A demographic shift has pushed mcmansions into becoming tenament slums, with the foreclosure crisis speeding this train wreck along.
a likely surplus of 22 million large-lot homes (houses built on a sixth of an acre or more) by 2025—that’s roughly 40 percent of the large-lot homes in existence today.
For 60 years, Americans have pushed steadily into the suburbs, transforming the landscape and (until recently) leaving cities behind. But today the pendulum is swinging back toward urban living, and there are many reasons to believe this swing will continue. As it does, many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s—slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay.
Take that! TOLL Brothers and other destroyers of the urban fringe.
Lifestyle centers won't save cul-de-sacs from gangs, drug dealers, or crime.
Makes me happy to live in a city!
...only about a third of the people surveyed solidly preferred traditional suburban lifestyles, featuring large houses and lots of driving. Another third, roughly, had mixed feelings. The final third wanted to live in mixed-use, walkable urban areas—but most had no way to do so at an affordable price. Over time, as urban and faux-urban building continues, that will change.
so the future is:
...The experience of cities during the 1950s through the ’80s suggests that the fate of many single-family homes on the metropolitan fringes will be resale, at rock-bottom prices, to lower-income families—and in all likelihood, eventual conversion to apartments.
This future is not likely to wear well on suburban housing. Many of the inner-city neighborhoods that began their decline in the 1960s consisted of sturdily built, turn-of-the-century row houses, tough enough to withstand being broken up into apartments, and requiring relatively little upkeep. By comparison, modern suburban houses, even high-end McMansions, are cheaply built. Hollow doors and wallboard are less durable than solid-oak doors and lath-and-plaster walls. The plywood floors that lurk under wood veneers or carpeting tend to break up and warp as the glue that holds the wood together dries out; asphalt-shingle roofs typically need replacing after 10 years. Many recently built houses take what structural integrity they have from drywall—their thin wooden frames are too flimsy to hold the houses up.
well, definitely an exaggeration on the high end McMansions: i know at least two families that live in them and they are pretty well built. also doesn't know shit about frame construction: it's the exterior sheathing which gives the solidity to the studs, not the drywall. anyway, if the cheap houses do deteriorate, just build newer, more efficient ones on the same sites, which already have utilities, thus saving much woods and farmland.
Emilio, one of the points of the article is that on these sites although they may have infrastructure already for water, power etc
These systems were not designed for high loads of urban density. So as the ratio's of urban to sub/ex-urban living level out we won't be able to repurpose these newer suburban divisions for higher density.
Also, while the author may be technically incorrect about frame construction (with regards to support from drywall) i think the basic underlying premise stands. Meaning the basic bones of the current housing stock is not built out of materials that will stand up for long period of time, or that can be repurposed easily to other forms of housing etc..
Most frame construction i see (condo's etc) are relatively low quality construction. the benefit of them up till now has been that they are of a relatively low price...
Studs sheathed in vinyl siding are going to get at more racking resistance from drywall than the vinyl. Sheathed in wood or composite clapboard, of course, that's not the case.
I think a very interesting competition woudl be one that challenges us to reimagine a large-sized area - say three builder's "neighborhoods" surrounding a strip retail intersection - into a walkable, integrated community of middle income families. I'd enter that competition. And I think we are facing it as a huge upcoming problem.
Hahaha, my closest physical experience with the serious low end of that type of building was a musem installation critiquing suburban 'space' - and that was built w/no sheathing. I stand corrected 765! (Though I wouldn't put it past some builders to skip the sheathing if they could get away with it.)
And I think the author's point is valid - the drywall may be some of the highest quality "material" in those houses. I recall the OSB clapboard in Oregon growing mushrooms on the walls of houses in the Pacific Northwest a few years back.
i would respectfully name this vision of dried and desicated suburbia as mostly wishful thinking.
it might fall out that way. it might not. i am guessing not. i am in fact guessing that something entirely unexpected will happen. which is what has been the case do far with our cities.
the urban fringe used to be ghettoes for the poor and the stigmatised, then became havens for wealthy, then the evangelical christians led the movement that gave us the suburbs we all know today...what happens next? i don't know...
cities change. the accuracy of guessing trends has been historically very poor. ejemplo primero, suburbia has in been relegated to doom and decay for at least a hundred years and yet it remains and thrives...now with 50% of population and employment in suburbia in usa there is not likely going to be an implosion. things will change, for certain. but moving back to city centre is maybe not the most likely scenario. the idea that suburbs will become walkable is also very nice, but most people will still work all over the city (with 2 people working th chances of both members of household working within walking distance to home are very very small). so unless the economics of employment and business location changes real fast the idea that people will walk anywhere is a big question for me...
the way i see it every city and every suburb will change locally. large trends will probably not be noticed until years later. we could be on cusp of something interesting. mass conversion to new urbanism? doubtful.
The conclusions drawn in this article are absurd. As much as architects would like to think that the suburbs are going to disappear, i see that as being highly unlikely. Businesses have moved out to the suburbs along with former urbanites, and new technology like high-speed internet and video conferencing will continue to make long distance commuting less frequent for many professionals.
I agree with jump, the suburbs will transform, but they will not disappear.
I ask the question, what happens when bankers, doctors, lawyers and all their rich buddies no longer need to come into the city to make their livelihood?
What happens when the real estate bubble in cities like New York explode, and people are left with negative equity? No, I do not envy you urban dwellers.
While agree that we aren't going to see large scale changes i do there are 2 valid points made here.
First the author makes the point that it is only in the last few (3-4) decades that the suburbs have really taken off. In the sense that a mjority or very large portion of th epopulation lives there. This was brought about by a number of factors. White flight, urban decay and the cheapness of the land/housing in the burbs.
However, the author points out that the last few years have begun to see not a reversal of this trend but rather a evening out of the ratios of suburban to urban housing. This is a result of a number of factors.
In many suburbs especially older or affluent ones housing prices have gone up to match those of some cities. As baby boomers age and become empty nesters many are realizing they prefer urban living, and finally there has been a resurgence/gentrification of urban living.
All this points to a trend wherein sub/exurban housing will still be a large force in this country. However rather than being close to 2/3 or more it will revert to 1/3 or thereabouts of our pop, which he suggests is the "historical" norm.
Personally i think there is some truth to all of this and although i don't think suburban living will go away i think we will see some reduction and reuse/repurposing.
