Palijandro7, I wasn't implying that segregationist planning was THE reason Cleveland went downhill.  The situation here was not entirely unique.  However, the bisection of the city by a "race river" for so many years does explain why the east side has such a large concentration of rough neighborhood-- something people continue to hold against Cleveland to this day.  That physical feature made segregation particularly easy and effective here.  Also, I know tensions were high everywhere in the 60s, but full-scale riots in major cities were not a nationwide epidemic.  Cleveland and Detroit are the most infamous for it, along wth Chicago and LA.  These four, I think if you surveyed 100 people, are more associated with race war than other major cities in the US.

 

Stokes:Cleveland::Obama:America... I wouldn't call it proof of widespread tolerance in either case.

 

More importantly-- it took probably hundreds of individual bad decisions to get Cleveland to where it is.  Segregation is only one aspect.  My central theme was that choices, not circumstances, led to all this wreckage.  I would hesitate to blame Cleveland for overreliance on industry, when the same is true in some way for virtually every city in the US.  The difference is that the industries of this particular region are the ones the nation decided to trash.  Cleveland cannot be blamed for that one, nor can Detroit or Youngstown or anyone local.  These too are choices but they're made at the national level.

Pittsburgh and St. Louis would seem to be the two cities that on first glance would offer alternatives for Ohio but when you scratch deeper they have both sustained losses far greater than any Ohio city (save perhaps Youngstown).

Pittsburgh and St. Louis would seem to be the two cities that on first glance would offer alternatives for Ohio but when you scratch deeper they have both sustained losses far greater than any Ohio city (save perhaps Youngstown).

 

Youngstown is the exception to any rule applying to a city, except for maybe Flint. In it's prime it was essentially an overgrown company town dependant on a few companies in a single industry for the majority of it's employment and never developed a diverse economy. I love Youngstown, so i am not trying to bash it, just stating the facts as I see them. If you just take the people laid off starting with  Black Monday (over 25,000)_and apply the 3-5 supporting job figure for each new job created, you get most of Youngstown's Population loss.

 

The funny thing about Flint is that it's suburbs are now part of Detroit's sprawl.

Youngstown is the exception to any rule applying to a city, except for maybe Flint. In it's prime it was essentially an overgrown company town dependant on a few companies in a single industry for the majority of it's employment

 

...would this apply to Akron.  Like Youngstown, but in rubber?

 

 

Did Akron lose all its rubber though?

 

Not all of it, and Akron has done a decent job replacing what it lost.  It transitioned from rubber into modern polymers.

 

If there's one thing that Ohio makes it's chemicals.  A lot of what remains is in this category.  Fuels, solvents, plastics, agricultural, all of it.  Every part of the state.  This sort of thing can be environmentally unfriendly.  Maybe that's a factor in having so much sprawl here, despite how old the cities are. 

 

 

I do think the environment impact of a lot of Ohio's industries has contributed to sprawl. Cincy is a great example. The Mill Creek Valley used to be a major population base along with the neighborhoods on the facing hills, but a lot of that has disappeared over the last century. The poor environment was always a major component though rarely the sole one. The 'problem' with the chemical industry is that it isn't a massive job employer in the way some of Ohio's older industries were.

I'm starting this discussion to try to determine if sprawl is a local concern or does is it have a statewide impact.

If possible ,let’s keep the CO2/enviromental aspects in the already established threads.

The question I pose stems from a new development under study in Columbus http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,18684.0.html

in which a headline declares “Development Deal in Jerome Township may be the answer to the City of Columbus’ financial woes.” 

Would a development like that have any impact, good or bad on other parts of the state?  If highways are built or expanded, does that just come out of the money that Columbus would have been already allocated, or is it diverted from other parts of the state?  If this development brings in business from out of state, doesn’t the increased state taxes benefit everyone?

 

I was knee jerk against this.  I don’t like sprawl in general, and I genuinely like Columbus’s urban core; I don’t think spreading the city out further is sustainable.  But as a Clevelander (in exile) really, is this any of our business?

