An interesting article in the Boston Globe today made the claim, based on recent census data, that growth rates in suburbs are declining due to the rising cost of gasoline. Implicitly, the collapse of the housing bubble, is also a factor in this demographic trend. As a card-carrying member of the organization conveniently known as Architects For Cities Always, I cheer this trend. Land use patterns based on the unchecked use of personal automobiles are on balance, and in my opinion, unsustainable and reckless. Readers of this blog will note that I have often pointed out how we do not have a good definition of things like suburbs, cities and sprawl. I'm not even sure that we have a good, objective definition of traffic congestion, but most of us are familiar with the hopeless rage and frustration associated with being in a car that is stuck on a road with thousands of other people. Such events are not good for nurturing and improving the human community.
I'm not quite ready to write off suburbs, or sprawl, immediately. I live in a suburb, but I like to think that I don't live in a fringe development that is contributing to a collapse in transportation networks. And, even though I'm a fan of innovation, I'm not sure that the technological leap of driverless, fuel efficient cars will alleviate the social and architectural challenges of low density suburbs.
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