For over a century, suburbia has shaped both the outward structure of the American city as well as the inner world of the nation’s psyche. While the initial intent may have been to create garden-cities detached from urban malaise, this pattern of development soon spawned a network of spatially fragmented communities accessible only by car and artificially propped by highway subsidies and other government assistance. The multiplication of single-family housing tracts, big box retail with faux facades and Main Street themes led to an uninspired architectural environment that essentially engineered any type of local authentic expression out of a community. A general lack of meaningful public space and the absence of a community core greatly diminished everyday social interactions and left little to distinguish one neighborhood from the next.

The Cooperative Land Readjustment model is a cross-pollination of disciplines that aims to reconstruct physical environments for the betterment of communities. In this particular example, a suburban environment is physically transformed based on organic urban growth and real economics. New urban centers are carved out of the suburban fabric allowing neighborhoods to affirm their unique identities, while providing a framework for future architectural expressions. The model organizes residents in a real estate cooperative as active decision makers and majority shareholders of new commercial properties as well as owners of new homes. It incrementally changes the suburban landscape over time, creating communities less dependent on cars, while addressing issues of income inequality by financially empowering existing residents instead of gentrifying neighborhoods. This work illustrates a hypothetical case study in Southwestern Ohio.