#2008-05 Immigration, Suburbia, and the Politics of Population in US Metropolitan Areas

Abstract:  Suburbs in the United States, traditionally represented as a homogenous domain of white, middle-class residents, are in the midst of unprecedented demographic change due to immigration.  Suburban immigrant populations now outnumber and are growing faster than their counterparts in central cities.  Many suburbs across the country have responded unfavorably to these demographic changes, however, pushing in some cases for the implementation of ordinances and other local policies specifically designed to exclude undocumented immigrants from their communities.  In this paper, I attempt to understand the political, urban, and demographic processes at play that are shaping the decisions of suburbs to implement local immigration policies.  I examine how these policies are part of a broader trend of the devolution of immigration responsibilities to local scales, and I consider how idealized notions of suburban space guide local responses to immigration.  Finally, using the Chicago metropolitan area as a case study, I employ spatial analysis techniques to analyze the relationships between settlement patterns of the foreign-born and local political attitudes toward immigration.

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