Suburbs are unsustainable?

[Downtown diva]

Many times on this board, I have read about the bad side of living in the suburbs....

one person says that the majority of the suburbs are unsustainable
a couple people claim that the suburbs are a bunch of parking lots, malls, etc...
still other people claim that the burbs are "vanilla"

so here's my question...and I am not trying to be a smart ass....

explain to me, why a family of four, making over 100,000k per year would want ot move to the City of Detroit. Explain to me what schools their children would go to. Also explainwhy the city is a better choice than these suburbs.

I don't see it, but I am willing to listen to these benefits.
.

[lilpup]

that would hardly be an argument since so few families make over $100K per year. The median annual household income in Michigan as of 2007 was $48K and has undoubtedly plummeted from there.

[reddog289]

I will put in my two cents before it gets ugly. Maybe they want to be urban pioneers or such and such.

[Downtown diva]

alright...so lets say 48K.

Why would the AVERAGE family move to Detroit?

[Gannon]

This is going to be tough, because simply by CONSIDERING moving to the city, they prove themselves above average.

[Downtown diva]

so cheerleading and pounding your chest aside, mr gannon, give me some reasons.

[French777]

I would Love to live in Detroit vs currently Rochester Hills! So Much Excitement in Detroit!

[rajdet]

If Detroit had the best school system in the state, and a world class mass transit system, would we even be having this discussion?

I would Love to live in Detroit vs currently Rochester Hills! So Much Excitement in Detroit!

French, why do you choose to live in Rochester Hills?

[Gannon]

DetroitDad, all due respect...but what the feck do you mean THERE NEVER WAS AN INFORMATION AGE?


You then go on to PROVE that we're in the middle of it.



Open your eyes man, and enjoy the age you were born into...it is always toughest to see the existing paradigm BECAUSE YOU NEVER LIVED when information was tough to locate and disseminate!


We ARE in the Information Age, it started right after the Technological Age.

Agricultural Revolution took roughly 3000 years from its 'beginning' to where it is now, still staggering in third world nations.

Industrial Revolution took nearly 300 years, one order of magnitude shorter. Same thing, it is still playing out in fringe areas to our economy and lifestyle.

Technological Revolution took about 30 years, again an order of magnitude shorter.

The Information Revolution may have been 3 years and IT may be over...according to the rules set by Alvin Toffler and his wife Heidi when they wrote The Third Wave. When they penned that piece they truly had no idea where we were going, most futurists are stymied.


So...just because you missed it doesn't mean you're not enjoying the fruits of it.


Cheers!

[DetroitDad]

DetroitDad, all due respect...but what the feck do you mean THERE NEVER WAS AN INFORMATION AGE?


You then go on to PROVE that we're in the middle of it.



Open your eyes man, and enjoy the age you were born into...it is always toughest to see the existing paradigm BECAUSE YOU NEVER LIVED when information was tough to locate and disseminate!


We ARE in the Information Age, it started right after the Technological Age.

Agricultural Revolution took roughly 3000 years from its 'beginning' to where it is now, still staggering in third world nations.

Industrial Revolution took nearly 300 years, one order of magnitude shorter. Same thing, it is still playing out in fringe areas to our economy and lifestyle.

Technological Revolution took about 30 years, again an order of magnitude shorter.

The Information Revolution may have been 3 years and IT may be over...according to the rules set by Alvin Toffler and his wife Heidi when they wrote The Third Wave. When they penned that piece they truly had no idea where we were going, most futurists are stymied.


So...just because you missed it doesn't mean you're not enjoying the fruits of it.


Cheers!

The information age was really just the pinacle of the Industrial Age.

[French777]

If Detroit had the best school system in the state, and a world class mass transit system, would we even be having this discussion?



French, why do you choose to live in Rochester Hills?

Because Im only 17

[Danny]

Lorax,

It's quite true. Suburban developers did allow some poor ethnic folks to occupy their new housing projects sub-division back then especially blacks, Jews and Hispanics. It started around late 1960s to the present. Suburban developers allow poor and low-income folks to sub-division that was deemed "normal" since the late 1920s to the 1940s in the inner ring areas. Later, once these poor and low-income residents couldn't afford to pay further mortages and rental costs, they will be forced to move out and bring in another sucker to live in those divisions. It was a urban experiment that was going to fail according to the Centers of Urban Studies for University of San Antonio. This urban experiment of the poor to move into the inner ring suburban would equate the HUD living standards and allow more Middle Class familes to move further to ex-urban sub-divisions and its happening now. As a result those inner ring suburbs that looked normal has now becoming a instant ghetto where crime, drugs and hard core kids hang out. Even through you and other people don't see the inner ring suburbs as ghettos, it doesn't look like a normal suburb today.

