Perhaps not human nature.  But certainly among Americans, the importance of personal space is strong.  I've heard in some cultures it isn't.

 

But yes, "anti-sprawl" policies aren't something people are likely to willingly comply with. [/color]

 

Why is it that Americans were willing to comply with them, and supposedly even favored them for the 340 years after Jamestown and Plymouth, but suddenly in the last 60 years we don't? Our genetics hasn't changed. Only our wealth, our avoidance of wartime damage at home, and the people in power have changed in the past 60 years with respect to our past and that of many other nations.

 

Nail, meet head.

 

Um, I mean, head of nail, meet business end of hammer.

 

Oh, whatever. KJP is right, E Rocc is wrong.

 

 

unfortunately e rocc is right....but only for about 50-75 cents more per gallon. then kicking and screaming it will have to swing back to kjp's way. stay tuned.

 

 

^The few will kick, the many will scream.

Perhaps not human nature.  But certainly among Americans, the importance of personal space is strong.  I've heard in some cultures it isn't.

 

But yes, "anti-sprawl" policies aren't something people are likely to willingly comply with. [/color]

 

Why is it that Americans were willing to comply with them, and supposedly even favored them for the 340 years after Jamestown and Plymouth, but suddenly in the last 60 years we don't? Our genetics hasn't changed. Only our wealth, our avoidance of wartime damage at home, and the people in power have changed in the past 60 years with respect to our past and that of many other nations.

 

Nail, meet head.

 

Um, I mean, head of nail, meet business end of hammer.

 

Oh, whatever. KJP is right, E Rocc is wrong.

 

 

unfortunately e rocc is right....but only for about 50-75 cents more per gallon. then kicking and screaming it will have to swing back to kjp's way. stay tuned.

 

Or you'll see more "telecommuting" (a potential time bomb in and of itself since jobs that can be done that way can typically be done from India) or, more likely, industrial/business "sprawl".  People, particularly Americans, are pretty good at finding ways to not to things they don't want to do.

 

Just as before World War II, people weren't going to stay in small towns when they could pack into the cities.

 

Or you'll see more "telecommuting" (a potential time bomb in and of itself since jobs that can be done that way can typically be done from India) or, more likely, industrial/business "sprawl".

 

There seems to be a little bit of fallacy here.  It is anecdotal but it seems to me that telecommuting "type" jobs tend to involve labor that has not been commoditized.  Example:  The work from home executive/manager as opposed to the rank and file phone sales rep.

 

 

We'll see some industrial/business sprawl, perhaps.  But with workforces already dispersed in every direction, it will be difficult indeed for businesses to recentralize around Westlake or Beachwood.  The employees that live in the opposite direction are pretty likely to squack or even quit given the cost of tranportation.

Let me ask a general question.  Does anyone think sprawl is something that was intentionally created, or did it happen on its own, (with continuation receiving support from the government considered a stipulation).?

I believe it happened on its own, with the government (or any other agent cited for "causing" sprawl) acting like any other business in a capitalist marketplace - providing people what they wanted.

Sprawl happened on its own, but it wouldn't have happened so explosively if not for generous, generous government incentives.

Let me ask a general question.  Does anyone think sprawl is something that was intentionally created, or did it happen on its own, (with continuation receiving support from the government considered a stipulation).?

 

Definitely a mix.  "Sprawl" is not the stated policy of any shadowy puppeteer running any city/county/county, but when landowners lobby the state for a road widening or construction of a new exit so they can develop motels and fast food...Isn't the result "intentionally created"?

Every piece of the puzzle is intentionally created.  But nobody really gave much thought to how those pieces fit together.  At least not beyond a basic land use plan and the creation of basic supporting infrastructure.  edit- and lets not forget the most important thing they did consider- the tax implications of any new development within their municipality.

Anyone know when zoning was created??  That definitely is a major difference between fabric of the suburbs/"newer" parts of the city.  IMO thats the main reason we do not have neighborhoods like Little Italy from 1940ish to about the late 1990's (counting the recent re-emergence of mixed-use)....thus FUELING sprawl.

Don't forget the tax structure....

 

Governments created the tax structure, and that contributes to urban sprawl as well.

 

Local cities in Ohio get a lot of their revenue from payroll tax (local income tax).  So it's in their best interest to get as much business in their territory as possible, to pay for running the local government.  In the case of small cities, that means annexing as much peripheral land as possible, then paying companies to relocate to that distant land. 

 

Look what is happening with the small city of Monroe (20 miles north of Cincy).  It was a village 5 miles west of I-75 until it reached a population of 5k in 1980.  Then it became a city, and started annexing all the land it could.  It has taken over nearly all of the township that was previously around it (Lemon township), and has started taking land away from neighboring townships.  It wants to keep its old center (as does Lebanon) but wants the tax revenue from businesses.  So it lures businesses to the far fringes of its land, away from all the local people.  The businesses create sprawl, all for the sake of revenue for the locals holed up in the city center.  And since the businesses are away from the center of the city, the people are not so impacted in their daily life.  Even today, some 25 years after becoming a city, Monroe probalby has twice as much farm land inside the city as it doesn non-farm land.  It just keeps adding adjacent farm land 'for future business developement".

