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spreading like a virus...(discuss)

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eastcoastarch03

i really don't see the usa moving toward an increase in mass transit and alternative methods of transportation anytime soon. i can see how that works in large cities being that everything is close, but what about in the suburbs? You can’t bike 20 miles just to go the grocery store....

Aug 7, 07 5:26 pm  · 
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vado retro

you know there were communities started by like minded people in the united states of amerika. like new harmony, indiana for example. perhaps several thousand of us could move to fill in the blank, usa and live happily ever after...

ponce i guess i don't get what you're talking about. cities are the most expensive places to live. even in a town like indy downtown living is increasingly popular and expensive. you pay more and get less(in terms of the quantifiable ie sq.footage, yard, garage space) while you get the things that make you feel sad. like homeless people and stray cats...

Aug 7, 07 5:28 pm  · 
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cadalyst

there is no way i can carry a 4x8 sheet of plywood on the metrorail, or by bicycle for that matter...

Aug 7, 07 5:30 pm  · 
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eastcoastarch03

murders as well

Aug 7, 07 5:30 pm  · 
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poncedeleonel

ah, romanticism....

Aug 7, 07 5:37 pm  · 
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Apurimac
My point is, recently, as Royal Oak has become quite popular in our area, i've seen a few small 1000sf bungalows being demolished and being replaced by 3000sf mcmansions built to the setbacks and height limits...just an issue to consider as we'd talk about a return towards the city centers...

this is exactly what is happening to my neighborhood in ATL, makes me a sad panda. You ever seen a half-acre lot completely full of house? I have.

Aug 7, 07 5:43 pm  · 
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random thoughts:

tokyo has 30 million population so comparisons to that city are not very useful.

early suburb homes were leased, not owned outright (this is 150-200 years ago, before sub-prime loans and all that economic machinery got made up). these places invariably failed. ownership is important part of modern culture.

LA was designed for the automobile since the 1920's: car culture is not a new thing.

including metropolitan area, LA has higher avg density than New York City...LA has denser suburbs (probably cuz they started in the 20's and have used up most of the open land). density is maybe not a useful measurement.

LB is totally correct, the economic employment sphere for most families is so large that any household with more than one person living in it is likely to be working in many places, not just downtown. many people work in other suburbs, as much or more than as work downtown. putting people downtown does not ensure any reduction of total driving time, and may even increase it for many. teh kind of model where everyone lives and works in the same place only existed when entire families worked at the same factory, and in that model centralisation works great. but no one lives that way anymore.

density does not equal sustainability. that is an idea that others have made up cuz they have an agenda of their own.

the problems with cars are many, but it is useful to think whether the real issue is an energy issue or a planning issue...? if cars made NO pollution cuz energy source were changed would the car still be demonised? if so then what is the actual problem we are talking about here? it might be better to tackle each one, one at a time rather than mix all the problems into one and trying to find a single umbrella answer.

lots of people take bus in paris. buses are cheaper to build infrastructure than light rail and the rest, but in america is bus commuting very likely? even sarah hamilton, a rational person and an architect who gets the issues follows the trend of moving to edge and then trying to keep others out so that new development has to go even further out...cultural values are not rational...personally i think this is good thing cuz is what makes cities interesting and fun.

Aug 7, 07 5:55 pm  · 
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postal

homeless people make me feel HAPPY!!!

..sorry, just thought that was funny

...but i do think there is a "more" that suburbanites undervalue, (in my biased opinion)... culture, community, diversity, etc

Aug 7, 07 5:56 pm  · 
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Ms Beary

eastcoast, it wasn't much different, my life was simple in my little city, and it is also in my big city, because I make it that way. I live/d in a similar older "uptown" walkable neighborhood in both. My commute and apartment didn't change. However, the opportunities for entertainment, friends, food, work, ideas, salary, etc increased significanltly with the move to the city, which is why I did it. But so did annoying people, cost of living, etc...

