Disecting Suburbia

The Tragedy of Suburbia

American life has always rested on the foundation of private property. It was private property that drove the very first wave of settlers from Europe, where owning a piece of land was essential in order to control one’s own fate. However, all the land of Europe had been purchased by the elite upper class which caused the society to be closed. Consequently, there was no room for upward mobility. The same desire for property ownership fueled the desire to settle the West later in American history. At this point there was a romanticized individualism connected to the idea of a hard working, peaceful existence on a western ranch. This existence was founded on the promise that the inhabitants would be connected to nature. This way of life became known as the American dream.

It is no coincidence that this same dream was the foundational desire of the American GIs who were pouring into the US at the end of World War II. These men were greeted upon their return to the states by an economic boom the size of which the world had never seen. We were the victors of an earth-shattering conflict that devastated all developed portions of the earth except for the continental United States. We were the only nation in the world to leave the war a greater economic force than when we entered the conflict. As the war’s victors, we enjoyed the spoils and sought out a quiet residence where we could relish in our affluence, and enjoy a quiet family life. This post war dream manifested itself in the form of suburbia, a dream which was made possible through a number of avenues, but has resulted in a variety of unfortunate consequences.

The Suburban Makeup

Suburbia, or sprawl, is characterized by five components. The first is housing subdivisions, which are unique because of their exclusively residential zoning. They are different from traditional city planning forms in that they are entirely made up of residences, often with the same set of floor plans, or variations of them. Commercial or industrial venues are in no way integrated into these pods of houses. Shopping Centers are the second component of sprawl which is defined by exclusive strips of commercial districts. Prime examples in our society today are big-box retail store such as Wal-Mart and Target that are always found on long stretches of highway. These stores are always accompanied by the entire suburban area’s shopping and dining options, which usually take the form of a combination of strip malls and stand alone buildings. All of these retail centers have been influenced by post-war efficiency and are designed in such a way that customers can find what they want and get out as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Office parks are places of work that are once again sectioned off into their own exclusive set of properties. Much like the retail districts, they are accompanied by large parking lots. They are also similar to the houses in that they are idealized by the vision of working in connection with nature. The fourth component is civic institutions. These are the places where we go to school, church, or any other public gathering place. Traditionally, these shared facilities have been the epicenter of our communities in an effort to promote equal access to all. In suburbia, however, these churches and schools are found in no particular place and are not given the same attention in structural design due to spending cuts and a focus on efficiency much like our shopping centers. The final component of sprawl which ties the entire package together is roadways. As a consequence of the lack of integration of the previous four components, large highways are needed to give citizens the mobility that is required to move from district to district with ease.

Car Culture

The western ideas of progress and science, which date back to the Enlightenment, can still be found in American society. After winning a world war that was partly an industrial contest, we had even more reason to put our faith in these ideas. After all, if industry served us well in war time, it will serve us just as well in peace time. Therefore, we should use the technological fruits of science to give us the convenience and tranquility that we desire in our post-war lives. It follows naturally that we build our society around the automobile, which is a quiet, private way to move form place to place. This is exactly what we did. We also sang songs about our automobiles and built altars to them, planting them proudly in front of houses. We call these altars garages. In this way, our society’s dependence on roadways was fueled by a post-war form of car worship, which was made possible through an economic boom. In America, we knew that we had the production capability to make enough cars cheap enough for everyone to buy one because we had out-produced every nation on earth during World War II. The idea of every individual owning their own car and having that freedom that comes with hoping in your own automobile and going anywhere you want at any time you want fits nicely with ideals of freedom, individuality, and control that has been part of the American dream from the very beginning.

Cars ultimately cause of a breakdown in connective tissue. Instead of feeling connected to others, we disconnect ourselves from the outside world through our very own private, metal cocoon. Walker Percy articulated the side effects of a society built around cars when he claims that, “Whenever I drive a car, I have the feeling I have become invisible. People on the street cannot see you; they only watch your rear fender until it is out of their way”. Car culture has not only left Americans lonely and disconnected, but it as also left our municipalities bankrupt. The costly task of building and maintaining the massive highway system is more expensive than the tax base that most suburban communities can support. For example, a Milwaukee suburb conducted a cost analysis in 1992 that showed that a new single family unit paid less than $5,000 in taxes, but costs the municipality more than $10,000 to support the home. The inefficient, lonely city design needed to support our obsession with the automobile is not worth the heartache or the money it costs.

