Suburban Nation - Andres Duany [21]
The diminishing returns of successive flights toward bucolic serenity have been well documented. Inner-ring suburbs, the previous generation’s great escape, have begun to decay as newer subdivisions are built at the suburban fringe. These subdivisions will in turn lose their populations to new housing yet farther out. Meanwhile, as existing infrastructure becomes underused, new infrastructure is built at great expense, and traffic worsens daily. The central, yet unstated, assumptions of this centrifugal system of growth are the abandonment of existing neighborhoods and the mandatory purchase of one car per adult.
PRIVATE REALM VERSUS PUBLIC REALM
In the sparse universe of sprawl, the elementary particle is the single-family house. The current model is the fast-food version of the American dream—some call it the McMansion. Its roots can be traced back to the manse on the agricultural estate, or the cabin in the woods. Unlike its predecessors, however, the McMansion is located in the center of a small plot of land, surrounded at close quarters by more of the same. The aesthetic deficiencies of this form of housing are so obvious that a number of well-known architects have made a name for themselves by seeking inspiration in its kitsch. But the real problems here are not aesthetic but practical.
Like its culinary counterpart, the McMansion provides excellent value for its price. American homebuilders are perhaps the best in the world when it comes to providing buyers with the private realm, the insides of the house. Dollar for dollar, no other society approaches the United States in terms of the number of square feet per person, the number of baths per bedroom, the number of appliances in the kitchen, the quality of the climate control, and the convenience of the garage. The American private realm is simply a superior product. The problem is that most suburban residents, the minute they leave this refuge, are confronted by a tawdry and stressful environment. They enter their cars and embark on a journey of banality and hostility that lasts until they arrive at the interior of their next destination. Americans may have the finest private realm in the developed world, but our public realm is brutal. Confronted by repetitive subdivisions, treeless collector roads, and vast parking lots, the citizen finds few public spaces worth visiting. One’s role in this environment is primarily as a motorist competing for asphalt.
The McMansion: independent of its aesthetic qualities, an excellent value
Outside the McMansion: a depleted public realm
This disjunction between the private and public realm has resulted in a uniquely American form of schizophrenia, suburban Nimbyism. The reason people say, “I like living here, but I don’t want any others like me living here,” is that new suburban development does not provide them with any more of the satisfying private realm that they love; it only gives them more of the degraded public realm toward which they feel indifferent at best.
While they are known to present environmental arguments, the Nimbys’ first concern is rarely ecology. Nor do they care to discuss the link between low-density housing and dependence upon the automobile. All they need to know is that new development, with its wide streets and vast parking lots, will be boring and unpleasant to visit and will, of course, generate more traffic. The exchange of a woodland or farm for a new subdivision is, in terms of the public realm, an uncompensated loss.
This state of affairs contrasts markedly with the way development used to occur. In America’s pre—World War II suburbs, the private and public realms were of equal quality, and the prospect of growth was invariably welcomed. Fortunately, many