I would never move to any suburb, defining suburb as a newer outskirt of a large metro area, but at this time in my life I am facing choices of having to face the things that people move to the suburbs for: really expensive real estate, sending my future kids to private school and more. If it comes down to me not being able to sustain my city life because of those reasons, I will relocate to a smaller city where I can live in the loft, or the big house on main street, but still have community and some opportunities for a fraction of the price.

My biggest complaint with the small city I left was the lack of hip people around and the general 'tude of "this place sucks". Not that there weren't ANY cool people, there were some, but not very many... Teenagers, children, and seniors rule cities like that because all the cool, hip people who were born there decided to move to LA and NY. In my neighborhood where I grew up, the young people all left - 6 live in Denver, 8 in Minneapolis, 2 in Seattle, 1 in Houston, 2 in NY, 3 in LA, 6 in Kansas City, 2 in Phoenix, 1 in Flagstaff, 1 in Vegas (not exact stats, but close) you get my drift. We often joke about how our greatest export is college educated young people. I refused to leave for a long time, thinking I could make something of myself and that town, but I got tired of being the only one, and left, and don't really look back. Why do we all leave?

Aug 7, 07 5:58 pm  · 
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Ms Beary

I guess I should say, there is no reason a small city can't be just a small version of a big one. Does that make sense?

Aug 7, 07 6:01 pm  · 
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That does make sense, Strawbeary. I've lived in Phoenix when it was 2 million people, and LA which is now up to around 4 million people, and Long Beach at only a half million. Guess which one was the most walkable and had the best sense of community? Long Beach. Even better is my soon-to-be home, Seattle, also at around a half mil. So bigger isn't always better, as long as it's done well.

Aug 7, 07 6:09 pm  · 
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Both of the early New Harmony settlements were failures. And the second, under Robert Owen, was not exactly comprised by like minded individuals--there was definitely a class disparity.

One of the people that went to New Harmony with Owen was Hannah Fisher Price, and I happen to now live exactly where Hannah lived just before she went to New Harmony. After a couple of years at New Harmony, Hannah and her family moved to Cincinnati.

I'm finding the suburbs fascinating, and the ones around here are gorgeous.

Aug 7, 07 6:14 pm  · 
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Ms Beary

right, so why do people flock to suburbs of large cities instead of making it in a smallish city? The suburbanites rarely take part in what the "city" has to offer anyways. I think it's because they don't understand they don't have to live in faux-Phoenix to be a non-country hick.

Aug 7, 07 6:46 pm  · 
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lletdownl

As was mentioned above, density does not necessarily mean sustainability. I feel i need to differentiate terms here a bit... in the context of cities, sustainable neighborhoods encompass all facets... economy, culture, political etc etc not just ecological.

If were making value judgements about whats a more sustainable way to house populations, i see the chips being stacked heavily against sparsely populated suburban settings in the long run.

Example...Whether or not cars pollute, the infrastructure required to maintain miles upon miles of street is astronomical. Remember that for every mile of street, there are often a mile of cable, phone lines, sewers, electrical supply, freshwater being built as well.
Condensing these resources by limiting how much needs to be built is almost impossible to argue against.

To me, its not a question of what pollutes most and what doesn't (though that is a valid concern), its economic sustainability as well.
Resources are resources, whether its money, political capital, coal or oil, using tremendous amounts of it to build sprawling suburbs is in very few rational ways, defensible.

Aug 7, 07 7:02 pm  · 
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Ms Beary

oh but lletdown, it is all diguised under the heading of necessary growth. those that use existing infrastructure subsidize the building of new infrastructure by way of politician's incentives to create "growth" and "progress". If mr and ms amerika had to pay for the new sewer lines, water lines, streets out to their new abode, it would cost as much as the city, and we would never "grow" and "progress". Not my words of course, but it's what I see in local politics across the country.