I really like LibertyB, idea for a contest. Remakign a large section of one of these housing divisions into a walkable, mixed use neighborhood. I think there have been some small scale examples of this where in older burbs they are bginign to densify and developers are building lifestyle centers to mimic the urban density of a downtown...So, more than an abandoning of the burbs i think there will be a huge need to recreate them into better communities......
lars lerup has done some interesting things in that vein. so have most of the new urbanist designers, though not as fancy or forward looking as lars.
the idea that the proportion of population will change is not likely to me. not unless the negative externalities (to borrow the economists view) associated with suburbia become large enough to make a disinvestment in the current situation the better choice. that may happen, but i am still not convinced. will be interesting to see how much behaviour changes now that oil prices have past the $100/barrel mark...will people still commute the same distances, but with more fuel efficient cars, or will they move, even quit a job, to make the economics work...? next few years will tell.
my view of suburbia is strongly sympathetic to economic theory fundamentals, which attempt to be cynically and ruthlessly objective in order to make intelligent reality based decisions...for economists the assumption is that we should start from now and work forward.
the planners approach is kind of the opposite, working out an outcome and then figuring out how to "get there from here" by reverse-engineering the idea. but that approach seldom works...and i think often those who advocate for a certain outcome are quick to jump onto trends they imagine fit into that reverse-engineered model - endowing them with authority as though they are proofs of concept. when in fact they may be nothing of the sort.
my suspicion is that this is another one of those times. i mean if you think about how many times and how many ways the garden city has been used in the last 100 years, it really is amazing. bruegmann pointed this out at a lecture once, making the observation that it was a solution in search of a problem. the list of people advocating for the garden city model are amusing when considered historically, as they have flipped a few times from people trying to get people out of the city to people trying to get people back in to the city.
and yet the untamed (lovely!) city goes on and the garden city is still just a meme...
not that namhenderson isn't correct. suburbs may become more urban. but things may go the opposite way entirely, towards even lesser density...remember fishman declared suburban growth was over in the 80's and look what has happened since then...
american suburbs will slowly transform into slums resembling those of other large metro areas throughout the world as most members of the american middle class that currently inhabit this housing stock will slid towards the poorer end of the growing chasm between rich & poor.
some of the wealthy will maintain large estates in suburban areas but these will become fewer and farther between and increasingly fortified. i'm reminded of a point made by naomi klein (?) in an essay last year that the world will increasingly resemble the red zone/green zone fortification urbanism of baghdad.
also there are many suburbs ie tract housing developments that have been slums for thirty years. they're just white trash slums is all. pass the meth please.
leinberger is a u of michigan real estate professor cum new urbanist who fancies himself a progressive developer, i.e. he specializes in "urban loft living." there may be a hint of truth to what he's writing, but there's also a hell of a lot of politicking involved with his piece as well. i find opinions like this so completely detached from the realities of our cities and suburbs to be almost laughable. he is very narrowly focused on one market trend (the subprime housing meltdown) as a large predictor of a major socio-cultural trend. while the subprime market will be a very important trend in the coming few years, there are major institutional and infrastructural problems far larger than the subprime market that are preventing people from repopulating our cities: the biggest being public safety and education.
in my home city of detroit, there has been an increase in people moving back to city, but not the way you might think. while there are some "progressive" developers, the ones that seem to be doing the best are buying large tracts of land, subdividing them into large acre lots, creating cul-de-sacs and gating the whole thing, i.e. sububanizing the city. while this may sound distasteful to many urbanites, these gated communities, while still socio-economically segregated, are creating some of the most racially diverse neighborhoods in an area marked by some of the worst racial segregation in the country.
all of which is to say that these housing trands are far more complicated than what people like mr. leinberger would like to make them appear.
shouldnt we be making a distiction between between old suburbs vs. postwar suburbs vs. exurban development and sprawl suburbs.
If you look at the mature suburbs of LA and Chicago and prob NY area too - those suburbs achieve a density far greater than most smaller cities and have mass transit serving them too - so the suburban model isnt all bad in all cases either
Yeah i love some fo the work and writing Lars Lerup has done...
Great stuff. I am currently working through reading a giant tome he helped put together which is available online. I don't have it write now as I am at work but whne i get home i will add the link to this disscussion.
As many have pointed out. Yes there is a big difference between older suburbs and the newer exurbs..
Many older suburban areas are begining to densify.
Although the decline of the suburbs has been long predicted i think there are a number of factors which will make this move away from the burbs a growing but not complete trend.
Including the end of cheap fossil fuels, the coming retirement of the boomer population, the housing/credit collapse which many observers are pointing out hasn't even been fully felt or understood. Just the other day another bank had to write off billions. Trust me this shakeup will havbe profound effects on how American's build and buy homes for at least a number of years..And when combined with the growing expense of oil/gas i think some shrinkage is inevitable...
ha...now that i've actually followed the link and read the article i feel it'd be worthwhile to thank leinberger for his acknowledgement of my favorite actors, kurt russell, in one of his seminal roles as snake in escape from new york...although these days i'm personally favoring captain ron as one of my top movies (just ahead of the genius of cocktail)
but nam, you're really only considering one half of the question: why people would move back to cities? without looking at the other half: why people would not? before people will move back to cities, cities will have to address two issues: public education and public safety. these two issues will trump rising gas prices and real estate prices everytime. why? because they are about family and notions of family are even bigger than economics. if there is even the perception that cities are unsafe or that the schools are bad, there is no way that middle class families would even consider moving back despite the issues that you cite above.
Dont call them dead yet. As long as land and taxes are cheaper they'll always be suburbs. its inevitable unless you have government mandates and growth caps etc. - you could imagine the corruption that would come with that! Think LA 1920's-50's - with the growth control of the water resevoirs.
The idea of freedom to roam and each family it's plot of land and garden is a western ideal going back to ancient Greece.
jafidler, i'm not convinced of your assessment that the article is focused on the "one market trend (the subprime housing meltdown)." leinberger and arthur nelson (also cited in the article) had a large presence at the um/uli real estate forum and presented similar data (and lots of it) at the forum in october 2006...clearly pre-dating much of the relatively recent subprime meltdown that started last year, 2007.
moreover, if you read the leinberger article i think it's clear that he is doing just the opposite of using "one market trend (the subprime housing meltdown) as a larger predictor of a major socio-cultural trend." on the contrary, his citing of popular 1990's television programs such as seinfeld and friends is an effort not to predict socio-cultural trends but to acknowledge them in their role of the emerging trend that he is hypothesizing for the suburbs.
but even using the word "suburbs" is somewhat misleading because leinberger repeatedly makes the distinction of "walkable communities" regardless of whether they are located beyond city boundaries or fit the traditional urban model.
