Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

CNU's Norquist in Hartford Courant: Fund real main streets — not highways — with the "Jobs for Main Streets" bill now in Congress | Congress for the New Urbanism

From the Congress for the New Urbanism website:

The rollout of Congress' latest stimulus bill has been all about "Jobs for Main Street." That's a great message, argues CNU President John Norquist in a timely op-ed in the Hartford Courant, except for one problem. When it comes to the jobs bill's largest expenditure — $27.5 million for highways and roads — Main Streets are largely missing. Writes Norquist:

The $27.5 billion isn't targeted to rebuild streets at the heart of older cities and towns, the cherished settings for Memorial Day parades and holiday light displays. No, the money will primarily go to projects that government knows best — the expansion of wide, motor-vehicle-only highways that go hand-in-hand with energy-wasting sprawl. This follows the earlier stimulus bill that favored massive highway projects, including a batch of expensive "highways to nowhere" that an examination by the Infrastructurist website concluded "make no sense."

The new bill does reserve $8.4 billion for transit and $800 million for Amtrak. But just when U.S. real estate markets are turning to Main Street and traditional neighborhood design, Congress throws $27.5 billion at the infrastructure — road widening — that supports sprawl.

Whether the setting is small towns like Guilford, older suburbs like West Hartford or bigger cities like New Haven, the traditional Main Street in Connecticut and other states is proving to be a model around which to build livable and energy-efficient communities. A report by economist Joseph Cortright for CEOs for Cities is the latest to find homes within walking distance of shops, schools and other amenities commanding significantly higher prices than sprawl counterparts.

And in the world of commercial real estate, the hot trend — named by Time Magazine as one of "ten ideas changing the world" — is "retrofitting suburbia" with walkable, mixed-use development. None other than Tyson's Corner, Va., the largest sprawl commercial complex in the country, is due for a multibillion-dollar urban makeover complete with traditional main streets.

The article goes on to extol the benefits of reinvesting in main streets and neighboring networks of walkable transit-served streets — benefits that include saving households hundreds of dollars monthly on transportation costs, promoting physical activity and reducing obesity, curbing greenhouse gases, and supporting more diverse economies. The research behind these conclusions is impressive and will be explored in greater depth at CNU 18  in Atlanta, "New Urbanism: Rx for Healthy Places" which is being oraganized in cooperation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Writes Norquist:

Evidence shows these networks save money — and they save lives. Research by engineering professors Norman Garrick of the University of Connecticut and Wes Marshall of the University of Colorado-Denver reveals that traffic injury and fatality rates are three times higher in California cities with sprawling streets than in those with compact, connected networks.

Brookings-backed research from the Center for Neighborhood Technology shows that highway-served sprawling areas in region after region have the highest household transportation costs and highest per-capita carbon emissions. Each months, residents of walkable, transit-served neighborhoods save hundreds of dollars in average transportation costs.

Read the rest at: Norquist in Hartford Courant: Fund real main streets — not highways — with the "Jobs for Main Streets" bill now in Congress | Congress for the New Urbanism

Wisconsin Safe Routes to School Case Studies: DC Everest Junior High School

In 2007, DC Everest Junior High School of Weston, WI (near Wausau) received $242,900 in Safe Routes to School funds for their project.

From the Wisconsin Safe Routes to School Reporter, Winter 2009.

The DC Everest Junior High School project installed a sidewalk on the street in front of the school, added a sidewalk from the school entrance to the new sidewalk at the front of the school and changed the traffic flow into the front of the school to one-way. In addition, a new multi-use path was created to allow students to enter at the back of the school. Prior to these improvements the area in front was a safety concern as missing sidewalks and poor layout of the street and parking lot in front of the school led to cars, buses and pedestrians all mixing together.

Now that these infrastructure improvements have been made the school is implementing pedestrian safety lessons in physical education classes, promoting bike safety, and promoting safety to the community.

With help from the Marathon County Health Department, over 400 students have received pedestrian safety lessons. The school has incorporated pedestrian safety into its bowling unit since the bowling alley is a 10-minute walk from the school. This daily walk allows the schools to incorporate safety into an existing activity. In addition, students participated in a fun game of pedestrian safety Jeopardy prior to their bowling unit in PE.