Aug 7, 07 7:07 pm  · 
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lletdownl

addressing strawbearys point,


major cities draw in more money than smaller cities, and people who have access to that city have more opportunity to draw in a piece of the pie. seems to me that jobs in the suburbs are directly linked in some way to jobs dependent on the city

Aug 7, 07 7:07 pm  · 
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lletdownl

sorry strawbeary im not really following your point...

Aug 7, 07 7:09 pm  · 
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won and done williams

"Resources are resources, whether its money, political capital, coal or oil, using tremendous amounts of it to build sprawling suburbs is in very few rational ways, defensible."

that's what's sustained the american economy for the last five to ten years (some might argue 50-60 years). the scary thing is the balloon is about to/has burst. not to be too alarmist, but the impending economic decline may be of greater concern. one can only hope that the void might be filled with an economy that invests in the environment rather than destroys it, but i have a feeling we as a civilization are many decades from that, if it ever comes.

Aug 7, 07 7:15 pm  · 
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Ms Beary

letdown, since your point was about economic sustainability, that is what I was trying to address. building suburbs IS our economy and you can't make it cost what it actually costs or we would turn on ourselves.

Aug 7, 07 8:12 pm  · 
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Ms Beary

maybe this will help - the cost of sprawl is espensive and unsustainable. we spread that cost around to all, not just those who buy into those type of places. if we put that cost on just those that use it, they couldn't afford it, thus we wouldn't "progress" (by politician's standards.)

Now I'm even confusing myself. great.

Aug 7, 07 8:15 pm  · 
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vado retro

most growth is unsustainable and expensive and a money loser. but that's the price we pay for "progress".

Aug 7, 07 8:26 pm  · 
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new york times article last year discussed impications of economy of new york (i think was just the city) being located 50% in the suburbs. that is, 50% of money in new york was produced in its suburbs. that is a lot of money and a lot of reason for suburbia to be treated as economic power in own right. wishing that away is not mere physical prospect. there is a lot going on in suburbs beyond turf.

costs of infrastructure are tied to current technology, which is not necessarily the only way. lest we forget first electrical production was intended to be local. tesla and GE (i think) won out with AC cuz they could centralise and send current without the attenuation that hapened in edison's DC system...this made sense at the time, but maybe now we can generate locally, and even deal with waste locally, etc. the amount of tarmac is still an issue, but really the question remains, what is the problem we are trying to solve here? sustanability, poverty, social inequality, traffic congestion?

they all have, very likely, different needs and different answers...and density is STILL not neccessarily the best way to go for any of them. It might be, but we are currently at the point where we have a solution looking for a problem, and we fit in whatever will justify the solution we want to design...

amongst architects only objective and interesting thinker from this perspective i can think of is lars lerup...but he ain't so popular...too nuanced maybe, i dunno.

i don't think urbanity can be considered rationally, and i am not interested in justifying the status quo, but if we are to have any chance of having any impact or really improving the situation we are going to have to be much more creative. all we have had in the last 20 years is a recycling of howard's work. surely that is not the only idea worth considereing is it? new ubanism is at least testing with form-based zoning and so on, but even that is self-evidently not enough.

architects are supposed to be creative people, famous for thinking outside box. surely a group of architects, smart people everyone, should be able to come up with more than disgust over other people's lifestyle choices?

Aug 7, 07 8:31 pm  · 
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won and done williams

"what is the actual problem we are talking about here? it might be better to tackle each one, one at a time rather than mix all the problems into one and trying to find a single umbrella answer."

it's a good question. what do people find so disturbing about the suburbs? from many of the responses, it seems that people take issue with the environmental cost of suburban living, but is that it? jump raises an interesting point. if we could create a car that had zero greenhouse gas emissions would people still take issue with the burbs? i have a feeling there might be deeper underlying social and ideological issues at play.

Aug 7, 07 8:45 pm  · 
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vado retro

its not that people don't like the suburbs. archinecters don't like the suburbs. name the reason, dislike of the car, no dive bars, lack of diversity, boring jobs, lack of cutting edge architectural opportunities, starbucks, the mall, etc etc etc. all of what most other people enjoy. it's our problem, not theirs. oh by the way i live downtown.