What Jafidler said - suburban comunities give residents control to run their villages the way they want. big cities can be corrupting and smash entire areas to bend to the will of the state - the enormous population of DuPage county in Illinois is the result of hevy handed Federaly imposed urban renewal of the 50's and 60's. Estimated 1 million people left the westside of Chicago never to return. Theyre neighborhoods were declared blighted, housing project slums erected on their property siezed by eminent domain - this is a big reason people mistrust big cities. The destructive failure of progresive policy makers.
jafidler, middle class families are, in all likelihood, not going to be able to afford to move back to the city even though many will desire to move to these walkable communities.
i suspect that detroit is warping your judgement somewhat here. it's true that suburban typologies are beginning to take hold within the boundaries of detroit but that seems to be as much a function of an unusual inward folding of the growth of suburban sprawl. why keep moving outwards when there are practically greenfields to develop within city boundaries?
puddles, i'm not sure why you perceive so much desire to move to walkable communities whether one can afford it or not. such desire is coming from an ideology that i do not believe is shared by the vast majority of americans, and as i wrote above, even when put in economic terms, i believe the notion of preservation of the family will even trump the bottom line, let alone a particular ideology.
i don't feel that walkable communities are an ideaology at all. in fact, i suspect that the desire for convenient access to amenities cuts across most idealogies. in some regards, that same desire probably played a role in the initial popularity of suburbs (it's easier to drive than walk, right? well it was easier to drive than walk) but has been replaced with the reality that automobiles are as trapping as they are liberating.
and regarding families, leinberger also points out that demographics are trending towards smaller families, more single people, more empty nest old people living longer. in just a couple of decades only one in four american households will have children.
oddly, i'm not a particular fan of leinberger, nelson, or anything of these other academic think tank types...but i'll admit that he's amassed a rather impressive body of data to support his arguments.
these conversations were more fun over drinks at gracies...and what the hell is up with ben wallace?
There is still, what i percieve as being a majority of families across the country would in fact PREFER suburban life to city life. Even if city schools were safe, and crime was manageable, i think there are lots of people who identify as strongly with their suburbanism (though maybe not vocally) as many identify with their urbanity.
Having grown up in a suburb of Kansas City which is a picture perfect example of the suburban development gone wild, i witnessed first hand a distinct bitterness towards urban areas. Based not in fact, but in feeling. Just as many city dwellers despise suburbs, many suburban dwellers despise cities.
I guess the point is that yes, economics and social trends play a big part in development, but perhaps and even BIGGER part that we are not discussing yet is the fact that many people identify with big backyards, cul de sacs and 3 cars per family. And many of those people who identify with those typically suburban traits could easily afford to live in cities, they just choose not to.
Lets not forget the deep social impacts city life had on many folks pre WW2. Cramped living, slum lords, eminant domaine, etc. It did leave a bit of a bad taste in the people who fled's mouths. Like everything else - somewhere inbetween the 2 shall meet.
Your exactly right.
He points to not only the sub-prime mortgagae et al, but also the trend towards smaller families, less married people with families.
Additionally yes, automobiles are not as effecient/easy now in many areas. Although the greater Los Angeles area isn't exaclt a burb i was watching the most recent Charlie Rose with Mayor Villaraigosa and he pointed out that in the greater LA area people spend 2 weeks a year in commuting. Which he pointed out is a huge hit to the economy in lost productivity..
So...To reiterate. While many Americans do still like the idea of the burbs, or at least live in them, there is a growing recognition that they don't work on many levels and that at the very least they will need to be densified becoming less sprawled burb and more neo-urban form....
Besides which no one has addressed the issue that i broght up of Cheap energy (read fossil fuels) which is the only real reason we as a society can afford to have the burbs.
Peak oil many industry insiders predict is right around the corner...
If so bye bye not just burbs but a whole way of life....
umm....if oil prices soared another 10 fold anytime soon (on top of the nearly 10 fold they've risen the past 15 years) america will literally stop moving. they're years away from any kind of viable electric car infrastructure and are probably much closer to a no car infrastructure, i.e., walking, than they are to a progressive step into the world of electric/hybrid/alternative/etc motoring.
i'd also be skeptical of proclaiming that general motors knows anything.
really what does it matter if empty nester tom and marge move into a condo in downtown indianapolis if they are still going to get in their prius and drive 100 blocks to trader joe's. just because someone moves downtown doesn't mean their psychologically living downtown.
the trend towards longer and longer commutes (100miles+) seems to be be a phenomena that has peaked now that the real estate bubble popped and folks can find places in established communities again (if they can land a mortgage).
the demographics of suburban/exurban communities is the economic growth an maturity of these regions, many new jobs flipping burgers or working in calling centers have followed the folks out from the central city. Now people are commuting around cities (ie atlanta, washington's beltway cities, et al) to get between work, home and the 'third place' ie lifestyle destinations.
but all this is true only when there is a mature infrastructure and well developed network of routes. Leinberger's thesis is that the places that didn't develope good connections or any civic amenities (ie the poor towns/developments) will decay into slums and tenements for those displaced from the current economy.
As cities mature, infrastructure gets built. The shift from the rust/snow belt to the sun belt was the shift from infrastructure heavy places like Detroit and Philly (with high taxes and corruption), to the libertarian inspired sun belt with no infrastructure and a light civic tradition (but still corrupt). So part of atlanta's drought this summer was caused bu the lack of water infrastructure and managment for the common good. instead the officials buried their heads in the sand and let the homeowners over water their lawns and SUVs till the reservoir was almost dry.
theres really not a whole lot of "urban" in most cities anymore. i think small college towns and small midwest mfr cities are more urban, dense and walkable than even Indy or other big regional cities, whose cores where turned into surface lots.
vado, your point is quite true. i've experienced this first hand with my fiance. and as lletdownl noted above she thinks she PREFERS (and yes, in all caps like lletdownl has noted) the suburban lifestyle that she's grown up in. and though we technically live within the city limits, she commutes an hour and drives everywhere. though she doesn't really realize that life for her would change very little if we were to move to the actual suburbs. where as my carless life would be unmanagable, or so i think. (this is a weekly argument at our place) either way, there is a huge stigma attached to both lifestyles that needs to be disregarded. why make the distinction? its what a person does to make themselves happy that ultimately makes them happy. why make my brother eat mustard? (f'in ketchup lover!)
i think the factors addressed in the article above, though true, aren't really such an incredible driving force that all suburbs will go to pot. there's an ebb and flow to properties and neighborhoods all over the place. with the house flipping boom, property has turned into a stock market, people nervously watching their property values on cyberhome or zillow.
...i'm not sure where i'm going in this post... but one things for sure...
...i'll probably be moving to the suburbs. help!