Every Man’s Castle

Victorious World War II Veterans benefited from the G.I. Bill of Rights in 1944, which granted them educational and housing benefits. This aided the standard of living for veterans in hard times that came with the economic transition between war and peace. Among the list of initial post-war problems was a housing shortage. The shortage was so severe (3 million married couples were not able to set up their own household in 1947) that the Federal Housing Administration began requiring lenders to give veterans housing loans without requiring a down payment. As a result men like William Levitt began to build house in the same way that everything was produced in the U.S. at this point-- quickly and efficiently. Levitt himself built six thousand houses in Long Island, New York by the end of 1948, and more than seventeen thousand by 1951. By the end of the 1940s, 55 percent of American households owned their own homes.

These homes promised a quiet existence and a safe place to raise a family, which in theory would meet the very goals of a tired World War II veteran only interested in minding his own business. Therefore, it made sense that housing subdivisions did not have sidewalks. It made sense that they had a yard with trees, bushes and a fence. All of this commodified the American dream and made it easily accessible to the middle class citizen. At last freedom and equality had been obtained. Each family would have land that was connected to nature (i.e. land, trees and bushes) that was hoped for from the very beginning of American society. These World War II veterans had obtained the privacy, and individualism that was romanticized in the old West.

Suburban Meltdown

Sadly suburbia did not deliver all of its intended promises. The first problem surfaced in the form of ghettoized African Americans, who were left in the inner cities. This was largely a repercussion of racism in post-war America, rather than the unintended result of suburbia homes. The root problem was that the American dream has a romanticized connection with nature at its core. In spite of the vast amounts of land and wealth in the U.S., there is not enough to truly satisfy our desire to be connected to nature. Instead we find ourselves duped into settling for an imitation of a genuine western ranch or a manor in a park if you prefer the more European form of the ideal. At the same time we are cut off from our neighbors just enough that we will never talk to them unless their tree falls in our yard or some other violation of our prized, but fake privacy has been violated. Furthermore, by leaving the city and entering suburbia we curtail involvement with the public realm. The public realm, as it is defined by Kunstler, is the connective tissue that exists between various private structures. Some examples are streets, parking lots, sidewalks, and parks. In suburbia, connective tissue exists only to serve cars. Evidence of this is the fact that suburbia is connected with wide roads that lack sidewalks and various housing subdivisions are connected by highways that value fast cars, rather than sidewalks that value people.

Every Child’s Prison

The irony of suburbia is that it was designed as a safe place for children to grow up, but it has turned out to be a place where young people become stranded until they reach the legal driving age. This only perpetuates more waste because this usually requires one more inefficient car for the family. If teenagers do not achieve this independence they are often bored at best. A sad, but common effect is teenage suicide, which often plagues those who feel so disconnected that they take their life into their own hands. On the other hand, car crashes often plague the teenagers who do obtain their mobility. While others factors definitely play a part in teen suicide and car crashes, it is suburbia that makes inexperienced drivers climb behind the wheel in order to engage in activity.

The Alienated Poor

The final and most often forgotten social group who has been abandoned through the move to suburbia is our nation’s poor. This phenomenon is ironic because the nation’s democratic ideals that are often deemed responsible for building suburbia and have traditionally been a proponent of the idea that every citizen can have their own home in the first place has, at the same time, ghettoized our lowest citizens. In other words, the same government that has ruled this “land of opportunity” has built suburban highways through poor neighborhoods, leaving them dominated by masses of high-speed vehicles. Thanks to our suburban communities, the poor have been left to inhabit the avoided inner city so as not to be a burden on the conscience, much less the pocket book, of the middle to upper class. As the privileged of American society have moved out of the inner city, so have many of the jobs that the poor rely on to improve their financial situation. As we have stated previously, under a sprawl structure everyone needs a car and the poor are no exception as more and more jobs have left their neighborhood.

