Urban flight

Suburban colonization happens when people move to suburbs, taking their political power with them from the place they leave. Other colonialism is often studied for the effects upon those already inhabiting the colonized area, but students of suburban colonization tend to take greater interest in the effects upon the metropole.

As hinterlands acquire more population and more power then, according to the one man one vote principle, they get more votes in representative bodies, notably metropolitan regions or greater urban areas such as the Greater Toronto Area or Greater London. Suburban votes then come to outweigh inner city votes, just as, a century earlier, urbanization or urban colonialization diminished the power of rural voters.

Decisions of these bodies accordingly begin to favor people who live in suburbs, providing more car-oriented and commuter services and more favorable property tax rates for single family homes as tenants in downtown apartment buildings pay higher rates. In urban areas that are growing rapidly, services may be developed that favor urban sprawl, such as large trunk sewers, express highways or shopping malls, as other services such as youth recreation disappear from downtown areas. This increases population drain to the suburbs as quality of life drops, but the increased population may then drive more people further out to the hinterlands which increases the political rewards (especially political donations from real estate developers building greenfield developments) for sprawl.

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