 

This has a lot to do wtih the ability in Ohio to tax payrolls.  People are taxed where they work, not where they live.  This is very uncommon in the rest of the country. 

 

What would happen to the whole sprawl thing if local communities could not impose a payroll income tax to the city where you worked?

Zoning goes back to the 1920s. However, I'd say that the balance tends toward gov't actions driving the nature of suburban development after the war. That doesn't really speak toward people's choices about moving to those places. I just finished teaching a course on this, so I could go on and on. If anyone is interested in doing some non-Internet reading, I can point to the way to some good books.

To answer CincyDad, cities would shrivel up and die. Monroe really is an exception, look at all of the major townships that continue to exist (West Chester, Colerain, et al.).

I wrote the outlines of this for an intended blog post awhile back:

 

What caused sprawl?

 

1) American nature. 

People forget that America began as a largely agricultural nation.  Many of our immigrants came here intending not to live in cities, but to farm.  The migration to the cities mostly occurred between the turn of the 20th century and the end of World War II.  Crowding was a discomfort that was accepted primarily for economic reasons. 

 

Nevertheless, it’s still considered unpleasant, that’s a strong part of the American psyche.  Look at places such as buses, waiting rooms, theaters, bars etc.  Anywhere where there is not a central focal point, people tend to spread out. When there is space available, it’s considered the height of rudeness to sit next to or otherwise crowd someone you don’t know. 

 

In a very real way, “sprawl” is the partial reversal of the urbanization trend of a century ago. 

 

2) World War II.

World War II provided the desire, the need, and the opportunity for sprawl.  Much has been made of the returning veterans seeking a very peaceful lifestyle, and their children’s reaction against same during the 60s.  But it should also be noted that said veterans were also quite tired of the close quarters that military life makes necessary.

 

But they returned home to a rather acute housing shortage, and many single or freshly married vets were forced to live with relatives or friends in surroundings nearly as cramped as those they had just left.  Indeed, the first “Levittown” suburbs were built as a response to this shortage.

 

Finally, during World War II the US Army grabbed onto the concept of motorized transportation with both hands, to great tactical and strategic advantage.  No other nation’s military was close to as motorized as ours, though the Germans made effective use of their “autobahn” system on the defensive.  Soldiers who did not already drive were likely to learn to, if for no other reason as a way to avoid having to walk if transportation became scarce.  Once they returned, motorized transport was a familiar and comfortable concept.  There was also an extensive base of mechanics, trained by the military.

 

Meanwhile, the automotive industry had grown in order to serve the needs of the armed forces.  The capacity to build cars was there, and people needed work.  Building freeways also provided those jobs and was a popular expenditure of tax money.

 

3) Industrial Sprawl

Industrial sprawl happened, for the most part, after residential sprawl.  It has taken place for two primary reasons:  Aggressive unions and environmental concerns.  Early on, union contracts provided for automatic representation if a company built a plant within a certain radius of existing facilities.  As foreign competition increased the desire to pay lower wages and, perhaps more importantly, get away from anti-competitive work rules caused plants to be built in suburban or rural locations. 

 

As unions wised up and got rid of the “work rules” that made them uncompetitive and non-union workers learned they could demand union wages simply by threatening to organize, this cause began to be less important.  However, at right about this time CERCLA became law.  Businesses now had to consider the risk of being held responsible for past environmental damage if they chose to buy or lease a new property.  Greenfields have zero risk, brownfields have significant potential risk.  Lender liability meant that even if they chose to ignore the risk, their banks would not.

 

So industry sprawled.  Not only did this directly encourage residential sprawl, but many of the new plants had no access to public transportation.  Therefore, to some people car ownership became even more essential.

 

4) Section 8

This law was basically designed to spread out the impact of public housing.  In other words, it gave the “spreading out” option to the recipients of federal assistance. 

 

This contributed to sprawl in two ways.  It moved people from the inner cities to the suburbs, particularly the “inner ring” suburbs. 

 

Previous émigrés to the suburbs had worked hard to make that move.  They respected their surroundings and made changes to their lifestyle, in part to reflect their new comfort and in part to fit in.  To be blunt, many of the new émigrés did not make this effort, do not respect their surroundings, and make no effort to fit in.  Indeed, a significant number of them bring with them some of the things the previous émigrés worked to escape. 

 

This makes their new neighbors uncomfortable.  It’s considered “politically incorrect” to fight too hard, as the new émigrés have advocates who consider trying to get them to fit in a form of racism.  Like the companies building on greenfields, the path of least resistance is moving further out.

