The shrinking economics of suburban living

This last weekend, I had occasion to drive through the suburbs around my part of the city. Truth be told, my community comes as close to suburban living in the city as you can get: tree-lined streets, two SUV in every driveway, commuter rail instead of the “L”. Every time I drive through these suburbs, I see more and more examples of the level of automobile-dependency they have. Every task requires a car. Except for a few, rare cases, even a trip to the park requires a car. Little league, a run for ice cream, a trip to grab a gallon of milk…all these require firing up the minivan.

It came as a bit of a surprise, then, to see the Holly Richmond’s post in Grist yesterday that highlights a Sightlines Institute’s map comparing the layout of Seattle with the layout of Bellevue, WA. The stark contrast in the map highlights the suggestion that getting places in the suburbs takes too much time and effort to allow for walking. Even getting one-half block as the crow flies could take as much as a mile’s travel. This places a strain on resources, and requires that those who live there have the means for both the home ownership costs and the cost of multiple vehicles to support their family of four.

Sightline Institute

This would pose problems enough for the middle, upper middle, and upper classes as the cost of maintaining roads and providing fuel continue to escalate ahead of inflation. The biggest issue comes from the fact that – as Marty McFly experienced – today’s shiny new suburb houses tomorrow’s lower and lower-middle class worker. Cities (and Chicago is definitely one of them) want to push their poor away from crumbling neighborhoods so that new money can come in and rebuild. This forces long-time residents of these communities to less desirable areas, and today, we increasingly see these isolated and transit-poor communities fitting that bill.

This phenomena starts with the generation coming into its own not wanting the same trappings their parents wanted, and ends with a new generation forced to deal with a future they do not have the resources to support. A majority of millenials (although not so easily pidgeon-holed) desire to live in areas where they can easily walk to meet their needs, and take transit to gain experiences. They like the energy of dense communities, and they increasingly see the value of raising families in these locations. As older Americans seek to retire and more to points more comfortable, they face the reality of selling their homes at depressed values, which means those getting pushed out by rising prices in the city must succumb to life in the suburbs to make ends meet. Unlike the city, however, the support infrastructure for lower-class survival does not exist. This places more strain on those who can least afford to cope.

The answer comes in two coincident activities: include the working class in neighborhood revitalization, and abandon the suburbs. The suburban experiment has failed, and many of them need their own form of revitalization - the kind that comes from a bulldozer and a wrecking ball. Several, especially older, suburbs actually once stood as small towns, with beautiful main streets, and all the joy of small-town life. I do not speak of these, for they generally allow for people to survive with limited vehicle transportation, and they can easily adapt to modern, economic living. Those, like Bellevue, that form nothing but a rat's maze bent on isolation instead of integration, they need to go. This only happens if those whose neighborhoods feel the weight of gentrification have the opportunity to participate in the growth of where they live. The safest and most resilient areas of the country mix incomes in housing and development. The grand failures of public housing that sought to isolate classes contributed to the failure of communities, but when people of different classes coexist, their communities tend to survive.

We must fairly judge each time on its own merit. When the suburbs started to develop, fuel was cheap, and we had little (but not no) idea that we would create unmanageable behemoths. The point is not to denigrate those who moved there or live there, the point is to realize that we are at a point where we need to plan for how to abandon them and turn them into productive land again: whether that means land for growing, manufacturing, or living in a much more efficient way. We cannot, however, hold onto them as if they must be saved - our urban centers must be saved...our suburbs must be allowed to peacefully fade away.