Suburbanization Pros And Cons

In the 1964 election, “tens of thousands of southern Alameda County suburbanites drove to the polls. They voted in overwhelming numbers for the figurehead of mid-1960s liberalism, President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ).” The suburban centers were not always against liberalism, but external influences such as taxes, property rights, and externalities broke the bridge between California’s suburbs and liberalism. “In 1964 no threat to property markets seemed greater to either homeowners or the real estate industry than the Rumford Fair House Act.” According to Self, the suburban communities voted for LBJ in the 1964 general election, even though he campaigned for increased civil rights for minorities, indicating that the suburban break with liberalism

This moment is where one of the first cracks in the suburban, liberalism bridge beings to fracture. Many black urban communities, especially Oakland, made several attempts to rejuvenate Oakland’s neighbors, but with little success, causing their focus to now be aimed outward, towards the suburbs. The urban cities argued that the method for distributing resources was flawed. The slogan “white noose” and “white strangulation of the black city” began to catch on. Taxes within the suburban communities that are to be used to support the urban communities were too low to sustain Oakland, and the only way to initiate tax reform was through localized voting. Self argues that how could tax reform manifest through policy if "they were politically isolated in Oakland." From 1963 – 1970, is the official break between the suburban centers of Alameda County and

So the ability to even locate a possible job opportunity was a task in itself. Not only was the industrial organization of Oakland difficult to navigate, but the local job opportunity offices were against inner-city Oakland as well. The California State Employment Service (CSES) would prioritize local resident job seekers over Oakland job seekers; however, in employment markets in manufacturing, wholesale trade, and transportation were within these suburban areas and unionized. Unionized corporations were the best opportunity for African Americans to get a job in the suburbs. There were two vital issues with this tactic, one said previously by the CSES notifying Oakland job seekers last, and that the ability to get to these suburban areas was also a struggle. If an opportunity would arise for a black Oakland job seeker, to get to the job interview would take a significant amount of effort and even when the job seeker made it out to the job site, the position may already be filled, or not acquired at all due to either employer discrimination or unreliable transportation. Many employers did not want to risk the unreliability of black Oakland job seekers due to