The Atlantic looks at the continued fallout of the subprime mess and its relation to larger shifts in attitudes toward dense urban areas and surrounding suburban areas. As the number of foreclosed homes sit empty in neighborhoods increase, so has activity commonly associated with urban centers such as graffiti, gangs, and even the stripping of empty properties of precious metals such as copper. It could be argued that the suburb has finally arrived - the oldest of the suburbs have reached an age where homes will have seen multi-generations and the transfer of ownership through a handful of families. As older city neighborhoods such as the Lower East Side have seen its demographic shift from Jewish, to Puerto Rican, to gentrifying transplants from the Midwest, the suburbs are reaching an age where radical shifts in demographics and character will become part of the arc of the life of a suburb.
This is a promising change from two fronts. First, the model of the suburb and suburban living is cautiously being reexamined under the guise of New Urbanism. New Urbanist communities have begun to support denser developments with an emphasis on public transportation or walkable living. Lifestyle Centers mimic the stylings of traditional Main Street, while beginning to mix retail, commercial and housing in the same development. While neither approach is perfect, and wreak of stylistic falsities more appropriate of a Disneyworld amusement center, they demonstrate the possibilities in rethinking how suburban development is approached, as opposed to a complete abandonment or disregard / distaste for the suburbs, as practiced by close-minded city dwellers who believe the revitalization of the inner city is the only honorable direction for us to take moving forward.
And second, older suburban developments and retail strips have the potential to be re-examined, as many are falling into disrepair and in need of infrastructural improvements. The opportunity exists to think about how infill projects are approached, how existing lots can be made denser, and whether larger McMansions can be subdivided into multi-tenant homes, in much the same way older brownstones or row-houses have been in neighborhoods such as Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Rather than viewing the forthcoming change approaching the suburbs in a negative light (ie: death of the suburbs), the weakening of the rigid idea of what the suburbs ought to be and what they represent should be seen as an opportunity to examine the best and worst of the suburbs, and learn how they are to be recalibrated moving forward.
The Next Slum? [The Atlantic]