 

Sprawl, especially in a state like Ohio, where we have numerous metro areas within a relatively small geographical area statewide, has big impacts and most from what I have learned are not good. There is a fantastic website that outlines and addresses the common misconceptions/myths that 'this growth will save us'  (sprawl) and the deceptive propaganda that drives it.  Check out "Sprawl Busters." There is some sobering well re-searched information throughout their website. The most baffling concept to me...is while population has dropped statewide...land consumption is higher than it has ever been. (shifting population)

 

As for agriculture land, Ohio's biggest economy last I checked, we lose something like 300 acres per day on average...don't quote me on that...but it is a shocking number...and most falls out of production and into the hands of sprawl where zoning keeps getting shifted to commercial..even where it is not needed or wanted.

 

Also, even Green City Blue Lake has a lot of information on the effects of Sprawl. Contact David Beach. He is excellent. Maybe he is on here already...

 

Hope this helps...

Anyone read this book yet? I just saw ad for it on Bloomberg.com

 

http://www.ordering1.us/bloombergbooks/product.php?pid=339

 

The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome

Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream

John F. Wasik

An incisive look at the consequences of today’s costly and damaging suburban lifestyle

Youngstown is the exception to any rule applying to a city, except for maybe Flint. In it's prime it was essentially an overgrown company town dependant on a few companies in a single industry for the majority of it's employment

 

...would this apply to Akron.  Like Youngstown, but in rubber?

 

 

No, Akron will feel like a NYC after a day in Youngstown.

Of course sprawl is a statewide issue. At the local level, sprawl is driven in part by state policy -- or lack thereof. The state does not value land-use planning, does not encourage local governments to do good planning, does not support those that try to do good planning. Some places have a "comprehensive plan," but state statute does not define "comprehensive plan," and Ohio courts have held that a color-coded zoning map counts as a comprehensive plan -- which is utter nonsense.

 

Sprawl also is driven by transporation patterns. And, of course, we live in a state that does next to nothing to support rail and transit, so the de-facto state policy is for development to be catered to the automobile.

Anyone read this book yet? I just saw ad for it on Bloomberg.com

 

http://www.ordering1.us/bloombergbooks/product.php?pid=339

 

The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome

Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream

John F. Wasik

An incisive look at the consequences of today’s costly and damaging suburban lifestyle

 

No, I haven't read it.  Looks like the author also has a website. He seems to spend a lot of energy discussing why sprawl is a problem, and very little on his proposed solutions.  You'll like this though -- one of the solutions listed on his website is "Throw out the car and rewrite building and zoning codes."

 

http://www.culdesacsyndrome.com/

Even though Columbus adopted a complete streets policy, which in theory is supposed to provide cars, bikes, peds, and transit equal access to our commercial roads, in reality ends up changing little in sprawling swathes of the city except for dumping cyclists in little slivers on the edge of an arterial, drive-thru lined road alongside 50MPH or faster traffic, while on new sidewalks peds have to trek about a quarter mile to the next traffic light just to cross the street. 50MPH traffic is never acceptible as a good environment for bikes and peds. Cars are still king under this plan and receive special treatment, so millions are being spent "urbanizing" these suburban streets to appear welcoming to peds and cyclists but in reality are still a hostile environment, but that won't stop city officials from tooting their horns about how they fulfill the complete streets policy they adopted. Take Morse Rd for example, where in order to even use the bike lane starting on the west end means riding across a large highway intersection to reach it.

 

Watch out Cincinnati, you might get less than you wished for. I couldn't find anything about Cleveland adopting a similar city-level policy, so if anyone has any insight...

 

I take Morse road from Karl Road to Indianola on my commute home from work. The bike lane is filled with all manner of debris--glass, smashed beer cans you name it--but thanks to the timing of the lights I have the whole road to myself for the final 1/4 mile before the multiple banks of lights funneling traffic on and off of I-71 and Sinclair road.

I think this bike-to-work thing is unrealistic unless "work" & "home"  are fairly close.  And it would work only part of the year since its too hot or too cold to bike to work for half the year. 

