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People need livable communities and a high quality of life. The attractiveness of older small towns and a scattering of newer developments demonstrate the appeal of certain characteristics. Lively downtown areas, streets designed for pedestrians as much as autos, a scale and pattern of development that allows us meet everyday needs by walking, are all key factors in ensuring cities provide a high quality of life. The Problem The standard style of suburban development since the 1950s produces less livable communities. Uses are rigorously separated into housing subdivisions, shopping malls, and business parks, which are then segregated by walls and wide collector streets. Residents must depend on cars for all their shopping, family and recreational trips. Traffic congestion is the norm. A sense of community is often lacking.
We are building sprawling mega-cities that provide this lesser quality of life, while consuming vast acreages of farmland and wildlife habitat. Fifty years ago, Los Angeles was a delightful place to live, a sunny city surrounded by stunning mountain ranges, and the nation's number one agricultural producer. Now it's a vast mega-city stretching 50 miles in all directions, with commuters driving 50 miles between their job and affordable housing. Traffic congestion reduces mobility, but lack of public transportation and scattered services and jobs mandate auto travel. Air pollution remains a major problem, despite dramatic reductions in individual auto emissions. Agriculture has all but vanished. Many species and habitats are rare and imperiled. A variety of fiscal and social problems accompany this sprawl. Inner cities, and then inner suburbs, decay as growth moves outward like an ever-expanding doughnut. Peripheral growth incurs tremendous costs for constructing and maintaining infrastructure, costs which are rarely internalized into the price of new development. Low density development is particularly expensive: new infrastructure on the edges of urban areas can cost up to $30,000 a house. Meanwhile, localities cannot afford to maintain existing infrastructure in older communities. More and more people endure ever longer commutes between jobs and distant affordable housing. Family and local government economies suffer. Decisions are made on the basis of short term fiscal needs, rather than the long-term good of the communities we are building. People move out of the Los Angeles area, often to get away from these ills and find new homes with better quality of life. But because we have not learned that sprawling development causes so many problems, their new locales are on the same path to becoming dysfunctional cities. Solutions A growing number of planners and architects are learning from communities that work. Leaders like Andres Duany and Peter Calthorpe promote design principles and work with developers to produce model communities. Here are some of the key principles.
We also need to address two other issues in order to obtain successful communities and curb suburban sprawl:
Finally, there are things to avoid. They include ribbon development, strip commercial, malls with buildings surrounded by parking lots, and office parks. Change Must be for Real Unfortunately, these concepts can become buzz-phrases, providing attractive packaging without the substantive changes. This is reminiscent of those billboards, peddling housing developments with scenes of oak studded rural valleys, or wildlife-laden ponds. Currently, the term 'mixed-use' is subject to abuse. Architect Peter Calthorpe provides a guide for spotting fake 'mixed use' planned communities. They still separate uses into individual development zones segregated by major arterial roads. They isolate pedestrians from the street. They use a hierarchy of streets, so causing congestion of feeder routes and continue to design streets for autos, not people. And they fail to provide effective public places. The writings and lectures of reformist planners and architects have increased awareness. California's Local Government Commission educates local officials and promotes the Ahwahnee Principles for planning communities that work. But still it is largely business as usual. The 'Beyond Sprawl" report of the Bank of America and others states the problem. 'Little constituency exists beyond groups of government reformers, some local government leaders, community groups and conservationists. Political alliances must be forged between environmentalists, inner-city community advocates, business leaders, governments experts, farmers and suburbanites.' An essential task for the years ahead. reprinted from Linkages, newsletter of the Institute for Ecological Health. Further Reading on Livable Communities
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