Lost in the Suburbs : A Political Travelogue

by Stephen F. Dale

• ISBN13: 9780773732049
• ISBN10: 0773732047
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-11-01
• Publisher: Stoddart Pub

Summary

Several important social consequences, flowed from the aftermath of the suburban construction boom of the 1980s: the homogeneous nature of the new suburbs, full of affluent white people, the antithesis of urban cosmopolitanism; and the cost of building roads and servicing land as we push farther into the rural frontier.

This schism between the suburbs and the urban core began in California, where Republicans perpetually win state elections on the strength of the suburban vote, despite well-entrenched liberal strongholds in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The burghers of suburbia are stuck on the idea of government spending as a burden on honest people, and on the image of urban dwellers as welfare cheats, overpaid bureaucrats, and members of a condescending cultural elite. And they're looking for revenge.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
part 1 High Angst Somewhere in Ontario
A New Kind of Place, A New Kind of Politics?	3	(24)
The Nature of the Beast	27	(46)
The Populist Challenge	73	(52)
part 2 California Dreams and Nightmares
The Lie of the Land, the Lot of the People	125	(19)
Orange Country and the Origins of the Middle-Class Revolt	144	(18)
Ballot-Box Gunslingers and the Fight for the New West	162	(23)
Keeping the Sacred Flame Burning	185	(32)
A Liberal Renaissance?	217	(42)
It Comes Down to Neighbourhoods	259	(24)
part 3 Where Does It Go from Here?
Encore: Back in the 905	283	(40)
Notes	323	(14)
Bibliography	337	(4)
Index	341