gc
25 September 2003, 05:37 PM
Snubbing the benefits of sprawl
Dennis Byrne. Dennis Byrne is a Chicago-area writer and public affairs consultant - Published September 22, 2003
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/oped/chi-0309220176sep22,1,615010.story
What we do hear from urban `reformers' is the same tired nostrums about the need for `smart growth,' a thinly disguised pleading for concentrating political, zoning and transportation planning
The alleged evils of suburban sprawl are many: highway congestion, destroyed farmland, squandered energy, duplication of infrastructure and reinforced segregation.
Insular, white-bread suburbanites can't handle the vibrant cosmopolitan city. They're consumed by their "stupid" middle-class values that are the hallmarks of suburbia--single-family homes, big back yards and driveways crowded with multiple gas-guzzlers. They're oblivious to how they are destroying Mother Earth's gifts.
Except for this: If it weren't for immigrants flocking to the suburbs, suburban sprawl might well be a thing of the past. That's right, the foreign born, mostly "minorities," are now responsible for the growth of the Chicago area. Recent U.S. Census Bureau figures show that newly arrived immigrants are equally as likely to choose suburban living as traditional ethnic neighborhoods in Chicago. An analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based think tank that favors reasonable immigration levels, found that new immigration and births of immigrants now account for nearly 90 percent of U.S. population growth.
Actually, suburbanization of the foreign born began to appear as a trend a couple of decades ago. And those of us who live in the suburbs didn't need a study. Russians, Koreans, Japanese, Asians of all sorts, Mexicans, Irish, Polish and others have been among us for a long time and, I gather, not offended by the presence of so many of us "nativist" suburbanites. As usual, it took a long time for the intellectuals to catch on, holed up as they are in academe.
Funny, though. Immigrants get none of the blame for suburban sprawl and its evil spawn. Even though the Chicago-area population would have declined without immigration, I don't hear any "smart-growth" advocates saying that we have to "do something" about immigration, including its substantial illegal variant. Maybe they are dumbfounded that immigrants and minorities crave the same things that the "rest of us" suburbanites do: leafy open space; the freedom provided by personal vehicles and inexpensive, convenient places to park them; better schools; a more secure environment, oh, and cheaper land the farther out you go. Which makes for more affordable housing, the touchstone of every urban activist who has harsh words for suburbanites. Or are we to assume that immigrants don't know what they are doing when they choose the suburbs?
What we do hear from urban "reformers" is the same tired, nostrums about the need for "smart growth," a thinly disguised pleading for concentrating political, zoning, transportation planning and other powers that influence the urban form in the hands of a few. Never mind that the affordable land and other suburban advantages provided to immigrants and minorities were made available by the despised "fragmented" system of metropolitan government. What we need is some truly original thinking by urbanologists, or as they like to say, a new paradigm. The cities of the 19th Century grew in compact, dense forms because of the economic and social requirements imposed on them--a face to face economy and horse-and-buggy transportation. The postwar period brought with it new requirements as well as preferences for mobility, safety and self-determination that reshaped the metropolitan form. Obviously, the city will never disappear, because spatial proximity of people always will be present.
But the telecommunications revolution has created new requirements while breaking many constraints that required the physical proximity of earlier metropolises. As a freelance writer and a consultant, I don't have to work downtown. I attend meetings by phone, communicate by e-mail and research on the Internet. I save a ton on gasoline, consume vastly fewer of nature's gifts and other folks don't have to subsidize my trip to work on mass transit. Instead of trying to hold back the inevitable, reformers should more exhaustively examine how the urban form is shaped by technological change and the preferences of new (as well as old) Americans. The well-heeled reformers in Metropolis 2020, for example, should more aggressively pressure their chief-executive-officer friends to allow more employees to work from home or from mini-work centers spread throughout the region. Imagine the savings in just transportation costs.
I know it's a revolutionary idea, but not every employee needs to be watched like a hawk. Widespread acceptance of the idea that production is more important than physical presence could have a huge, and beneficial, impact on urban form.
Meanwhile, just let the rest of us, including immigrants, live where and how we want. It would be good for society.