Last fall, a Walk to School event was held for all the junior high students. Students walked 3/4 mile from Kennedy Park to the school during our Walktober event week. Three walk to school dates were organized and each time a student participated they received a chance to win for prizes. Although two of the days were rainy 43 students participated each day along with teachers and administrators.

Planning is already underway for bicycle safety month in May. The Perfection on Wheels bicycle stunt team will be performing at DC Everest during a bicycle safety school assembly. In addition, the school will continue to work with the Community Resource Police Officer to provide bicycle helmets at reduced prices for all the community schools. The school will also promote the bike rodeo sponsored by the police department.

To further support students bicycling to school, two new bike racks were added at DC Everest Junior High. A count in October showed over 50 students rode their bikes to school and used the bike racks. The school intends to add another rack in the spring and continue to add more racks as needed.

Contributed by Karen Wegge, DC Everest Junior High

An early success for the Franklin Trails Committee

ABOVE: One of Franklin's many "roads to nowhere." In the background: Pleasant View Elementary School, which is accessible by a single, slim, sidewalk-less, shoulder-less road.

A mixed bag at at a productive Franklin Trails Committee meeting Thursday night.

First, some very good news: The committee has been awarded a Walking Workshop grant from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation. The grant was brought to the committee by alderman Kristen Wilhelm, who also completed the application. 

The Walking Workshop will act as a launch for the comprehensive Safe Routes to School program, through which we hope to get a significant grant for the city of Franklin which will make it possible for more children to walk or bike to school if they choose. The grant requires no match from the city of Franklin, so the funds would be, essentially, free money that we can use for engineering, education, encouragement, and enforcement efforts.

Once it became clear that we would be pursuing the Safe Routes to School grant, we immediately met with Franklin School District superintendent Dr. Steve Patz, as input from the district and Pleasant View administration will be vital. We also asked that a Franklin School Board member be asked to join the Trails Committee.

Our Trails Committee is an organizational body that consists of membership appointed by the mayor. We were tasked with (quoting the April 7th motion) "researching grants to provide funds for design, land acquisition,construction of walking and/or bicycle paths specific to S. 51st Street, and a connector between Pleasant View Elementary School and S. 51st Street and return to the Council with recommendation for application of grants."

Since then, the Council has approved the Trails Committee's pursuit of a Walking Workshop grant, and the larger, very comprehensive Safe Routes to School (SRTS) grant (which is limited to areas two miles from a grade school; the Walking Workshop is free to address Franklin High School). 

At this point, the establishment of specific goals and identification of problems we want to overcome will be the job of a larger, yet-to-be-formed SRTS Task Force that will consist of stakeholders from all areas of the community; school faculty, parents, residents, homeowner's associations, public safety (fire and police) officials, City staff, etc. These are the people who will decide our specific areas of focus as we address "non-vehicular connectivity" in Franklin -- specifically, in this case, for students attending Pleasant View Elementary.

There was, however, some dissent from one member of the committee as we were spit-balling suggested goals to bring into the first task force meeting. More on that in an upcoming posting when I discuss the difference between Design Speed, Posted Speed, and Operating Speed as they relate to the Drexel/51st/Rawson speedways and the safety of anyone not sheathed in metal. I'll also talk a little bit about how sprawling, incremental development in suburbs creates monster collector roads that eventually need to be tamed.

Guess what? Walkable neighborhoods INCREASE home values

This was an excellent presentation to come across as I prepare for tonight's Franklin Trails Committee meeting. This is one of the reasons I try to get the Economic Development Commission involved in creating USEFUL trails rather than simply recreational paths.

From Kaid Benfield's blog:

Home values in walkable neighborhoods are measurably higher than those that are not, even when other relevant factors are controlled in the analysis.

Below is an illuminating slide show on the subject that was presented by economist Joe Cortright at a transportation colloquium recently hosted by the Congress for the New Urbanism in Portland.  Some key points from the presentation:

• “Walkability” is not just about sidewalks.  Are there places you can walk to?
• Examining data from 98,000 home sales in 15 metropolitan areas, and controlling for other relevant factors, each increase of one point on Walk Score’s walkability scale raises home values by $700 to $3000.
• In Charlotte, the increase in value was $1,986 for each Walk Score point.
• Improving walkability raises home values by $10-30,000.
• Because mixed-use development produces big gains in walkability, the findings are evidence of a strong market for mixed-use neighborhoods.