Go take a look when you go to River Rouge, Ecorse, Redford TWP. Inskter suburban neighborhoods. You will see that some suburban neighborhoods have lost some normal appeal.

[Danny]

Another thing the Suburbs are unsustainable is the TRAFFIC! A lecturer from the Centers of Urban Studies for University of San Antonio contended that traffic congestion is a constant because it would grow to fill compacity. That is what happen to Telegraph RD, Michigan Ave, Sibley Rd, Canton Center Rd, Ford Rd, Gratiot Ave, Orchard, Lake Rd, Van Dyke Rd. near 14 Mile Rd. and many more. Suburban developers wanted to have 2 to 44 lanes of congested traffic to fill compacity and lured folks to their big box stores before you go home, work or other business. Suburban developers also want to solve the traffic congestion problems by building highways [[ Like the Haggerty Connector for example). However it would lead to more traffic congestion later in the future as long as a township, village and city propose more development.

Traffic congestion can be solve be mixed used planning. Eliminate constant trips ot reduced trips or provide public transit by connecting interurban and inter suburban rail lines like the Metra Lines from Chicago to various suburbs and ex-urbs, it works! I even tried it and ride it when I went to Chicago to Guinee, Ill

Buildling HWYs in the suburbs will cause people to make crazy decisions buy a home next to a local HWY about 20 minutes to work or a shopping mall. Soon that same route for the surburbanite who use that HWY will be caught up in a traffic jam that would take up to 1 hour.

[LodgeDodger]

Because Im only 17

Slacker! ;-) Boy, when I was your age...

[rajdet]

Because Im only 17

Sorry French, my bad. I thought you were older.

[R8RBOB]

If Detroit had the best school system in the state, and a world class mass transit system, would we even be having this discussion?

Agreed!!!! I have been saying for years that Detroit will behind the times as long as the city isn't the hub for mass transit.

I was talking with my cousin yesterday and he was commenting on how many suburbanites are buying up homes in the Grandmount area. Thanks to the reduced cost of buying a house in Detroit, people from the suburbs can leave their soon to be foreclosed home for one in Detroit's better neighborhoods. As for schools, well Detroit is now home to a number of charter schools.

[313WX]

If Detroit had the best school system in the state, and a world class mass transit system, would we even be having this discussion?



French, why do you choose to live in Rochester Hills?

French is still in high shcool and living with his parents. He virtually has no choice.

[Bearinabox]

Many times on this board, I have read about the bad side of living in the suburbs....

one person says that the majority of the suburbs are unsustainable
a couple people claim that the suburbs are a bunch of parking lots, malls, etc...
still other people claim that the burbs are "vanilla"

so here's my question...and I am not trying to be a smart ass....

explain to me, why a family of four, making over 100,000k per year would want ot move to the City of Detroit. Explain to me what schools their children would go to. Also explainwhy the city is a better choice than these suburbs.

I don't see it, but I am willing to listen to these benefits.
.

You're responding to two different arguments. One is that the suburban lifestyle is unsustainable in the long term, which is usually based on a prediction that energy will not continue to be as cheap or as readily available as it is now for very much longer. If, for example, gas goes to $8 or $10 or $15 a gallon, people in general will think long and hard about buying a house 50 miles from where they work. This is not to say that the entire population of suburban Detroit will move into the city overnight, just that there will be a gradual nationwide trend away from suburbia and toward higher-density communities. That is the sustainability argument. The other argument is that Detroit is a better or more interesting place to live than the suburbs, which is entirely a matter of opinion and has everything to do with individual people and their needs and wants. It is possible for a middle-class family to raise well-adjusted kids in either the city or the suburbs; it's easier in the suburbs, which is why most middle-class families choose to live there. Whether that makes the suburbs a "better choice" is up to the families themselves, and far be it for me or anyone else to tell them where or how to live.

[LeannaM]

there will be a gradual nationwide trend away from suburbia and toward higher-density communities. That is the sustainability argument.

Here's an article about Generation Y and cities.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/...entry_id=81136
http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/20...r-millennials/

Not all suburbs are probably unsustainable. Most metros have some inner city suburbs that are more urban and closer to the city.

I live in a rural area. I can't walk to anything. While the place I live is beautiful, it is always nice to visit the city because there's so much more to do there and the restaurants and shops tend to be more unique. My Dad grew up in the city and he walked to school. It would be nice to experience that neighborhood closeness, though my small town is very close as well.

That said, in almost any major city, I would probably be more critical of city schools than I would suburban ones [[if I had kids, which I don't right now). I think schools are a major reason parents move out of cities. I do think the trend will reverse, but it will take some time.

[iheartthed]

Here's an article about Generation Y and cities.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/...entry_id=81136
http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/20...r-millennials/

Not all suburbs are probably unsustainable. Most metros have some inner city suburbs that are more urban and closer to the city.