This is not in Ohio, but checkout a friend of friends bike to work commute piece on the local news in baltimore. 20 miles each way. The anchor woman's expression when they cut back to her is priceless.

 

http://wjz.com/local/bike.work.2.751334.html

^^I bike year round and most of the time it is doable during the winter except for heavy snow or sleet. Cycling keeps you surprisingly warm and you just need some good biking gloves and something for your head and face (a balaclava, which is like a ski mask works well).  As far as distances, you'd think people would only bike to nearby places like I do, but I know people who regularly commute across the sprawling parts of the city and it's just a part of their routine. Just imagine how many more there'd be if those roads were bike-friendly.

An old article, but it is by a well-known professor of urbanism. I was surprised it wasn't already posted here.

Suburban Despair

Is urban sprawl really an American menace?

By Witold Rybczynski

Posted Monday, Nov. 7, 2005, at 6:42 PM ET

 

 

Book cover

 

 

Little boxes on a hillside.

 

We hate sprawl. It's responsible for everything that we don't like about modern American life: strip malls, McMansions, big-box stores, the loss of favorite countryside, the decline of downtowns, traffic congestion, SUVs, high gas consumption, dependence on foreign oil, the Iraq war. No doubt about it, sprawl is bad, American bad. Like expanding waistlines, it's touted around the world as yet another symptom of our profligacy and wastefulness as a nation. Or, as Robert Bruegmann puts it in his new book, "cities that sprawl and, by implication, the citizens living in them, are self indulgent and undisciplined."

 

...

^^I bike year round and most of the time it is doable during the winter except for heavy snow or sleet. Cycling keeps you surprisingly warm and you just need some good biking gloves and something for your head and face (a balaclava, which is like a ski mask works well). As far as distances, you'd think people would only bike to nearby places like I do, but I know people who regularly commute across the sprawling parts of the city and it's just a part of their routine. Just imagine how many more there'd be if those roads were bike-friendly.

I've been bike commuting from Italian Village to Polaris 3-4 times a week since May (30 miles round trip) and I'm looking to keep it up as long as weather, daylight and dropping the boy off at school permits. My co-workers thing I'm insane, and a few months ago, I would've agreed. Now, on the odd day I drive it I walk around work in a haze and come home twice as tired as when I ride.

 

Today I took a 2 hour ride up Broad Street all the way to Darby Creek and back (37-38 miles r/t - here's a <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=114384111562064611343.0004725f5d0ad69f35d1a&t=h&z=12">MAP</a>). It's shocking how Columbus goes from ghetto to country over the course of a mile. Though I have to say, Franklinton and Hilltop don't look half bad from a bike. Westland, however...

Or not. In Sprawl, cheekily subtitled "A Compact History," Bruegmann, a professor of art history at the University of Illinois at Chicago...

 

He was one of my professors!

that neighborhood pictured in the post by columbusite made me nauseous.

that neighborhood pictured in the post by columbusite made me nauseous.

 

Actually, I was looking at that photo thinking, that is probably what new Intercity neighborhoods in the 20's looked like in Cleveland.  Smaller houses smacked in right next to eachother up close to the street that looked relatively similar.  To be honest with you, that neighborhood is a terrible image to depcit sprawl. A good image would have shown 3000 sqft homes on quarter to half acre lots in the middle of a cornfield

that neighborhood pictured in the post by columbusite made me nauseous.

 

Actually, I was looking at that photo thinking, that is probably what new Intercity neighborhoods in the 20's looked like in Cleveland.  Smaller houses smacked in right next to eachother up close to the street that looked relatively similar.  To be honest with you, that neighborhood is a terrible image to depcit sprawl. A good image would have shown 3000 sqft homes on quarter to half acre lots in the middle of a cornfield

 

Even if the homes in Cleveland - or any other major city - were close together, each home still had it's own personality.  Single family, Double, Wood frame, Brick, etc.   

 

Check some neighborhoods like Hough, Shaker Square, Glenville, Forest Hills, Luke Easter Park/Woodland Hills area, Lee-Harvard, Edgewater, Ohio City, Tremont, Brooklyn, West Park St. Clair - Superir, etc.    Homes may look similar, but streets do not consist of a row of carbon copies ever other or every third house.

