Suburbs are unsustainable?

[DetroitDad]

I'm listening to a very good podcast that came out today about why suburbia and our society in general is not sustainable. Check out episode #74 "Electric Society" in the player about a third of the way down the page.

Link: http://kunstlercast.com/

Wow!

They even talk about Michigan!

[DetroitDad]

Arguably, Ann Arbor has a hell of lot more to offer than Detroit in transit and an urban experience, unless by "urban" you mean alleys that double as outhouses and decrepit buildings.

True, but Ann Arbor is a college town. Ann Arbor is a beautiful place, but has almost been absorbed in the suburbs, and has random exurbs nearby. It is a nice place in the same way Plymouth or Farmington is. Although, you may be right, the future may not be in big cities at all, but in the smaller cities and towns. There is no doubt that big cities like New York or Chicago are unsustainable due to overpopulation, so they may face depopulation like Detroit has, while Detroit, Flint, and other once large Rustbelt cities will remain with their current or near future population numbers.

I actually disagree with parts of some of the links I posted. For one, I actually think the village and controlled retraction models might not be a bad idea. The fact that Detroit is operating with a city plan that actually counts on or even expects a large portion of it's lost population to return is ludicrous.

[ziggyselbin]

One would have to be deaf dumb and blind to see Farmington as anything like Ann Arbor. That is not a slight of either place because both are fine places. Plymouth as well is not much like Ann Arbor save for the people who tend to be perhaps more professorial and white collar.

[DetroitDad]

Let me find your tongue, DD. Midtown/Corktown aspire to be what downtown Ann Arbor is now.

Here is what I was getting at with lumping all those places together;

An area [[I was referring to downtown Farmington and Plymouth) has to encourage walking. The programing [[what is in a building) is important, but to encourage walking, the street needs to be designed to encourage walking by not having large spaces in between buildings [[you shouldn't realize you are walking very far, because the street should be interesting, and lets face it, walking in suburbia is an ordeal), having multiple stories above storefronts, having storefronts that abut slow moving streets, having street buffers, having a nearby transit stop, etc., etc., etc.. Basically, a street or urban park [[think Campus Martius) is a sort of outdoor room, and if it doesn't do things that make it an enjoyable place to be, it will not be activated by pedestrians.

Again, places like downtown Farmington and Plymouth, or inner suburbs/outer city are sometimes much better than some outer suburban or heavily depopulated areas, but they are the exception, especially the ones that only have those characteristics because they were once small towns. Those are obviously not the places we are talking about.

Ann Arbor and even Midtown really benefit from the college students in the area, but are really just that; college towns/areas, and they lack much of a draw for anyone else who is looking for an urban area to live. There are ongoing projects aimed to changed that, but right now that is not the case. Brush Park [[Midtown) was once, and most likely will again be a great neighborhood to raise a family in the coming decades, but not yet. There are not many families living in Brush Park, Corktown and Mexicantown/Clark Park areas are much more promising.

You people can talk about the programing of the suburban stores near you all you want, I just don't see them lasting. For example, I've been spending a lot of time in the McNichols, 7 Mile, and 8 Mile areas along lets say Wyoming [[among others, but lets look at Wyoming). The neighborhoods around McNichols and Wyoming are beautiful and have better land use than the rest of suburbia, while remaining relatively intact compared with many other areas of the City of Detroit. This area appears to be mostly lower income working class people who keep up there homes and businesses, and there are even new businesses that have set up shop around here recently. Even new construction and renovations are taking place.

What you will find in the McNichols and Wyoming area is nice kept up homes interspersed among foreclosures and abandoned burned out hulks. Meanwhile, many employers have packed up and left the area. Most of the storefronts, with no or little office or living space above them, have large vacancies interspersed among the occupied ones. This is what I see happening to those nicer inner suburbs that everyone in this thread speaks of, as you can already see it starting in depopulating inner suburbs that are also losing jobs and people. Even the better design of inner suburbia is not enough to get them through job lose, economic/mortgage crisis, and other problems because they are still suburbs, just ones that are slightly less horribly designed for sustainability.

Of course, McNichols and Wyoming also has an added problem, it is plagued by the high tax rates accompanied by crumby services. This was the result of losing tax base, employers and upper income people. As the rest of suburbia as a whole slips into the same boat, I would expect the same result. Add onto that that suburbia, like Detroit, is having an influx of outside investors that don't care as much about the area as home owners would, who are turning foreclosed homes into low cost rentals, and you have the old urban depopulation recipe, the one that creates slums in a matter of decades.

Suburbia is more than likely going to be the future slums of the U.S., and is now a poor investment both economically and socially. Our option really is to try to sustain it like we did in the City of Detroit, and have a chaotic breakdown [[some areas will probably hang on, like they did in The D), or we can learn from our mistakes and choose a better system that will last. I advocate for a return to urbanism as a step forward, choosing to consolidate and ban together in controlled collapse, rather than a chaotic one.

