Sprawl Now Joins Crime as Top Concern

Polls Detect Major Racial and Class Fault Lines in Views of Schools, Police, News Media

Washington, D.C., February 15, 2000 -- As the national campaign season reaches full swing, a new series of polls reveals that American's top concerns are directed much closer to home, with dramatic frustrations over sprawl and growth now edging out more traditional issues, such as crime. Moreover, minorities view their local institutions starkly differently than white Americans, according to the surveys released by the Pew Center for Civic Journalism.

The new polls indicate that, even as the journalists covering this year's political races focus on the conflict between the candidates, Americans are much more concerned about the tensions simmering under a veneer of national prosperity.

"Sprawl is now a bread-and-butter community issue, like crime," said Jan Schaffer, Executive Director of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, "and Americans are divided about the best solution for dealing with growth, development and traffic congestion."

"At the same time, clear fault lines detail how the rich and the poor, suburbanites and city dwellers and African-Americans and white Americans voice vastly different views of reality. For journalists in pursuit of truth, there is no single truth here, there are many."

The findings are based on a national survey of 1,000 people and four regional surveys of 500 people each in Denver, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Tampa. The Pew Center initiated the surveys to provide a road map to help journalists provide meaningful coverage of issues that affect their readers, listeners and viewers.

"For journalists covering this year's political races, the challenge is to explore the importance of these fault lines in a changing national landscape. It's no longer enough to round up the same experts on the same old issues," Schaffer said.

Among the findings:

• SPRAWL- In the four cities surveyed, a complex of issues including sprawl, unfettered growth and traffic congestion surfaced as an overwhelming concern, outstripping or joining traditional issues such as crime, the economy, and education. In Denver, 60 percent cited sprawl as a top concern in an open-ended question, as did 47 percent in San Francisco and 33 percent in Tampa.

• MORAL DECLINE/DECLINE OF FAMILY VALUES- At the national level, crime (15%) barely edged out a lack of moral leadership (14%) as the top concern. Eight percent cited child and teen issues as a top concern; an additional 8 percent cited problems with politicians. However, Americans are much less concerned about the morality of their communities as an top problem (cited by 3 %) than they are about a moral decline at a national level (14%).

• EDUCATION/RACE- About half of the public (52%) say the quality of education in local public schools is a problem. African Americans (41%) and Hispanics (38%) are more likely to see poor quality of education as a big problem than white Americans (23%).

• RACE/POLICE/NEWS MEDIA- Americans are united in saying they do not see tension between racial and ethnic groups as a big problem in their community. Yet whites and minorities differ significantly on whether important local institutions, such as the police, the schools, local government and the news media, treat minorities fairly. For example, 64 percent of white Americans say the police treat everyone fairly; only 33 percent of African Americans agree with that sentiment. An even lower 30 percent of African Americans feel treated fairly by the news media vs. 76 percent of whites who see equal treatment.

• CRIME- Crime and violence are cited as the top national issue and the No. 2 local issue in Denver, Philadelphia and Tampa. (Poverty and homelessness is the No. 2 issue in San Francisco.) The intensity of concern is higher among minorities with just under half of African-Americans (48%) and Hispanics (46%) saying it is a big problem in their community vs. 29 percent of white Americans.

• IMMIGRANTS- Nationally, more than two in five Americans say that recent immigrants have caused more problems for the nation than have contributed to the country. The public is more positive, however, about the impact of immigrants on their local communities.

• QUALITY OF LIFE- Parents with children at home and couples where both the husband and wife work outside the home express significantly less satisfaction with their quality of life.