 

Those tract homes are bland and tacky.

What this iconoclastic little book demonstrates is that sprawl is not the anomalous result of American zoning laws, or mortgage interest tax deduction, or cheap gas, or subsidized highway construction, or cultural antipathy toward cities. Nor is it an aberration. Bruegmann shows that asking whether sprawl is "good" or "bad" is the wrong question. Sprawl is and always has been inherent to urbanization. It is driven less by the regulations of legislators, the actions of developers, and the theories of city planners, than by the decisions of millions of individuals—Adam Smith's "invisible hand." This makes altering it very complicated, indeed. There are scores of books offering "solutions" to sprawl. Their authors would do well to read this book. To find solutions—or, rather, better ways to manage sprawl, which is not the same thing—it helps to get the problem right.

 

I wonder whether the author looked at the impact of the pricing structure of utilities and other infrastructure on sprawl. 

 

Let's assume that all of the county's water comes from the lake.  Shouldn't water costs (both initial construction and maintenance) be a function of distance from the intake?  What if everyone in the county pays the same price for hookup and ongoing service -- then there is no disincentive to build on fresh land wherever you can find it no matter how far it is from the lake.  The other water users will subsidize the water lines built to the furthest corner of the county.  A similar analogy can be made for roads, sewers, phone lines, etc. 

 

Maybe there have been some other studies that address these issues, but it seems like there are a lot of costs to society for sprawl outside of pure government intervention via zoning or government subsidies for road construction itself. 

 

What if everyone in the county pays the same price for hookup and ongoing service

 

Do they in Ohio?

 

I think that in today's environments, local governments have caught on (belatedly) and started requiring the developers to pay for the new water lines, utilities, roads, sewers.  At least a good amount of it.

 

When it comes to water, 'clean drinking water for everyone' is a social policy, which has led to running 'county' water all over the place. Personal wells are a potential poison spot, so they are discouraged.  But the other infrastructure you mentioned are less tied to social medical issues, and more tied to development.  It seems that around me, local governments like to put in all those utility upgrades (including roads) as a social issue as well, but not a medical one.  They build all this to encourage businesses to expand there and generate tax revenue.

 

(didn't get to finish the post before having to post it)....

 

Does Ohio have local 'water districts' and 'sewer districts'?  In NY state we had them.  The local water and sewer departments would partition off the network into 'zones', and when maintenance was needed in that zone, then the taxpayers in that zone had to pay for it.  It was a seperate line on the property taxes.  Usually this was reserved for capital improvements in your area.  When I bought my house in NY, it was on the last year of such a special assessment surcharge.  Apparently there had been a capital improvement project in my part of the county 9 years earlier to the water line, and the taxpayers of the area had to pay it off over 10 years with a special surcharge above the normal monthly water/sewer charges.

 

Does this exist in Ohio?

CincyDad:

 

Ohio allows for local water and sewer districts, but I don't believe it requires them.  They're popular, however, because they can sell bonds that don't go on the books of a municipal government, and can overlap multiple municipal boundaries.  However, I'm not aware of Ohio local water & sewer districts doing what you talked about NY ones doing (sub-partitioning their areas and charging different residents different amounts).  That doesn't mean that they couldn't do so--I'm not an authority on this by any means--but I haven't heard of it.

 

It's an interesting concept to do that, and to do so for more than just capital expenditures.  Some homes definitely do cost more to deliver water to than others.  I'd be interested in seeing if anyone has crunched the numbers for how much extra per mile it costs to deliver water, and if it's a linear graph or not.

Same for private gas and electric utilities. Those in denser areas are actually subsidizing the lifestyles of those living in less-dense fringe areas.

UrbanSurfin: I actually didn't read Foraker & CincyDad's point as being intrinsically based on density.  I think it was more based on proximity.

 

In other words, the cost to deliver water is a function of how close you are to the reservoir, not necessarily to a city.  In Columbus, for example, Hoover Reservoir is on the outskirts of town.  So for electricity, you'd want to be near the power plant, which might well be off in the boondocks.  For gas ... well, I don't think we actually mine much right here at home, but you'd want to be near the depot or wherever the central storage of it is.

