Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

Sad Suburban Reality: Investment in anything beyond the area patrolled by your riding lawn mower is socialism

Why are today's suburban landscapes devoid of public spaces, connective roadways and trails, and other shared amenities? Because each house aspires to be its own gated community.

We've been made to believe that, somehow, $4,500 for a personal Rainbow Play Structure in the backyard is preferable to an $35 yearly bump in shared property taxes to fund, for instance, a network of community parks that would in turn attract commercial development capable of easing the tax burden on private property owners. (The play structure in my backyard, by the way, is a Rainbow knock-off. The "soon-to-be completed" park promised nearby is now a dozen years late.)

But, "You take care of your own."

Almost imperceptibly, the societal idea of what it means to be a resident of a community seems to have changed; it is more common now to speak of taxpayers than of citizens.... In gated communities and other privatized enclaves, the local community that many residents identify with is the one within the gates. Their homeowner association dues are like taxes; and their responsibility to their community, such as it is, ends at that gate.... One city official in Plano, Texas, summed up his view of the attitude of the gated community residents in his town: "I took care of my responsibility, I'm safe in here, I've got my guard gate; I've paid my [homeowner association] dues, and I'm responsible for my streets. Therefore, I have no responsibility for the commonweal, because you take care of your own."

- Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States, Edward Blakely and Mary Gail Snyder

Reality hits home, and McMansions gain saner dimensions

Now that amenities aren't self-contained in each, individual, over-leveraged home, residents will look to their communities for parks, public spaces, pools and other almost-forgotten shared assets.

Property tax freeze? Good luck with that absurd notion. Evolve or die.

By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS

SMYRNA, Ga. -- For the first time in four decades in the luxury-home business, executives at John Wieland builders are thinking the unthinkable: Maybe houses in the South don't really need a fireplace.

They're also wondering whether new homes require 4,700 square feet of living space. Or private theaters with 100-inch screens. Or super-size-me foyers.

As they draw up blueprints for the house of the post-recession future, builders are struggling to distinguish among what home buyers need, what they want and what they can live without -- Jacuzzi by Jacuzzi, butler's pantry by butler's pantry.

"You have to keep taking things out until you hit a critical point where people reject your product," said Jeff Kingsfield, senior vice president of sales at Smyrna-based John Wieland Homes & Neighborhoods.

It's an experiment brought on by necessity. Two years ago, closely held Wieland was building 1,800 houses a year in posh subdivisions in Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas, selling for an average of $650,000 apiece. Today, the company is closing on just 600 homes annually, according to Wieland. It has slashed staff to 330 employees from 1,100.

Read the rest at: Builders Downsize the Dream Home - WSJ.com

The death of sprawl (and the death of editorial responsibility in local news)

New McMansions are demolished in Victorville, CA earlier this year to free the city from liability resulting from possible vandalism, crime and fire danger. (LA Times photo)

I have before me the city of Franklin "Mayor's 2010 Recommended Budget," and it's not a pretty picture. Services are going to have to be cut; fire and police positions unfilled; city staff thinned.

Still think suburban sprawl - "planning" dictated by developers' schemes and their personal ROI - is sustainable? How about another movie theater or gym a mile and a half out of town, standing alone in the middle of a field?

There will be a public hearing on the proposed budget, by the way, on Tuesday, September 17th at City Hall.

Speaking of budget coverage: Another of the unfortunate results of dwindling local coverage by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is the fact that it's become clear that you cannot count on the weekly FranklinNow newspaper to provide clear-eyed coverage of ongoing budget issues. Editor Mark Maley thinks it appropriate, for instance, to reprint in the paper the blog entries of a Republican state senator's aide whose ongoing income and media aspirations are dependent upon maintaining the party line. Even after I successfully forced him to acknowledge his blogger's place of employment in his blog bio (which makes clear his particular bias) Mr. Maley continues to identify this gentleman in print as nothing more than "a Franklin resident," robbing the readers of any manner of context.

When did Mr. Maley relieve himself of his editorial responsibility to his readership?

•••

With our tortured budget in mind, I'm passing along a great two-part post on the connection between our current economic situation and decades of government-aided sprawl.

Some excerpts:

Note the New York Times on November 6 (p.A13):

New research about the recession has also bolstered one of transit's central premises -- that highway-driven sprawl is bad for a city's economic health. Recent studies at the University of Utah, for example, concluded that foreclosure rates in the Washington area were much lower in counties served by the Metro rail system, compared with the next ring of counties farther out, and that home prices in Phoenix had also fallen in direct proportion to the distance from downtown.

...

This is the first time in US history that sprawled low-density suburbs or exurbs have fallen faster in average value than city or inner-suburban areas; suddenly "Smart Growth" is more than a niche market or trend--it will be at the core of financially successful planning and development.

Links:

Death of Sprawl

Death of Sprawl pt 2

Wondering why we don't bother building community amenities anymore?

I'm long overdue in noting the unfortunate end of the Franklin Cultural Center board's efforts to fund and build an arts center here. The organization was chaired by Don Dorson (read his letter after the jump). So much for local community amenities.

I also just started reading a newly published book called THE CUL-DE-SAC SYNDROME: TURNING AROUND THE UNSUSTAINABLE AMERICAN DREAM. And there's Franklin - a favorite for authors and journalists needing an object lesson in sprawl economics -  on page 53:

High-growth areas nearly always translate into higher property taxes. One study in Dane County, Wisconsin, where the tax burden is among the highest in the United States, showed that while the county's population grew 12 percent from 1990 to 1996, total property taxes soared 3.57 times faster than the population. Part of the reason is that developers rarely pay the long-term costs of building communities. Impact fees are often minimal.

