Was somebody arguing that all malls are bad? Let alone that Fred Reed, James Kunstler and Bill Kauffman are philosophers? I missed those parts of the posting.

One fact that a surprising number of you bright people seem unaware of is that post-WWII US suburbia is anything but a spontaneous creation of the free market. There were suburbs before WWII, god knows. And the movement of some people from the city to the edges outside the city is apparently a constant in history.

But post-WWII US suburbia -- collector roads, cul de sacs, strict zoning separating retail, industry, and residential, and zero access to public transportation -- is something quite distinct, and quite a weird, never-before- seen-on-the-face- of-the-planet type creature.

Post-WWII suburbia is at least partly (if not largely) a function of a number of factors: government guarantees for home-mortgage loans; government sponsorship of freeway building (often said to be the largest civil engineering project in all history); a government-sponsored attack on city downtowns in the form of "urban renewal," which destroyed thousands of neighborhoods and hundreds of thousands of residences, and which forcibly displaced millions of citizens from their homes; and a handy-dandy tacit agreement between government and industry to support and encourage car culture.

Notice how many times the word "government" appears in the above paragraph.

OK, few people were forcibly moved to the new 'burbs (though some millions were indeed forcibly removed from their traditional city homes). But 1) that's a lot of carrots and sticks the country's elites were applying to its populace, and 2) that's a lot of top-down social engineering.

Viewing post-WWII American suburbia as "normal," let alone as something that developed spontaneously out of people's freely expressed preferences, is like ... oh, I don't know, arguing that Cheetos grow on trees. They may be your personal favorite treat-- but your fondness for Cheetos is not a trustworthy guarantee that Cheetos grow on trees. In fact, they're the product of a lot of food engineering. Which of course is OK. But let's at least recognize that there are a few differences between an apple and a Cheeto.

Now, would many people have moved to whatever kinds of 'burbs would have developed had the government not interfered, and if we'd all been left to our own devices? Could well be. Hard to know.

A couple of questions for you market types? (I'm one myself, with some reservations.)

1) You're moving to a new city area. You're going to have to choose a place to live. We could think of you as a "housing consumer" shopping for a "housing product" in something called the "housing market."

In and around many American cities the range of what's available to the housing consumer in the local housing market is rather small: depressed loser downtown, distant straggly farm not-quite-towns, and sprawl-style suburbs. That's it. That's quite a restricted set of choices -- and don't "market" types generally think that one of the great things about the market is that it offers consumers lots of options?

What if that same housing consumer were shopping in a housing market that offered more variety: some lively downtown neighborhoods, some small towns with actual walkable town centers, farm towns with town centers, as well as sprawl-suburbs. You may personally prefer sprawl-style suburbia. But how can you object to a housing market that offers a wider variety of choices? More choice is better, right? At least a lot of the time?

2) New Urbanist developments can be more usefully pictured as ways of opening up local housing markets than they can as attempts to dictate your life. There are some badguy/socialist types in the Smart Growth world who we all ought to be wary of. But most NU supporters are market fans. (They get a lot of flack for this from the usual academic-critical architecture establishment, btw.) And, thanks to NU, housing consumers in some markets have -- because of the presence of a NU development or two -- greater choice than they had before. Do you root against "greater choice" and a livelier market?

Another point here is that (to my knowledge, happy to learn better, etc) NU developments generally command a sizable premium over more routine housing developments. That's usually interpreted by market fans as a sign that a given product has a lot of as-yet-unmet demand out there, no?

So it would seem safe to suspect that a fair number of people in the U.S. would like to live in NU-style developments but currently can't, because not enough of them are available.

Why isn't a broader range of choice more widely available in US housing markets? Because our usual financing/zoning/development bureaucracies and structures make many kinds of developments impossible to construct. Really-truly: In many cities, given current practices and regulations, you literally cannot create a New Urbanist development - you can't even create a neighborhood in proven traditional styles -- despite the fact that all market indicators are that such developments are successful and liked.

Seems to me that a fair conclusion for a market fan to draw from the above is that many American housing markets are rigged -- and rigged against a kind of housing product that many Americans would enjoy buying and living in.

Seems to me that a real market fan would 1) deplore our current, hugely-rigged, top-down practices, and 2) look at New Urbanism as a successful new housing-market innovation and say, "Hey, let's have more of that." And would do so independent of personal aesthetic preferences.