 

Ideally, you'd want high density and to have that density be right around the reservoir, or the power plant.  Columbus, though, grew up basically at the intersection of National Road and the Scioto & Olentangy Rivers, particularly the Scioto.  The reservoir came later, and it's a little ways off.  (Not too far, though.)  Cincinnati has the Ohio River but I honestly have no idea if the river is actually the primary source of its water supply or not.  And, of course, Cleveland has the lake.  The key question I'd be interested in seeing an answer to is whether it's more expensive to get water to (a) the northern reaches of Cincinnati proper (in the city, far from the river), or (b) a suburb of Cincinnati that also happened to be right on the river (not in the city, close to the river).  In other words, which one matters more.

I understand the distinction you're making, and it's a good point. Nonetheless, I stand by my argument that density makes for more-efficient delivery of services. Even if there are inefficiencies in the distance of the city from the source (of water, gas, electricity, etc.), users in the denser areas subsidizes users in less-dense areas.

 

  Cincinnati gets its water primarily from an intake on the Ohio River, which incidently is on the Kentucky side. Cincinnati also has a treatment plant on the Great Miami river and a few wells.

 

  The Cincinnati Water Works is owned by the City of Cincinnati. The city has an agreement with Hamilton County to provide for service in unincorporated areas of the county.

 

    The Cincinnati Water Works also has an agreement with many of the other incorporated areas, such as Reading, Norwood, and even Florance, Kentucky. Cincinnati sells water to them wholesale, and the other cities maintain the distribution pipes.

 

    Some municipalities such as Cleves, Glendale and Indian Hill have their own water systems.

 

    There is a separate water company, Southwest Ohio Water, that sells untreated water to industrial plants that use a lot of water but do not require it to be purified. The water comes from the Great Miami River.

 

    Different customers pay different rates, but it varies by jurisdiction and not by distance from the plant.

 

    And yes, it does cost more to pump water farther because of energy losses due to friction in the pipe. Also, it costs more to pump water up a hill because it takes energy to lift that water.

 

    Also, the more feet of pipe you have, the more you need to maintain. Fortunately, underground utilities last a long time, but they do not last forever.

 

    At one time in the early days, the water works did not have the ability to pump water up the hill to Mt. Adams, Mt. Auburn, Fairview Heights, etc., because they were using primitive equipment including a steam engine salvaged from a riverboat and wooden pipes. The infrastructure simply could not withstand the pressure to lift the water some 300 feet.

 

      It has been said that the invention of the electric streetcar allowed city people to move to the suburbs. Previously, horse cars could not ascend the steep grades. Cincinnati went through a colorful period of inclines and cable cars, and then electric streetcars and then automobiles and motor coaches.

 

    Just as important were the other utilities. Before about 1870, if you wanted water service in your home, you had to live in the Cincinnati basin, now known as Downtown, Over-the-Rhine, the West End, and Queensgate. Water service in Mt. Auburn simply wasn't available.

 

    The water works built a new system around 1870, and then an even better one in 1906, which is still in operation, with improvements added up to the present. Now, Ohio River water is pumped all the way to Mason, Ohio, a distance of about 26 miles! (Mason's wells couldn't keep up with the development.)

 

    On one hand, Cincinnati is subsidizing sprawl by construction of all of this infrastructure. On the other hand, if Cincinnati doesn't build it, the other water districts can capture the market. They actually do skirmish over it. Just this year the City of Harrison tried to build a water main in Cincinnati territory.

 

   

 

 

   

 

   

Imteresting they are pumping water as far as Mason.

 

Groundwater is a source for the Dayton/Hamilton/Middletown areas.  I was suprised to read that the Feds built a water pipeline from Hamilton to Evendale (to the GE plant) during WWII to provide a water supply, tapping into the Hamilton system.  I think that was proposed as the source for Union Twp water.  So that aquifer along the Great Miami is a poetential source for southern Butler County.