 

 

Why did the government(s) support the infrastructure of “sprawl”? 

 

1) In 1952, Dwight Eisenhower was elected President.  As the commanding general of the Allied armies in Europe, he saw the tremendous advantages that mobility provided to the US Army.  He also saw how useful the Autobahn system was to the defending Germans.  An interstate highway system made sense from a military standpoint, as well as being popular.

 

2) Dispersion of the population was seen as a potential advantage during a nuclear war.

 

3) It was popular.  In a free society, government will be the follower at least as often as it will be the leader.  People were moving out to the suburbs for their own reasons.  These people wanted freeways and infrastructure.  They tended to be higher income, and therefore paid more taxes.  Perhaps most importantly:  they were now “in play” on a partisan political basis.  These former city dwellers were out from under the thumbs of the big city machines.  Indeed, in many cases (Cleveland among the most profound) one of the first things they did was protected themselves from possible annexation by the cities.  They were an opportunity to the Republicans, a potential loss to the Democrats. 

 

Meanwhile, back in the cities there was no strong opposition to their desires.  Some city leaders perhaps, but not their people.  They didn’t resent the suburbs, they hoped to eventually get there.  Some intellectuals and aspiring planners may have opposed it, but their opposition was politically insignificant.  By the time political opposition to sprawl coalesced, they were already up against a silent majority….one unlikely to remain silent if thwarted politically.  Economic considerations, of course, would not arise until the environmental movement gained prominence and the Arab oil embargo permanently impacted the gasoline supply.

 

4) The 1980 election.  One of the most important issues in this election was whether or not growth would be limited politically or only economically.  Political control (and limitation) of growth lost.  Reagan made the case that the government could help obtain resources rather than merely control them, and with the help of the Saudis, he delivered.

^An impeccably rationalized argument in favor of the policies and practices that will have us draped over a barrel for the foreseeable future.

Does anyone think sprawl is something that was intentionally created, or did it happen on its own,

 

Sprawl would have happened anyway, since it was a response to the widespread availability of automobiles.

 

One can see it already starting up in the 1920s, maybe earlier, where land developement started to get decoupled from mass transit.  Or places that were platted in response to mass transit in the early 1900s(in Dayton and Louisville it was in response to interurban railroads) became early auto-suburbs in the 1920s.  During the 1920s one also started to see the first suburbs develop independent of any transit, although they didn’t look like“suburbia”, with the spaghetti streets and cul-de-sacs, as they usually followed the grid plan.

 

So in the 1920s maybe there was sort of a learning curve as people became aware of the possibilities of the auto.  In the 1930s &early‘40s the Depression and war intervened, so the lessons learned couldn’t be applied

 

In Louisville’s case on saw farms subdivided into mini-farms or plats along country roads---this was happening in the 1920s already.  The housing types were foursquares or local variants of the bungalow(andin the 1930s & early 40smock-tudor cottage & cape cod).

 

In Sacramento the old Mexican ranchos around the city were subdivided into “irrigation colonies”, which was a ranchette/mini-farm concept.  These became further subdivided into house lots.  Some of these were the first auto suburbs, accessible only bycar.

 

In Dayton on saw plats start up remote from transit lines, out in Fairborn, off Gettysburg, out in Mad River Township, among other places.

 

So we dont't see this type of development as sprawl because it usually doesnt look like conventional postwar suburbia, but it was the start of it.

 

 

 

Before I respond, I want to again reiterate my definition of urban sprawl: the outward expansion of a metropolitan region that happens so quickly that it causes overall metropolitan population densities to decline, existing neighborhoods to suffer losses of population and wealth, economic isolation of the urban poor, increases in urban crime, duplication of public infrastructure, rising pollution and fossil-fuel dependency and per-capita tax burdens at the metropolitan level to rise.

 

So since sprawl is man-made, it is the intentional result of reactions and plans by human beings. Mother nature didn't create it and we aren't having to "deal with" the hand we've been dealt. We dealt it. When a majority of people opted for sprawl based on the information available at the time, we chose sprawl. Or, at least we put pro-sprawl people in positions of power for reasons of fear, hope, choice or absence of better alternatives.

 

Humans respond to all kinds of stimuli that ultimately influence their decisions. Decisions are almost always made "in the moment" and are often regretted after the moment has passed and can be viewed with some broader perspective. Here's a broader perspective:  humans are social creatures and have lived only one way (amongst and with each other) for thousands of years. Then, 60 years ago, we chose to live in an entirely new way for the first time ever. Why? Because we in America were living in an amazing and unique shangri-la. Unlike every other civilized nation on the planet, we largely avoided structural damage from the most devastating war in human history. Our residential, industrial and societal infrastructures far exceeded those in of other infrastructures elsewhere in the world. No one could compete with us. With our wealth, we acquired things like cars, bought housing for the first time, and put those homes on ever larger lots. Why? Because we and we alone could afford to do so.

