The end of the suburbs? Urbanists predict their demise

Mar 12, 2009 by David Shankbone    4 Comments    Posted under: City, Culture, Economy

Is this the end of lawns and cul-de-sacs?

The economic depression George Bush delivered to the United States has reached even the suburbs of his new home, Dallas.  According to the Dallas Morning News, suburban north Texas cities are contending with lower sales tax revenues have slowed, mixed with home foreclosures and job losses.

Urban theorist Richard Florida, who raised a lot hairs on necks with his controversial book, The Rise of the Creative Class, believes that this is not a temporary situation.  Florida thinks the economy needs to “reset” itself, and in Class he argues that compact cities full of creative people will be the engine of economic growth this century.

I came across Florida years ago when Class was a hot topic.  Recently, though, I found my photograph of the Colorado Springs suburbs–a vast aberration known as “Briargate” that is populated with evangelical megachurchers–over on Slog in a post about Florida.  Charle Mudede highlighed Florida’s piece in the March issue of The Atlantic, “How the Crush Will Reshape America”.  In it Florida argues that now is the time to push policies that benefit urban centers at the expense of the suburbs:

The solution begins with the removal of homeownership from its long-privileged place at the center of the U.S. economy. Substantial incentives for homeownership (from tax breaks to artificially low mortgage-interest rates) distort demand, encouraging people to buy bigger houses than they otherwise would. That means less spending on medical technology, or software, or alternative energy—the sectors and products that could drive U.S. growth and exports in the coming years. Artificial demand for bigger houses also skews residential patterns, leading to excessive low-density suburban growth. The measures that prop up this demand should be eliminated.

Mudede jumps on this.  He launches into a prediction that the suburbs are going the way of the Dodo:

We are watching the twilight of sprawl. Experts, from the treasurer down, understand that America is entering another form of capitalism (or socialism, which is the truth of capitalism—the moment capital does not need the social forces of production and consumption, the general intellect, is the moment I’ll call it capitalism for real), and the economic restructuring will have an actual impact on the production of space—how and where land is used. In the near future, we can expect (or hope) that suburban houses, the monsters of the earth, will be the dinosaurs of an extinct economic age.

I am all for people living in cities for all the same reasons as Florida, but I think Mudede overshoots his load with this prediction.  There is just no evidence that people want to give up their lawns.  People absolutely love them, and they love envisioning their children riding bikes down the cul-de-sac.

Recent surveys show that suburbanites are happier than their companions in the cities, and that they like their communities.  Political power remains in the hands of the suburbs, and they are the ones who elected Barack Obama.  No smart politician will pursue a policy that will penalize them.

While housing growth in the last decade was strong in urban areas, the suburbs still far surpassed them.  But with the mortgage crisis, many suburbs around the country are becoming ghost towns, like Elk Grove, Calif., and Windy Ridge, N.C.   That leaves a lot of McMansions and new developments totally empty.  What will happen to them?   Michael Cannell at Fast Company writes:

Already low or middle-income families priced out of cities and better neighborhoods are moving into McMansions divided for multi-family use. Alison Arieff, who blogs for The New York Times, visited one such tract mansion that was split into four units, or “quartets,” each with its own entrance, which is not unlike what happened to many stately homes in the 1930s. The difference, of course, is that the 1930s homes held up because they were made with solid materials, and today’s spec homes are all hollow doors, plastic columns and faux stone facades. There is also speculation that subdivision homes could be dismantled and sold for scrap now that a mini-industry for repurposed lumber and other materials has evolved over the last few years. Around the periphery of these discussions is the specter of the suburb as a ghost town patrolled by squatters and looters, as if Mad Max had come to the cul-de-sac.

The demise of the suburb has been predicted and hoped for since Levittown’s first white family.   Even today with people like Richard Florida barnstorming the blogosphere, dreamers still envision the future perfect suburb.  According to TheMoveChannel, an outfit in Victoria, Australia called The Lab wants to plan a Melbourne burb with no cars, an 80 per cent reduction in carbon emissions and the ability to grow its own food.

Instead of the suburbans declining, I see a parity between them and the cities.  The suburbs have dominated America’s cultural and political landscape for the fifty years at the expense of the cities.  But just because the cities have rebounded, it does not mean the suburbs are going anywhere.  People like that lifestyle.

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