Commuter town

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For examples of commuter towns, see List of bedroom communities.
Commuters waiting for the morning train in Maplewood, New Jersey to travel to New York City

A commuter town, is an urban community that is primarily residential, from which most of the workforce commute to a nearby metropolis to earn their livelihood. The expression "exurb" (for "extra-urban") was coined in the 1950s, by Auguste Comte Spectorsky to describe the ring of prosperous rural communities beyond the suburbs that, due to availability via the new high-speed limited-access highways, were becoming commuter towns for an urban area. [1]

Naming

A commuter town or exurb can also be known as a bedroom community (Canada and U.S usage), a dormitory town (Commonwealth and Ireland usage), or less commonly a dormitory village UK Commonwealth and Ireland. These terms suggest that residents sleep in these neighbourhoods, but mostly work elsewhere.

Distinction between suburbs and commuter towns

The distinction between a suburb and a commuter town is not always clear. As a general rule, suburbs are developed in areas adjacent to main employment centres, such as a town or a city, whereas bedroom communities have few local businesses and most residents commute to employment centers some distance away. Commuter towns may be in rural or semi-rural areas, with a ring of green space separating it from the larger city or town. Where this is not that case urban sprawl and conurbation have erased clear lines among towns and cities in large metropolitan areas.

Causes

Commuter towns can arise for a number of different reasons. Sometimes, a town loses its main source of employment, leading its residents to seek work elsewhere. In other cases, a pleasant small town over time attracts more residents but not large businesses to employ them, requiring them to commute to employment centers elsewhere. Another cause, particularly relevant in the American South and West, is the rapid growth of once-small cities that has occurred. Owing largely to the earlier creation of the Interstate Highway System; the greatest growth was seen by the sprawling metropolitan areas of these cities. As a result many small cities were absorbed into the suburbs of these larger cities.

Often, however, commuter towns form when the workers in a region cannot afford to live in the particular town in which they are employed and are forced to seek residency in another town with a lower cost of living. This phenomenon is becoming increasingly common in the American West, where resort towns require large workforces but place an emphasis on building "McMansions", and other types of extremely expensive housing. For example, the resort town of Jackson, Wyoming has spawned several bedroom communities nearby, including Victor, Idaho; Driggs, Idaho; and Alpine, Wyoming, where the majority of the Jackson workforce resides.

Effects

Since commuters tend to be wealthier and small town housing markets tend to be weaker than city housing markets, the development of a bedroom community tends to raise local housing prices and attract upscale service businesses in a process called gentrification. Long-time residents are often displaced by new commuter residents due to the rising house prices. This can also be influenced by zoning restrictions in urbanized areas that prevent the construction of suitable housing closer to places of employment.

The number of commuter towns has increased in the U.S. the UK and the Republic of Ireland since the 1920s because of a trend for people to move out of the cities into the surrounding green belt. Historically, commuter towns were developed by railway companies to create demand for their lines. One pioneer of this form of development was the Metropolitan Railway(now part of London Underground) which marketed its Metro-Land Developments. This initiative encouraged many to move out of inner-city London to areas such as Wembley and villages in Berkshire.[citation needed] Commuter towns have more recently been built without adequare transportation infrastructure and have therefore spurred the development of roads and public transportation systems. These can take the form of light rail lines extending from the city centre to the commuter town and new or expanded highways, whose construction and traffic can lead to the village/town becoming part of a larger conurbation.

In the United States, it is common for commuter towns to create disparities in municipal tax rates. Because the commuter town collects few business taxes, individuals are often forced to pay the brunt of the public operating budget in higher property or income taxes. This can also lead these municipalities scrambling to encourage commercial growth once an established residential base has been reached.

Exurbs

Exurbs are not unique to the United States. They are also found in other land-rich developed countries, notably Canada. Reasons for exurb growth vary. In the 1970s, rampant crime and urban decay in U.S. cities was the primary 'push force', whereas exurb growth has continued in the 2000s even as most U.S. cities experience plummeting crime and urban revitalization. However, house prices have skyrocketed, so middle-class people who want a large yard or farm are pushed beyond suburban counties.

Exurbs vary in wealth and education level. Exurb areas typically have lower college education levels than closer in suburbs, but still have average incomes much higher than nearby rural counties. Depending on local circumstances, some exurbs have higher poverty levels than suburbs nearer the city. Others (like Loudoun County, Virginia outside Washington D.C. and Waukesha County, Wisconsin near Milwaukee) have some of the highest median household incomes in their respective metropolitan areas.

Then and now

Commuters from early exurbs, such as the end of Philadelphia's Main Line and Upper Westchester County, New York, reached the city center via commuter rail and parkway systems.

Today's exurbs are comprised of small neighborhoods in otherwise bucolic areas, towns, and (comparatively) small cities. Some lie in the outer suburbs of an urbanized area, but a few miles of rural, wooded, or agricultural land separates many exurbs from the suburbs. Exurbs that originated independently of the major city to which many residents commute may feature some cultural institutions or universities of their own. Others, by contrast, consist almost exclusively of commuters and lack the historical and cultural traditions of more established cities.

Although not on the list of exurbs below, some communities that lie outside the city proper of a metropolitan area could also be considered exurbs, whereas those inside are often known as suburbs. Many suburbs within the metropolitan city proper enjoyed their greatest growth in the post World War II period and slowed down subsequently; extensive development is now (since the 1990s) occurring outside of metro. There have also been significant growth differences between inside and outside metro boundaries; many developments typical of exurbs such as big box retailers lie just on the outside. This could be due to suburbs being constrained by pro-urban inner-city politics while communities outside have far fewer restrictions on development.

Planning

Many environmentalists, architects, and urban planners consider exurbs to be manifestations of poor or distorted planning. Extremely low densities - often featuring large lots and "McMansions" - create heavy car dependency (a very deliberate design choice). This also makes the construction of municipal infrastructure and deployment of services unusually costly and inefficient. Such communities typically include big box stores, fast food chains, and large shopping malls, but lack amenities such as parks and cultural institutions. Nevertheless, relatively cheap land, cheap fuel and low taxes fuel rapid economic and population growth in many exurbs. Middle class families with children are attracted to the ample space, low costs and low crime rates[citation needed] found in these areas.

"They begin as embryonic subdivisions of a few hundred homes at the far edge of beyond, surrounded by scrub. Then, they grow - first gradually, but soon with explosive force - attracting stores, creating jobs and struggling to keep pace with the need for more schools, more roads, more everything. And eventually, when no more land is available and home prices have skyrocketed, the whole cycle starts again, another 15 minutes down the turnpike." [2]

In Britain, there is very strict regulation about building on Greenfield sites, so planning in these areas is quite rare. Instead developers more increasingly find themselves building on Brownfield sites around british cities.

On Paradise Drive

In his book On Paradise Drive, conservative writer David Brooks commented on the massive growth of American exurbs in the 1990s and early 2000s, and noted that these communities are now dependent on industries contained in office parks in the suburbs rather than in the city center, producing (and attracting) populations with no connection to urban city life. Brooks attributes the victory of George W. Bush in the 2004 election to votes from exurbs and states his belief that the Democratic Party failed to connect with voters in exurbs.

See also

References

  1. ^ Spectorsky, Auguste C. (1955). The Exurbanites. Lippincott, Philadelphia. OCLC 476943.
  2. ^ New York Times
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