The Road to SprawlThe Road to Sprawl

OriginsOrigins

• anti-urban ideologies of Howard, Wright, etc.• streetcar suburbs (e.g. Riverside)• Federally insured (FHA) home loans from 1933

– term was lengthened from 5-10 to 20-30– Federal Govt. insured lenders in case of foreclosure– Veterans Administration (GI-bill) created no-down

payment loans• FAHA: Federally-subsidized highway

construction (states ended up paying 10%)– Congress creates a form of corporate welfare under

hard lobbying from the “road gang”: oil, car, and tire corporations

• Automobile dependency of American society

The Post-War House (from 1940s)

A new model of the “good life”

H. Gans “Levittowners”

• Studied residents of 1st mass-produced housing (William Levitt → Levittown, NY and NJ) late 1940s

• Middle-class values were being asserted vs. working class and upper middle class

• Class conflict was not explicit but was evident in struggles over public services such as fire protection, libraries, and schools (Herbert Gans)

• While they were wealthy enough to apply “all-of-the-above” philosophy, their model of community (no taxes, every family for itself) led to an “either/or” philosophy and consequently to class struggle

Levitt’s New Urban Dream

Peter Bacon Hales: http://tigger.uic.edu/~pbhales/Levittown.html

What kind of community was left behind? (Jane Jacobs)

• stable• dense• proprietary attitude

toward neighborhood• informal maintenance

of order• “eyes on the street”• round-the-clock

activity• pedestrian space

(sidewalk)• mix of ages and uses• “sidewalk ballet”

Photo: New Deal Network, http://newdeal.feri.org/library/sg014.htm

The Street as Public Spacenot machine space

White Flight (from 1940s)

The Mall (from 1950s)

A purified realm

The Service-Oriented SuburbanOffice Building (from 1970s)

The Back Office (from 1980s)

Feeling a Bit Paranoid?

Gated Communities (from 1990s)

Centrifugal ForcesCentrifugal Forces

• classism• racism• federal policy• automobile

dependency• ageing infrastructure• inner-city crime• school quality• inner-city pollution

• What’s wrong with this list?

• The fact that it is a list!

Who Suffers from White Flight?

Cyclical RelationshipCyclical Relationship

DECENTRALIZATIONOF JOBS

INCREASINGCRIME &

TENSION ININNER CITY

FLIGHT OFAFFLUENT

POPULATIONS

Some New Urban LandscapesSome New Urban Landscapes

• Brownfields

• Greenfields

• Purified Residential Spaces

• Machine Spaces

• Automobile Graveyards

Brownfields

Brownfields

Greenfields

Really Really Green

Purified Residential Spaces

Machine Spaces

Automobile Graveyards

Discovery of the 1990sDiscovery of the 1990s

• If everyone wants to live where the rich live, only the really poor will be left in the inner city

• This will mean the city has no fiscal resources to address their problems

• Could it be that the way address the social problems of the inner city is to quit running away?

Remaining ProblemRemaining Problem

• Cities are increasingly based around the use of private, motorized transportation: cars, SUVs, light trucks, vans, motorcycles

• Pedestrian spaces are severely degraded– noise– air pollution– lack of access– separation of destinations

Cyclical RelationshipCyclical Relationship

SPRAWLINGLOW-DENSITY URBAN

MORPHOLOGY

INCREASINGDANGER &

INCONVENIENCETO PEDESTRIANS

DEPENDENCEON PRIVATEMOTORIZEDTRANSPORT

Much of this comes back to Much of this comes back to anti-urban ideologiesanti-urban ideologies

What are our

dreams of the “good life”?

Selling Anti-Urban Dreams

More Dreams …

The Role of Urban ImageryThe Role of Urban Imagery

ideologiesrelated tourban life

individualand collective

locationdecisions

exposureto certain situations

and not others

Anti-Urban Ideology in Ads

Small-Town Nostalgia

Confederate Nostalgia

Habitat Gain (for us)Habitat Loss (for wild species)

Deforestation

Exurban Development

Exurban Development

Living “in” Nature

Who Suffers from Exurban Development?

Is golfing a way to get in touch with “nature”?

Final ThoughtsFinal Thoughts

• If everyone wants to live “in nature” the rate of habitat destruction will continue to accelerate

• If everyone tries to get away from people who are poorer this amounts to imposing a travel-tax on the poor who must travel farther to access jobs, services, retail, useable public spaces, etc.

• Could it be that the way to improve our social lives and the environment is to quit running away from the city and start acting as if we intend to make the city our home?