are fed by other utilities aren't bothered by your claim.
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