Retrofitting Suburban Areas to Create Public Space and Community
July 17, 2010
Architect Ellen Dunham-Jones presented at a TED talk about redevelopment projects that retrofit suburban strip malls and parking lots into people-friendly spaces. These retrofits are great for areas that were originally in outlying suburban areas – built when gas was cheap and hopes were high. Suburban populations have grown since then, and the suburbs have become population centers in their own right. People that live close to these urban and suburban commercial lots want a convenient proxy for the urban lifestyle as well as a sense of community. As a result, developers have been reinventing such lots and buildings into hip gathering spots. And these developments are not just for more dense shopping areas – malls have become art spaces and big-box stores have been turned into schools and community centers.
While these projects are certainly a step in the right direction, Dunham-Jones concedes that these projects are “astroturf town greens”. The fundamental energy gap between city residents and suburban residents will continue to exist, and there is a sense in the United States of a growing divide between “Small Town America” and the cities. Since most main street commercial areas have declined as commercial developments are built a few miles away, there is not much of a difference between sprawl housing developments and small towns in terms of economics and energy-consumption. Alex Steffan of Worldchanging considers cities versus suburbs as a political conflict.
via Grist
Previously on badorbit were posts on suburban psychology and car culture.
