The latest entry in the "End is Nigh for the Suburbs" series. Briefly, the unifying idea here is that suburban sprawl and McMansions will one day be the place where the poorest amongst us live, when all the rich people have moved back to the cities, or the inner-ring of suburbs that are walkable and require less driving. The most-distant suburbs are too far from jobs, and someday gas prices will be too high to rely on cars for long daily commutes.
Sounds great doesn't it? Whereas the 50's - 60's American Dream focused on leaving behind the slums of the inner-city for a pastoral and tranquil suburban dream, now the American Dream is supposedly just the reverse: Leaving behind the suburbs, where instead of a Green utopia, we've ended up with a traffic-clogged, chain-store dominated, culture-less dystopia.
All of us smart, young, well-educated, wealthy and, let's be honest, mostly white, folks are smart enough to abandon the suburbs. The creative class will all live in cities. And since the Creative Class is apparently the future of America, the future of America is an Urban one.
But the American Dream is and always has been a DETACHED house with a yard. In The Last Harvest, a fascinating book by architecture professor and critic Witold Rybczynski, he asserts that it's not just in the post-WWII period that Americans have longed for a life outside of cities. It was indeed the founding principle of our country. The quest for open space that brought Europeans to America, the myth-making related to Manifest Destiny and the open expanses of the West, the utopic-visions surrounding many early suburbs, all of it was simply capturing the mood of Americans, their need for space.
The simple truth is that the majority of Americans want to live in a single-family house, not attached to any other dwelling (think town-houses), with at least a small yard, and a spot off the street to park their car. Many cities are made up of just such neighborhoods, especially the newer cities of the Sunbelt.
But think about that for a second. How can you possibly have the density required for mass-transit, ground floor retail and carless neighborhoods if everyone is living in a detached, single-family home? I'll answer my own rhetorical question to say that "You can't."
And what that means is that the future of America will not see an abandonment of the suburbs.
There are so many other reasons to be skeptical of an urban future for America: restrictive land-use policies, rampant NIMBYISM, over-funding of roads and airports, under-funding of mass-transit and rail, among others. All of these prevent denser development.
But all you need to know is:
1. Most Americans want a little space of their own.
2. Our country is still mostly empty space, and can quite comfortably provide the space that every American is seeking.
So to all of you predicting suburban slums and booming cities for America, I say you're making a prediction based on what you WANT to happen, rather than on what WILL happen.
What do you think the likelihood is that we'll see an even great division of American society based on religious/political beliefs and urban/rural location?
ReplyDeleteMy hypothesis is that you will see a lot of liberal, secular folks move to the cities and a lot more religious, conservative folks keep looking for space.
You are forgetting to take into account the driving forces behind this prediction. And that is one of rising oil prices, which is happening now. 2006 was the year where oil production reached its zenith, and has been steadily falling since. I ask you now, that if you have to pay $4.00 per gallon of fuel (which is a distinct possibility in less than 25 years) would you be able to afford to live in the suburbs? The answer is pretty obvious. And unless you are incredibly affluent and can somehow justify the expense, then im guessing you may have no other choice than to move closer to your job, and required services.
ReplyDelete