I live in a rural area. I can't walk to anything. While the place I live is beautiful, it is always nice to visit the city because there's so much more to do there and the restaurants and shops tend to be more unique. My Dad grew up in the city and he walked to school. It would be nice to experience that neighborhood closeness, though my small town is very close as well.

That said, in almost any major city, I would probably be more critical of city schools than I would suburban ones [[if I had kids, which I don't right now). I think schools are a major reason parents move out of cities. I do think the trend will reverse, but it will take some time.

You are right. All suburbs aren't unsustainable. I think the point of argument here is that the way our postwar suburbs in America were built is unsustainable: in general each commercial and residential unit was built for a single purpose, and it's hard to imagine those structures ever being re-purposed in the future for a use other than what they serve now. So in many cases the design of postwar American suburbs will make those communities aged and then obsolete... and thus front runner candidates to become the ghettos of 21st century America.

Here is evidence of the future of the McMansion America:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...te_LEADTopNews

[LeannaM]

You are right. All suburbs aren't unsustainable. I think the point of argument here is that the way our postwar suburbs in America were built is unsustainable: in general each commercial and residential unit was built for a single purpose, and it's hard to imagine those structures ever being re-purposed in the future for a use other than what they serve now. So in many cases the design of postwar American suburbs will make those communities aged and then obsolete... and thus front runner candidates to become the ghettos of 21st century America.

Here is evidence of the future of the McMansion America:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...te_LEADTopNews

It's a little off-topic, but I've noticed that in St. Louis the county around the outside of the city is losing population, while the farther out suburbs are gaining, The city is growing very slightly. Seems like some people just keep moving farther away. A few are moving closer, though.

Suburban and urban kind of merge sometimes. I've been browsing Charlotte on Google Street View and I noticed that it looks more suburban. Everything is newer and I didn't see many buildings that looked historic. Density in Charlotte is half what it is in Detroit. Also, generally in older cities like Detroit, Baltimore, St. Louis, etc. you see neighborhoods with rows of old houses and sidewalks. On Street View I explored a few neighborhoods in the city and most seemed mid-century or later and a lot of them were suburban in style.

I saw some areas where there was an old street grid and the buildings had been demolished. New housing was being built [[as well as new streets on some). Of course, most cities demolish and rebuild. I did see neighborhoods with city-style street grids and smaller houses, but probably half the neighborhoods I saw had winding roads and even the straight roads were not very close to each other. Of course, I'm used to looking on Street View [[mostly at St. Louis) and seeing perpendicular street grids with old brick houses. The wooden houses don't seem to show their age as much as brick. Still, most of Charlotte's housing looked new and spread out. Charlotte kind of looked like a new shiny suburb, compared to cities like Detroit, Cleveland, and St. Louis which look like old gritty cities. I prefer grit, though.

I'm not saying Charlotte is unsustainable, but it just struck me how it is not very dense. I guess cities that had their building boom around mid-century are probably more like that, because suburban was the trend at the time. It still is, but not to the same extent. The popularity of suburbs is slowly reversing, but probably won't totally reverse in most cities, especially if they have poor schools.

Sorry I know this post is pointless. It just struck me how suburban-looking Charlotte was, especially considering its age [[1755). I wasn't expecting colonial villages, but I expected more old housing and neighborhoods than I saw. Charlotte is younger than St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore, and Philly. Charlotte looks newer than its age, though.

What mostly struck me was the dominance of suburban-style housing in the city. Of course, I didn't know which areas of the city to look in so I just browsed around. But there were a lot of suburban tracks, many unfinished [[I'm not sure if they were under construction or if the builders ran out of money). You can't really tell where the city ends and the suburbs begin.

[ghettopalmetto]

Charlotte, like Atlanta, is historically a small Southern city. [[Charlotte's population hit 100,000 in 1940, while Detroit was well over 1 million by this time.) Whereas Atlanta grew due to a convention industry that was designed to keep Delta Airlines in business, Charlotte grew in the 1970s and 1980s due to the growth of Nations Bank [[now Bank of America) under Hugh McColl. It's not as if there were any natural factors [[such as a body of water) that caused Charlotte's existence to be inevitable--it's a wholly manmade creation. The banking industry, until recently, has continued to expand there since. As such, the building styles are those permitted by zoning regulations at the time of growth--large lots, segregated land uses, and automobile-oriented. The downtown is shiny and new because it IS shiny and new.

IMHO, it's about the same as if you took Troy and multiplied it several times over. There just ain't a whole lot of "there" there, nor is it really even Southern in character anymore. Just another bland, faceless place with too much traffic congestion and disorienting vinyl-sided suburbs. After Atlanta, Charlotte is man's second-largest triumph of hype over substance.

