Cities vs. Suburbs: Does there have to be a war?

image via psu.edu

Just last week, we highlighted the efforts of Jim Leach, the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and his national tour to restore civility to the national discourse.  Implicit in his year-long tour is the understanding that transformations like these take time.  Indeed, peacebuilding is not a task to be checked off a to-do list but a worldview, a paradigm shift toward dealing with conflict productively.

An article in Grist last week touches on one such issue that has recently resurfaced: the urban-suburban divide.  Author Sarah Goodyear (Grist’s Cities Editor) approaches the well-worn topic through the lens of environmental impact and climate change, citing scholars on both the urban and suburban sides of the debate.  I found myself surprised by the oft-incendiary language used by the quoted experts.  As Ms. Goodyear herself points out, the word “war” is used a lot, with defenders of suburbia claiming that the Obama administration is “pushing an agenda” that “reflects a radical new vision of American life” of “forced densification [that] could auger in a kind of new feudalism.”  On the other side, supporters of urban spaces accuse Republican party leaders—suburbanites are irrevocably linked to a particular political affiliation—of “using xenophobia, racism, and fear of change to block environmental, climate, transportation, and energy action.”

If you’re like me, reading that necessitates a big step back—perhaps even a coffee break.

When did this divide become so entrenched, so hateful?  When was this issue framed in such polarizing political terms?  Like so many issues today in the United States, a topic that could—and should—become a conversation has turned into a screaming match.

image via cv-libary.co.uk

Near the end of the article, Ms. Goodyear questions the framing of this conflict, as well:

But as the political situation becomes ever more polarized and frozen, is there anything to be gained by framing the cities vs. suburbs conflict as just another culture war to be conducted at the federal level? Can we instead find a way of identifying common interests and working toward those, perhaps by focusing on local efforts first?

She then talks about Search for Common Ground, and the work we did around a similarly divisive issue in the 1990s (thanks for the shout-out, Sarah!):

Back in the 1990s, a group called Search for Common Ground launched a project to begin dialogue between people on opposite sides of [the abortion] question. Although that debate rages on, sometimes violently, the project did serve as a model of civil discussion.  Maybe it’s time to search for some common ground between suburban boosters and city-lovers.

There is a growing call in this country to stop buying into the idea that we are as divided as the political parties and news media sometimes suggest, and to start actively searching out our commonalities, instead.  Our Search USA programs do just that on issues of race, sexual orientation, politics, and religion.

On the national level, the U.S. Consensus Council brings together a diverse bipartisan group of leaders from government, business, law, and the non-profit sectors to engage people in finding “higher ground solutions and reshaping political discourse.  On a more local level, Generation Common Ground is a project in development that imagines a culture where young people seek to collaborate across race, class, and religious lines.

What issues do you think need the “common ground” treatment?