Suburban Nation - Andres Duany [117]
d
William Whyte, City: Rediscovering the Center, 288. Whyte noted: “Of thirty-eight companies that moved out of New York City to better quality-of-life needs of their employees, thirty-one moved to the Greenwich-Stamford area … . Average distance from the CEO’s home: eight miles.” Whyte also documented how, over the next eleven years, those thirty-eight companies that moved experienced less than half the stock appreciation of thirty-six randomly chosen comparable companies that chose to remain in the city (294-95).
e
The strict separation of housing types actually hints at a more insidious cause of sprawl, economic discrimination, or sometimes simple racism. In the words of F. J. Popper: “The basic purpose of zoning was to keep Them where They belonged—Out. If They had already gotten in, then its purpose was to confine Them to limited areas. The exact identity of Them varied a bit around the country. Blacks, Latinos and poor people qualified. Catholics, Jews and Orientals were targets in many places” (Peter Hall, Cities of Tomorrow, 60). It has been well documented by Robert Fishman and others how racism was a large factor in the disappearance of the middle class from the center city (“white flight”), and how zoning law clearly manifests the desire to keep away what one has left behind.
f
Data given by Nelson Rising at the second Congress for the New Urbanism, Los Angeles, May 21, 1994. From 1970 to 1990, Los Angeles grew 45 percent in population and 300 percent in size (Christopher Leinberger, Robert Charles Lesser & Co. original research). According to the Population Environment Balance newsletter, we pave an area equal to the size of the state of Delaware every year. All told, seven thousand acres of forests, farms, and countryside are lost to sprawl each day, totaling well over 50,000 square miles since 1970 (Will Rogers, The Trust for Public Land membership letter, 1-2).
g
There is no arguing that the automobile is a wonderful instrument of freedom for those who are able to drive one. Indeed, it is hard to beat the sheer physical enjoyment of moving quickly through space in command of 200 horsepower and two tons of steel. As of this writing, the three authors have yet to give up their cars. This does not blind them, however, to the fact that what was once our servant has become our master, and that an instrument of freedom is a very different thing from an instrument of survival. The problem with cars is not the cars themselves but that they have produced an environment of dependence.
h
The cost of suburban growth is financed through federal, state, and local taxes, which are levied on all citizens irrespective of their location. Even at the local level, city and county taxes often relocate resources within a jurisdiction from its older center to its newer edge. It has been demonstrated time and time again that most new suburban growth is heavily subsidized by older sections of the city, often unwittingly.
i
Virginia Department of Transportation Regulations, edition, table A-3-1. The manual adds that “every effort should be made to remove the tree rather than shield it with a guardrail.”
j
One of the things that make Alexandria special was the rule that only public buildings were allowed to face the gable end of a roof toward the street. All private buildings were required to face the eaves to the front, creating a calm and steady background for the more important civic buildings. The codes for Williamsburg, Virginia, were equally stringent, specifying the location of civic buildings and mandating setbacks and fences for much of the private property (Witold Rybczynski, City Life, 71).
k
Rick Chellman,, Portsmouth Traffic/Trip Generation Study, overview. Actually, half the trips here means less than half the traffic, as urban trips are generally considerably shorter than suburban trips. Interestingly, during the morning and evening rush hours, the number of trips was 60 to 70 percent lower than predicted.
The suburban model