 

I think the extension of infrastructure is the untold story of sprawl, and has played into some sprawl fights in the past since it is a limiting factor in development, or its density.  This was the case here in Dayton for the suburb of Beavercreek, where the locals resisted the exetnsion/development of comprehensive utility systems to preserve the large lot low density quality of the suburb.  Developers got around that by using "plat water systems".

 

 

  I think the extension of infrastructure IS the story of sprawl.

 

  Americans are in love with their cars, so they say. They are also in love with their kitchens, their refrigerators, their TV's, their cell phones, and on and on. All of this is possible with infrastructure, including roads, water and sewer, electricity, radio towers, cell phone towers, natural gas mains, cable TV, and telephone lines.

 

  Of these, water and sewer are probably the most expensive, are the most limited, and influence development the most.

 

    If populations of metropolitan areas were measured by water service boundaries instead of political boundaries, the Census numbers would be completely different indeed.

 

   

Water is power,  as it has been said countless time on UO look at the stories of  Cleveland and Columbus. Cleveland gave up the power it had in water rights, Columbus used its water rights to expand.

 

 

I wasn't on these boards when that discussion took place, but at least with respect to Columbus, that's definitely true.  I'm newer to following events outside central Ohio.

 

Of course, this didn't actually prevent sprawl, but it did at least mean that the revenue stream from the growing middle and upper classes wanting to escape the inner city wasn't lost to the city completely--instead of suburbs, Columbus has a lot of "outer city" (in contrast to the "inner city").  It even goes a decent way outside of I-270 on several fronts now.

In Columbus' case, I would be more hesitant to use the word "escape". "Lured", I think would be more appropriate since there was a ton of brand-new, cheap housing with futuristic drive-thrus and strip-malls. Meanwhile, inner-city neighborhoods were having streetcars torn out and large swathes of said neighborhoods (enough to easily consist of a large neighborhood if put together) were being torn down for highways. We just never had lots of polluting industry found in other American cities that residents would want to move away from and in any case the majority of the inner-city consists of single-famliy homes on quiet, tree-lined streets. While the term "outer city" makes some sense, it definitely doesn't share any of the qualities of a city.

"...futuristic drive-thrus and strip-malls."

 

Well put. That development exists today like an asteroid belt of broken dreams.

I have a question for you "sprawlsperts".  Maybe this has been previously answered but I didn't find it.  On the east side of Cleveland, where does sprawl start, Shaker Heights, Maple Heights, Beachwood, Pepper Pike, Moreland Hills, Solon or beyond?  What exactly, is the criterion?

In Columbus' case, I would be more hesitant to use the word "escape". "Lured", I think would be more appropriate since there was a ton of brand-new, cheap housing with futuristic drive-thrus and strip-malls.

 

If they were "lured," then at least you're admitting that many people actually wanted that (or else it wouldn't have been able to lure them).  That's a start.

"Lured" still has negative connotations, and considering the costly results of unsustainable growth trends, rightfully so. 

I have a question for you "sprawlsperts".  Maybe this has been previously answered but I didn't find it.  On the east side of Cleveland, where does sprawl start, Shaker Heights, Maple Heights, Beachwood, Pepper Pike, Moreland Hills, Solon or beyond?  What exactly, is the criterion?

 

That's a good question to which there is no simple, good answer -- unless we paraphrase former Justice Potter Stewart's comment on pornography and say we can't define sprawl, but we know it when we see it.

 

The "streetcar suburbs" of 100 years ago were in some ways the suburban sprawl of their day, yet we now view them as wonderful urban neighborhoods. Sprawl, as a term, may be as elastic as the boundaries of our metropolitan areas.

 

Myself, I think I'm inclined to define sprawl in terms of Euclidean zoning. Sprawl occurs when we have separation of uses and development catered to and dependent on the automobile. The old streetcar suburbs (what we today call "transit-oriented development") had at their core a walkable commerical area near the streetcars and easily reached from the nearby residences. But most development today keeps commerical areas separate from office areas separate from industrial areas separate from residential. Everything is separated -- and separated by distances so great that we have to drive to get from anyplace to another.

 

That's sprawl.