...hmmm, but how will the suburbs cope with becoming slums, i'm not sure. that's a good question...
i've now read the whole article too (i was initially just responding to his construction quality comments). Leinberger doesn't bring up many issues that are all that new (Jane Jacobs had the walkable community thing down years ago). there's no denying that a lot of people like cities and even denser town-like places: but the theoretical basis of his observations and his quoting movies and TV shows as trends only goes so far. i agree with many here that the "suburbs" aren't going away any time soon, inspite of these trends.
but rather than just look at statistics and theoretical tomes, i basically look at my extended family (siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles). they live in a whole range of what you would call suburbs, from just post-WW2 ones to very recent developments. they like were they live just fine and i don't think any of them will be moving back into the city any time soon. most of them are close enough to go into the city center when they wish, some even by train, but do so only occasionally. and, yes, their lifestyles depend on the car, but so does most people's (not too many of us actually give up our car totally). the quality of their house construction varies too, but here's the key: they have enough money to upkeep them and even the stud walls and siding ones look just fine (even a solid old stone house will decay if water infiltration is allowed and it's not maintained.)
it DOES mostly come down to economics and income level of the owners, and like vado pointed out, there are 30-40 year old suburbs that have been "slums" for a long time. but to see this overwhelming trend of deserted suburbs that he foresees, i just don't buy it.
well, j, i don't know if that's right either. for the most part, the suburbs still exist because of the "magnetic force" of the city (and i understand that there are ex-urbs in the middle of nowhere). even the suburban relatives i talked about want to occasionally go to a play, a ball game, a really fine restaurant, or any other of the countless things that only big cities can really supply. no, the city is not just like a suburb, and culturally and historically never was: there are some dynamics that happen only in the density of cities, and some people will always love living in them (myself included).
personally i am not so sanguine about technology. i think we are in for some serious problems as a result of energy and social/environmental costs that will not be addressable through technology fix(-es). somewhere along the way cultural changes will inevitably take place.
my real issue with the article is that NOTHING points to the walkable city/community becoming the new standard. it may happen, but really the problems we face are much bigger than the limits we used to judge everything by and it will take smarter and more open-minded people to resolve them in a palatable/realistic way than i see in the article by the esteemed mr. Leinberger. all he is giving us is what he wants to happen. how useful is that? lerup at least is trying to give us what we NEED. that impresses me.
as far as data goes i can give you information and studies that will prove anything you want about the city. i am not exagerating. there is so much out there that any idea is supported by actual evidence. to me that is a signal that we don't know what we are measuring. but instead the measurers just assume everyone else is wrong, cuz they got some kind of bone to pick. so my reaction really to this kind of article is sweet fuck, not another one.
for my phd on, unfortunately, the suburbs and their role in the future city, i read literally hundreds and hundreds of articles and books all saying contradicting things, many of them written by careful and intelligent researchers who were not even trying to force a point like this guy is. to me this article is ultimately just one more largely useless self-aggrandazing piece.
what i am really waiting for is someone to really get it together and give us a bit of something useful. for now lerup is on my list, but he seems to be more of a loner than he should be...
i'm not sure that there's any point dwelling on a suburb vs. downtown dialectic. this certainly isn't battle with a winner and loser. leinberger concedes that there are plenty of his "walkable communities" in both urban cores and suburbs and that single family homes on large lots aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
but let me ask this, if you were going invest money knowing what you know today in new developments, would it be single-family detached homes on generously sized lots? or would you target mixed-use projects that contribute to the density of options in a given community?
although people are feeling the pinch, i am beginning to wonder if 100 dollar a barrel oil really matters that much. its as if people are resigned to the fact that gas is going up and when its 3.20 a gallon they curse a bit under their breath but when it goes down to 3.00 they feel as though they've gotten a deal. and although sales of big suv's is down now, people are still buying suvs and still buying big cars and minivans, at least here in the midwest. people drive. people drive. people like to drive. even when driving should be a deterrant, people get in their cars and drive. you can do business in your car. you can listen to the music you want. you don't have sweaty people sitting right beside you as you do on a subway. hell i used to drive 45 miles to work and it took the same amount of time as it did to ride the redline from rogers park to the loop. the car is a freaking womb for people. its an identifier, a pacifier, an empowerer, a liberator for people. and until you outlaw them you will have sprawl, suburbs, congestion, smog, greenhouse effects, global warming etc...
disclaimer... from age 19 to 36 i did not own a car.
lets not forget there were suburbs and sprawl before there were cars. and they were NOT so wonderful...or at least not a panacea. neither is the city centre as we know it today.
hell i live in a supre dense city where i have to commute 1 hour or more minimum to get anywhere by train (and that is without leaving the city); a city, btw, which is polluted and ugly and all kinds of bad stuff...it just isn't worth thinking of city centres, walkable or not, as models for sustainability...at best all that will achieve is some amount of amelioration.
suburbia still offers a lot. not that i want to live in suburbs (and i don't own a car either), but puddles is correct, the issues we face do not look to be solved by dividing things up and declaring typologies good or bad...i also think that making autos into bad guys is just a mask for other issues. sure they are bad, but when/if cars become non-polluting machines (something i kinda think could actually happen) what will the elitists argue about then?
as for investing, i would probs go for the mixed use model, but that would be an ethical decision, not a financial one. most/many developers would disagree...and until recently at least they would be right. walkable communities are still a niche market. and if you don't believe me, i have an article that questions peoples attitudes about walkable communities and it concludes people don't want them and don't like new urbanist concepts, basically saying the folks who want those commnities are already living in them...not that that means anything. i could also construct a perfectly plausible argument from the data that shows why suburbs are better for the environment...
for me the issue with the car is purely environmental. if the automakers can come up with a design and an infrastructure to address that problem i say let democracy and the free market take its course and let people decide where they want to live. either the suburban or urban models of planning and development can be done well; let circumstances (social, political, economic, environmental, technological) dictate outcomes and not forced ideologies.
can you share the better parts of your bibliography?
will a 100mph car really reduce our environmental footprint or save suburbia? there is still the infrastructure and materials that go into making said car - just less energy used for the operation and most new fangled materials are not recyclable...
barry i want a detailed inventory of all the crap you own posted on archinect by tomorrow. i will decide what you need to get rid of to aid in reducing your carbon footprint... just as nordstrom has a personal shopper service, i am annointing myself personal carbon footprint reducer...evangelists go first...
the future of suburbia
Just as suburbs are getting the museum treatment, an article by Christopher B. Leinberger gives all those urban snobs, another reason to hate suburbia.
A demographic shift has pushed mcmansions into becoming tenament slums, with the foreclosure crisis speeding this train wreck along.
a likely surplus of 22 million large-lot homes (houses built on a sixth of an acre or more) by 2025—that’s roughly 40 percent of the large-lot homes in existence today.
For 60 years, Americans have pushed steadily into the suburbs, transforming the landscape and (until recently) leaving cities behind. But today the pendulum is swinging back toward urban living, and there are many reasons to believe this swing will continue. As it does, many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s—slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay.
Take that! TOLL Brothers and other destroyers of the urban fringe.
