In Sprawl We Trust, Part Two

Thusfar, we've learned a few things about Joel Kotkin. We know he's allied with far-right think-tanks. We know he recycles his articles shamelessly. And we know he tones down his anti-environmental rhetoric for mainstream publications, replacing it with a smidgen of aesthetic ambivalence here, and an acre-foot of cornucopian boilerplate there.

But we don't know exactly what he's talking about when he talks about "sprawl." He claims that sprawl is approximately fifty years old, which would suggest that he's talking about the postwar advent of auto-dependent strip malls, shopping centers, and low-density, off-freeway tract housing. But as far as I can tell, he's not. His articles are about suburbs in general, and the sort of life that's lived in them, and aesthetic debates about them that go back to the early years of the twentieth century. There's no sign that Kotkin sees any clear distinction between suburbia and sprawl. However, the preeminent characteristics of sprawl, properly so called, are auto dependence and environmental intensivity. These are issues that Kotkin's WaPo piece really doesn't address, though they're at the heart of any serious critique of sprawl, especially in regards to peak energy issues.

Instead, Kotkin concerns himself primarily with the popular aesthetic image of suburbia: is it a cultural wasteland, or isn't it? How do urban "elites" feel about it, and are their opinions fair? Interesting questions, no doubt, but utterly immaterial to the question of whether suburbs - especially ones being built today - are sustainable in the long term. In many cases, the future of the suburbs depends on the continued availability of cheap oil; any justification for increasing development has to address this concern, and as I pointed out in part one of this piece, Kotkin's way of addressing it is woefully lame.

Does Kotkin have any valid points? Sure. He's correct that increasing traffic congestion requires more services to be available in the suburbs...not just big-box superstores, but locally owned and operated businesses that have the potential to revitalize moribund downtown areas. I have no quarrel with this at all.

But again, Kotkin is sloppy in defining his terms. He brings up Naperville, Illinois as a shining example of a newly revitalized suburb. But Naperville was a town before it was a suburb, and the layout of the town reflects its origins as a true community. This has nothing to do with sprawl as seen along freeways in California's Central Valley; many of those housing developments have no urban center whatsoever, and are increasingly appearing on the fringes of earlier, now-deteriorating suburbs that weren't designed to function as communities in any meaningful sense.

Again, Kotkin makes no clear distinction between suburbs, interurban sprawl, and what used to be called "satellite cities." Naperville is a real place, with a rich history that goes back almost two hundred years; it can't be compared to a cluster of tract housing that's been hurriedly built along an interstate. The problems caused by the latter developments are serious, and would ideally be addressed before massive new developments - of any type - are undertaken.

Kotkin's vision of a brave new suburban future - in which developments function as autonomous but interlinked "villages" that will "coexist amiably" with the environment - may be appealing, but only if it's not examined too closely. At its core is the belief that energy and land are essentially limitless resources, an irrational position which is typical of the zealots at the American Enterpise Institute. Redesigning existing suburbs to make them more autonomous, livable and efficient is a fine idea, but in many areas of the country, even Kotkin's brand of "enlightened" growth may prove to be unsustainable within our lifetimes.