 

Our governmental policies were adjusted to support that lifestyle. Those policies supported new interests, like road builders, car manufacturers and oil companies. They, in turn, sponsored more elected officials who agreed with their policies and made those interests more powerful. The feedback loop began. Today, it's hard to differentiate the corporations from the government in our lovely little corpocracy. The net effect is that government policies supporting post-war sprawl have become institutionalized.

 

While it's true that some parts of the civilized world want to be like us -- drive cars and live in big suburban homes -- don't kid yourself. The world has a long way to go to be like us. Even where there is sprawl in Europe, it is much more walkable, transit-accessible and mixed use than what we see in the U.S. New suburbs in Europe have more in common with Lakewood and Cleveland Heights than Brunswick, Avon Lake or Mentor. The amazing development of cities in China and other Pacific Rim nations has more in common with skyscraper-studded densities of New York City or Chicago than it does with car-centric sprawlvilles like Orlando or Houston.

 

Like I said before, decision are made in the moment. And the moment that gave rise to this brief epoch of American-style urban sprawl is over. We are no longer the sole economic survivor of World War II. We are increasingly getting lost in a crowd of growing economic powerhouses. Worse, we no longer live in a horn of plenty. Because of the recovery and modernization of the rest of the world, resources are looking less and less profuse. Because of how we uniquely redeveloped and horizontally expanded our cities over the last 60 years amid plenty, America is perhaps at greatest risk among the industrial powers in this new world of scarcity.

 

That's why I believe sprawl is an endangered species. I'm sorry it's going to take an oil-depleted calamity to cause change. A lot of good Americans are going to be hurt by this. That calamity is starting to hit us now. Absent a stunning technological breakthrough in renewable energy, no civilized nation is going to be hit harder than ours.

 

The post-war climb of America's wealth was stunning and certainly a highlight for the history books. That's probably the only place we'll be able to enjoy it in the future.

The key in sprawl discussions is to separate the expansion of the suburbs from actual sprawl. KJP gives a pretty useful definition of sprawl. Cities will expand geographically. It is what they do unless there are rampaging hordes. The question is how. Sometimes de-densification isn't a bad thing, see Cincinnati's West End and OTR in the post-Civil War period. However, what happened after WWII was usually sprawl. The harder nut to crack is in drawing the line between suburban growth and sprawl.

some very good posts made here in the past few days.  Thank you all for taking the time to outline some longer posts on this subject.  I learned a lot.

The sprawl discussion is fascinating from a historic POV, as how we got to where we are.

 

. Sometimes de-densification isn't a bad thing, see Cincinnati's West End and OTR in the post-Civil War period. However, what happened after WWII was usually sprawl.

 

What happened after the war seems to be, at least at first, a de-densification as there was a lot of wartime overcrowding, depending on the city.

 

That was particularly the case with Dayton due to the large base here as well as war production industry. 

 

This tracks with ERocc’s observations.  The form this de-densification took was auto-oriented suburbia.  Another form was blacks moving out of overcrowded ghettos into older white neighborhoods, so the ghetto itself became less.

The harder nut to crack is in drawing the line between suburban growth and sprawl.

 

Is any auto-oriented suburban growth sprawl?  It seems all new postwar suburbia was more or less auto oriented, including the few planned communities that incorporated pedestrian circulation and carless green space.

 

Sprawl was there because technology permitted it.  Beyond that it’s cultural, and ERoccs comments show how that is.  The agrarian/frontier/wilderness bias in US culture has a lot to do with our preferred places:  the rural landscape and the small town & the “wilderness” ( national parks, nature preserves, etc).  The place of the “urban” in national culture is more tenuous and negative.

 

There is also the issue of time.  Before the automobile one was governed by transit schedules:  having to wait on a streetcar, making transfers, etc, that added time the journey to work or to go shopping.  This could be inconvenient and also unpleasant during bad weather.  Shopping for food was also governed by lack of refrigeration, so one had to make frequent trips (usually on foot) to the grocery or market.

 

The automobile permitted an uncoupling from transit, meaning the downtime due to frequent stops, transfers, and just “waiting” was recouped, meaning more free time.  And free time was a big issue for the working class in the past, hence the fight for the 8 hour day:  “8 hours for work, 8 hours for sleep, 8 hours for what we will”;  and having a car meant more time “for what we will”.

 

Then modern refrigeration (starting in the 1920s) permitted large scale home cold storage of perishables, which permitted bulk purchases perhaps on a weekly basis rather than daily.  Hence supermarkets became viable, especially since cars were available to carry the food from market to home:  walkability to shopping no longer was necessary, nor were frequent trips to market or corner stores.  Trading areas for grocery stores expanded  from the walkable two or three blocks of the corner store, to the neighborhood scale of the early supermarkets, then beyond that.