Aug 7, 07 8:56 pm  · 
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dsc_arch

Has any one read: Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000. By Dolorous Hayden?

http://www.amazon.com/Building-Suburbia-Fields-Growth-1820-2000/dp/0375421289

It covers most of the history and conspiracy of the suburban dream. A great quick read and covers most of the above mentioned points.

BTW how many of the urbanites have kids?

Aug 7, 07 9:03 pm  · 
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Ms Beary

my problem is that suburbanites think they live in a city, therefore think they are sophisticated and cultured when few are, but really they live outside my city and clog up the roadways and make it an hour to get out of town on the weekend and are a barrier between me and my near rural environment.

Aug 7, 07 9:07 pm  · 
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lletdownl

ill be completely honest... i dont really care THAT much about how wasteful suburbs are... it bothers me, but im not going to war over it... i do however despise the suburbs for many reasons which are difficult for me to articulate but ill try a bit...

i despise them because they willfully destroy character in the places we live. its capitalism at its disgusting worst... market forces making virtually anything outside the packaged norm big box too expensive and even undesirable. its pushing an image so completely engraved in peoples minds that any deviance from it is looked upon with contempt.

i am angry with them for purposefully maintaining illusions that the real good american life means never having to deal with people outside your own class and rank, allowing lowest common denominators to govern every facet of your life and generally limiting the amount a person can learn and experience within them.

lastly im disgusted with the zombies it creates (including myself).

granted, none of these are really formal complaints, and are more indications of a general displeasure with our society in general. but i think it is the case that suburban culture is now america's culture.

sorry for being so bitter hahaha its late and im still at work for a long time

Aug 7, 07 9:08 pm  · 
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Philarch

Do people really enjoy all that? Or do we think we do? I thought I did, or at least didn't care, until I moved into the city and realized I was missing out, even with the violence and homeless people.

Aug 7, 07 9:15 pm  · 
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Philarch

sorry, my response was after vado's. didn't realize i typed so slow.

Aug 7, 07 9:16 pm  · 
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vado retro

see its "you" being disgusted with "them." bitching about it here is like telling the pope how good catholoicism is.

Aug 7, 07 9:45 pm  · 
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vado retro

plus walmart has layaway.

Aug 7, 07 9:46 pm  · 
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Philarch

From my limited experience, this is the point of view of architects in general rather than just archinectists. Sadly, vado is right in that it seems most people don't really care either way - as long as it is convenient. There is another word I adore.

Aug 7, 07 9:54 pm  · 
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Apurimac

I think architects have long ignored the suburbs to their own loss.

Aug 7, 07 9:57 pm  · 
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Philarch

I'm not sure if "ignore" is the right word there. Not that I know what it should be.

Aug 7, 07 10:08 pm  · 
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vado retro

also, having lived in a town of less than 20 thousand within the last few years, i can tell you that on a friday night, wal mart is hopping. families are there, people are eating, people are shopping. the one in my little town was diverse with amish shoppers and hispanic shoppers as well as your regular amerikan shopper. it had in fact, a very "mainstreet" feel about it. its just you drive your minivan or buggy there.

Aug 7, 07 10:12 pm  · 
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the difference may be that 'they' don't think at all critically about their choices where 'we' have specific reasons for our choices. is it really a case of taking issue with living in your environment in an unthinking way maybe, vado?

your argument (maybe on another thread) about only being in control via your gas pedal is probably somewhat accurate - at least in a superficial way - but only because people are lazy. now that we (my family) have begun actively living in a more thoughtful way, we've realized how much more in control we CAN be, how empowered we can feel about our choices and our habits. no fast accelerations off the light necessary.

