First In First Out

Just when we think we know every issue, here comes another eye-opening one. First Suburbs. Huh? That's what I said, but then I watched the rough cut of the upcoming documentary film called The New Metropolis by Andrea Torrice.

Imagine a circle with the big city in the middle. Then an initial ring of suburbs. Then a second ring. Then another ring and another...farther and farther out from the center.

In the mid 20th century, people starting moving out of the cities to suburbia. The American Dream. A house with a big yard. Now it turns out that people are moving again, out of the First Suburbs to the Second and Third Suburbs or Exurbs as they are called. These are mostly bedroom communities where residents have to commute for hours to their jobs and back.

We've all heard of love 'em and leave 'em. Well, this is develop 'em and leave 'em. We are abandoning our first suburban love and building rows of shiny new mansions in the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by others in the middle of nowhere of course.

The result?  This leaves behind a trash heap of semi-abandoned cities. The towns lose their tax base and can't pay for infrastructure repairs, which worsens the cycle. It is happening all over the United States.

I remember visiting my grandmother in a beautiful town outside of Philadelphia when I was a little girl. When I went back recently, the once-charmed neighborhood had become a near-slum. It was shocking and sad. What had happened?

Apparently, federal and state government policies favor developing the new (farther out) rather than renovating the old. These policies still exist today. More first suburbs are declining, and more prime farmland is being consumed to build monster houses in the exurbs.

According to the NRDC Smart Growth section, between 1960 and 1990, U.S. population grew less than 50%, while the amount of open land that fell under developer bulldozers more than doubled. Each year, 3.2 million acres of open space are developed. This translates into 356 acres per hour. Thus, developers are buildling new homes in greenfields faster than population is growing. This leads to excess housing in the first suburbs that is eventually abandoned. For Sale signs are everywhere in many of these towns.

This is all very Anti-Green of course. Residents must clock hours in their cars guzzling gas. The new construction consumes precious land, water, forest, oil, and energy resources. The resources in the first suburbs are left to rot. And how many of these new houses are built green and LEED-certified? If they were, the brutal eco-impact would be lessened but still nonzero. Net net, urban sprawl and first-ring-suburb abandonment are hidden causes of global warming and get a big thumbs down.

On the flip side, think of the opportunity for America that exists in renovating and rebuilding the first suburbs. All we need are some enlightened new government policies for starters. Smart growth. Then it can be develop-them-and-love-them and love-them-some-more.

Incidentally, the filmmaker Andrea Torrice made one of the first films on global warming back in the day called Rising Waters. Talk about being ahead of your time. So with any luck, her latest topic of first suburbs should explode onto the scene in about five years. Ideally sooner so that we can get track house development on a new eco track.

If you want to go deeper on this issue, the Brookings Institution has some excellent research. Check out this insightful article too.