Is the American Suburb Doomed?
Two years ago, Coliseum Mall, the commercial center of Hampton, Virginia, was razed to the ground. In its place, over the vast acreage of the parking lot and rubble, a new urban-style "town center" development will rise. Such walkable developments have also taken hold in nearby Williamsburg and Newport News, towns whose historic small downtowns—now given over to tourist attractions and heavy industry, respectively—were quickly subsumed by sprawling suburbs during the 20th century. Together these three cities form the core of the Virginia Peninsula, my birthplace, and the last place anyone would expect a new urbanism to take hold.
At least I never did. The Peninsula, just across the Hampton Roads harbor from the cities of Norfolk and Virginia Beach, is overwhelmingly suburban. When I turned 16, I needed a car; without one, I would essentially forfeit my place in adult society. Like most Americans, I accepted it. In 2003, though, I left my car in Virginia and moved to New York to pursue a career. Two years later, I threw my car keys into the East River and vowed never to be stuck in a subdivision again. New York City revolutionized my view of society. I suddenly saw how abnormal the normal American way of life is and how the past fifty years have seen an enormous break from the past in how we have built the American city.
The newly prosperous postwar generation of my parents and grandparents, wanted to get out of the cities, and local governments responded with vast sprawling conglomerations—new towns with curving roads that demolished the city grid as we knew it. Now, thousands like me have re-discovered the way our communities used to be; we want to be able to simply walk to the corner store, to not be shackled to automobiles. The tide is turning and traditional-style neighborhoods built for people, not cars, are coming back. This isn't a shift of an economic cycle —it's a generational revolution in how Americans live. New urban neighborhoods like those in my hometown have cropped up nationwide as developers respond to the changing desires of this new generation. Prices for housing in major American cities are skyrocketing and remain remarkably resistant to the housing decline that has hit suburban areas. Urban dwellers now have many tools at their disposal in what is nothing less than a fight for the shape of American society.
Walkscore.com simplifies the task of finding urban-style neighborhoods. Enter any address, and it tallies up the amenities within walking distance and provides a score. Scores around 90 mean that you can get by without a car. Areas scoring less than 50 are unlivable without private means of transportation. Most of New York City rates above 85. The house in which I grew up scores a 17. While flawed (it doesn't factor in public transit and can't compensate for obstructions to walking like, say, the East River), it does show that even the new urban developments can't compete with the older neighborhoods they emulate. The shiny new Port Warwick development in Newport News—crammed like a subdivision between the Conrail tracks and speeding traffic of the local highway, rates a 71. Meanwhile, the sleepy 400-year-old downtown of Hampton, ten miles down the interstate, scores an impressive 97.
The new Peninsula Town Center being built in place of the Coliseum Mall will sit amongst miles of suburban streets, four miles from downtown. In fact, almost all of these new town centers are only accessible by car. To use these neighborhoods, you literally have to drive away from historic urban city centers, park, and then walk around. But in light of the new urbanism trend, developers will need to learn how to build genuinely traditional neighborhoods connected to old city centers.
Beyond fun tools on the internet, the best argument for urban living is still, after nearly fifty years, Jane Jacobs's The Death and Life of Great American Cities The (few) outdated parts of the book only illustrate the sustained vitality of her analysis of city life. A more recent perspective can be found in Suburban Nation by Andrew Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck.
The American suburb will persist. It covers the vast majority of our landscape and has too many people vested in its continued livelihood, mostly in the form of homeowners. But I believe that this new wave is only the beginning. Advocates like The Congress for New Urbanism have provided a framework and little by little, the work is getting done and change is coming.
