Posted by antonsirius on 1/7/2011 10:27:00 AM (view original):
Debate recap:
creil says the exodus to the suburbs was a result of government intervention in the marketplace through mortgage and tax incentives, skewed utility pricing, zoning laws, road construction, and other means. He offered specific examples of such policies and their impact to reinforce his points.
swamp says the exodus to the suburbs was a purely a result of the free market in action because Americans wanted to live in ranch homes in the suburbs. He offered up a fictional film, It's a Wonderful Life, to reinforce his point, even though said film has nothing to do with people moving from big cities to the suburbs. He also unsuccessfully tried to paint creil's position as a conspiracy theory, and unsuccessfully tried to paint creil's position as one based on partisan politics.
It was a textbook ***-whupping.
Lets try some unbiased examination of this issue.
1 It isnt enough to show that some government policies influenced the Suburbs, As I stated multiple times there isnt anything that happens in America that the government does not impact. What he needed to show was that suburbs would have been greatly harmed by a lack of government interference or that there was clear intent to create the suburbs. He never showed either of those things.
2 People do want to live in the suburns in ranch houses on lots. The Reason that "Wondurful life" worked as a source is because the villian was trying to keep people in slums and the Hero was trying to get people to the suburbs. How could this movie make sense to anyone if the principal wasnt valid. People wanted to own their own ranch homes. It is hard to prove that people want to move out of apartments in the city and into houses in the burbs, but this bit of Americana supports my claim.
3 He couldnt even define suburbs for the purpose of this debate. I used my own city of Warren and he rejected that. He mentioned a few citites that didnt count, but never labeled one city that I could research. If Warren isnt a suburb, and if you ask anyone in Detroit they will tell you Warren is a suburb, what is? We have feuds with the city of Detroit over Roads, Water, Crime and commerce. There is a distinct spit in beliefs when you cross 8 mile (The same 8 Mile from the Eminem movie). They and us. It isnt racial. Most of the Blacks in Warren think like us and most of the Whites in Detroit dont.
4 His facts. Did he really prove anything. He proved that people in the Suburbs got tax breaks. So did everyone else paying a mortage on a house. He proved that roads were built, but he could never show some pattern. The people moved off existing roads and expanded. Most of the main and secondary roads in the suburbs were already there, just small and maybe dirt. As the population went up they got upgraded. I have heard of very few examples of the famous "Road to nowhere" helping the suburbs. I will never understand how he can call zoning pro Suburb. Every city in America has a zoning board. The Supreme Court approved zoning in 1926, we assumed that it was widely used by that time. In the cities it is much more oppresive than it is in the burbs. We use it to prevent people from creating eyesores. To keep some order to our community. It is much more the will of the people than some "Big Brother".
To explain this to any reader that I lost with the Technical Jargon let me frame it in the context of another old movie...12 angry men.
You were presented a prima facia case. It all sounded good and seemed air tight, a Whupping.
Each point of the case was torn down.
The problem is that in the movie there was just one guy who refused to see the light, and I have 11!