SUBURBAN DECLINE IS COMMON AND INCREASING 

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., May 14 -- For those who believe
suburbs are immune to the ailments of central cities, researchers at
the University of Virginia have some disquieting news.
	Suburban income-decline and population-decline are both
common and increasing from the North to the South and from coast to
coast, according to a study by urban planning analysts David
Phillips and William Lucy.
	In a study of 554 suburbs in 24 of the nation's largest
metropolitan areas, Phillips and Lucy found that most of the suburbs
had declined not only in population since 1960 but also in income
relative to the metro areas as a whole.  They also found that 112
suburbs declined in relative median family income faster than their
central cities from 1960 to 1990.
	In addition, they found that between 1980 and 1990, 180
suburbs declined in relative income faster than their central cities.
	"At first we were surprised at how much suburban decline has
occurred and how rapid it has become," Phillips and Lucy said in
their analysis.  "But on reflection we realized there are several
reasons why some suburbs should be expected to decline faster than
central cities."
	Among the reasons some suburbs could decline faster than
central cities, Phillips and Lucy said, "are that most suburbs have
boundaries just as rigid as central cities, but suburbs have less
diversity and less potential for adapting to changing
circumstances.  As a suburb's housing ages and needs reinvestment,
it will have more difficulty keeping up with newer areas and some
suburbs will go downhill fast if middle- and upper-income people do
not want to live there."
	"Ironically, the triumph of suburbs in attracting employment
and enhancing suburban tax bases has created circumstances in which
people can live much farther out on the metropolitan fringe,
acquiring more land and newer housing, sometimes without commuting
for more minutes even though they are commuting more miles.  For
people who want the convenience, architectural interest, public
transportation options, and walkable neighborhoods available in
cities, most older suburbs cannot compete.  For people who think
suburban schools are better and suburban streets are safer, they can
live farther out in newer housing.  Many older suburbs are caught in
the middle."
	"In addition, many suburbs were built quickly after World
War II ended in 1945," Phillips and Lucy said.  "Their housing was
25 to 45 years old in 1990.  Some of it was not built to high
standards.  Much of it is in neighborhoods that are inconvenient,
because keeping strangers out through designing cul de sac
neighborhoods was the fashion in many metropolitan areas.  As
housing ages, the inconvenience that people sought or accepted when
the housing was new becomes less of a selling point.  If people want
isolation, they can get it much easier by moving farther out toward
the fringe."
	"It is especially significant," according to Phillips and
Lucy, "that suburban relative income decline and population decline
were faster in the 1980s than in earlier decades."
	They noted that only 21 percent of the 554 suburbs lost
population in the 1960s, while 57 percent declined in population in
the 1980s.  In addition, 405 of these suburbs declined in income at
least minimally from 1960 to 1990 compared with income in their
metropolitan regions.  These 405 suburbs averaged relative income
decline of 7.4 percent from 1980 to 1990, compared with an average
6.2 income decline rate in their 24 central cities. 
	"The middle income suburbs are the ones that are eroding the
most in income relative to their region's income," Phillips and Lucy
said.  "More of them are passing into the moderate and low income
categories."
	Phillips and Lucy said that the number of suburbs below 80
percent of their region's median family income increased from only
22 (4 percent) in 1960 to 90 (16 percent) in 1990.  The number of
upper income and upper middle income suburbs above 120 percent of
their region's income stayed about the same, 148 in 1960 and 142 in
1990.  These 554 suburbs became more income polarized by 1990,
reaching an average range from the highest to the lowest income
suburbs of 3.4 to 1 in the 24 metropolitan areas, compared with 2.1
to 1 in 1960.
	"The suburbs are becoming more polarized in income compared
with each other, just as cities are becoming more polarized compared
to suburbs in aggregate," they said.
	"Metropolitan growth trends and the size of central cities
seem to affect suburban income decline," the researchers said.
"Suburbs in 11 fast growing metropolitan areas declined faster
relative to their central cities than did suburbs in 11 slow growing
regions.  In addition, suburban decline was more rapid in
metropolitan areas where less than 20 percent of the metropolitan
population was in the central cities."
	"It is ironic that central cities contain small proportions
of metropolitan population, because suburban residents and public
officials persuaded state legislatures to prevent central cities
from annexing suburbs," Phillips and Lucy said.  "But the same laws
that prevented central city annexation also prevented annexation by
suburbs.  Now most suburbs are small, aging, and declining, and
hardly anyone outside their borders has much reason to care or to
come to their aid."
	The metropolitan areas with the highest proportions of
suburbs declining by 20 percent or more in income relative to their
metropolitan incomes from 1960 to 1990 were:
	Atlanta-67 percent, Houston-50 percent, St. Louis-50
percent, Washington, D.C.-39 percent, Denver 36 percent,
Baltimore-29 percent, San Diego-29 percent and Cincinnati-24 percent.
	The metropolitan areas where the highest percentages of
suburbs declined faster from 1960 to 1990 than their central cities
were:
	Kansas City, MO-52 percent, Seattle-50 percent, Houston-50
percent, San Diego-43 percent, Pittsburgh-40 percent, Denver-36
percent, San Francisco-36 percent, Atlanta-33 percent, Los
Angeles-28 percent, St. Louis-27 percent and Cincinnati-24 percent.
	Phillips and Lucy said that income decline is a measure of
each city's and suburb's median family income relative to the median
family income of the metropolitan area as a whole in 1960, 1970,
1980 and 1990.  Income decline in any jurisdiction indicates decline
relative to the metropolitan income between two dates, either 1960
and 1990 or 1980 and 1990, in the examples described above.  It
measures the attractiveness of each jurisdiction to a highly mobile
population, about 50 percent of whom move with a five year period.
	Phillips and Lucy said that the geography of suburban income
decline did not conform to any single pattern.
	"In some metropolitan areas, the inner suburbs declined in a
sector emanating outward from the city boundary," they said.  "But
in other metropolitan areas, the higher income inner suburbs were
relatively stable in income.  In most metropolitan areas, some outer
suburbs went up in income, but in a few they went down.  In several
metropolitan areas, sea coast and lake front suburbs were stable or
increasing in relative income."
	"In general, older suburbs were declining, in the sense that
each of the suburbs in this study was relatively old and a majority
were declining income relative to their regions and a majority were
declining in absolute numbers of residents," they said.  "But age of
housing did not help explain why some suburbs were declining faster
than others, or why some suburbs were remaining stable or increasing
in relative income."
	Approximately as many suburbs with older housing went up as
went down in relative income between 1960 and 1990 compared with
suburbs with more recently constructed housing, they said.
	"The good news in our finding about no association between
housing age and income trends is that some conditions, including
public policies, setting, transportation, architecture and physical
design may help some older suburbs attract fairly affluent
replacement residents as previous residents leave," they said.
###
May 13, 1996
	For additional information or interviews William Lucy may be
reached at (804) 924-4779.  Television reporters should contact our
TV News Office at (804) 924-7550.