February 9, 2004

Market-Based Solutions Fail to Solve Segregation, Failing Schools

New Research Finds Racial Component to Problems of Sprawl

WASHINGTON, DC — Market-based approaches alone cannot reverse the problems of racial segregation and failing schools that result from suburban sprawl, a University of Maryland professor argues in a paper published in the winter issue of the Journal of the American Planning Association.

"Weak city schools are an engine of sprawl," contends Urban Studies and Planning Professor Howell S. Baum in "Smart Growth and School Reform: What If We Talked About Race and Took Community Seriously?"

"A market-based approach cannot reallocate choices; only deliberate government intervention can do so," Baum says, asserting that one of the fundamental problems has been a lack of attention on race relations and its effect on U.S. development patterns.

If government intervention is to work, there must be equalization of public education funding in order to eliminate fiscal disparities among school districts, says the American Planning Association (APA). "It is essential to provide states with additional aid to reflect the higher cost of educational services in urban areas and areas with high proportions of children from low-income families."

Other steps APA says are necessary to bring about the changes discussed by Baum in this article include revisions to the federal tax code, renewed federal housing initiatives, local "fair share housing" polices, regional tax base sharing, and the reduction of regulatory barriers that unduly increase the cost of housing.

There also must be a sustained effort to improve urban public schools, APA says. Otherwise, families will continue to leave cities as soon as they have children. A national survey by APA in 2000 found that the highest concern of voters (76%) was having adequate schools and educational facilities. Moreover, when voters in suburbs and small-to-medium cities were asked what might lead them to live in an urban setting, better schools ranked first.

APA has called on city and urban planners throughout the country to identify public schools in their communities that are at-risk and work with administrators, parents and neighborhood groups to improve these schools.

In his article, Baum says "sprawl is mainly a movement of white households. Besides swelling suburban population, it segregates the metropolis, not just leaving most blacks in the cities, but leaving many with mostly low-income neighbors," he says. "Race matters. People consider neighbors' race in deciding where to live. A neighborhood's racial composition can influence whites' choice more than location, housing quality or crime rates."

"In trying to manage sprawl, the mainstream Smart Growth movement concentrates on improving suburban amenities, giving little attention to remedying urban problems," he says. Dr. Baum notes that those who can escape failing schools by moving to the suburbs generally do so.

"Although middle class white families gain by moving to suburban school districts, they, too, are losers. They get better schools, but they isolate their children from others who are different, depriving them of opportunities to develop essential social skills," Dr. Baum says.

"By isolating low-income black children from middle-class white and black children, sprawl" not only denies poor black children from school resources, but "it deprives them of connections to networks necessary for making a way out of a neighborhood of poverty into a world of economic and social success." Baum says.

Baum suggests that advocates of Smart Growth must refocus discussions on urban issues and the racial implications of community design. To date, he says, Smart Growth advocates have focused on the physical manifestations of sprawl — large lot suburban tract housing, unattractive architectural design, and the loss of farmland and other natural resources.

As difficult as many of those problems may be, Baum suggests they are easy compared with the more intractable social problems brought on by urban deterioration in general and failing urban schools in particular.

"Few city residents and few African Americans are interested in Smart Growth because their issues are not on the agenda," notes Baum. "And yet the problems they want solved contribute to sprawl."

Research for Baum's paper was funded by the University of Maryland's National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education.

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