The United States of Suburbia

The Suburbanization of America is nothing new. What is new is suburbia's dominant position in American politics. Suburban voters, who once followed the lead of their big-city counterparts, controlled enough electoral votes by 1996 to decide who became president and enough seats in Congress to determine who held the majority. Suburbanites will expand this power base in the years to come, dictating America's course, beginning first with the 1998 congressional elections and extending into the twenty-first century. Using election results and U.S. Census Bureau data, author G. Scott Thomas documents the steady rise of suburbia, illustrating his points with numerous tables and appendices. He begins the story in 1939, when big cities were at their zenith, and traces it to the present, when they have faded into the background. He then moves into the future, using computer models to forecast demographic trends and to predict the strongholds of political power in the new millennium.