Originally posted by Gotta Speakup
Well yes, because those were cities of the 19th and early 20th centuries they were describing. Places like New York, Philadelphia, etc. There's times when I ride the subway in New York now and I think to myself, 'God, this city makes people mentally ill.' I can only imagine what it was like 100 years ago when they didn't even have proper / modern sanitation and everybody lived in slums that would make the modern day South Bronx look like French Riveira.
There are lots of areas in between big city living and large lot sprawl. Where I live is "urban" compared to the small town I work in. However, it would risk being called "sprawl" by someone in a big city. In some cases the small town people mistrust me for coming from too urban an environment. My choices are to either drive solo everyday or move to a more sprawling environment.
People of all professions live where they do for countless reasons. Planners don't need other planners judging where they live.
Someone has to work for the far flung suburban towns and those planners aren't always going to reverse commute from the city.
Well, I know that what is taught in planning school is different from the actual experience of being a planner, but maybe the difference between the two is wider than I thought. I have often felt that the message I got from a lot of classes in planning school was not at all connected to reality - the message I got was basically that everyone should be practically forced to move to an urban environment or at least have their communities retrofitted to be more urban. I know that's bullshit. But in light of that, what is the role of the planner, if it's not to curtail something as pervasive and costly to society as suburban sprawl?
Again, I wish people would read the actual posts. I am not judging anyone. Simply asking questions. The 20-something hipsters I went to school with annoy the crap out of me too, because they actually buy into what the idiot professors teach them. But my question is, since I wasn't taught much else about the purpose of planners besides the radical anti-sprawl, anti-suburban message of academics in planning, what IS the role of planners?
I don't think you are being judgmental, you're just brining up an intresting discussion. I was just reacting to those types of fundamentalist planners out there.
I think there is a perfect blended mix of environments that already exists today; streetcar suburbs. Lots were platted when people had cars so there are garages but lots are close-together enough to make walking fairly easy if you want to do that. Land uses tend to be mixed with retail on the corners and houses in the middle of blocks. For me this is ideal.
I burned down the church to atone for my transgressions.
And remember density doesn't equal downtown living, you can live in dense neighborhoods that are still sprawl. The densest neighborhood in Charleston SC (besides downtown Charleston) in terms of houses per sq. mile is actually 20 miles outside of the city in Summerville. However, I can tell you from experience that the dense neighborhood in Summerville is not very walkable and has no transit service.
@PortCityPlanner
#ProudlyAICP
The town I live in can best be described as a pre-war streetcar suburb (even though I don't think there ever was an acutal streetcar running through it). Most of the homes were built in the 1900s-1940s, but are well kept. There are a decent number of duplexes and small apartment buildings, but it's mostly single family detached homes, with varying amounts of separation between homes. On some blocks, the homes are only separated by a narrow space no more than 8 or 10 feet wide (even that might be generous). Needless to say, those homes don't have driveways and residents must park on the street. On other blocks, there is probably 20 feet of separation, perhaps a bit more. Certainly enough separation for a driveway. A grocery store, a convenience store, a barbershop, a bank, various shops and restaurants are all within a 10 minute walk (at most). But people in this area see it as suburban and not that dense at all. Well, compared to New York City, no it's not dense. Compared to your average American town (especially other suburbs) it's quite dense.
So my point is, I agree with you stroskey. I think that my town has a density that is ideal. It's spread out enough that almost every home has a decent sized yard for kids to play in, but dense enough that walking and biking to non-residential uses are very possible. According to the 2010 Census, my town has a density of 7,728.1 people per square mile. So perhaps somewhere in the 7,000-8,000 people / sq. mi range is an ideal density?
On the other hand, in terms of shear numbers, NYC is unbelievably more crowded today than at any time in the past (even if you account for its annexation of surrounding areas):
- 1890 1,515,301 people
- 1900 3,437,202 people
- 2011 8,244,910 people
Check out the leap from 1890 to 1900 - 125 percent!. That kind of massive increase in urban populations may be part of what those planning and architecture folks were responding to. In many industrialized nations there was a huge shift from a majority rural to a majority urban population. I'm sure more than a few people thought this would spell the end of civilization as we know it. In 1900, US urban/rural split was 40/60. In 1990 it was 75/25. This is a very interesting cataloging of urban and rural splits by the census for the US 1900 to 1990.
The purpose of life is a life of purpose
Someone should write a book about this.
The reason for the massive leap in population is because in 1898, NYC annexed the four outer boroughs. Prior to 1898, NYC consisted of only Manhattan (and I don't even think it took up the whole island, but I could be wrong about that). Brooklyn was a major city in its own right. Queens, as I was surprised to find out recently, was mostly developed in the 20th century. In 1900, large parts of the borough were still farmland, as was Long Island. I don't know as much about the history of the Bronx or Staten Island, but I do know that all five boroughs were merged into a single, consolidated NYC municipal government in 1898, hence the reason for the population boom between 1890 and 1900.
That being said, even if there are more people in NYC (especially Manhattan) now compared with 100-150 years ago, it's managed better. When you have modern sanitation, street sweeping, snow removal, water treatment, etc. facilities and services, you can crowd more people into a tight space and still make it work.