Incidentally, the usual post-WWII American way of 'burb development may well manage to house tons of people, may well be efficient, and may even please loads of people. It's impressive. Did someone say it wasn't? And you may love the post-WWII 'burbs yourself. Fair enough, interesting to learn, etc. But please quit claiming that they're the consequence of freely expressed preferences except maybe in the narrowest kind of way.

In most American housing markets, you're like someone at the grocery store who has been set down in the packaged-crinkly-food aisle and made to choose your eats from among packaged crinkly foods. OK: You're free to choose ... between Doritos and Cheezits ... and it's kinda-sorta-dimly interesting which choice you make from those options. But, really, that's not a lot of freedom, and that's not a lot of choice.

A person who contents himself with what's on sale in the packaged-crinkly-foods aisle is letting General Mills make a lot of his decisions. (Which of course is OK.) A person who thinks of the packaged-crinkly-foods aisle as the entire food world, let alone as the pinnacle of the the free market, as well as what all evolution has led towards, is just being naive.

Hey, shoppers: There are many other aisles -- let alone stores, let alone farmers markets -- you might want to consider shopping in. Why are officials and elites actively keeping you from exploring them? And why do you put up with being treated this way?

Whether or not you personally like packaged crinkly foods ...

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on August 14, 2008 11:21 PM

For some history about suburbia, try this. To be avoided, though, if you don't enjoy Kunstler's brand of caustic humor. Incidentally: heavily biased in the New Urbanist direction. If you think that's a bad thing, then come up with a decent alternative history.

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on August 14, 2008 11:31 PM

You know, MIchael, you're beautiful when you're angry.

I mean it. You can really pull out the stops when you're pissed. Ergo, remind me not to get you pissed. You are, of course, absolutely right about the role of gov't in the creation of suburbia. Nothing "natural" about that beast.

I await your foils' responses with some batedness of breath. Michael's breathing fire! Awright! Let's party!

Posted by: PatrickH on August 14, 2008 11:35 PM

You must be living in a different world than I live in, slumlord.

Indeed I do, I live downunder in Melbourne, Australia. And while I live in a decently acceptable bit of the earth, the surrounding suburbs are both aesthetically depressing and bland. Now before anybody gets all hot and steamy, I'm not against the suburbs, there is a place for everything. What sucks is the aesthetics of the suburbs, urban planning and urban design. I think that's what Fred was on about. The places we build are ugly.

Now this is how you build a mall. This is an abortion.

Suburbia does not have to be ugly, it is deliberately made so by architects and town planners with turd appreciating aesthetics. Yes, the natural world is frequently very beautiful, but to be sure, some shit for brains architect comes along and does this.

Kunstler is not a rocket scientist, but he makes some good points and articulates what intelligent people have surmised for quite a while, that the modern aesthetics do not satisfy as much as the old.

Our buildings are really a reflection of our culture, years ago when incomes were smaller, starvation and ruin real, and life was short, people still felt that they were obligated to produce beautiful buildings. Today with vastly greater incomes than our forefathers, we are quite happy to settle for polystyrene cornices for that "authentic" classical look. Our culture values utility above beauty, modernism triumphant, the soul famished.

Posted by: Slumlord on August 15, 2008 8:54 AM

And so hurry comes to Arcadia. People then think of escape to the next small town. We spend a remarkable amount of time fleeing ourselves. Maybe instead we should build a place we like.

Most people would prefer to build cities and towns closer to their heart's desire than pack up and move away from an environment that has become intolerable. But they feel they have no choice except to move, because they know they have no control over the aesthetics and sociology of their home towns.

City councils, packed with real estate agents, wantonly approve any new development that allegedly "broadens the tax base." (Funny how real estate taxes keep going up in spite of the new super-malls and high rises.) The federal government resettles refugees from Somalia or Pakistan in their midst. It requires "Section 8" housing where inner-city indigents can share the American dream by moving out to the suburbs.

Our rulers in Washington — lobbyists and lawyers with their $1200 suits and lavish expense accounts — see to it that an endless stream of Third World peons moves in to clean the houses of the rich, pluck chickens for Tysons, and help Wal-Mart make its quarterly report numbers.

The middle class citizen can do nothing to stop "hurry" and congestion and crime coming to Arcadia, so the one desperate act left is to move on, hoping to stay one step ahead of the debacle.

I agree with Fred Reed, but even he's given up and fled the country.

Posted by: Rick Darby on August 15, 2008 10:38 AM

Highways ARE public transportation!

Who brainwashed anybody to think otherwise?

Posted by: BIOH on August 15, 2008 3:42 PM






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