Pattern of Growth is Dysfunctional
Dear President-elect Obama:
The suburban model of the American dream is dead. The real estate meltdown is more than a crisis of credit structures; it is a manifestation of the fact that many of our communities are unsustainable. Sprawl is increasingly out of sync with today's culture and demographics. It is out of sync with our most profound economic and environmental challenges. Over the last decades our household makeup has changed dramatically, the work place and work force have been transformed, average family wealth is shrinking, and serious environmental concerns – climate change -- have surfaced. But we continued to build post-World War II suburbs as if all families were large and had only one breadwinner, as if land and energy were endless, and as if another lane on the freeway would end traffic congestion.
These patterns of growth have become more and more dysfunctional. Finally they have come to produce environments that often frustrate rather than enhance everyday life. Suburban sprawl increases pollution and oil dependence, saps inner-city development, and generates enormous costs – costs that ultimately must be paid by taxpayers, consumers, businesses, and the environment. The problems are not to be solved by limiting development -- they must be resolved by fundamentally rethinking the nature and quality of the communities we create.
We need a new paradigm of growth that combines the ideal of integrated and heterogeneous communities with the realities of our time - the imperatives of ecology, affordability, equity, and innovation. Our communities must be designed to reestablish and reinforce the public domain, they must be human-scaled and walkable, and our neighborhoods must be diverse in use and population. And finally, the form and identity of the metropolis must integrate historic context, unique ecologies, and a comprehensive regional structure.
Mr. President it is time to redefine the American Dream. We must make it more accessible to our diverse population: singles, the working poor, the elderly, and the pressed middle-class families who can no longer afford the "Ozzie and Harriet" version of the good life. Certain traditional values - diversity, community, frugality, and human scale - should be the foundation of a new direction for both a New American Dream and a New American Metropolis.
The alternative to sprawl is simple and timely: compact neighborhoods of housing, parks, and schools placed within walking distance of shops, civic services, jobs, and transit - a modern version of the traditional town. The convenience of the car and the opportunity to walk or use transit can be blended in an environment with local access for all the daily needs of a diverse community. It is a strategy that could preserve open space, support transit, reduce auto traffic, and create affordable neighborhoods. Applied at the regional scale, a network of such mixed-use neighborhoods could create order in our balkanized metropolis. It could balance inner-city development with suburban investment by organizing growth around expanding transit systems and setting defensible urban limit lines and greenbelts. The increments of infill in each neighborhood would be small, but the aggregate could accommodate regional growth with minimum environmental impacts; less land consumed, less traffic generated, and less pollution produced.
The design of our communities determines the basic impact we will have on the natural environment. Cars turn each outing into more air pollution, congestion, and pavement. Storm drains and parking lots divert water from the land and concentrate the outflow of pollution. Flood control projects sanitize and destroy the complex ecosystems of our riparian zones. Artificial landscapes displace indigenous species with water-demanding imported plant life. Our architecture ignores the benefits of climate-responsive design and consumes more energy than needed. And we allow the constant erosion of agricultural lands and open space at the metropolitan edge. Each of these elements of modern American life, whether by design or the unanticipated effect of our technology, adds to the environmental crisis of growth.
If we are now to reinvest in-America, careful consideration should be given to what kind of America we want to create. Our investments in transit must be supported by land use patterns that put riders and jobs within an easy walk of stations. Our investments in affordable housing should place families in neighborhoods where they can save dollars by using their autos less. Our investments in open space should reinforce regional greenbelts and urban limit lines. Our investments in highways should not unwittingly support sprawl, inner-city disinvestment, or random job decentralization. Our investments in inner-cities and urban businesses ought to be linked by transit to the larger region, not isolated by gridlock. Our planning and zoning codes should help create communities, not sprawl.
Using the power of the federal government to promote Sustainable Communities requires an integrated approach that would include a wide range of federal agencies and federal programs. A concerted and integrated effort is required, especially in four areas:
- In the area of transportation, the federal government must continue to move away from a bias toward highway projects and reform its analytical techniques in a way that will tie together the construction of transit lines with the creation of transit-oriented development.
- In environmental policy, regulation and federal investments that protect air quality, wildlife habitat, and open space must be implemented with the recognition that these programs are actually helping to reinforce regional open-space systems.
- In providing credit financing for private housing projects, the federal government must move beyond its historic orientation toward “plain vanilla” single family housing and move instead to encourage more construction of multifamily housing, urban redevelopment, mixed-use developments, and other innovative projects.
- In revitalizing communities, the federal government must focus on preserving and enhancing the diversity, the walkability, and the history of our urban neighborhoods, instead of promoting large-scale, “bricks-and-mortar” urban renewal.
The American Dream is an evolving story and the American City is its ever-changing stage. The two feed one another in a complex, interactive cycle. At one point the dream can move us to a new vision of the city and community; at another the reflection of the city transforms that dream with harsh realities or alluring opportunities. We are at a point of transformation once again and the two, city and dream, must change together. World War II created a distinct model for each: the nuclear family in the suburban landscape. That model and its physical expression is now stressed beyond retention. The family has grown more complex and diverse, while the suburban form has grown less sustainable or accessible. The need for fundamental change is blatant, with sprawl reaching its limits, communities fracturing into enclaves, and families seeking more inclusive identities. Just as federal policy set the stage for sprawl with massive investments in freeways and VA loans it must now support a new direction through investments in transit and Sustainable Communities. Clearly we need a new paradigm of development; a new vision of the American Metropolis and a new image for the American Dream.