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55 UCLA L. Rev. 1095 (2007-2008)
Cities inside Out: Race, Poverty, and Exclusion at the Urban Fringe

handle is hein.journals/uclalr55 and id is 1105 raw text is: CITIES INSIDE OUT: RACE, POVERTY, AND EXCLUSION AT THE URBAN FRINGE Michelle Wilde Anderson Are county governments capable stewards of urban life? Across the country, millions of low-income households live in urban enclaves that rely on county govern- ment for their most proximate tier of general purpose local government. Material conditions in many of these neighborhoods are reminiscent of early twentieth-century rural poverty, while others are a dystopic vision of twenty-first century urbanity, with clusters of housing tucked in between landfills, industrial plants, and freeways. This Article provides a vocabulary and a conceptual baseline for understanding this national pattern of unincorporated urban areas and presents a qualitative study of these neighborhoods in California, Texas, Florida, and North Carolina. It explores the governmental status of these communities, and asks, for the first time, whether two tiers of general purpose local government-a city and a county-offer urbanized areas greater participatory voice, stronger protection from undesirable land uses, improved collective services, and greater housing choice than county rule alone. Providing a framework for evaluating local government, this Article posits that housing-market mobility, neighborhood habitability, and political voice are the three pillars of adequate local government. By this metric, we can no longer assume that county governments are equivalent to municipalities. IN TRO DU CTIO N .................................................................................................................. 1096 I. UNINCORPORATED URBAN AREAs ........................................................................... 1100 A . D efining the Problem ........................................................................................ 1101 B. Unincorporated U rban A merica ....................................................................... 1106 C . Traversing A cadem ic C ategories ...................................................................... 1113 1. M unicipal U nderbounding ........................................................................ 1113 2. Related Patterns: Colonias and Black Rural Poverty ............................... 1115 * Environmental Law Fellow, Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP. I am grateful to The Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute for Race, Ethnicity, and Diversity at Boalt Hall School of Law for providing me with a writing fellowship to undertake this project. Further thanks go to Kathy Abrams, Suzanne Borghei, Guido Calabresi, Juan Carlos Cancino, Phil Frickey, Gerald Frug, Tim Iglesias, Sonya Lebsack, Jennifer Mnookin, Andrea Peterson, Joe Singer, Kirk Stark, David Super, and the attorneys of Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger, LLP for their thoughtful comments on this Article and their support of this research. A wide range of interviewees supported this project with their time and knowledge. Above all, this Article is the culmination of Ian Haney Lopez's tireless mentorship and Sade Borghei's unbending confidence. 1095

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