Aug 7, 07 10:20 pm  · 
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vado retro

well thats what im saying. bitching about it here doesn't really matter. it just becomes a way to feel better about yourself/ourselves by criticisizing other people and their lifestyles. people make choices everyday and they just aren't automotonic choices. they may not be the choices that you or i would make, but they are choices. to us their decisions may seem lazy and uninformed, we make think they are greedy stupid inbred piglets but guess what they are human beings living their lives in the best ways they know how.

i could argue that anyone who has kids is greedy and the world is overpopulated and their motives for procreation are selfish and unhealthy for the planet. etc. so, viewing suburbia as bad because someone wants a yard and some square footage and perhaps better schools for their kids, or maybe their relatives live there, or perhaps their church is nearby is shortsighted. oh and by the way, i think the suburbs suck.

if the people here really want to change the way america lives, then they should move to the suburbs and buy a bicycle or take the bus to show folks how its done. my living downtown and focusing my money time focus etc on where i live doesn't really do anything to impress suburban america how to make different choices.

Aug 7, 07 10:36 pm  · 
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liberty bell

And somewhat in line with what vado said, while the choices I make about where/how I live seem insignificant to many, the choices I make about what music to listen to would make lots of people - people with an interest in contemporary music and its direction - throw up their hands in disgust.

Everyone has priorities.

Aug 7, 07 10:53 pm  · 
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Philarch

So it is simply taste or preference? While obviously it makes sense that architects usually care about this more than other because we deal with the built environment in our professional lives, I would argue my "choice" to live in a more sustainable environment (not that I do) would be different from my "choice" of music. I personally feel there is greater impact of what the majority of people feel is the "right" place to live compared to what the majority of people feel is the "right" kind of music.

The reason I feel strongly about this choice of "a yard and some square footage" is because it is completely arbitrarily constructed. There is a huge difference between Small Town, USA and the greenfield land that has been bought out by a developer with a vision to profit from the land. To me, even a small town can still be "urban." So personally my "bitching" is towards those arbitrarily fabricated suburban "towns". I'm sorry Vado, but the good schools, that church, and deep roots of relatives do not exist in these suburban areas that I have ever seen, but from that town the suburban area feeds off of. Yes, all towns and cities start in some arbitrary fashion but they grow in reaction to the people and the times. In the constructed suburbia, people adjust to this arbitrary form. And of course we should all agree that there are certainly surburban areas done well, and urban areas done poorly.

I find this discussion more than "bitching" even though I am sure this has been discussed many times on this forum. Already, people with different perspectives from all over this country have changed my perspective in some way. It's only "bitching" if you're only here to say your piece and not listen/read.

Aug 8, 07 1:11 am  · 
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i don't just bitch about it here. i'm a busybody. because i don't think that people ARE "living their lives in the best ways they know how". (<waylon jennings paraphrase?)

i'm taking a little bit of a more extreme position that i usually feel because i think vado is taking the opposite one.

the old working class/merle haggard 'making my way' tripe is tired and no longer relevant now that what used to be considered blue collar work is more highly compensated than what used to be considered white collar (now golf/tee shirt) work.

living the best way you know how used to mean stewardship; now it means vinyl siding/maintenance free. there was a certain honor in working hard for the things that made your life better and made your kids lives better and made future generations lives better.

now you leave your over-air-conditioned hmo job, stop your suv at the gas station on the way home, throw your butts out the window, and play wii for a while until you get bored and see what the tivo's recorded. it's all distractions from things that used to be lumped under the heading "living".