[mishmish]

No one has mentioned space and land consumption. One primary issue with suburbs is they know no limit for development. The is no statewide or federal policy dictating where we should stop building, apart from the federal parks or wetlands provisions. We can continue building new suburbs, new superstores, new fast food restaurants and the economy will thrive. But what about habitat and biodiversity. While the argument for ecosystem service is often written off as hippie@#^! people begin to freak out when invasives like the asian carp, ash borer, phragmites, or mussels begin to take over forests, fisheries and wetlands. We need to maintain some level of respect for the areas that provide habitat for the variety of species that are TRYING to recover after decimation from colonialism. Biodiversity helps to fight invasive species by responding, changing feeding habits, migratory or reproductive patterns. Invasives destroy our crops, our food, and our everyday lives.

Also, the argument for water is definitely worthy of visiting. True that Detroit Water and Sewage controls most, not all, of the SE Michigan area. But think about some suburban areas, specifically some subdivisions, that have some independent pumps, and their impact, again unregulated, on the Great Lakes system. Lets say you have ten sleeper subdivisions popped up, all pumping water, not communicating with the township or each other, and then after 15 years the small tributary begins to dry up. People move out and then what? Will we see more suburban villages be ghost towns, bankrupt farms, bankrupt of birds, bugs, and vegetation?
The advantage of having a population dense area in regards to water is that there are easier mechanisms to find the quantity of usage in acrefoot over time. People don't want to think proactively about the ecosystem, because they want to keep the conveniences of their personal consumption habits. But in regards to the commons, a biodiverse land area, and good clean and ample water for all, we need to think proactively- and in terms of ecosystems- that means population density.

[48302]

No one has mentioned space and land consumption. One primary issue with suburbs is they know no limit for development. The is no statewide or federal policy dictating where we should stop building, apart from the federal parks or wetlands provisions. We can continue building new suburbs, new superstores, new fast food restaurants and the economy will thrive. But what about habitat and biodiversity. While the argument for ecosystem service is often written off as hippie@#^! people begin to freak out when invasives like the asian carp, ash borer, phragmites, or mussels begin to take over forests, fisheries and wetlands. We need to maintain some level of respect for the areas that provide habitat for the variety of species that are TRYING to recover after decimation from colonialism. Biodiversity helps to fight invasive species by responding, changing feeding habits, migratory or reproductive patterns. Invasives destroy our crops, our food, and our everyday lives.

Also, the argument for water is definitely worthy of visiting. True that Detroit Water and Sewage controls most, not all, of the SE Michigan area. But think about some suburban areas, specifically some subdivisions, that have some independent pumps, and their impact, again unregulated, on the Great Lakes system. Lets say you have ten sleeper subdivisions popped up, all pumping water, not communicating with the township or each other, and then after 15 years the small tributary begins to dry up. People move out and then what? Will we see more suburban villages be ghost towns, bankrupt farms, bankrupt of birds, bugs, and vegetation?
The advantage of having a population dense area in regards to water is that there are easier mechanisms to find the quantity of usage in acrefoot over time. People don't want to think proactively about the ecosystem, because they want to keep the conveniences of their personal consumption habits. But in regards to the commons, a biodiverse land area, and good clean and ample water for all, we need to think proactively- and in terms of ecosystems- that means population density.

all good points.

[crawford]

No one has mentioned space and land consumption. One primary issue with suburbs is they know no limit for development.

This is not a problem with existing suburbs; this is a problem with creating new exurbs.

And most of Detroit is as sprawling as the inner suburbs. Everything built in the last 50 years within Detroit city limits is indistinguishable from suburban sprawl.

Please name me something built in Detroit in the last 50 years without plenty of parking?

[Bearinabox]

This is not a problem with existing suburbs; this is a problem with creating new exurbs.

And most of Detroit is as sprawling as the inner suburbs. Everything built in the last 50 years within Detroit city limits is indistinguishable from suburban sprawl.

Please name me something built in Detroit in the last 50 years without plenty of parking?

Most of Detroit wasn't built in the last 50 years. That's what I like about it.

[DetroitDad]

Another thread ruined by attention seekers. I re-posted this under a topic with the same name.

It's funny, they are older and more experianced in life, but somehow I seem to be able to ignore others, control myself when I want to spit venom at others, control my ego, and not post for the sake of arguing or seeking attention, where as they apparently cannot. Oh, and I don't whine like they do because they get banned when they break the DetroitYES social contract [[name calling, and such).

[NoHeartAnthony]

The suburbs have been talking to me and they say this is not true.

[DetroitDad]

You are laughing now, listening to the band play on to keep the calm, but will you be laughing when the ship plunges into the abyss?