Lifestyle centers won't save cul-de-sacs from gangs, drug dealers, or crime.
Makes me happy to live in a city!
...only about a third of the people surveyed solidly preferred traditional suburban lifestyles, featuring large houses and lots of driving. Another third, roughly, had mixed feelings. The final third wanted to live in mixed-use, walkable urban areas—but most had no way to do so at an affordable price. Over time, as urban and faux-urban building continues, that will change.
so the future is:
...The experience of cities during the 1950s through the ’80s suggests that the fate of many single-family homes on the metropolitan fringes will be resale, at rock-bottom prices, to lower-income families—and in all likelihood, eventual conversion to apartments.
This future is not likely to wear well on suburban housing. Many of the inner-city neighborhoods that began their decline in the 1960s consisted of sturdily built, turn-of-the-century row houses, tough enough to withstand being broken up into apartments, and requiring relatively little upkeep. By comparison, modern suburban houses, even high-end McMansions, are cheaply built. Hollow doors and wallboard are less durable than solid-oak doors and lath-and-plaster walls. The plywood floors that lurk under wood veneers or carpeting tend to break up and warp as the glue that holds the wood together dries out; asphalt-shingle roofs typically need replacing after 10 years. Many recently built houses take what structural integrity they have from drywall—their thin wooden frames are too flimsy to hold the houses up.
well, definitely an exaggeration on the high end McMansions: i know at least two families that live in them and they are pretty well built. also doesn't know shit about frame construction: it's the exterior sheathing which gives the solidity to the studs, not the drywall. anyway, if the cheap houses do deteriorate, just build newer, more efficient ones on the same sites, which already have utilities, thus saving much woods and farmland.
Emilio, one of the points of the article is that on these sites although they may have infrastructure already for water, power etc
These systems were not designed for high loads of urban density. So as the ratio's of urban to sub/ex-urban living level out we won't be able to repurpose these newer suburban divisions for higher density.
Also, while the author may be technically incorrect about frame construction (with regards to support from drywall) i think the basic underlying premise stands. Meaning the basic bones of the current housing stock is not built out of materials that will stand up for long period of time, or that can be repurposed easily to other forms of housing etc..
Most frame construction i see (condo's etc) are relatively low quality construction. the benefit of them up till now has been that they are of a relatively low price...
I've always thought that this was inevitable, even without the housing crisis.
Seems like there should be a glut of Humvees, Suburbans and Excalades anyday now (especially with oil heading past $100).
Studs sheathed in vinyl siding are going to get at more racking resistance from drywall than the vinyl. Sheathed in wood or composite clapboard, of course, that's not the case.
I think a very interesting competition woudl be one that challenges us to reimagine a large-sized area - say three builder's "neighborhoods" surrounding a strip retail intersection - into a walkable, integrated community of middle income families. I'd enter that competition. And I think we are facing it as a huge upcoming problem.
I don' think anybody's laying the vinyl siding right on the studs? There's gotta be some OSB in there first.
Hahaha, my closest physical experience with the serious low end of that type of building was a musem installation critiquing suburban 'space' - and that was built w/no sheathing. I stand corrected 765! (Though I wouldn't put it past some builders to skip the sheathing if they could get away with it.)
And I think the author's point is valid - the drywall may be some of the highest quality "material" in those houses. I recall the OSB clapboard in Oregon growing mushrooms on the walls of houses in the Pacific Northwest a few years back.
i would respectfully name this vision of dried and desicated suburbia as mostly wishful thinking.
it might fall out that way. it might not. i am guessing not. i am in fact guessing that something entirely unexpected will happen. which is what has been the case do far with our cities.
the urban fringe used to be ghettoes for the poor and the stigmatised, then became havens for wealthy, then the evangelical christians led the movement that gave us the suburbs we all know today...what happens next? i don't know...
cities change. the accuracy of guessing trends has been historically very poor. ejemplo primero, suburbia has in been relegated to doom and decay for at least a hundred years and yet it remains and thrives...now with 50% of population and employment in suburbia in usa there is not likely going to be an implosion. things will change, for certain. but moving back to city centre is maybe not the most likely scenario. the idea that suburbs will become walkable is also very nice, but most people will still work all over the city (with 2 people working th chances of both members of household working within walking distance to home are very very small). so unless the economics of employment and business location changes real fast the idea that people will walk anywhere is a big question for me...
the way i see it every city and every suburb will change locally. large trends will probably not be noticed until years later. we could be on cusp of something interesting. mass conversion to new urbanism? doubtful.
The conclusions drawn in this article are absurd. As much as architects would like to think that the suburbs are going to disappear, i see that as being highly unlikely. Businesses have moved out to the suburbs along with former urbanites, and new technology like high-speed internet and video conferencing will continue to make long distance commuting less frequent for many professionals.
I agree with jump, the suburbs will transform, but they will not disappear.
I ask the question, what happens when bankers, doctors, lawyers and all their rich buddies no longer need to come into the city to make their livelihood?
What happens when the real estate bubble in cities like New York explode, and people are left with negative equity? No, I do not envy you urban dwellers.
While agree that we aren't going to see large scale changes i do there are 2 valid points made here.
First the author makes the point that it is only in the last few (3-4) decades that the suburbs have really taken off. In the sense that a mjority or very large portion of th epopulation lives there. This was brought about by a number of factors. White flight, urban decay and the cheapness of the land/housing in the burbs.
However, the author points out that the last few years have begun to see not a reversal of this trend but rather a evening out of the ratios of suburban to urban housing. This is a result of a number of factors.
In many suburbs especially older or affluent ones housing prices have gone up to match those of some cities. As baby boomers age and become empty nesters many are realizing they prefer urban living, and finally there has been a resurgence/gentrification of urban living.
All this points to a trend wherein sub/exurban housing will still be a large force in this country. However rather than being close to 2/3 or more it will revert to 1/3 or thereabouts of our pop, which he suggests is the "historical" norm.
Personally i think there is some truth to all of this and although i don't think suburban living will go away i think we will see some reduction and reuse/repurposing.