[ASR89]

Hey did you guys hear Quicken is officially moving downtown? You can read about it in the link below.

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090...907130359/1031

[DetroitDad]

First put your thoughts on Detroit aside for just a minute. Let's consider that modern suburban life is not perfect, and really is an experiment in and of itself. Suburbia was a great escape from the problems of the old, dirty, smelly, crowded, and unsafe industrial monster that as Detroit. What we have found was suburbia in general created as many, if not more problems than it solved.

The Children:

http://campusmartiuschronicle.blogspot.com/

A new phenomenon around Campus Martius Park is that there are a lot of high school kids that come Downtown now to shop, or get ice cream, or to just hang out in Campus Martius. While one would guess that a lot of the high schoolers walk down from Cass Tech a few blocks up, I have been surprised to see many t-shirts with emblems of suburban schools printed on them. I guess maybe it shouldn't surprise me that our suburban children are venturing into our city center for the day. Many of Detroit's privately owned suburban shopping malls no longer let them hang out without a parent, and most suburban streets and parks are somewhat less attractive and interesting to walk down.

I like to quote James Howard Kunstler who said that the model of suburbia is all about the impoverishment of the public space, and the glorification of the private space.

Now don't get me wrong, I really have nothing against suburbia. It's the over protective parents who don't watch the kids, the parents who are move to a street without a sidewalk so their kids are not enticed to wonder away while they should be watching them, or the parents who resort to essentially building a arcade or an all out mall to keep the kids from entering the real world. Of course, for others suburbia can be a great and safe place to raise a child in a safe environment for most responsible parents. That is, suburbia is a great place until they reach the age of about ten.

Unfortunately, older suburban kids have no public spaces to hang out with their friends, and don't get toughened up enough by real world experiences, as they are stuck in their suburban home or subdivision "pod". Teens should be exploring the community, and getting ready to spread their wings and fly out into the real world. Instead, suburban children end up bored in their neighborhoods, and can turn to vandalism or torturing small animals behind the two car detached garage. Once a child reaches their teens, they are even more bored, often ending up getting into the liquor, gun, or medicine cabinets when mommy and daddy are out of town, or experimenting with drugs and sex in their parent's basements.

Preteens and teenagers are arguably too young to be doing some of the above mentioned activities. Teenagers no longer need protection, they need guidance, and they need public realms and a community that is safe without restricting freedoms. Teens also need communities that are easy to explore without mom or dad having to drive them everywhere. The deficiencies of suburbia are really showing up in the high amount of drug and alcohol abuse, pregnancy, and depression and suicide rates among suburban teens in this country. Right now, our suburban communities are just not living up to the wants and needs of the children who live in them.

Posted by DetroitDad at 7/07/2009 01:57:00 PM
5 comments

Pollution:

The few people who do regularly walk across [[or near) pedestrian bridges and along feeder streets face huge health risks from fine particle matter, the tiny pieces of that gritty sand on the side of the road that ends up air born. *Some of the risks associated with what I will call second hand driving is asthma, abnormal lung growth in children, bronchitic problems, lung cancer, and birth defects among other things - http://cfpub1.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts.../abstract/8459


Obesity and Divorce

Generally, this goes along with everyone sitting home and socializing, as well as driving everywhere. Our nation is said to be suffering a huge problem with obesity, which is just bizarre when you really think about it. What is most interesting about this, is that a lot of our drive time is spent being stuck in traffic. How strange is it that we wake up to exercise only to go in our car and sit in traffic, work, sit in traffic again, and then go and walk on the treadmill for an hour!? Why not just live in an area where you walk instead of drive 20 minutes to work or school? Some say they don't have time to exercise, thus they only drive; doesn't that assure an early death and burden on their family members? Some other people have said that that is just to much work for them, yet they work out; think of all the other things you could be doing instead of working out. You could be spending time with your friends or family.


Depression

Architecture, setting, and building design plays a role in our psychological state. When was the last time you worshipped at a place that didn't resemble a wooden or plastic casket? When was the last time you saw a school that didn't look like a prison? Grosse Pointe North and other Metro Detroit schools were actually designed by the same architect that designed Jackson Penitentiary by the way. When was the last time you saw anything but cheap houses and retail buildings built to last? When was the last time you saw a big box store that you actually enjoyed walking by? For more on this subject check out this link; http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/mich...n-architecture

[DetroitDad]

It's also worth noting what average means for middle class America. I recommend watching this very very good video explaining the crisis the middle class is currently facing. If you'd rather not watch the video, here is a text version of the video as well.

The Middle Class on the Precipice

http://harvardmagazine.com/2006/01/the-middle-class-on-the.html


The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class