Once subdivisions are built, builders are off the hook to fund schools parks, roads, and other infrastructure. In fact, the disparity between what a single-family home costs taxpayers and what developers pay is huge. In Franklin, Wisconsin, just south of Milwaukee, each new home cost taxpayers more than $10,000 for schools and services in 1992 (it was considerably more by 2008). The developer's contribution: $813 per home. Impact fees vary from locale to locale, but they never cover the full cost of development.

How could the mortgage crisis get worse in suburbia? How about some BRAIN SWELLING DISEASE?

Via Slate: The Big Money:

Filmmakers Andrew and Leslie Cockburn discuss a scene from their new documentary American Casino. The scene shows how a sea of abandoned swimming pools in California has become a mosquito Club Med.

Weekend Viewing: James Howard Kunstler dissects suburbia | Video on TED.com

Few say it better.

James Howard Kunstler dissects suburbia | Video on TED.com.

UPDATED: Bush attempts to indulge in a little sprawl vandalism before he leaves office

Always time for another profitable outrage or two before headin' back to the ranch.

UPDATE: Timber firm drops road use request ("When we heard about the concern for further input, we said, 'Well, that makes sense,' and we apologized and set up some [public] meetings," said Kathy Budinick, a spokeswoman for Plum Creek)

The squeaky wheel ...

Forest Service paves way for development in Montana woods:

Washington Post

January 4, 2009

The Bush administration appears poised to push through a change in U.S. Forest Service agreements that would make it far easier for mountain forests to be converted to housing subdivisions.

Mark Rey, the former timber lobbyist who heads the Forest Service, last week signaled his intent to formalize the controversial change before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama.

As a candidate, Obama campaigned against the measure in Montana, where local governments complained of being blindsided by Rey's negotiating the policy shift behind closed doors with the nation's largest private landowner.

The shift is technical but with large implications. It would allow Plum Creek Timber Co. to pave roads passing through Forest Service land. For decades, such roads were little more than trails used by logging trucks to reach timber stands.

But as Plum Creek has moved into the real estate business, paving those roads became a necessary prelude to opening vast tracts of the company's 8 million acres to the vacation homes that are transforming landscapes across the West.

Scenic western Montana, where Plum Creek owns 1.2 million acres, would be most affected, placing burdens on county governments to provide services and undoing efforts to cluster housing near towns.

"Just within the last couple weeks, they finalized a big subdivision west of Kalispell," said D. James McCubbin, deputy county attorney of Missoula County, which complained that the closed-door negotiations violated federal laws requiring public comment because the changes would affect endangered species and sensitive ecosystems. Kalispell is in Flathead County, where officials also protested.

The uproar last summer forced Rey to postpone finalizing the change, which came after "considerable internal disagreement" within the Forest Service, according to a Government Accountability Office report requested by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.). The report said that 900 miles of logging roads could be paved in Montana and that amending the long-held easements "could have a nationwide impact."

Tester and Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, then asked for an inquiry by the inspector general of the Agriculture Department, which includes the Forest Service.

"I think we need another set of eyes on it," Tester said Friday. "I don't think that's running out the clock. If this is a good agreement, then what's the rush? Why do it in the eleventh hour of this administration?"

Obama sharply criticized Rey's efforts during the presidential campaign, citing concerns that a landscape dotted with luxury homes would be less hospitable to Montanans accustomed to easy access to timberlands.

"At a time when Montana's sportsmen are finding it increasingly hard to access lands, it is outrageous that the Bush administration would exacerbate the problem by encouraging prime hunting and fishing lands to be carved up and closed off," Obama said.

Rey vows to act soon. In a Dec. 12 letter to Tester and Bingaman, he repeated his logic for granting Plum Creek the changes it requested, then closed with a promise to schedule briefings "to describe how we plan to proceed."

In a phone interview Wednesday, Rey said he would act immediately after the courtesy meetings with the lawmakers. "Probably in the next week or so, before this goes forward," he said. Tester said he had not yet heard from Rey's office to arrange a meeting.

On environmental questions, the Bush administration has a checkered record of following through on promised eleventh-hour changes, said Robert Dreher, a lawyer with Defenders of Wildlife.

"I suppose it's a legacy issue," Dreher said. "They've already backed off on a couple of things they said they were going to do," including proposed changes on marine fisheries and industrial emissions.

On the other hand, the Bush White House went ahead with controversial changes to the Endangered Species Act, despite opposition from environmentalists.

The Plum Creek deal could be accomplished with the stroke of a pen. Because it amends existing easements, the change involves no 30-day waiting period. But the step carries a political cost that the administration evidently has been assessing since June, when Rey said he expected to formalize within a month the change that half a year later is still unresolved.

"It's conceivable they don't want to leave office looking like bad guys," Dreher said. "There's been a lot of concern about the nature of the process and the lack of inclusiveness. You've got the county government in Montana angry over it. If they do this walking out the door, they're kind of ramming it down their throats."

"Said property shall be used and occupied by white persons only except these covenants shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of different race or nationality in the employ of a tenant."

The title is an old bylaw in President Bush's new neighborhood. However, they eliminated that racist rule way back in.... 2000.

Almost got it straight before the turn of the 21st century.

(See neighborhood covenant document here.)

We are in the dark ages of home construction, part 2

"We love the suburbs for the privacy."

ABOVE: McMansion bedroom windows peek up over the outbuildings of Shoppes at Wyndham Village.

CBS News: "We've put so much of our national wealth and even identity into the idea of suburbia that we can't imagine having to let go of it or substantially change it."

This drumbeat will not let up; another mainstream outlet reporting the potential end of suburbia as we know it. This time it's The CBS Evening News: