In his review of Stanley Kurtz’s Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the suburbs to Pay for the Cities, Eric Miller notes in Sustainable City News how the right has set up a straw man just to smash it down. Miller points out the suburbs were subsidized in the 1960’s when interstates connected different parts of large metro areas, and FHA loans helped build homes in the ‘burbs, leaving the poor behind in the inner city. That trend trend is now reversing and people are returning to the city as poverty and foreclosures dot the suburbs, and housing prices stagnate. He says if investment is going to the cities then it is following the population who choose to work and live there, and in many cases eschew having a car. Miller notes how talk show host Rush Limbaugh has picked up this cudgel to bash Obama, saying, “So he (Obama) doesn’t want to build any more roads and bridges, ’cause he doesn’t want any more people to be able to leave the cities. He wants everybody riding mass transit, when you get right down to it, or driving an old Volt for no further than 40 miles.” MHProNews has learned Miller, who has written often about real estate topics and trends, cites considerable research in documenting the wealth and demographics of those returning to the cities, as well as housing and urban store development by major retail chains. He concludes: “It’s consumer preference despite (his italics) suburban subsidies.”