 

This grocery thing is just one example.  The point is that with sprawl it’s more complex than one thinks; multiple factors are at play, and they reinforce each other and lead to other consequences that act as positive feedbacks to sprawl.

 

Now with higher gas prices there is going to be a negative feedback.  I guess what suprises me is that the excessive commuting times in some places aren’t acting as a brake on sprawl.  I guess that’s where the cultural preference of owning a freestanding house in a rural/small town place trumps time and travel cost.

 

Ghost Towns In Sprawl Land

^ wow -- great on the money screed.

 

wait a sec, was that the weekly rag freetimes? *rubs eyes* well whaddayaknow?

 

Am I crackpot or did the GI Bill have a hand in the shift to sprawl type development in the 1950's by providing mortgages to a large population of WWII veterans that may have not access to money to buy a new house before?

 

^ Well, they could have used the money to buy an old house or townhouse. Of course, the ones building the suburbs were focused like lasers on getting young military families to sign on the dotted line.

An excellent, thoughtful column in the Free Times. Wow!

 

As for the GI Bill, returning GIs couldn't buy homes in the city because they weren't for sale. It's hard for many of us to understand now, but few people owned their homes prior to World War II. So much of what was available were rental homes, apartments or corporate housing built and run by industries. The latter was very pervasive. Much of Birdtown in Lakewood was built and owned by Union Carbide at West 117th and Madison. So were other entire neighborhoods in Cleveland. The entire city of McDonald, Ohio, midway between Youngstown and Warren, was built by U.S. Steel. That included everything from the town hall, to the corner store to all of the pre-WWII homes.

 

The GI Bill was the response to our nation's failure to care for returning veterans after World War I. Many were so destitute they rioted while protesting in Washington D.C. Our nation's response was a shameful act of neglect. So when the GI's returned from WWII, we didn't want to make the mistake twice.

 

The GI Bill gave returning vets access to education and a home. But there were few homes for sale in the cities and no room to build new ones. The only place to build them was in the suburbs. We think of sprawl today as the rapid outward development of a metro area. Well you haven't seen sprawl if you didn't live in the 1950s. My father tells me of entire suburbs like Fairview Park, Brook Park, Brooklyn, and Maple Heights and South Euclid getting built out in as little as a decade.

 

Many of the public policies to provide infrastructure in support of that real estate development became institutionalized. The remain today. To change those policies would seriously disrupt the corporate-governmental powerbase in our nation's corpocracy. I don't see it changing internally. So short of a revolution by the huddled masses (won't happen either since we're too fat and TV-trained) or an economic calamity like peak oil (more likely), our status quo will endure.

Am I crackpot or did the GI Bill have a hand in the shift to sprawl type development in the 1950's by providing mortgages to a large population of WWII veterans that may have not access to money to buy a new house before?

 

In effect that may be true.  But the reality was there was a housing shortage.  The veterans who were getting these mortgages weren't leaving behind their own houses, and many weren't leaving behind their own rental housing.  They were getting out of their parents' or in-laws' basement. 

 

The highways that most people mean when they talk about government subsidy of "sprawl" came later.  They were more a reaction than a proactive effort to disperse the population. 

Here's an article about the swing away from urban sprawl and back toward the urban center.

(from The Atlantic magazone)

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/subprime/3

 

An interesting point on page 3...

 

"This future is not likely to wear well on suburban housing. Many of the inner-city neighborhoods that began their decline in the 1960s consisted of sturdily built, turn-of-the-century row houses, tough enough to withstand being broken up into apartments, and requiring relatively little upkeep. By comparison, modern suburban houses, even high-end McMansions, are cheaply built. Hollow doors and wallboard are less durable than solid-oak doors and lath-and-plaster walls. The plywood floors that lurk under wood veneers or carpeting tend to break up and warp as the glue that holds the wood together dries out; asphalt-shingle roofs typically need replacing after 10 years. Many recently built houses take what structural integrity they have from drywall—their thin wooden frames are too flimsy to hold the houses up. "

 

^There is nothing nastier-looking than thin carpet over plywood flooring 5 years on. I've seen it time and again. Anything (affordable) built after 1980 is garbage.

^Agree!     My buddies new house is not even two months old yet drywall screws are popping through the drywall on just about every wall.

 

I strongly recommend NOT buying a Maple Street Home!!!!

An excellent, thoughtful column in the Free Times. Wow!

 

As for the GI Bill, returning GIs couldn't buy homes in the city because they weren't for sale. It's hard for many of us to understand now, but few people owned their homes prior to World War II. So much of what was available were rental homes, apartments or corporate housing built and run by industries. The latter was very pervasive. Much of Birdtown in Lakewood was built and owned by Union Carbide at West 117th and Madison. So were other entire neighborhoods in Cleveland. The entire city of McDonald, Ohio, midway between Youngstown and Warren, was built by U.S. Steel. That included everything from the town hall, to the corner store to all of the pre-WWII homes.

