Suburbs are Here to Stay

Personal opinions of suburbs aside, it is undeniable that they shape much of the American landscape, house a huge percentage of our population, and they're not going away anytime soon. However, current trends suggest that once again our focus is shifting back to urban city centers. With this push towards urbanism what will happen to suburbs and their current, unattended challenges? For example, in Retrofitting Suburbia, the authors cite that "suburban municipalities now house more people living in poverty than central cities do." Couple that with a lack of public transit in suburbs and a vicious cycle starts to take shape - people without transit have a difficult time accessing and maintaining jobs to support themselves. The issue is starting to sound reminiscent of many of the issues previously identified in urban cores. Poverty, lack of socio-economic diversity, isolation, limited access to transit and resources. In the shift towards urbanism we are starting to see these challenges addressed in urban cores, but are we just changing the scene in which they are taking place? Are the same exact challenges just being shifted out to suburbs to be pushed aside until the next time suburbs are trendy again?

The historical pattern seems to be that either cities improve at the expense of suburbs, or vice versa. In both Retrofitting Suburbia and Little Boxes, the authors emphasize the importance of a network. If we start to assess cities and suburbs as one interconnected network perhaps we can begin to identify ways in which to improve the entire network - not just one at the expense of the other.

Atlanta, GA