The Suburban Paradox
San Ramon suburban sprawl 2005-10-15 057, originally uploaded by Exuberance.com
BiggestMediaMatt on The Suburbanist Paradox:
Whenever I say that one key pillar of a viable strategy to curb global warming ought to be efforts to promote high-density living arrangements, I'm invariably confronted by a kind of circular argument that Ross captures well here, channeling Joel Kotkin but with my emphasis added:
The traditional unipolar urban downtown isn't going to make a comeback: Young couples with families can't afford to live there, and aging Baby Boomers don't want to. The American city of the future will be more of an archipelago of suburbs than the kind of one-downtown organism bred by the Industrial Revolution: "We aren't creating more New Yorks and Chicagos; we're creating more Los Angeleses. (sic)
There's the paradox. The urbanist proposal isn't "hey, jerks, why don't you all move to dense downtowns." Rather, the proposal is something like "why don't we impose carbon taxes so that things like driving long distances and heating or cooling large detached structures are priced in accordance with their social cost? Why don't we stop having the federal government heavily subsidize driving cars as the preferred mode of transportation? Why don't we have more areas that allow for high-density zoning, thus reducing the cost of urban housing?" It's not that we urbanists are unaware that many people live in low density areas because its (sic) cheaper, it's precisely that we are aware of this fact that makes us believe that the "traditional unipolar downtown" could make a comeback.
The idea that urbanity consists of only a unipolar urban downtown
is quite rubbish: anyone been to New York City, Los Angeles or even Minneapolis? No one wants to take your car away, only better distribute the massive monies and subsidies pouring forth as a sea of asphalt into transportation types which are functionally better and more democratic. Additionally, the scare words central planning
(c.f.) which inevitable come up, much to my comrade's dismay, is so fucking inane; please tell me who exactly plans & pays for the massive amounts of new sewer, water, road & the sundries of governmental services suburbs require?
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This is the permanent home of The Suburban Paradox. I wrote this post at 17:51 on July 5, 2007. This post is part of grubbykid.com, a weblog. If you liked this entry, why don't you read some other posts such as The Tysons Corner that Could Be or Soldiers out of Cable? Or you could go to the site archives or return home. All are good choices.
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