The Cost of Loneliness

We have established that a community structure that encourages a culture that is generally lonely and depressing. For further proof, the Harvard Mental Health Newsletter reported in 2002 that the depression rate among children is 23 percent. Many factors account for this, but one of the most common is neglect (one of the most common reasons is simply two parents working). Suburbia requires that both parents work and provide a sizable income in order to meet the financial responsibilities that come with an inefficient suburban home, which is only becoming more expensive with rising energy costs. As a result preschoolers are the fastest growing market for antidepressants. Over 4 percent of preschoolers (over a million) are diagnosed as clinically depressed.

If the existentialists are right and the only meaning in life is the meaning we make for ourselves, then Americans have bought this philosophy and are making meaning for themselves through their obsession with filling their lives with stuff. We build living rooms in our lonely homes full of extravagant entertainment centers. Even our forlorn cars have begun to include entertainment centers in our feeble attempt to compensate for the breakdown of connective tissue. We have fallen prey to the advertising gimmicks that feed off of our lonely lives. These nick-nack toting salespeople manipulate us easily because they know we want new gadgets to fill the void in our lives and to fill the void in our lonely, inefficient castle. In conclusion, these soulless, cookie-cutter communities cannot be sustained unless the economic prosperity that Americans have always enjoyed is perpetuated indefinitely, which, given the history of the world and our present global market is very unlikely. In the end, suburbia is an inefficient commodification of a dream that promises privacy from the problems of the world, but only maroons us by secluding us from the very thing we need for survival: an uplifting community.

The Community Makeup

In light of America’s misuse of a post-war economic boom, one may ask, “What should we have done differently? What would an uplifting community look like?” Following are the six components of an uplifting community. The first is The Center. A neighborhood should have a communal square or some variation. This is a great place to build churches, libraries, youth centers, small retail businesses, restaurants, etc. It is a great place to visit because it is built for walking and easily accessible to everyone in the community. The five-minute walk is an important characteristic to a good community because it allows local residents to experience a rich public realm as they travel to their working, shopping and socializing. We are not claiming that citizens will never have to drive, but that most of their everyday living needs can be met by taking a five minute simple walk. The physical and mental health benefits alone make this a great idea, not to mention the environmental, political and economic benefits of weaning ourselves from oil and automobiles in the way that we do now!

Thirdly is The Street Network, which from a birds eye view looks like a grid in a good community. This is constructed so that those who choose to drive have variety of routes to choose from as they go about their lives. This cuts down on traffic because not everyone is forced to drive on one major highway to arrive at a destination quickly. Narrow Streets are included in a healthy neighborhood because they demand traffic to slow down for the pedestrians which are a higher priority than cars, which is how is only normative, considering our communities are made up of people not automobiles. Parallel parking also helps the situation by providing another barrier between cars and citizens. Furthermore, traffic can allow narrow streets because there are more streets and fewer drivers.

Fifthly, we have Mixed Use buildings in a nice community, which breaks down the entire trend of sprawl with its specialized districts. Instead, mixed use introduces a different type of zoning according to size. Small buildings are generally put along side other small buildings, medium with medium and so on. Many of these buildings are in the form of a main street shops with a residential or office apartment above them. This is a very efficient use of space and it creates a nice place to work or live because of its convenient location. These buildings are intentionally built to “human scale,” which means they are nice to walk by. In other words, they do not have the dwarfing affect on humans that a sky scraper has, which is so symbolic of America’s overwhelming bureaucratic institutions. Furthermore, parking lots are placed behind our public places, and in the event that a building sits back from the street it does so to provide a garden or park for all to enjoy. Finally, Mixed Income Housing is essential to a caring community. Instead of isolating the poor for the sake of our conscience, we live along side them and make their needs our own. We draw them in as members of society in an effort to help them, rather than ghettoizing them in an effort to forget about them.

I realize that these six principles are very communal for our intensely individualized culture. However, I am convinced that our society is in dire need of people who are concerned for the common good, rather than themselves. This need is demonstrated in the private affluence, but public poverty of our American society. We despise taxes because we want to keep our money to spend on our cookie cutter houses, meanwhile our government does not have the money or the desire to maintain a livable public realm. However, sprawl and all of the problems that come with it are merely consequences of the deep entrenchment of the American dream and American values. There is a long hard battle of ideas to be fought before we can begin to see a major change in America’s city structure.