 

The GI Bill was the response to our nation's failure to care for returning veterans after World War I. Many were so destitute they rioted while protesting in Washington D.C. Our nation's response was a shameful act of neglect. So when the GI's returned from WWII, we didn't want to make the mistake twice.

 

The GI Bill gave returning vets access to education and a home. But there were few homes for sale in the cities and no room to build new ones. The only place to build them was in the suburbs. We think of sprawl today as the rapid outward development of a metro area. Well you haven't seen sprawl if you didn't live in the 1950s. My father tells me of entire suburbs like Fairview Park, Brook Park, Brooklyn, and Maple Heights and South Euclid getting built out in as little as a decade.

 

Many of the public policies to provide infrastructure in support of that real estate development became institutionalized. The remain today. To change those policies would seriously disrupt the corporate-governmental powerbase in our nation's corpocracy. I don't see it changing internally. So short of a revolution by the huddled masses (won't happen either since we're too fat and TV-trained) or an economic calamity like peak oil (more likely), our status quo will endure.

 

Well since this is a result of said masses un-huddling to increase their comfort, I'd say the odds are against revolution.  Indeed, an attempt to forcibly reverse the trend is more likely mass unrest.  As for oil, Americans have a way of coming up with unintended solutions to problems than confound experts and planners, and may or may not conform to the original intent of same.  CAFE standards for cars are the classic case:  they triggered not the sale of smaller cars but the sale of vans and SUVs.

 

Here's another "unintended consequence":  the environmental movement.  As Ken points out, people who worked for a company used to live in close proximity to the plant.  They'd be far less likely to complain about noise, smells, etc....for that was their livelihood.  Nor did they worry very much about their property values.

 

It's also correct that industries developed that reacted to the spread-out, and continue to push for more.  Home builders are one.  Another is the highway construction industry.  The latter shows the reactive nature of these "subsidies":  the two biggest sprawl fueled highway projects, the completions of I-480 and US 422, happened after the communities they service were already there.  Two other big projects, I-490 and the Jennings, are as much urban infill as suburban-access.  I-271s express lanes are a special case (meant to serve a corporate HQ that has yet to happen), but they also represent the continuing impact of an industry built to service spread-out.

 

In retrospect, it amazes me that we've discussed "sprawl" this long without touching on the real triggers in postwar America:  the housing shortage of the late 1940s and the subsequent baby boom.  The cultural and economic forces in sprawl's favor were so strong that any political effort to rein it in was doomed to failure.  Once out of the bottle, the genie wasn't going back in willingly.

 

 

Very true. The housing shortage was a big factor, but you've noted the baby boom. I'm amazed it took us so long to get to that aspect.

 

Funny thing is, you look at the populations of places like Lakewood and Parma. Both saw their populations peak in 1970 (Lakewood at 70,000, Parma at 100,000). The subequent loss of population (Lakewood is now 54,000 and Parma 85,000) wasn't the result of abandonment, but the change in how many people were living in the average home. In 1970, there were probably 4-8 people or more in each household. Today, homes may have families of just three people, or have an empty-nested couple or have a young or elderly single person living in each home. Point is, you've got fewer people living in more homes throughout the metro area.

 

This trend could change. Since de-industrialization set in starting in the 1980s, Americans aren't making as much money as they used to. It takes more income earners per household to make a go of that household. More people make start rooming together to make ends meet, or living closer to where they work, or living closer to shopping and transportation options. As incomes flatten and costs of living rise, we may be going back to our pre-war standards of living -- not being able to afford our own home, owning just one car (or none) per household and not having the kinds of big appliances and amenities our parents and grandparents enjoyed.

 

Like I said in an earlier post, we were the pre-eminent economic power after World War II since we avoided war-time damage to our industries, cities and transportation systems. Our remarkable wealth in those post-war decades was a unique situation which may not be repeated for sometime. Urban growth and sprawl were a result of all those factors coming together during a special time in our nation's history. I don't believe those factors apply anymore, and we're just sprawling out of institutionalized momentum today. That's just not sustainable anymore and I suspect the foreclosure crisis, gas prices and other economic problems are a result of that lack of sustainability.

This link is somewhat relevant. 

 

How does a popular suburban waterpark (Surf Cincinnati) in the northern burbs of Cincy end up looking like this after being abandoned 6 years ago?

 

Possibly, an eerie glimpse into the future of the burbs.

 

http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com/surf_cincinnati.htm

Wow. That's a lot of decay for six years!

^There is nothing nastier-looking than thin carpet over plywood flooring 5 years on. I've seen it time and again. Anything (affordable) built after 1980 is garbage.

 

AMEN AMEN AMEN.  I like my pre war homes!

This link is somewhat relevant. 

 

How does a popular suburban waterpark (Surf Cincinnati) in the northern burbs of Cincy end up looking like this after being abandoned 6 years ago?

 

Possibly, an eerie glimpse into the future of the burbs.