Dennis Byrne. Dennis Byrne is a Chicago-area writer and public affairs consultant - Published September 22, 2003
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/oped/chi-0309220176sep22,1,615010.story
What we do hear from urban `reformers' is the same tired nostrums about the need for `smart growth,' a thinly disguised pleading for concentrating political, zoning and transportation planning
The alleged evils of suburban sprawl are many: highway congestion, destroyed farmland, squandered energy, duplication of infrastructure and reinforced segregation.
Insular, white-bread suburbanites can't handle the vibrant cosmopolitan city. They're consumed by their "stupid" middle-class values that are the hallmarks of suburbia--single-family homes, big back yards and driveways crowded with multiple gas-guzzlers. They're oblivious to how they are destroying Mother Earth's gifts.
Except for this: If it weren't for immigrants flocking to the suburbs, suburban sprawl might well be a thing of the past. That's right, the foreign born, mostly "minorities," are now responsible for the growth of the Chicago area. Recent U.S. Census Bureau figures show that newly arrived immigrants are equally as likely to choose suburban living as traditional ethnic neighborhoods in Chicago. An analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based think tank that favors reasonable immigration levels, found that new immigration and births of immigrants now account for nearly 90 percent of U.S. population growth.
Actually, suburbanization of the foreign born began to appear as a trend a couple of decades ago. And those of us who live in the suburbs didn't need a study. Russians, Koreans, Japanese, Asians of all sorts, Mexicans, Irish, Polish and others have been among us for a long time and, I gather, not offended by the presence of so many of us "nativist" suburbanites. As usual, it took a long time for the intellectuals to catch on, holed up as they are in academe.
Funny, though. Immigrants get none of the blame for suburban sprawl and its evil spawn. Even though the Chicago-area population would have declined without immigration, I don't hear any "smart-growth" advocates saying that we have to "do something" about immigration, including its substantial illegal variant. Maybe they are dumbfounded that immigrants and minorities crave the same things that the "rest of us" suburbanites do: leafy open space; the freedom provided by personal vehicles and inexpensive, convenient places to park them; better schools; a more secure environment, oh, and cheaper land the farther out you go. Which makes for more affordable housing, the touchstone of every urban activist who has harsh words for suburbanites. Or are we to assume that immigrants don't know what they are doing when they choose the suburbs?
What we do hear from urban "reformers" is the same tired, nostrums about the need for "smart growth," a thinly disguised pleading for concentrating political, zoning, transportation planning and other powers that influence the urban form in the hands of a few. Never mind that the affordable land and other suburban advantages provided to immigrants and minorities were made available by the despised "fragmented" system of metropolitan government. What we need is some truly original thinking by urbanologists, or as they like to say, a new paradigm. The cities of the 19th Century grew in compact, dense forms because of the economic and social requirements imposed on them--a face to face economy and horse-and-buggy transportation. The postwar period brought with it new requirements as well as preferences for mobility, safety and self-determination that reshaped the metropolitan form. Obviously, the city will never disappear, because spatial proximity of people always will be present.
But the telecommunications revolution has created new requirements while breaking many constraints that required the physical proximity of earlier metropolises. As a freelance writer and a consultant, I don't have to work downtown. I attend meetings by phone, communicate by e-mail and research on the Internet. I save a ton on gasoline, consume vastly fewer of nature's gifts and other folks don't have to subsidize my trip to work on mass transit. Instead of trying to hold back the inevitable, reformers should more exhaustively examine how the urban form is shaped by technological change and the preferences of new (as well as old) Americans. The well-heeled reformers in Metropolis 2020, for example, should more aggressively pressure their chief-executive-officer friends to allow more employees to work from home or from mini-work centers spread throughout the region. Imagine the savings in just transportation costs.
I know it's a revolutionary idea, but not every employee needs to be watched like a hawk. Widespread acceptance of the idea that production is more important than physical presence could have a huge, and beneficial, impact on urban form.
Meanwhile, just let the rest of us, including immigrants, live where and how we want. It would be good for society.