I really like LibertyB, idea for a contest. Remakign a large section of one of these housing divisions into a walkable, mixed use neighborhood. I think there have been some small scale examples of this where in older burbs they are bginign to densify and developers are building lifestyle centers to mimic the urban density of a downtown...So, more than an abandoning of the burbs i think there will be a huge need to recreate them into better communities......
lars lerup has done some interesting things in that vein. so have most of the new urbanist designers, though not as fancy or forward looking as lars.
the idea that the proportion of population will change is not likely to me. not unless the negative externalities (to borrow the economists view) associated with suburbia become large enough to make a disinvestment in the current situation the better choice. that may happen, but i am still not convinced. will be interesting to see how much behaviour changes now that oil prices have past the $100/barrel mark...will people still commute the same distances, but with more fuel efficient cars, or will they move, even quit a job, to make the economics work...? next few years will tell.
my view of suburbia is strongly sympathetic to economic theory fundamentals, which attempt to be cynically and ruthlessly objective in order to make intelligent reality based decisions...for economists the assumption is that we should start from now and work forward.
the planners approach is kind of the opposite, working out an outcome and then figuring out how to "get there from here" by reverse-engineering the idea. but that approach seldom works...and i think often those who advocate for a certain outcome are quick to jump onto trends they imagine fit into that reverse-engineered model - endowing them with authority as though they are proofs of concept. when in fact they may be nothing of the sort.
my suspicion is that this is another one of those times. i mean if you think about how many times and how many ways the garden city has been used in the last 100 years, it really is amazing. bruegmann pointed this out at a lecture once, making the observation that it was a solution in search of a problem. the list of people advocating for the garden city model are amusing when considered historically, as they have flipped a few times from people trying to get people out of the city to people trying to get people back in to the city.
and yet the untamed (lovely!) city goes on and the garden city is still just a meme...
not that namhenderson isn't correct. suburbs may become more urban. but things may go the opposite way entirely, towards even lesser density...remember fishman declared suburban growth was over in the 80's and look what has happened since then...
american suburbs will slowly transform into slums resembling those of other large metro areas throughout the world as most members of the american middle class that currently inhabit this housing stock will slid towards the poorer end of the growing chasm between rich & poor.
some of the wealthy will maintain large estates in suburban areas but these will become fewer and farther between and increasingly fortified. i'm reminded of a point made by naomi klein (?) in an essay last year that the world will increasingly resemble the red zone/green zone fortification urbanism of baghdad.
but then again, i might be wrong.
i went to a IRC amendment seminar a couple of years back and believe there are builders out there who do not use sheathing.
also there are many suburbs ie tract housing developments that have been slums for thirty years. they're just white trash slums is all. pass the meth please.
leinberger is a u of michigan real estate professor cum new urbanist who fancies himself a progressive developer, i.e. he specializes in "urban loft living." there may be a hint of truth to what he's writing, but there's also a hell of a lot of politicking involved with his piece as well. i find opinions like this so completely detached from the realities of our cities and suburbs to be almost laughable. he is very narrowly focused on one market trend (the subprime housing meltdown) as a large predictor of a major socio-cultural trend. while the subprime market will be a very important trend in the coming few years, there are major institutional and infrastructural problems far larger than the subprime market that are preventing people from repopulating our cities: the biggest being public safety and education.
in my home city of detroit, there has been an increase in people moving back to city, but not the way you might think. while there are some "progressive" developers, the ones that seem to be doing the best are buying large tracts of land, subdividing them into large acre lots, creating cul-de-sacs and gating the whole thing, i.e. sububanizing the city. while this may sound distasteful to many urbanites, these gated communities, while still socio-economically segregated, are creating some of the most racially diverse neighborhoods in an area marked by some of the worst racial segregation in the country.
all of which is to say that these housing trands are far more complicated than what people like mr. leinberger would like to make them appear.
shouldnt we be making a distiction between between old suburbs vs. postwar suburbs vs. exurban development and sprawl suburbs.
If you look at the mature suburbs of LA and Chicago and prob NY area too - those suburbs achieve a density far greater than most smaller cities and have mass transit serving them too - so the suburban model isnt all bad in all cases either
and Detroit - they have some beatiful, densely populated burbs. In fact most of the great lakes region is fairly dense old suburban/urban in character
Jump...
Yeah i love some fo the work and writing Lars Lerup has done...
Great stuff. I am currently working through reading a giant tome he helped put together which is available online. I don't have it write now as I am at work but whne i get home i will add the link to this disscussion.
As many have pointed out. Yes there is a big difference between older suburbs and the newer exurbs..
Many older suburban areas are begining to densify.
Although the decline of the suburbs has been long predicted i think there are a number of factors which will make this move away from the burbs a growing but not complete trend.
Including the end of cheap fossil fuels, the coming retirement of the boomer population, the housing/credit collapse which many observers are pointing out hasn't even been fully felt or understood. Just the other day another bank had to write off billions. Trust me this shakeup will havbe profound effects on how American's build and buy homes for at least a number of years..And when combined with the growing expense of oil/gas i think some shrinkage is inevitable...
ha...now that i've actually followed the link and read the article i feel it'd be worthwhile to thank leinberger for his acknowledgement of my favorite actors, kurt russell, in one of his seminal roles as snake in escape from new york...although these days i'm personally favoring captain ron as one of my top movies (just ahead of the genius of cocktail)
but nam, you're really only considering one half of the question: why people would move back to cities? without looking at the other half: why people would not? before people will move back to cities, cities will have to address two issues: public education and public safety. these two issues will trump rising gas prices and real estate prices everytime. why? because they are about family and notions of family are even bigger than economics. if there is even the perception that cities are unsafe or that the schools are bad, there is no way that middle class families would even consider moving back despite the issues that you cite above.
Dont call them dead yet. As long as land and taxes are cheaper they'll always be suburbs. its inevitable unless you have government mandates and growth caps etc. - you could imagine the corruption that would come with that! Think LA 1920's-50's - with the growth control of the water resevoirs.
The idea of freedom to roam and each family it's plot of land and garden is a western ideal going back to ancient Greece.
jafidler, i'm not convinced of your assessment that the article is focused on the "one market trend (the subprime housing meltdown)." leinberger and arthur nelson (also cited in the article) had a large presence at the um/uli real estate forum and presented similar data (and lots of it) at the forum in october 2006...clearly pre-dating much of the relatively recent subprime meltdown that started last year, 2007.
moreover, if you read the leinberger article i think it's clear that he is doing just the opposite of using "one market trend (the subprime housing meltdown) as a larger predictor of a major socio-cultural trend." on the contrary, his citing of popular 1990's television programs such as seinfeld and friends is an effort not to predict socio-cultural trends but to acknowledge them in their role of the emerging trend that he is hypothesizing for the suburbs.
but even using the word "suburbs" is somewhat misleading because leinberger repeatedly makes the distinction of "walkable communities" regardless of whether they are located beyond city boundaries or fit the traditional urban model.