Aug 8, 07 7:18 am  · 
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wow strawbeary, hope that was a joke.

is there a word for racism against suburbia? like suburbicism or something? maybe, suburbanoia? lots of above is kinda like that, unthinking, a priori. pre-decided. pity

i don't like the suburbs, but that is a personal thing. i live in the middle of a fricking serious urban jungle, 30 million folks and all that. and this city is also seriously DENSE. everything i need in daily life lays within 15 minutes walk, easy. there is greenery and good schools for my kids and everything at hand, except work as an architect. but that is fine. i don't mind so much spending 2 hours a day on the train (people in the suburbs spend much much longer), however i am quite certain that tokyo is not particularly sustainable, and it is also quite clearly unhealthy and has serious issues that need to be addressed just as much as issues in suburbia need to be addressed. there are trade offs. always. but that big labels, seprating suburb and urb is not very good way to understand what they are. is not bipolar issue i think...

it is not taste or preference. it is culture. culture is fluid, but also hard to move. like architects who are aculturated to dislike suburbia.

vado is as always an observant man. if architects want to make suburbia better (it ain't goin away, and has existed as typology for as long as cities have) then i can think of no better way to do so than to move to one and show the other sods where its at. otherwise it is too much like bashing another religion from within your own, never an insider view of the other, but confident that your own cocoon is the best place for the whole world to be...


dsc arch, i don't think dolores is intending to show that suburbia is a conspiracy. it is a good book, though to be fair what she writes has been written before by others (fishman{/url], [url=http://www.amazon.com/Crabgrass-Frontier-Suburbanization-United-States/dp/0195049837/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-4242899-0768659?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186571354&sr=1-1]Jackson, boyer, etc) and with similar perspectives. her picture book is also interesting though i think maybe not so useful. you should also read robert bruegmann for the opposite view of suburbia. equally pop approach and fun to read, if not quite academic standards. more interesting is works by herbert gans, and for me also recently a nice pop economics treatise by william bogart . none of these authors have solutions per se, but skirt round the issues well enough.

Aug 8, 07 7:18 am  · 
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liberty bell

To pick up on Steven's alst paragraph:

A couple weeks ago my husband and I went to a movie at a threater we had never been to ebfore. As we rounded one part of the strip mall parking lot, I saw a slightly taller, boxier building beyond and said "That must be the theater".

Then i turned to my husband and said "Our grandparents new how to walk through the forest and tell which berries were safe to eat and which weren't. We know how to "read" strip malls."

All excellent points, Steven, and also yours re: the difference between music and living choices, Philarch. Some (many....most?) days that fight just seems like too big a battle to take on. Thanks for coming back with strong opinions, and you're right of course.

Aug 8, 07 7:23 am  · 
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like i said, a little more extreme than i actually believe, but... there is some truth in it. (i.e., i work with people who match my description.)

and regarding the butts out the windows, our city has recently started a call line. if you call in someone's location and license plate when they throw their butt out the window, the city will send them a nice letter requesting that they stop trashing our city and enclose a small plastic trash bag for the offender's car! it's made my drive to work MUCH more interesting.

Aug 8, 07 7:25 am  · 
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oh bloody hell. sorry.

that should be...

( jackson, fishman, boyer, etc)

Aug 8, 07 7:25 am  · 
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vado retro

steven your analogy of the honest hard working honorable amerikan of days gone by is just as much of a myth as the suburban american dream myth. people worked in dirty grimy factory jobs like ball bearing plants(my uncle) and steel mills(my dad) or in tractor factories(my first non fast food job) or in plants that made blowers, machine parts, plastic bottles, etc. non of this work is particularly romantic. and that is why people want boats and atvs and harleys and some land.

Aug 8, 07 8:37 am  · 
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won and done williams

we live at a time when progressives are actually some of the most conservative and nostalgic. mainstreet ain't comin' back, folks, and 5th ave isn't comin' to iowa city.

Aug 8, 07 8:53 am  · 
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vado retro

can they at least have a fifth street?

Aug 8, 07 9:16 am  · 
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won and done williams

no way, man. birds of capistrano lane only.

Aug 8, 07 9:25 am  · 
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Besides for what jump wrote 08/07/07 17:31 and apurimac wrote 08/07/07 18:57, most of what comprises this thread seems as distasteful, pointless and wasteful as the worst aspects of sprawl itself.

Aug 8, 07 10:19 am  · 
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Philarch

nice

Aug 8, 07 10:37 am  · 
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