Oh young JohnLodgeDodger, listen grasshopper, where did anyone ever say crime was down anywhere? I wasn't referring to low crime when I referred to Detroit's cancer spreading and overtaking suburbia.

[wolverine]

Any city, suburb, town, what have you goes through cycles. Of course suburbs are struggling right now, what city isn't having issues these days. And you'll hear plenty of stories about an increase in vacancy, crime, foreclosures etc....it's news. It doesn't mean it will be that way forever.

[EMG]

No suburb is crime free, but much as some Detroiters might wish there were reasonable grounds for being able to say otherwise, it's pretty unlikely any suburb's crime rate is going to surpass Detroit's any time in the near future.

They have the advantage of much higher police-to-criminal ratios. Even my current larger suburban city in metro Phoenix doesn't have law enforcement to equal what I used to have in Grosse Pointe Woods. When you're just shy of a having a law enforcement officer on every block, and potential criminals actually know they will not only be caught but actually go to jail, crime does tend to remain lower than it otherwise would be.

[Fury13]

Anytime the economy is doing poorly, crime goes up. I don't see any apocalyptic visions of doom for the suburbs, though. Funny thing... from what I can tell, most people who live in the suburbs are pretty happy with their lifestyle.

[Tig3rzhark]

I guess in the end, as the city goes, so does the surrounding region. I'm seeing plenty of FOR SALE signs going around all over the place. Even buildings like the Northland Medical Center are looking for tenants.

[Mikeg]

the skyrocketing violent crime rate in Oakland County. They said that usually they have about 5 murders for example, but this year they have had some 59, and it's only September.

Pontiac alone had 21 murders in 2008, so what you heard is very suspect. Here are two articles from this past Monday that summarize the 2008 violent crime statistics for Detroit and the suburbs.

[iheartthed]

And crime is down in Detroit? Get serious, Sean.

Well, actually it is...

[cmubryan]

What is this? 1970? The problems that are mentioned are nothing new. Very few people actually think that every single suburb is haven and every single part of the city is a hell. Whatever news report you were listening to took basic facts that have probably occured every year since suburbia existed and sensationalized them to scare small-minded people because it was a slow news day. There is no news, crime happens everywhere. The crime rate in the city [[unfortunately) is much higher than most of the suburbs. The police response in the city [[except for maybe Pontiac) is much slower than suburbia. Abandonment is everywhere but a greater percentage of the hoods in Detroit contain significant abandonment versus suburbia.

[cheddar bob]

Why would anybody take advice from you or listen to your opinion, SOD? Look where it has gotten you. People might listen to you if you had a blog titled, "SOD's Guide To Welfare, Unplanned Pregnancies, and Raising A Family In An Inner-City Lead Paint-Infested Apartment". That's about the extent of advice you are qualified to give out.

[Ravine]

Ah, Johnnylodge, alas, we hardly knew ye. Fare thee well, buckaroo; I am sure I will be able to locate your tattered remains somewhere.

Now, as for the thinking [[my use of that term may be regarded as an unusual demonstration of charity) behind this thread:

For one thing:

"One story being cycled right now is about the skyrocketing violent crime rate in Oakland County. They said that usually they have about 5 murders..."

That is a wholly ignorant statement. I'm not disputing your claim that you heard that statement, but if you heard it and believed it, you are lost at sea.

Further: Am I to infer that, somehow, misfortune suffered by the suburbs represents a net gain for Detroit?
Is that you, Monica?

[NoHeartAnthony]

You might doubt Sean, but his daughter is definitely gifted. I mean, she's already digesting what goes on in the urban environment right outside the Leland/North Downtown area. She looks forward to the moment Sean props her up in front of the window. All that at the age of two months!

[Ravine]

Now, gang, let's stay on-topic.

Godnose the initial thread, alone, provides more than enough material. Daughters, windows, and downtown buildings need not be dragged into a discussion which looks, to me, like it is already doomed & Not Long For This World.

[2blocksaway]

Leave it to DetroitDad start a post with a source as credible as "they".

Here is a story from MLive.com on Monday.

Violent crime down in Metro Detroit's largest cities; Royal Oak, Southfield see biggest drops.


http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/in..._metro_de.html

Aren't those both in Oakland County? Hmmmmmm?

[jtf1972]

The only sign I will accept as the end up "Suburbia" is something that has been needed for a long time: The ending of federal aid in new highway and road construction.

[crawford]

LOL, Detroitdad, sorry but no dice. You chose to live in the ghetto. Try and improve your town instead of hating on places that actually function.

Most all the crime in the suburbs is either:

1. Caused by Detroiters [[e.g. dead kitty in Roseville);
2. Inner suburbs that function as extensions of Detroit [[Oak Park, Southfield); or
3. Mini-Detroits [[Pontiac, Inkster, Mount Clemens).