Chapter MCXC: In which I actually name a favorite book.
If you asked me to name my favorite books, I'd have to agonize over it for a while, and then I'd name some titles that you've probably read, like Pride & Prejudice or Pale Fire. But I'd also definitely name Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck: a passionate book about towns, streets, and the places where you want to live. This book changed the way I look at the world around me and gave me a new vocabulary to describe where I want to live my life. It's also great fun to read.
Illustration 1
Originally uploaded by bradamant The authors contrast traditional city planning with the suburban sprawl that took root during the twentieth century. Sprawl arose largely as the result of zoning laws that dictate road widths and geometry, the distribution of housing and other land uses, and even the architecture of the buildings themselves, and so that's the level the authors approach. They show how a traditional town constitutes a human habitat worthy of protection, and a suburb is a place that traps people an unsustainable lifestyle that, when they are offered real alternatives, they don't even want.
The authors don't fall into the mistake of assuming that people who live in suburbs are banal, instead, they show the social consequences of bad design. As the "victims of sprawl" they identify "cul-de-sac kids" who are "unable to practice at being adults"; soccer moms who work full-time and then must serve as chauffeurs for their kids; bored teenagers; the stranded elderly, who "are neither infirm nor senile [but] healthy and able citizens who simply can no longer operate two tons of heavy machinery"; weary commuters; bankrupt municipalities that must not only pay for roads, roads, and more roads, but sewers to connect all those far-flung houses and police to patrol those neighborhoods; and "the immobile poor" who, without cars, cannot get to the jobs they need to escape the failed social experiment of high-rise projects. It should be easy for most of us to recognize current, past, and future selves among these categories and realize the significance of what this book is trying to tell us. Having once been the chauffee, I have no aspiration to become the chauffeur.
There are two qualities of this book that make it a joy to read. First, the authors do a marvelous job of showing, in both words and pictures, how small design decisions have significant unintended consequences. (See the first illustration.) Second, the writing in this book is passionate and sometimes withering, as in the second illustration, which is accompanied by the comment: "The building pictured here is not, as it may appear, a refugee relocation center or a storage depot, although it could be considered a storage depot of sorts: it's the place where we store our children while earning the money to pay for their cars."
Illustration 2
Originally uploaded by bradamant Although I'd lived abroad for a year beforehand, it took encountering this book and its razor-sharp analysis of how design affects how a place feels to make me notice just how insane and destructive our country's adherence to and idealization of suburban design really is. Note that this book is not an encomium to giant cities like New York; the authors reserve their highest praise for neighborhoods and for small cities like Charleston. Nor do they have a misty-eyed view of the traditional town: their discussion is about how long it takes you to get to work and where you put your trash to be collected, not about Norman Rockwell. And their new urbanist design program isn't just aimed at making life more pleasant for the upper-middle class, because one of their main goals is to integrate lower wage-earners into middle-class neighborhoods, just as they want to integrate light retail and offices into residential places and vice-versa. They don't want to bring this about by busing-style top-down orders; rather they want to achieve it by eliminating the zoning laws that, for example, often prohibit placing apartment buildings near detached homes. In short, the authors see the neighborhood and the town as natural, enduring units of healthy human self-organization, and suggest that we get rid of laws and prejudices that make them infeasible.
If you ever wonder why I insist on living in an expensive city or why I've never owned a car, or why I'd move back to a certain street in my hometown but not another one, read this book! Really, you should read it anyway: it offers a fresh perspective on the world you live in--whether you want to or not.
Suburban Nation: 5 smileys
Recommended for: Americans
Illustration 1
Originally uploaded by bradamant The authors contrast traditional city planning with the suburban sprawl that took root during the twentieth century. Sprawl arose largely as the result of zoning laws that dictate road widths and geometry, the distribution of housing and other land uses, and even the architecture of the buildings themselves, and so that's the level the authors approach. They show how a traditional town constitutes a human habitat worthy of protection, and a suburb is a place that traps people an unsustainable lifestyle that, when they are offered real alternatives, they don't even want.
The authors don't fall into the mistake of assuming that people who live in suburbs are banal, instead, they show the social consequences of bad design. As the "victims of sprawl" they identify "cul-de-sac kids" who are "unable to practice at being adults"; soccer moms who work full-time and then must serve as chauffeurs for their kids; bored teenagers; the stranded elderly, who "are neither infirm nor senile [but] healthy and able citizens who simply can no longer operate two tons of heavy machinery"; weary commuters; bankrupt municipalities that must not only pay for roads, roads, and more roads, but sewers to connect all those far-flung houses and police to patrol those neighborhoods; and "the immobile poor" who, without cars, cannot get to the jobs they need to escape the failed social experiment of high-rise projects. It should be easy for most of us to recognize current, past, and future selves among these categories and realize the significance of what this book is trying to tell us. Having once been the chauffee, I have no aspiration to become the chauffeur.
There are two qualities of this book that make it a joy to read. First, the authors do a marvelous job of showing, in both words and pictures, how small design decisions have significant unintended consequences. (See the first illustration.) Second, the writing in this book is passionate and sometimes withering, as in the second illustration, which is accompanied by the comment: "The building pictured here is not, as it may appear, a refugee relocation center or a storage depot, although it could be considered a storage depot of sorts: it's the place where we store our children while earning the money to pay for their cars."
Illustration 2
Originally uploaded by bradamant Although I'd lived abroad for a year beforehand, it took encountering this book and its razor-sharp analysis of how design affects how a place feels to make me notice just how insane and destructive our country's adherence to and idealization of suburban design really is. Note that this book is not an encomium to giant cities like New York; the authors reserve their highest praise for neighborhoods and for small cities like Charleston. Nor do they have a misty-eyed view of the traditional town: their discussion is about how long it takes you to get to work and where you put your trash to be collected, not about Norman Rockwell. And their new urbanist design program isn't just aimed at making life more pleasant for the upper-middle class, because one of their main goals is to integrate lower wage-earners into middle-class neighborhoods, just as they want to integrate light retail and offices into residential places and vice-versa. They don't want to bring this about by busing-style top-down orders; rather they want to achieve it by eliminating the zoning laws that, for example, often prohibit placing apartment buildings near detached homes. In short, the authors see the neighborhood and the town as natural, enduring units of healthy human self-organization, and suggest that we get rid of laws and prejudices that make them infeasible.
If you ever wonder why I insist on living in an expensive city or why I've never owned a car, or why I'd move back to a certain street in my hometown but not another one, read this book! Really, you should read it anyway: it offers a fresh perspective on the world you live in--whether you want to or not.
Suburban Nation: 5 smileys
Recommended for: Americans