Will the Suburbs Get Theirs?

For decades, the suburbs were givers. Sure, they drained their parent cities of people and, eventually, industry, but the suburbs returned much of that energy in cold cash. It was these "first-ring" communities that nursed the cities through their great economic declines of the '60s and '70s via taxes paid to their states. Now those prosperous places are asking for a little payback.

As Bruce Katz and Robert Puentes point out in an op-ed in last Sunday's Newsday (Long Island, N.Y.), the oldest suburbs are about to become net takers. With crumbling infrastructure, tight housing and an increasing number of foreign born residents--the same problems the cities faced in their dark days--the first-ring suburbs around New York, Newark, Seattle, Pittsburgh and other cities are appealing for aid. Many of these communities, however, have a hard sell ahead of them. Located in some of the richest counties in the nation, many look far too tony on paper to deserve help; most are too small to qualify for available block grants and other federal programs. But Katz and Puentes, authors of a forthcoming Brookings Institution report on suburban policy in a time of stagnation, say leaders at all levels have to do more to understand their own needs, and form national alliances to see that they are met.