Suburban Sprawl and Car Culture
February 15, 2007
After my previous post on Suburbia I thought I would elaborate on the topic of American Suburbia, and some of the things wrong with it. This a wide-ranging topic with many societal implications. Let’s differentiate between a zoned suburban “sprawl” development and a regular town or neighborhood development.
A Sprawl is a suburb that is divided into strict, single-use zones by developers. Each residential, commercial, and office area becomes an isolated Pod. These Pods are then connected together by large arterial roads called Connectors. The only way to get around is by car. There are sometimes sidewalks, but it is embarrassing to be seen walking. Pedestrians are the underclass. Immigrants are bused in from surrounding areas to mow lawns. Suburbia is typically characterized by isolation, chubby families, and expansive parking lots.
In a town or neighborhood, mixed-use planning is used to create a heterogeneous environment. Homes, stores, and offices are typically small, intermixed units that blend together. Functional towns also have a mixture of economic classes living close together. This mix of classes is essential to maintain a healthy society. There is a sense of place and community. People don’t need to drive to a fitness center to use the treadmill, they can just take a walk outside.
There is an interesting video lecture by architect/urban planner Andrés Duany on the topic of New Urbanism. This guy has been touring to warn people about Sprawl since 1991. His lecture inspired this post and is the source for much of the summarized information above.
There is also a very entertaining BBC documentary called United Gates of America by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Charlie LeDuff. This gem is about the gated communities being built across the nation, and I highly recommend it. It seems to be missing from Amazon and IMDB, but there might be a bit torrent distribution out there.
Yet developers continue to create these low-density suburban areas because that is exactly what people want. In the article Suburbia: Homeland of the American Future, Joel Kotkin writes,
Most projections show that the continued increase in the U.S. population and the projected 50 percent increase in space devoted to the built environment by 2030 will largely take place in the sprawling cities of the South and West, areas dominated by low-density, automobile-dependent development of residential, commercial, and industrial space.
Suburbia is not just limited to America. Suburban development is happening in all developed nations. Car culture is going to be an integral part of human civilization for a long time to come. Oil dependency, consumer culture, and traffic congestion are going to become major problems. There is already a Center for Sustainable Suburban Development. Welcome to the Homeland of the American Future. I hope you like curvy roads and beige garage doors.
February 24, 2009 at 5:49 am
I enjoyed your post. It rings very true but I expect that new economic realities will force some change in what people want. In our area – we are already beginning to see home downsizing as people want to reduce their utilities costs from gas, electricity, water to just having less house to fix and maintain. They still want a nicely remodeled house but house size is decreasing. I’ve also recently read that the average new home size has decreased as well. Eventually the dream of having a McMansion with zero down will fade away and people will get more realistic about what they really need.
July 17, 2010 at 6:01 pm
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