If they were "lured," then at least you're admitting that many people actually wanted that (or else it wouldn't have been able to lure them).  That's a start.

 

I can speak from experience on this since I am a child of the 1960s, when the move to suburbia was in full flow. And the metro area I recall was Chicagoland.

 

Suburbia was indeed seen as fresh and new.  The old city as congested and crowded, houses too close together.  Parking was a pain.  So you got into the car and headed out to the postwar suburbs, those big long low new shopping centers like Winston Hills and Harlem & Irving Plaza, with the bright lights and lots of parking.  And take the Northwest Super-Highway (later renamed the Kennedy) out to the wide opens spaces..the exileration of speed, no stop & go, out to places like Randhurst (early mall) or Hoffman Estates and the new subdivisions out past the Forest Preserves, out beyond the bunglow belt and the two-flats and congestion. 

 

It was fresh, new, the Jetsons.... fast, modern, sunny days....

 

I guess, for Chicagoland, the tollway Oasis was sort of a symbol of suburbias modern life:

 

(photo taken the year and month of my birth, wow..)

 

 

 

 

Maybe suburbia, or sprawl, the modern form of it, has been around for so long and we take it for granted, not seeing it they way people of the time saw it, as this new modern way of living.

 

 

Sprawl occurs when we have separation of uses and development catered to and dependent on the automobile ... most development today keeps commerical areas separate from office areas separate from industrial areas separate from residential. Everything is separated -- and separated by distances so great that we have to drive to get from anyplace to another.

 

That's sprawl.

 

+1.  Good definition.  (As someone who doesn't view suburbs as intrinsically evil, I also appreciate you refraining from using loaded, political terms like "unsustainable" in this definition as well.)

Suburbs aren't necessarily resource hogs (take walkable, bikeable Grandview Heights), whereas sprawl is 100% of the time (all new development north of 270). I don't view sprawl as "evil" myself, but rather "insane", in that we're basically consuming as many resources as fast as possible in a universe where resources are few and finite.  Most Americans need a refresher course in physics.

Suburbs aren't necessarily resource hogs (take walkable, bikeable Grandview Heights), whereas sprawl is 100% of the time (all new development north of 270). I don't view sprawl as "evil" myself, but rather "insane", in that we're basically consuming as many resources as fast as possible in a universe where resources are few and finite. Most Americans need a refresher course in physics.

 

I think your style of disagreement basically proves my point.

 

Substitute "insane" for "evil" in my post above.

 

The primary drawback of suburban living for me isn't energy use or land use or autocentrism.  It's plain old banality.  I fully intend to lead an energy-intensive urban lifestyle, including using my car to get out to destinations outside the reach of public transit, from wineries to outlet malls to simply other cities.  I love that we have condo buildings starting to pop up with heated pools and full-service health clubs and other energy-hogging amenities that you'll seldom find in walking distance (let alone in the same building) in any suburb.

 

You keep trying to convince people to move to the cities by guilt-tripping them, or forcing them to abandon suburbs by political activism to ram through anti-sprawl legislation.  I much prefer the argument of "I've got a health club and a pool in my building, and eight diverse restaurants, a major public library, two museums, and my own workplace all within walking distance.  How's your cul-de-sac?"

 

Your arguments never make people in the sprawling hinterlands actually want to move downtown.  All they do is try to make them feel ashamed of their own lifestyle.  They're going to tune you out.  I know, because I actually do live downtown and I can barely keep you tuned in.

People who already live in the sprawling hinterlands are likely too invested/oblivious/resigned in their lifestyle to consider a move to the city. Unchecked--or at the very least unexamined--sprawl will ultimately draw off enough resources to make it pleasant for even you to continue living downtown. Don't fault critics for finding fault in that.

 

  A very basic lifestyle choice in today's world is whether or not to own an automobile.

 

  If one decides to own an automobile, then he usually also chooses to live in an area with private parking, typically a driveway. Automobile ownership can be done in the city with on-street parking, a parking garage, or some other arrangement, but it is usually more expensive and more difficult than a simple driveway.