P.S. Isn't it funny how people usually associate massive annexations that artificially inflate the population of a city with Sun Belt cities, when New York went forward with the granddaddy of annexations, the annexation to end all annexations, that literally turned it into five major cities all rolled up into one? What New York did in 1898 was not like what Charlotte, Nashville, Jacksonville, etc. have done - it is on a scale 100 times bigger than that.
Good point about the role of annexation in those numbers. I was mainly saying that I suspect a lot of that anti-urban Garden City fervor around the turn of the century was fostered by the increasing urbanization of our country which was definitely happening at a quickened pace at that time. Annexation was part of a larger thread of increasing migration to the cities and concerns about how to manage it. I grew up in what was one of the first era of suburbs outside of Philadelphia, established between 1880 and 1900. It had been farmland, then dairy farms, then parceled out in large lots and sold to wealthy Philadelphians as summer homes and later permanent homes. The house I grew up in was built in 1917 by an engineer working for a Philadelphia firm. He actually commuted by rail to the city. These folks were "fleeing" the crowded cities that had become crowded and loud with factories and migrants/immigrants (an early version of White Flight). For an interesting read on this, check out Dolores Hayden's book Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000. A very thorough analysis of trends in American suburbanization. It provides a lot of insight concerning why and how suburban development patterns developed the way they did during different eras and certainly informs the issue of sprawl.
The purpose of life is a life of purpose
Yes, there was definitely a rapid urbanization in big American cities from 1880 until about 1930 or so. Chicago, New York, Philly, all of the big cities. But yeah, because cars weren't as prominent then as they are now, the "getaway" towns were still built with access to transit and houses somewhat close together. Just not too close, like in the tenements.
Many older US cities peaked in population in 1950. Boston, St. Loius, Detroit, to name a few
Others had peaks in population, declined for a while, then grew again, San Francisco and New York.
Others have never stopped growing. Many because of annexation (Houston and Phoenix), but others because of ongoing densification (Los Angeles and San Jose since 1980 or so).
In the spatial realm, sometimes I see the opposite of what has been mainly discussed in this thread; planners commuting great distances from the dense central city out to their suburban job. The Portland area is weird (unique is the nice way to put it) and it seems that many people under about 40 will only live in a hip central neighborhood, even if their job is 20+ miles away and they have worked at said job for some time. I understand that there are elements of their neighborhoods that they like, but I am currently working as a temp in a suburban county planning office and it's funny to hear a couple of the people lament their hour long or greater commutes from Portland. In fact, on many of the corridors, the reverse commute is actually worse than the regular commute.
What I am getting at, and what underscores other people's comments is that sometimes it does make sense to live in what appears to be a sprawling suburb if you happen to have a stable job at an office or local government that's situated there.
That's what I did when I lived/worked in the Cleveland area - lived in an older inner ring (1920s-1950s), suburb, and outcommuted 27 miles to a distant industrial satellite city. Taking public transportation to work would have involved three or four transfers and 2 1/2 hours at the least. My neighborhood wasn't hip, but it was walkable and centrally located. If I lived where I worked, I'd be physically and socailly isolated; a blue collar town separated from Cleveland by hundreds of square miles of relatively affluent, low density post-war suburbia,
Growth for growth's sake is the ideology of the cancer cell. -- Edward Abbey
Wow, great discussion! We were talking about this in our office a few days ago; this, and the fact that such a huge percentage of our city employees live outside the city limits.
That said, I traded in my truck for a small hybrid sedan, live in a one-bedroom apartment in the center of the city, and walk everywhere I can. That doesn't make me better than other planners, or even a better planner - I'm single with no kids, so I can make those choices very easily.
Don't forget the fact that planners are generally not a well-paid bunch, and income certainly influences commutes, living units, density levels, and neighborhood choice. So, another relevant question would be this: what are the underlying factors that tend to make it so difficult - or appear to discourage - living in a way that doesn't help sprawl continue to thrive? And what can we as planners do about that?
Let's start by bumping up everybody's pay.
"In our profession, a plan that everyone dislikes for different reasons is a success. A plan everyone dislikes for the same reason is a failure. And a plan that everyone likes for the same reason is an act of God." - Richard Carson
In my past positions I was able to find employment and living within a 5 minutes of each other. In one position, I was a 5 minute walk. Sadly, my most recent position puts me into auto commuting about 15 minutes. I'm taking a new position in November and my commute will double to 30-35 minutes against traffic (thankfully).
I desire a high-quality, urban neighborhood but the "with good schools" part keeps pushing in my into drive-to-work land.
Dude, I'm cheesing so hard right now.
That's why we're out here in Blandville McSuburbia, albeit not too far from a light rail stop. One day...
-------
Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.
I live in a somewhat walkable area about 3 miles from work (and I design sprawl for a living!!).
Why do planners live in sprawl?
Because compact development in many areas is not cheap and most planners don't make a ton of money to live in flashy digs.
Why do I design sprawl?
I was laid off two other planning jobs (and a third non-planning job) in the past 3 1/2 years. I go where the work is and right now I'm swamped. You do the math.
"This is great, honey. What's the crunchy stuff?"
"M&Ms. I ran out of paprika."
Family Guy
Quote