 

http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com/surf_cincinnati.htm

 

In his book The World Without Us, Alan Weisman talks about most modern houses being unidentifiable within 100 years of abandonment, possibly only remnants of the chimney remaining. I referenced the book <a href="http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,2170.msg274708.html#msg274708">here</a>. Great read, and cold consolation that as soon as we skedaddle, most of all this world will be back to normal in a relative blink of an eye. 

^Interesting!    I have missed that thread along the way.

This link is somewhat relevant. 

 

How does a popular suburban waterpark (Surf Cincinnati) in the northern burbs of Cincy end up looking like this after being abandoned 6 years ago?

 

Possibly, an eerie glimpse into the future of the burbs.

 

http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com/surf_cincinnati.htm

 

Scary.  Listening to Boards of Canada and purusing those images is an eerie experience.

Very true. The housing shortage was a big factor, but you've noted the baby boom. I'm amazed it took us so long to get to that aspect.

 

Funny thing is, you look at the populations of places like Lakewood and Parma. Both saw their populations peak in 1970 (Lakewood at 70,000, Parma at 100,000). The subequent loss of population (Lakewood is now 54,000 and Parma 85,000) wasn't the result of abandonment, but the change in how many people were living in the average home. In 1970, there were probably 4-8 people or more in each household. Today, homes may have families of just three people, or have an empty-nested couple or have a young or elderly single person living in each home. Point is, you've got fewer people living in more homes throughout the metro area.

 

This trend could change. Since de-industrialization set in starting in the 1980s, Americans aren't making as much money as they used to. It takes more income earners per household to make a go of that household. More people make start rooming together to make ends meet, or living closer to where they work, or living closer to shopping and transportation options. As incomes flatten and costs of living rise, we may be going back to our pre-war standards of living -- not being able to afford our own home, owning just one car (or none) per household and not having the kinds of big appliances and amenities our parents and grandparents enjoyed.

 

Like I said in an earlier post, we were the pre-eminent economic power after World War II since we avoided war-time damage to our industries, cities and transportation systems. Our remarkable wealth in those post-war decades was a unique situation which may not be repeated for sometime. Urban growth and sprawl were a result of all those factors coming together during a special time in our nation's history. I don't believe those factors apply anymore, and we're just sprawling out of institutionalized momentum today. That's just not sustainable anymore and I suspect the foreclosure crisis, gas prices and other economic problems are a result of that lack of sustainability.

 

The thing is, we could have been having this discussion during the late 70s and saying the same things.  I'm not sure what the inflation rate has averaged since 1978, but if it's 4%, then $1 gas then equals $4.32 gas now.  Yet it didn't just continue, but if anything it accelerated.  Apparently, it's something people are pretty determined to find a way to do.  We don't necessarily need cheap oil....we need cheap automotive fuel.  Keep that in mind.

 

By the way, we missed another point that triggered postwar sprawl:  racism.  Blacks flocked to the northern cities during World War II because industries would actually hire them and the military was still not all that interested.  I suspect most of the white posters here are old enough to have relatives from that era whose attitudes make it clear how welcome the idea of integration was.  Many former ethnic neighborhoods became black, and the whites flocked out to the suburbs.  Busing in the 70s created a "second wave" of flight and also solidified anti-regionalism attitudes.

 

More sprawl.

 

And no presidential candidates are saying anything about it.

 

To me, this is what's scariest about the 2008 election. How the hell are we supposed to survive if we don't start seriously putting an end to sprawl and low density, wasteful development?

 

Good point.  I think the Democrats should run on a strong anti-suburban living platform.  :evil:

I suspect most of the white posters here are old enough to have relatives from that era whose attitudes make it clear how welcome the idea of integration was.  Many former ethnic neighborhoods became black, and the whites flocked out to the suburbs.  Busing in the 70s created a "second wave" of flight and also solidified anti-regionalism attitudes.

 

 

...in my case old enough to actually remember it.  I definetly remember bussing in the 1970s.

 

It wasn't just white flight.  There was a big "pull factor" to postwar suburbia, to get away from congestion and living close together in the city (I'm thinking of my specific experiences with Chicago).  In my memory the blacks were indeed seen as a threat, but they were still far away, so the pull factor played more.

 

The bussing situation varied from place to place.  In Ohio with the balkanized school systems it was easy to run and have that us & them thing going on. 

 

The talk about dystopian suburbia makes me want to repost one of my Dayton threads..one of my suburban ones.  I posted it at another forum, not here, as I know the focus at UO is on "the positive", but its a good illustration of what you all are talking about, sort of the future visibly today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If one lived in a "changing neighborhood" the push factor might have been stronger.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The thing is, we could have been having this discussion during the late 70s and saying the same things.  I'm not sure what the inflation rate has averaged since 1978, but if it's 4%, then $1 gas then equals $4.32 gas now.  Yet it didn't just continue, but if anything it accelerated.  Apparently, it's something people are pretty determined to find a way to do.  We don't necessarily need cheap oil....we need cheap automotive fuel.   Keep that in mind.