 

    Once that choice has been made by a sufficient number of people, the entire environment changes in favor of automobiles. Residential subdivisions are designed first to accomodate automobiles. Commercial establishments are designed first to accomodate automobiles. In order to attract customers, commercial establishments in auto-oriented areas must construct large parking lots.

 

    For all the benefits of automobiles, the basic problem is that they take up so much space. A car is about 100 times larger than a human, and a car can travel 100 times faster. Environments designed for cars just don't work all that well for pedestrians.

 

    The trouble is that you just can't have everything you want. I wish I could own a car, have a private, quiet backyard, AND walk to work, shopping, and entertainment and enjoy the benefits of both. It just doesn't work that way because car ownership and maximum density just don't work together well.

 

  I was fortunate to spend some time in this city:

 

 

 

  This is Chiang Mai, Thailand, population about 300,000, about the same as the City of Cincinnati within the city limits. The density is about 5 times that of Cincinnati. Automobile ownership is low; I would estimate 5% versus 50% in the United States.

 

    Something very noticeable about this city is the lack of large parking lots. I only found a few.

 

    There were certainly drawbacks to living in Chiang Mai. One is that you can't drink the tap water. Another is that despite the low number of automobiles, air pollution was very bad due to a large number of two-cycle motors and lack of emissions control. But the density and lack of parking lots was really something to see. The streets were always busy, and the center of the city wasn't practically abandoned at night like so many American financial districts are. 

 

 

 

   

 

   

Banality is another major reason and is one for why I could never do it again. I use those arguments along with all of the positives of city living, but I guess you choose to ignore that. And why shouldn't sprawlers feel guilty? I don't care to "convert" any of these people but rather that at least a few come to understand the implications of their lifestyle choice.

Very few Americans would want to live in a Changmai.  It's too dense and close together.  Ultimately this does get down to cultural values in that the US is not an urban culture or does not value urbanity.  The trope is "urban=ghetto", or "urban = racial minority", or "urban= crime", or "urban = congestion/pollution", or "urban=bad schools", or "urban = vice"...one can go on and one. 

 

City-->bad.  Country--> good.

 

America values the small town and rural as a cultural model, not the city, although there are moments when one can see a different narrative in the culture.

 

I say America...but there is a reader coming out that takes a cross-cultural look at the phenomena.  From the publishers website:

 

Fleeing the City

Studies in the Culture and Politics of Antiurbanism

Edited by Michael J. Thompson

 

This collection of essays explores the phenomenon of antiurbanism: the antipathy, fear, and hatred of the city. Antiurbanism has been a pervasive counter-discourse to modernity and urbanization especially since the beginning of industrialism and the dawning of modern life. Most of the attention on modernity has been focused on urbanization and its consequences. But as the essays collected here demonstrate, antiurbanism is an equally important reality as it can be seen as playing a crucial role in cultural identity, in the formation of the self within the context of modernity, as well as in the root of many forms of conservative politics and cultural movements.

 

@@@

 

Introduction

 

PART I: THEORIZING ANTIURBANISM * What is Antiurbanism? A Theoretical Perspective / Michael J. Thompson * Antiurbanism in the United States, England, and China / Robert A. Beauregard * The Origins of Antiurbanism / James A. Clapp *

 

PART II: ANTIURBANISM IN HISTORY AND LITERATURE * Pastoral Ideals and City Troubles / Leo Marx * Boys in the City: Homoerotic Desire and the Urban Refuge in Early-Twentieth-Century Germany / Elena Mancini * Antiurbanism, New York, and the Early-Twentieth-Century American National Imagination / Angela M. Blake *

 

PART III: ANTIURBANISM IN SOCIETY AND POLITICS * Imagining the Urban Poor / Roger Salerno * Americans, Urbanism, and Sprawl: An Exploration of Living Preferences / Emily Talen * Fundamentalism and Antiurbanism: The Frontier Myth, the Christian Nation, and the Heartland / Eduardo Mendieta * Against Safety, Against Security: Reinvigorating Urban Life / Don Mitchell

 

 

 

  The United States is underpopulated by world standards. Maybe we just use more land because we can.