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By Jay Walljasper | Back To the Blog

A historic opportunity to improve our cities

1:44 pm - June 30, 2008

Photo: A historic opportunity to improve our cities

Are we witnessing history in the making?

One of the front-page stories in last Wednesday's New York Times suggests that rising fuel costs are sparking a shift in the American dream. 

A downtown condo or cozy little rail-line bungalow in a first-ring suburb may soon replace the big fancy house as a symbol of the good life. 

Lots of people living on the outer fringes of American cities are struggling under the weight of gasoline prices, along with increased costs for heating and cooling their dream homes. Some are moving into smaller quarters back toward the center of town--that is, if they can find buyers for their houses.

Home values are seeing steeper declines--or slower increases--in the suburbs of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland, Atlanta, Denver, Tampa and other metropolitan regions than in the urban core, according to several sources quoted in the Times report. And the housing market is weakest in far-flung exurban areas, according to economist Joe Cortright of Impresa Inc.

Christopher Leinberger, a real estate developer and professor of urban planning at the University of Michigan, predicts that today's affluent subdivisions might become tomorrow's slums in a much-talked-about article in the Atlantic Monthly.

But even if the fortunes of outer-ring suburbs don't slide quite that far, we still find ourselves at a historical turning point. One thing that's been certain in American life for the past 60 years has been the steady outward sprawl of cities, with wealthy residents leading the exodus to new suburbs carved out of the countryside.

This ironclad trend has had profound consequences for America's environment and social relations, fueling massive energy use and the deterioration of older communities. 

Now, despite the pain inflicted on many households by high energy prices, we are being handed a golden opportunity to reduce our ecological footprint and restore vitality to many neighborhoods left behind in the great rush to the suburban fringes. 

This is not the end of the American Dream, but a chance to expand and replenish it.  Portland, for example, put the brakes on exurban sprawl a generation ago by setting an urban growth boundary beyond which new development was restricted.  Today Portland ranks high on many lists of the best cities in America.

And what if energy prices dip in the coming years? By then many people will have discovered that long commutes and cavernous homes aren't what make them happy. 

© The Green Guide, 2008

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Reversing the Sprawl in Detroit will be difficult
posted by mcglover100 on 2008-07-03 05:36:51  

As a life-long suburban Detroit resident, I know well that metro-Detroit has long suffered from the continuing expansion of suburban sprawl and an emptying of the inner-city residents into the suburbs and exburbs. Now with gas prices soaring, I wonder how it will affect this trend. Like elsewhere, people should be motivated to move closer to their jobs, but in suburban Detroit even the companies have "sprawled". Auburn Hills (a Detroit suburb on the fringe of the sprawl) is home to Chrysler and many other automotive supply companies including mine. Chrysler lead the way to that sleepy suburbs 20 years ago. I've lived for 15 years in an inner-ring suburb. I moved here when my job was nearby. For 10 years I've commuted away from Detroit, 30 miles to Auburn Hills. I refused to move "out-there" because it seemed to lack a down-town, shopping and night-life.

However, Detroit City proper seems no longer the center of business activity in the region, the jobs have dispersed. Our public transport in Detroit is limited to buses and service to the suburbs like Auburn Hills is very limited. Some suburban cities have no service now. It seems nearly impossible for most to survive here without a car.

I think before we will see a mass movement of people back to the center of Detroit, the companies will have to lead the way. A few companies have shown particular commitment to the city and moved back downtown in recent years, but that means many of their employees are suddenly forced into longer commutes until they feel pressed to move their homes back into the city as well. I'm sure it's a difficult decision for a company leadership.

My company in Auburn Hills is staying put there, so recently, I've made the difficult decision to move further out of the city, and closer to my job.

urbanizing the suburbs
posted by Jay Walljasper on 2008-07-07 11:24:06  

McGlover100 is absolutely right that jobs moving to the suburbs has heightened the sprawl mess.

But there's good news, even in Detroit, which is one of the most devastating examples of what sprawl does to an city.

But Campus Martius, a very small city park that has been revitalized as a lively civic gathering space, has lured a number of companies and many residenst back to downtown Detroit.

Besides vitalizing cities, the other solution here is vitalizing suburbs. There is no reason that Auburn Hills and other car-oriented suburbs cannot be modified into places where people can bike, walk, and take transit. It will take some time, money and imagination, but rising energy prices will provide a powerful incentive. Already, we are seeing a number of dead malls around the country being turned into pedestrian-scale neighborhoods. And with light rail lines stretching out into the suburbs in many metro areas, lively and walkable neighborhoods are springing up around the stations.