Suburbia and the Metropolitan Turf

As the nation suburbanizes, the definition of sub urbia becomes ever more confused. There is a useful distinc tion, however, between a cultural or life-style approach and a demographic-legal approach to suburbs and suburbia. From a political perspective, the most critical element of metropolitan conflict is its sociospatial character, and suburban politics epitomizes this tendency. There are useful parallels between metropolitan conflict and international relations, because both involve competition for dominance of space. In both, a com mon concern is that the rich grow richer at the expense of the poor; this article examines that process within the metropolis. The question of how to deal with this "immiseration" of the central cities is answered differently by metropolitan re formers and by public choice theorists.