April 5, 2004

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Engineering the Exurbs

Over at his Washington Monthly blog, Kevin Drum does two useful things:

1. Links to David Brooks’ NYT Magazine piece this weekend on exurbs, which, if it isn’t exactly solid sociology, is still a really good read; and
2. Mentions the book “Edge City,” which I never read but always kinda meant to, and links to his review.

When you talk about urban planning, you’re really talking about human behavior and the competing desires to a) support it and b) change it.

We want to a) support it, of course, because that’s the whole point: Think of the architect Le Corbusier, who called the house “a machine for living in.” Our urban spaces are the substrate for our lives, so we want them to work.

But sometimes we want to b) change our behavior, too. Because nothing you can say will convince me that this — a bit of real estate development folk wisdom, apparently — isn’t sad (or economically inefficient, if that’s what does it for you):

The farthest distance an American will willingly walk before getting into a car: Six hundred feet. For example, sightlines in shopping malls never exceed 600 feet because people won’t walk that far.

Commenter raj notes: “If americans weren’t so fat, maybe they would walk 700 or even 800 feet before getting into a car.”

To which commenter emptywheel replies: “Ah, raj, is fatness the chicken or the egg? Methinks it’s largely the chicken.”

Those who say that the exurbs and all they encompass are a pure realization of our desires (does this include Brooks? I’m not sure) ignore the zoning, transportation, and tax policies that engineered both the ‘urbs and their people, for whom a quarter-mile of pavement might as well be the Oregon Trail. (Dude, Oregon Trail. Flashback.)

Those who say the exurbs are the first circle of hell ignore the fact that people are moving in every day — and diggin’ it.

What we need is urban planning that addresses our real needs, and the real patterns of modern American life — forget the fairy-tale downtown — but provides some economic incentives for our better angels, not just our lazy ones.

Where’s Frederick Law Olmsted when you need him?

(Man, the whole comments section for Drum’s post is great. Check it out.)