Another good trends piece...
Mar. 15th, 2008 01:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelidonThe trends explored here make sense to me. The poor tend to get squeezed into the least desirable housing, and in the years to come, edge suburbs -- far from jobs, lacking viable mass transportation options or walkable potential, requiring increasingly painful investments in fuel to get anywhere or do anything, often built for speed of construction, not long-term durability, designed in a way to be difficult to subdivide into apartments... it seems quite possible that these are going to be the least desirable places.
But I wonder, if creative (and desperate) people will find solutions even here -- tearing down some empty houses to create community gardens and the like... maybe.
Is Suburbia Turning Into Slumburbia?
(excerpt, full article via link above):
Every coin has its flip side. Last week, I explored how San Francisco and other centers of innovation around the globe are resisting the downward vortex of the housing market. These fabled super cities, Richard Florida contends in his new book, "Who's Your City," are attracting an increasingly disproportionate number of educated, creative knowledge workers who fuel the economy. In turn, these folks are keeping housing prices relatively high despite recurring appearances of the R-word on our front pages.
The dark side of this surreality is that the places far from these hallowed urban cores are experiencing unprecedented decline and, according to some experts, threaten to become tomorrow's slums.
We're not talking about mean inner city streets getting meaner, we're talking about the pristine, newly built developments of four-bedroom, three-bath dream homes produced in the last housing boom becoming ghettos for the poor and the disenfranchised.
[snip]
Despite all this doom and gloom, the experts say we may be witnessing the evolution of the American dream toward a far healthier, more ecological vision.
"It's an enormous opportunity," says Norquist, "Thirty percent of the housing stock that will exist in 2030 hasn't been built yet. Developers who are creating walkable neighborhoods are doing very well." Indeed, the fact that Americans are embracing walkable neighborhoods is a good thing for their waistlines, their pocketbooks and the planet. "(Al) Gore talks about the inconvenient truth," says Norquist, "I call this the convenient solution: living in a more urban way."
To accelerate this trend, Leinberger is trying to work with cities that don't have revived downtowns to help pave the way for the kind of walkable redevelopment that will attract jobs and residents. Building walkable urban developments won't guarantee a city's success, says Leinberger, but it is an essential first step.
"If you build, will they come?" asks Leinberger. "You just don't know. But if you don't build it, there's not a prayer they will come."
But I wonder, if creative (and desperate) people will find solutions even here -- tearing down some empty houses to create community gardens and the like... maybe.
Is Suburbia Turning Into Slumburbia?
(excerpt, full article via link above):
Every coin has its flip side. Last week, I explored how San Francisco and other centers of innovation around the globe are resisting the downward vortex of the housing market. These fabled super cities, Richard Florida contends in his new book, "Who's Your City," are attracting an increasingly disproportionate number of educated, creative knowledge workers who fuel the economy. In turn, these folks are keeping housing prices relatively high despite recurring appearances of the R-word on our front pages.
The dark side of this surreality is that the places far from these hallowed urban cores are experiencing unprecedented decline and, according to some experts, threaten to become tomorrow's slums.
We're not talking about mean inner city streets getting meaner, we're talking about the pristine, newly built developments of four-bedroom, three-bath dream homes produced in the last housing boom becoming ghettos for the poor and the disenfranchised.
[snip]
Despite all this doom and gloom, the experts say we may be witnessing the evolution of the American dream toward a far healthier, more ecological vision.
"It's an enormous opportunity," says Norquist, "Thirty percent of the housing stock that will exist in 2030 hasn't been built yet. Developers who are creating walkable neighborhoods are doing very well." Indeed, the fact that Americans are embracing walkable neighborhoods is a good thing for their waistlines, their pocketbooks and the planet. "(Al) Gore talks about the inconvenient truth," says Norquist, "I call this the convenient solution: living in a more urban way."
To accelerate this trend, Leinberger is trying to work with cities that don't have revived downtowns to help pave the way for the kind of walkable redevelopment that will attract jobs and residents. Building walkable urban developments won't guarantee a city's success, says Leinberger, but it is an essential first step.
"If you build, will they come?" asks Leinberger. "You just don't know. But if you don't build it, there's not a prayer they will come."
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slumburbia, aka Belly Rave
Date: 2008-03-15 07:54 pm (UTC)...cwazy Wabbits....
Re: slumburbia, aka Belly Rave
Date: 2008-03-17 02:38 pm (UTC)::goes off to find a copy::
Looks like there were several reprints, and there are a fair number of copies floating about. Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 04:20 pm (UTC)So mote it be! The American dream could use some tweaking, I say.