I have to admit that the slide show was a little clunky on my computer (and there is no narration), but it is manageably short (24 slides) and well illustrated.  Enjoy:

Walking the Walk: How Walkability Increases Home Prices in U.S. Cities

View more documents from Congress for the New Urbanism.

NYT big idea: Ban cul-de-sacs

Sunday's New York Times Magazine ran its ninth annual "Year in Ideas" feature. One of the "idea" entries closely echos my blog entry of December 9th.

To the French linguists out there: Note that the Paper of Record uses the vernacular "cul-de-sacs" rather than the correct - but clumsy - "culs-de-sac":

The Cul-de-Sac Ban

Nothing divides suburban developers and "smart growth" advocates as much as the lowly cul-de-sac. The real estate community loves the meandering, dead-end streets; lots on them sell quickly and at a premium, thanks to their low traffic and perceived safety benefits. But critics complain that cul-de-sacs are a poor use of land; they funnel cars onto clogged arterial routes and restrict access to neighborhoods when emergency vehicles need to respond.

ILLUSTRATION BY LAUREN NASSEF

For decades the developers have been winning this battle. But this fall, Virginia, under the leadership of Gov. Tim Kaine, became the first state to severely limit cul-de-sacs from future developments. New rules require that all new subdivisions attain a certain level of "connectivity," with ample through streets connecting them to other neighborhoods and nearby commercial areas.

If subdivisions fail to comply, Virginia won't provide maintenance and snowplow services, a big disincentive in a state where the government provides 83 percent of road services. Virginia expects the new rules to relieve its strained infrastructure budget: through streets are more efficient and cheaper to maintain, and they take pressure off arterial roads that otherwise need to be widened. "It's about connecting land-use and transportation planning and restricting wasteful and unplanned development," Kaine said in March.

And how will the people respond who actually have to live and drive in the new, cul-de-sac-free neighborhoods? "There are pros and cons," says Kaid Benfield, the director of the Smart Growth Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Residents like walkability and they like not having to be forced onto an arterial road where the traffic jam is. On the other hand, there is a sentiment out there that cul-de-sacs are safe" — though Benfield says research actually shows fewer traffic fatalities occur on connected roads. Other states are watching the Virginia rules closely, and Benfield says he expects to see similar regulations adopted around the country in the next few years — which means the dead end may soon be a thing of the past. CLAY RISEN

Read the rest at: The Ninth Annual Year in Ideas - Magazine - NYTimes.com

Cul-de-sacs: Eating your property taxes while eliminating connectivity

If you live on the typical suburban cul-de-sac, as I do (that's mine in the photo above), snow events like the one we experienced today drive home another expensive consequence of suburban non-planning: The intricate, time-and-fuel-consuming snowplow ballet that is required in order to clear the huge circle of non-permeable surface created by cul-de-sacs.

It's a tedious job, to say the least. Trucks designed and engineered to generally go forward have their gears mashed back and forth as the driver struggles to push piles of snow off a skating rink-sized area. In the time it takes for a plow to clear a single cul-de-sac street, the same crew or driver could have finished six streets of the traditional pattern.

If you've looked closely at the City of Franklin's 2010 budget -- and have followed deliberations as the common council struggles to keep municipal services reasonably effective without significantly raising property taxes -- you are aware that fuel, vehicle and crew expenditures for snow removal are already necessarily cut to the bone.

These are cuts you may have already noticed in the past couple of years as your street didn't seem to get cleared as quickly. Or, as in my case, your mailbox may have been clipped as drivers hurry to cover more ground with fewer resources.

 
No one bats 1.000.

So - want to venture a guess as to exactly how many cul-de-sacs the city of Franklin's Highway/Parks Department is responsible for clearing, salting and de-icing each and every time it snows?

A couple dozen - 22?

Maybe fifty?

One hundred?

Nope.

DOUBLE that last guess. And add another 11.

211 cul-de-sacs.

That's 211 times that city trucks and city crews have to do a job that takes six times as long as it would take in a traditional, grid neighborhood.

Six times as much fuel.

Six times as many man-hours.

