SupraUrban

 Ellen Dunham-Jones’ and June Williamsons’ “Retrofitting Suburbia,” despite closing in on fifteen years old, makes a very strong case for the reclamation of the suburbs into part of a larger urban network. I’m copying their strategy in bulleted for here below for reference:

·       Reduce vehicle-miles traveled and improve public health by creating a transit-served or transit-ready mix of uses in a walkable street pattern connected to adjacent uses

·       Reduce land consumption and per-capita costs of public investment by absorbing growth that, without alternatives, would expand in sprawl and edgeless cities

·       Increase the feasibility and efficiency of transit

·       Increase local interconnectivity

·       Add permeable surfaces and green space

·       Add public and civic space

·       Increase choice in housing type and affordability

·       Increase diversification of the tax base

·       Establish an urban node within a polycentric region

This stands out to me in particular because it is not a simple assessment or criticism of the current condition but that it details actionable steps for property owners and policy makers to reclaim dead or dying suburban areas to give them new life. In the effort to reduce the amount of (sub)urban sprawl, it is very wise in my opinion to reclaim these areas of the suburbs that were previously the sole proprietorship of the privileged. Instead of sequestering the viable land of the urban surroundings, property owners could convert them into more socially sustainable spaces with a variety of function and a diversity of occupation, while including the opportunity to create new public transit hubs that have been shown to energize new and healthy urban growth—the antithesis of sprawl.