A sprawl-ing post

I’m about a week late from responding to this post by Andrew Potter because I keep putting it off. It’s one of those rare opportunities where someone speaks of something that I’m interested in.

He points to an article in the Aug. 6 Sunday Times discussing the emerging resistance to ‘vertical sprawl’ in the US, where they tie-in the ideas of smart growth and infill development with ideas of dropping 70-storey towers in a low-rise residential neighbourhood. This is in response to a reader who believes“…that the solution to our economic and environmental problems was to have everyone living in ultra-dense 50-story towers, 10 000 people or so to a tower”. The same day, I read Joel Kotkin’s piece on the permanence of the suburban landscape in the US.

I don’t disagree with Andrew. I don’t think sprawl is inherently evil nor is density inherently moral. What I really disagree with is the content of the article. In it, they discuss residential groups who are opposed to high-rise development in infill projects in low-density neighbourhoods, which they call suburban sprawl. They tie it to infill development and smart growth principles, which they argue that in practice, particularly in working-class neighbourhoods, “means displacement and gentrification, often by redevelopment eminent domain”.

Smart Growth Principles, according to the State of Maryland, an early proponent, include the following:

· Mix land uses
· Take advantage of compact building design
· Create housing opportunities and choices
· Create walkable communities
· Foster distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of plan
· Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty, and critical environmental areas
· Provide a variety of transportation options
· Strengthen and direct development to existing communities
· Make development decisions predictable, fair, and cost effective
· Encourage community and stakeholder collaboration in development decisions.

These principles are vague, but it also provides elbowroom to develop within the context of the site. Comparing this list to the arguments for and against Smart Growth in the article, it seems to me that neither the developers nor the opposition actually understand what Smart Growth means. I’m not even a full-fledged planner with any work experience and I can tell you that a bunch of 62-storey towers in a low-density neighbourhood is a stupid idea. I’ve had it drilled into my head that any development, especially infill, should always be integrated within the context of the immediate area and the surrounding neighbourhoods. According to Smart Growth, community and stakeholder collaboration would’ve immediately recognized the problem of such inconsistent development. The problem of gentrification is a genuine concern, and no one has a complete answer. But part of Smart Growth and good planning is that developments need to think long-term and consider all socio-economic groups. Having affordable housing and good community amenities in a development is a start towards ensuring that the working-class are LESS LIKELY to be driven out. It’s not the only tool we have, but one of many. But that doesn’t mean high-density can’t work. It just has to be done appropriately and in the right context. It’s not how densely you build it, but how you build it dense and why. Density in and of itself serves little purpose. It’s not that these people are opposed to ‘vertical sprawl’ per se, but merely poor planning.

I think the problem Andrew and I both have with this topic is that the loudest voices seem to be misusing the history of suburban development in order to impose morals and find conspiracies that isn’t there. The environmental consequences of suburban development are quite real (land consumption, surface run-off, etc.) whereas the social and economic ones are certainly still up for debate. Real or perceived, these are all unfortunately unintended ones. No one was brainwashed into moving to the suburbs. Advertising certainly has great powers of persuasion, but people knew full well what they were buying into.

The solution is not to ban all suburban development, since that seems unlikely and quite absurd. Kotkin argues, at least in the US, that the suburbs are here to stay. The future is about how to build better suburbs. And it’s not just the environmental or a socio-economic concern. It’s also a demographic one. Once the bulk of the baby-boomers start retiring, will they be willing to drive all the time to the grocery store, the theatres, etc.? This is where the principles of Smart Growth and New Urbanism may come in handy. It’s not a perfect solution, to be sure, but nothing is. And if this segment does hold the enormous economic influence that it's been touted to have, maybe their needs will direct us to the development that have been trying to implement; maybe the people who lead us out into low-density will once again lead us to where we need to go: more compact, environmentally sustainable, socio-economically equitable (in opportunity), and age-adaptable communities.