The Downturn’s Upside: The End of Sprawl
- Posted by: Cliff Kuang
- on February 16, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Richard Florida, best known for arguing that America’s true economic engine is its “creative class”, just dropped a cover story for the Atlantic. If you care about carbon, you should be popping champagne and kissing strangers.
The article explores how our present sputtering economy might remake the country, how suburbs might collapse as cities thrive. So far on the blogs, the response has often been political—lefties are trumpeting the idea that the country will become bluer. That’s not the real news though: Until now, there’s never been a real mechanism that anyone could see for how suburbs might end. But Florida has finally laid out an alternative, for anyone who has ever crossed their fingers then crossed themselves, after thinking hard about the problem of sprawl.
The argument takes a while to get going, so I’ll summarize: Florida points out that “easy expansion”—that is, sprawl—was enabled by housing appreciation and real-estate speculation. That’s all gone now, and as Florida argues, the only way to replace that lost economic activity will be to reinvest in cities—where sociologists have shown that density yields to innovation and economic growth. (Check out the Atlantic’s nifty interactive map or read some of the studies here.)
Now, this might not sound new, and to some extent it’s merely an urbanist’s synthesis of the news from the past year. But it’s worth remembering that a year ago, no one could really imagine anyone gaining the political clout to fight sprawl in any meaningful way. The economics just seemed too impossible: Given a choice, people would always spend less on a bigger house, if it was just an additional 15-minute drive away. Having spoken to a number of urban planners, I heard the resignation as recently as two years ago. Ending sprawl came down to a Pollyanna’s hope that people eventually might enjoy walking more in mixed-use developments, or prefer a small house in-town. It was hard to imagine.
By contrast, Florida suggests that the economic incentives to change the way we approach growth are finally in place. The end of easy credit will eliminate sprawl’s main financial catalyst. Moreover, what Florida doesn’t say is that once the economy gets going once again, gas prices will inevitably rise precipitously (thus disincentivizing sprawl). In the meantime, politicians finally have political cover for raising gas taxes—something that hasn’t been the case for 30 years.
It’s a bright, new day for America’s urban planning. Granted, the path out of our present urban planning disaster isn’t yet assured, while the withering of the suburbs will coincide with economic pain. But the future looks brighter than it has in decades.
(Image from Flickr user dno1967.)
DISCUSSION: 6 Comments
Are the suburbs the problem? Are cities any better? I believe that a city can be clogged with emotion and experience (read Stranger in a Strange Land for clarification), which can be suffocating to innovation and economical growth. I personally believe that neither is the answer and that we are meant not to live an imprisoned capitalist existance, but a free agriculturally conscious life. For that to happen we need to step outside the cities and outside ourselves and reevaluate everything. I guess we should look at another Heinlein story, The Roads Must Roll, and see how we too can achieve this future where we all live removed from the city and only “roll in” for work. Could these high speed railways that the stimulus bill would fund be the answer? Its a good beginning. But please, dont act like the best thing for humanity would be for us to bunch up like so many sardines in a can.
You raise a good point — it may be time to rethink how we build our cities. They do seem to have the stigma of dirty, loud, and tightly packed. What about the idea of creating a synthesis of city and nature? When you are in the city, it becomes so easy to forget that you are still a part of nature and that you are surrounded by it. Maybe we should allow for more innovation in this area. There are so many great ideas out there right now that involve this idea, including the amazing resource Ecocities by Richard Register.
Great post. He also has some interesting ideas on renting vs owning which I’ve discussed here.
Hey guys—This is Cliff (having problems logging in. Thanks for reading and writing. I want to address the last point, by Anonymous. As word by Richard Florida and others show, density is actually exponentially related to innovation (as measured by patents per capita). (The numbers I bet would be even larger, if other kinds of innovation—from entrepreneurship to art—were somehow taken into account.) So we’re not really talking about personal impressions of cities—which granted, some people will never find inspiring. We’re talking about sociological affects in the aggregate. Moreover, a point that I wish I would have emphasized in the post is that suburbs are disastrous from the standpoint of carbon and resource allocation. The fact is that you simply can’t have public transport in suburbs, because the geography simply can’t work. So everyone has to drive. And if everyone drives, we’re not using our resources very wisely. People often have the response that Anonymous does—that we need to “stop outside the cities and outside ourselves and reevaluate everything”—but that sort of utopian vision just isn’t going to work in a society predicated on growth and rising standards of living. Cities (and urban density) are really the only models we have of sustainable growth coupled with rising living standards.
Even with a fiscal and environmental crisis so severe that the state’s about to shut down, CA can’t seem to get its act together to raise the gas tax. What makes you think it could happen elsewhere?
Hey there Anon—That’s a good point about gas taxes. That said, I do think the coming budgetary problems that will face many states and the federal government, coupled with the fact that gas prices for the time being are relatively low, might allow some room for a gas tax. In the early stages, this would probably work as a floor for gas prices—that is, if they sink below $2, for example, the difference gets taxed and goes towards renewable energy funds. We should forget that the debate has changed significantly in recent years—”energy independence” is a mainstream talking point now. That’s a roughly bipartisan way to address energy issues—something which anything having to do with gas has sorely lacked.