What Jafidler said - suburban comunities give residents control to run their villages the way they want. big cities can be corrupting and smash entire areas to bend to the will of the state - the enormous population of DuPage county in Illinois is the result of hevy handed Federaly imposed urban renewal of the 50's and 60's. Estimated 1 million people left the westside of Chicago never to return. Theyre neighborhoods were declared blighted, housing project slums erected on their property siezed by eminent domain - this is a big reason people mistrust big cities. The destructive failure of progresive policy makers.
jafidler, middle class families are, in all likelihood, not going to be able to afford to move back to the city even though many will desire to move to these walkable communities.
i suspect that detroit is warping your judgement somewhat here. it's true that suburban typologies are beginning to take hold within the boundaries of detroit but that seems to be as much a function of an unusual inward folding of the growth of suburban sprawl. why keep moving outwards when there are practically greenfields to develop within city boundaries?
captain ron
one thing to note about seinfeld, friends et al, they are all single without children.
this is the trend here as well puddles - the suburbs are sprawling into Chicago from the edges. I was in Queens NY last year - similar situation.
puddles, i'm not sure why you perceive so much desire to move to walkable communities whether one can afford it or not. such desire is coming from an ideology that i do not believe is shared by the vast majority of americans, and as i wrote above, even when put in economic terms, i believe the notion of preservation of the family will even trump the bottom line, let alone a particular ideology.
i don't feel that walkable communities are an ideaology at all. in fact, i suspect that the desire for convenient access to amenities cuts across most idealogies. in some regards, that same desire probably played a role in the initial popularity of suburbs (it's easier to drive than walk, right? well it was easier to drive than walk) but has been replaced with the reality that automobiles are as trapping as they are liberating.
and regarding families, leinberger also points out that demographics are trending towards smaller families, more single people, more empty nest old people living longer. in just a couple of decades only one in four american households will have children.
oddly, i'm not a particular fan of leinberger, nelson, or anything of these other academic think tank types...but i'll admit that he's amassed a rather impressive body of data to support his arguments.
these conversations were more fun over drinks at gracies...and what the hell is up with ben wallace?
im afraid i agree with jafidler.
There is still, what i percieve as being a majority of families across the country would in fact PREFER suburban life to city life. Even if city schools were safe, and crime was manageable, i think there are lots of people who identify as strongly with their suburbanism (though maybe not vocally) as many identify with their urbanity.
Having grown up in a suburb of Kansas City which is a picture perfect example of the suburban development gone wild, i witnessed first hand a distinct bitterness towards urban areas. Based not in fact, but in feeling. Just as many city dwellers despise suburbs, many suburban dwellers despise cities.
I guess the point is that yes, economics and social trends play a big part in development, but perhaps and even BIGGER part that we are not discussing yet is the fact that many people identify with big backyards, cul de sacs and 3 cars per family. And many of those people who identify with those typically suburban traits could easily afford to live in cities, they just choose not to.
Lets not forget the deep social impacts city life had on many folks pre WW2. Cramped living, slum lords, eminant domaine, etc. It did leave a bit of a bad taste in the people who fled's mouths. Like everything else - somewhere inbetween the 2 shall meet.
Puddles,
Your exactly right.
He points to not only the sub-prime mortgagae et al, but also the trend towards smaller families, less married people with families.
Additionally yes, automobiles are not as effecient/easy now in many areas. Although the greater Los Angeles area isn't exaclt a burb i was watching the most recent Charlie Rose with Mayor Villaraigosa and he pointed out that in the greater LA area people spend 2 weeks a year in commuting. Which he pointed out is a huge hit to the economy in lost productivity..
So...To reiterate. While many Americans do still like the idea of the burbs, or at least live in them, there is a growing recognition that they don't work on many levels and that at the very least they will need to be densified becoming less sprawled burb and more neo-urban form....
Besides which no one has addressed the issue that i broght up of Cheap energy (read fossil fuels) which is the only real reason we as a society can afford to have the burbs.
Peak oil many industry insiders predict is right around the corner...
If so bye bye not just burbs but a whole way of life....
nessessity is however the mother of all invention
umm....if oil prices soared another 10 fold anytime soon (on top of the nearly 10 fold they've risen the past 15 years) america will literally stop moving. they're years away from any kind of viable electric car infrastructure and are probably much closer to a no car infrastructure, i.e., walking, than they are to a progressive step into the world of electric/hybrid/alternative/etc motoring.
i'd also be skeptical of proclaiming that general motors knows anything.
really what does it matter if empty nester tom and marge move into a condo in downtown indianapolis if they are still going to get in their prius and drive 100 blocks to trader joe's. just because someone moves downtown doesn't mean their psychologically living downtown.
Wow - great discussion and many good points.
the trend towards longer and longer commutes (100miles+) seems to be be a phenomena that has peaked now that the real estate bubble popped and folks can find places in established communities again (if they can land a mortgage).
the demographics of suburban/exurban communities is the economic growth an maturity of these regions, many new jobs flipping burgers or working in calling centers have followed the folks out from the central city. Now people are commuting around cities (ie atlanta, washington's beltway cities, et al) to get between work, home and the 'third place' ie lifestyle destinations.
but all this is true only when there is a mature infrastructure and well developed network of routes. Leinberger's thesis is that the places that didn't develope good connections or any civic amenities (ie the poor towns/developments) will decay into slums and tenements for those displaced from the current economy.
As cities mature, infrastructure gets built. The shift from the rust/snow belt to the sun belt was the shift from infrastructure heavy places like Detroit and Philly (with high taxes and corruption), to the libertarian inspired sun belt with no infrastructure and a light civic tradition (but still corrupt). So part of atlanta's drought this summer was caused bu the lack of water infrastructure and managment for the common good. instead the officials buried their heads in the sand and let the homeowners over water their lawns and SUVs till the reservoir was almost dry.
theres really not a whole lot of "urban" in most cities anymore. i think small college towns and small midwest mfr cities are more urban, dense and walkable than even Indy or other big regional cities, whose cores where turned into surface lots.
libertybell, i dig your idea for a competition...
vado, your point is quite true. i've experienced this first hand with my fiance. and as lletdownl noted above she thinks she PREFERS (and yes, in all caps like lletdownl has noted) the suburban lifestyle that she's grown up in. and though we technically live within the city limits, she commutes an hour and drives everywhere. though she doesn't really realize that life for her would change very little if we were to move to the actual suburbs. where as my carless life would be unmanagable, or so i think. (this is a weekly argument at our place) either way, there is a huge stigma attached to both lifestyles that needs to be disregarded. why make the distinction? its what a person does to make themselves happy that ultimately makes them happy. why make my brother eat mustard? (f'in ketchup lover!)
i think the factors addressed in the article above, though true, aren't really such an incredible driving force that all suburbs will go to pot. there's an ebb and flow to properties and neighborhoods all over the place. with the house flipping boom, property has turned into a stock market, people nervously watching their property values on cyberhome or zillow.
...i'm not sure where i'm going in this post... but one things for sure...
...i'll probably be moving to the suburbs. help!
