The Suburbanization of New York

I'm going to a panel discussion tonight on the topic of "The Suburbanization of New York." Folks like Marshall Berman, Francis Morrone, Neil Smith, Michael Sorkin, and Suzanne Wasserman have are all part of the panel and have contributed essays to a recent book of the same title.

Having read only a handful of the essays so far, the major thesis I've gathered from the book is that New York's old, authentic culture is being replaced by suburban pleasures -- the kinds of commerce and convenience that only those born on the outskirts of the city can appreciate. The idea is that (white, ethnic) New Yorkers fled the city once they "made it" fifty or sixty years ago; their children climbed up to the middle class and spawned privileged children in their sprawling houses and well-tended lawns; and now those children are returning to the city to revisit the rugged origins of their American forebears, while still longing for the suburban delights of their childhoods. (As a woman who has followed much the same pattern of white ethnic, working-class urbanites raising middle-class -- and class guilty -- suburbanites who, in turn, raised me, a white ethnic, urbanite with money, I can relate.)

More later on how this comes across in the panel. I'm off to it now.