The Fall of Suburbia

yes. eden prarie was a tiny town until the 1970s that just happened to get swallowed up by the twin cities sprawl. thus it does have some history and character of its own. other suburbs in the twin cities are already slummy: richfield, robbinsdale, fridley, crystal, brooklyn center, etc. any suburb in the midwest where more people rent than own is not a good place.

There are only a handful of places that match this description, and they're mostly pre-WWII vintage and right next to cities. Suburbia is overwhelmingly about strict zoning of housing, businesses, and entertainment and the use of highways to shuttle between the zones. This paradigm is breaking.

Suburbia never really worked in the first place. It was built because it made developers and road contractors rich, and they control local politics. At the national level the auto and highway lobby beat the street-car lobby.

Contrary to the claims of this article, there's little evidence people originally preferred the suburban paradigm. People had to move to suburbia in the post-war era because A) big businesses relocated jobs outside cities on sites requiring a car commute (the businesses moved first, not the housing); B) Suburban housing was all that was built. Loads of aging urban housing was simply ripped down and never replaced. The new housing was built in the suburbs. It's easy to spin this change in supply as a simple response to changing demand, but it was really concerted by all levels of the government along with politically connected business interests.

Arguably, there's also a reason C: city governments got too dysfunctional. But it's difficult to distinguish that as cause or correlation relative to A and B.

Technically, then, it's not a suburb. Depending on population, it's closer to an edge city. The fact is that suburban sprawl like one of the examples specifically decried in the article (Windy Ridge is less that 45 minutes from where I live) consists of acre upon acre of packed chipboard-and-vinyl houses that aren't designed to last without extraordinary upkeep. It's predicated upon the notion of cheap, readily available energy, never-ending road construction, and a continual stream of both upwardly-mobile homebuyers looking to move up to something nicer, and first-time homebuyers looking for something cheap they can sell at a profit in a few years.

It's simply not a sustainable model. Sooner or later the market will bust, and in the interim, there's a good chances these cheap-and-cheery neighborhoods will come apart at the seams. They aren't built worth a damn, and they're miles from critical services and commerce. It's already starting to happen here. I hate to think what'll happen if gas spikes and sticks.

(In the interest of full disclosure: I skipped right over "suburban" to "exurban" living. I have over an acre on the outskirts of a small town about 25 miles from the nearest big city. So I'm happy out here, too. But gas bills are already putting a crimp in my lifestyle, so that might well change.)

The article addresses this issue head-on with actual data, did you see that?

Our current lifestyle means 90% of the gas we buy is an unavoidable cost. If I (living in Lawrence, KS) decided to stop buying gas, or for some financial reason needed to buy less of it, I couldn't get to work, which would definitely make things worse. I also couldn't go buy food, or do much of anything else. People in Manhattan or any European city could probably cut back by using public transport, but that isn't a (realistic) option for me, and I suspect the vast majority of Americans are in a similar situation (if we are anything in Kansas, we are average). I'd be more likely to cut back on food and drop my cell phone than cut back on gas.

The only way to cut gas consumption is a more efficient car... or carpooling. Both are pretty drastic for the average person. Spending $30k to save on gas only makes sense sometimes, and setting up realistic carpooling is harder than paying $3/gallon.

So I bet gas could be $8 a gallon and you wouldn't see (significantly) lower consumption. Like you said, to think people will actually move just to save on gas is far fetched.

I'd move to an urban center just because I like being able to walk/ride everywhere (after living in Madrid)... not because gas is too expensive.

All signs are that "a lot more pain at the pump" is very much on the way.

Actually, they need cheap, undesirable housing, and not much else. Slum neighborhoods are more often characterized by their _lack_ of job opportunities, pay-by-the-hour or otherwise. This is one of the things that makes escaping a slum so difficult -- the need to pay to get to any kind of work that enables you to live.