...hmmm, but how will the suburbs cope with becoming slums, i'm not sure. that's a good question...
i've now read the whole article too (i was initially just responding to his construction quality comments). Leinberger doesn't bring up many issues that are all that new (Jane Jacobs had the walkable community thing down years ago). there's no denying that a lot of people like cities and even denser town-like places: but the theoretical basis of his observations and his quoting movies and TV shows as trends only goes so far. i agree with many here that the "suburbs" aren't going away any time soon, inspite of these trends.
but rather than just look at statistics and theoretical tomes, i basically look at my extended family (siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles). they live in a whole range of what you would call suburbs, from just post-WW2 ones to very recent developments. they like were they live just fine and i don't think any of them will be moving back into the city any time soon. most of them are close enough to go into the city center when they wish, some even by train, but do so only occasionally. and, yes, their lifestyles depend on the car, but so does most people's (not too many of us actually give up our car totally). the quality of their house construction varies too, but here's the key: they have enough money to upkeep them and even the stud walls and siding ones look just fine (even a solid old stone house will decay if water infiltration is allowed and it's not maintained.)
it DOES mostly come down to economics and income level of the owners, and like vado pointed out, there are 30-40 year old suburbs that have been "slums" for a long time. but to see this overwhelming trend of deserted suburbs that he foresees, i just don't buy it.
in case anyone's interested, here's a link to leinberger's website
well, j, i don't know if that's right either. for the most part, the suburbs still exist because of the "magnetic force" of the city (and i understand that there are ex-urbs in the middle of nowhere). even the suburban relatives i talked about want to occasionally go to a play, a ball game, a really fine restaurant, or any other of the countless things that only big cities can really supply. no, the city is not just like a suburb, and culturally and historically never was: there are some dynamics that happen only in the density of cities, and some people will always love living in them (myself included).
the problem is technological, not spatial. gm or toyota will solve the problem before duany or leinberger will.
wow. lots written.
personally i am not so sanguine about technology. i think we are in for some serious problems as a result of energy and social/environmental costs that will not be addressable through technology fix(-es). somewhere along the way cultural changes will inevitably take place.
my real issue with the article is that NOTHING points to the walkable city/community becoming the new standard. it may happen, but really the problems we face are much bigger than the limits we used to judge everything by and it will take smarter and more open-minded people to resolve them in a palatable/realistic way than i see in the article by the esteemed mr. Leinberger. all he is giving us is what he wants to happen. how useful is that? lerup at least is trying to give us what we NEED. that impresses me.
as far as data goes i can give you information and studies that will prove anything you want about the city. i am not exagerating. there is so much out there that any idea is supported by actual evidence. to me that is a signal that we don't know what we are measuring. but instead the measurers just assume everyone else is wrong, cuz they got some kind of bone to pick. so my reaction really to this kind of article is sweet fuck, not another one.
for my phd on, unfortunately, the suburbs and their role in the future city, i read literally hundreds and hundreds of articles and books all saying contradicting things, many of them written by careful and intelligent researchers who were not even trying to force a point like this guy is. to me this article is ultimately just one more largely useless self-aggrandazing piece.
what i am really waiting for is someone to really get it together and give us a bit of something useful. for now lerup is on my list, but he seems to be more of a loner than he should be...
i'm not sure that there's any point dwelling on a suburb vs. downtown dialectic. this certainly isn't battle with a winner and loser. leinberger concedes that there are plenty of his "walkable communities" in both urban cores and suburbs and that single family homes on large lots aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
but let me ask this, if you were going invest money knowing what you know today in new developments, would it be single-family detached homes on generously sized lots? or would you target mixed-use projects that contribute to the density of options in a given community?
although people are feeling the pinch, i am beginning to wonder if 100 dollar a barrel oil really matters that much. its as if people are resigned to the fact that gas is going up and when its 3.20 a gallon they curse a bit under their breath but when it goes down to 3.00 they feel as though they've gotten a deal. and although sales of big suv's is down now, people are still buying suvs and still buying big cars and minivans, at least here in the midwest. people drive. people drive. people like to drive. even when driving should be a deterrant, people get in their cars and drive. you can do business in your car. you can listen to the music you want. you don't have sweaty people sitting right beside you as you do on a subway. hell i used to drive 45 miles to work and it took the same amount of time as it did to ride the redline from rogers park to the loop. the car is a freaking womb for people. its an identifier, a pacifier, an empowerer, a liberator for people. and until you outlaw them you will have sprawl, suburbs, congestion, smog, greenhouse effects, global warming etc...
disclaimer... from age 19 to 36 i did not own a car.
lets not forget there were suburbs and sprawl before there were cars. and they were NOT so wonderful...or at least not a panacea. neither is the city centre as we know it today.
hell i live in a supre dense city where i have to commute 1 hour or more minimum to get anywhere by train (and that is without leaving the city); a city, btw, which is polluted and ugly and all kinds of bad stuff...it just isn't worth thinking of city centres, walkable or not, as models for sustainability...at best all that will achieve is some amount of amelioration.
suburbia still offers a lot. not that i want to live in suburbs (and i don't own a car either), but puddles is correct, the issues we face do not look to be solved by dividing things up and declaring typologies good or bad...i also think that making autos into bad guys is just a mask for other issues. sure they are bad, but when/if cars become non-polluting machines (something i kinda think could actually happen) what will the elitists argue about then?
as for investing, i would probs go for the mixed use model, but that would be an ethical decision, not a financial one. most/many developers would disagree...and until recently at least they would be right. walkable communities are still a niche market. and if you don't believe me, i have an article that questions peoples attitudes about walkable communities and it concludes people don't want them and don't like new urbanist concepts, basically saying the folks who want those commnities are already living in them...not that that means anything. i could also construct a perfectly plausible argument from the data that shows why suburbs are better for the environment...
for me the issue with the car is purely environmental. if the automakers can come up with a design and an infrastructure to address that problem i say let democracy and the free market take its course and let people decide where they want to live. either the suburban or urban models of planning and development can be done well; let circumstances (social, political, economic, environmental, technological) dictate outcomes and not forced ideologies.
jump-
can you share the better parts of your bibliography?
will a 100mph car really reduce our environmental footprint or save suburbia? there is still the infrastructure and materials that go into making said car - just less energy used for the operation and most new fangled materials are not recyclable...
barry i want a detailed inventory of all the crap you own posted on archinect by tomorrow. i will decide what you need to get rid of to aid in reducing your carbon footprint... just as nordstrom has a personal shopper service, i am annointing myself personal carbon footprint reducer...evangelists go first...
vado, here
I thought that archinecting was a carbon neutral activity!
meta, I agree that magnum's farrari is the sweetest car ever.
jump, i would be interested in hearing that argument.
Also as barry mentioned, could you perhaps share your bibliography (or even dissertation?)
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