 

I disagree that the fuel price issue is the same as the 1970s. Perhaps to the average joe who hasn't taken the time to understand the differences, it may all seem the same. And indeed the same conspiracy theories were at work then as now. In the 1970s, it was primarily geopolitically induced. Today, it's a supply-demand issue at its root, but we can debate this at the peak-oil thread. The price of oil and gasoline slid back after the early 1980s and stayed low until the early 2000s...

 

 

I agree wholeheartedly that racism is a huge factor in sprawl. I've been debating how I wanted to approach the subject. I guess the best way is simply to point out that the migration of southern blacks to the north after WWII was probably one of the largest and least documented or understood migratory patterns of human in U.S. history (at least as far as the white majority is concerned). Few whites in the north saw the mechanization of southern farming coming. Few in the north realized that plentiful unskilled industrial jobs would be the place to which southern blacks would flee. And few in the north knew how large the numbers of migrants would be, or how to deal with the issues of housing them, or dealing with ignorance, racism and hate through understand -- not flight.

 

And so began another migratory pattern -- middle-class whites to the 'burbs.

 

No migration patterns ever stay the continuous. Something ultimately changes the movements and I believe we are at the start of the next movement. This is going to be fascinating....

 

Good point.  I think the Democrats should run on a strong anti-suburban living platform.  :evil:

 

Lord knows the Republicans have the anti-everywhere living platform locked down.

I guess the best way is simply to point out that the migration of southern blacks to the north after WWII was probably one of the largest and least documented or understood migratory patterns of human in U.S. history (at least as far as the white majority is concerned). Few whites in the north saw the mechanization of southern farming coming. Few in the north realized that plentiful unskilled industrial jobs would be the place to which southern blacks would flee.

 

I've heard this called "the Second Great Migration" (the first was the one that kicked in after 1910).  Another  thing few saw was that those plentiful unskilled jobs of, say, the 1940s, wouldn't last....

I guess the best way is simply to point out that the migration of southern blacks to the north after WWII was probably one of the largest and least documented or understood migratory patterns of human in U.S. history (at least as far as the white majority is concerned). Few whites in the north saw the mechanization of southern farming coming. Few in the north realized that plentiful unskilled industrial jobs would be the place to which southern blacks would flee.

 

I've heard this called "the Second Great Migration" (the first was the one that kicked in after 1910).  Another  thing few saw was that those plentiful unskilled jobs of, say, the 1940s, wouldn't last....

 

The migrations actually kicked in during World Wars I and II, as military needs left a lot of industrial jobs open.

I don't know if I've posted these before from my collection....

 

This is Cuyahoga County in 1948, when the county had about 1.4 million residents and still rising. The red areas represent developed land:

 

 

This is Cuyahoga County in 2002, when the county had about 1.4 million residents and falling from a 1970 peak of 1.8 million. Again, the red areas represent developed land:

 

 

I can't think of any maps (combined with the 1.4 million population figure) that would more accurately describe what urban sprawl really is. Perhaps the only maps that would do a better job is if the surrounding counties were also included!

^God Bless America.

that's not urban sprawl, that's progress!

 

In retrospect, it amazes me that we've discussed "sprawl" this long without touching on the real triggers in postwar America:  the housing shortage of the late 1940s and the subsequent baby boom.  The cultural and economic forces in sprawl's favor were so strong that any political effort to rein it in was doomed to failure.  Once out of the bottle, the genie wasn't going back in willingly.

 

 

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Actually, the post-war housing shortage did not have much to do with sprawl. The need for new housing does not automatically mean a need for les-dense housing in use-segregated communities dependent on the automobile.

Id love to gin up some maps like that for Montgomery County, but I think I'd have to add Greene County to really get the full picture.

 

 

In retrospect, it amazes me that we've discussed "sprawl" this long without touching on the real triggers in postwar America:  the housing shortage of the late 1940s and the subsequent baby boom.  The cultural and economic forces in sprawl's favor were so strong that any political effort to rein it in was doomed to failure.  Once out of the bottle, the genie wasn't going back in willingly.

 

 

[/b][/color]

 

Actually, the post-war housing shortage did not have much to do with sprawl. The need for new housing does not automatically mean a need for les-dense housing in use-segregated communities dependent on the automobile.

 

In theory, perhaps it didn't not.  But it was the least expensive option for developers (and therefore for customers) and a comfortable option for most.

 

As we've been discussing for many pages, there were many factors which came together.  The housing shortage provided need.  The expansion of the black population and the desire of war-weary veterans for peace, quiet, and breathing space provided additional motivation.  The familiarity with motorized transportation provided the method. 

 

It was a "sociological" perfect storm that probably could not have been stopped except by the most authoritarian of governments.