Six times as much mechanical wear-and-tear (in reality, much, much more as the trucks must shift into reverse repeatedly on each and every cul-de-sac).

Multiplied by 211.

In 2009 the city budgeted for $40,000 in overtime funds. Expenditures as of 7/30/09 were already $53,973.14, with $70,100 estimated as the year-end total. The 2010 budget requests $58,262.

The Highway Department notes that they face a 42% increase in the cost of road salt for 2010 as well.

Cross your fingers.

Still think sprawl and poor design doesn't cost you money?

See also: The Cul-de-sac Safety Myth

Passenger rail needs to pay for itself? Take off the transportation blinders

From Dave Zweifel of Madison's Capital Times: Plain Talk: Take off the transportation blinders

It’s long been a myth that the streets, highways and bridges that accommodate our love affair with the automobile are all paid for by highway taxes.

Far from it. Just check your local city and county budgets and see how much general purpose tax revenue is siphoned into street repair every year. Property taxes help fund a lot of those orange trucks you always see on the roads.

Or how about the $8 billion that the Bush administration funneled into the highway trust fund in 2008 and the $7 billion that the Obama administration ponied up in 2009 because the gas tax money is falling short? And that’s not counting the $3 billion of taxpayers’ funds that went into the “cash for clunkers” automobile fix or the $81 billion in federal aid to GM and Chrysler.

So it’s always with some amusement that I hear politicians insist that — come hell or high water — passenger rail improvements need to pay for themselves. They’re demanding from rail what they don’t demand from every other mode of transportation, airlines included.

It’s a primary reason that America’s public transportation systems lags the rest of the developed world’s.

There was reason to rejoice earlier this year when President Obama announced that $8 billion of the country’s massive stimulus program would go to help build “high-speed” rail projects, which, hopefully, will include a Chicago-Milwaukee-Madison segment that has been on the drawing boards for years now.

But even our high-speed projects are laughable when compared to those that exist elsewhere. Japan is running its “bullet” trains at 188 miles an hour. France’s new high-speed railroad runs at 125 mph. Israel’s new Tel Aviv-to-Jerusalem line is upgrading to 120 miles an hour. China, which recently committed a trillion dollars to develop fast trains, plans on running them at 235 miles an hour.

Should the “high-speed” train between here and Chicago ever come to fruition, it will probably run at 79 miles an hour initially, but could be upgraded eventually to 110 mph. That’s because our rail infrastructure is designed mainly to handle freight trains, which operate at much lower speeds and don’t need the tighter standards and banked corners that faster trains need.

Ironically, our passenger trains in 2009 are slower than they were in the 1940s. According to Woodrow Wilson Center fellow Mark Reutter, “streamliners” such as the Super Chief, 20th Century Limited, Denver Zephyr and Hiawatha routinely topped 90 to 100 miles an hour between stops. And that was with the old steam locomotives.

“While the rest of the world has advanced, America’s passenger rail has stalled, if not reversed direction,” he says.

Most of Amtrak’s routes today are lucky if they average 50 miles an hour. Even the acclaimed Acela Express along the East Coast, the nation’s supposed answer to the bullet trains, averages only 67 mph along much of its route, even though it can hit 150 miles an hour on some short stretches of improved track.

This should be a national embarrassment, yet there are strong special interests in the country that fight passenger rail development, fiercely protecting transportation funding for more and wider roads that serve only to promote yet more automobile traffic.

If we’re ever going to develop a balanced transportation system in the United States, we need to take the blinders off. Rail, for all the efficiencies it represents, needs to get the monetary assistance that other modes of transit routinely receive. Once the infrastructure is brought up to snuff, then passenger rail can actually work to pay for itself.

Dave Zweifel is editor emeritus of The Capital Times.

[email protected]

Top 10 Books - 2010 | Planetizen

If I haven't already read them, they're very likely on my Amazon Wish List. Not included on the list, surprisingly, is Retrofitting Suburbia by Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson, which I found excellent.

From Planetizen:

Planetizen is pleased to release its ninth annual list of the ten best books in urban planning, design and development published in 2009. This year's assortment ranges from an impassioned argument for making transit fun to a low-key and practical guide to smart growth. And of course, Jane Jacobs makes an appearance.

The Planetizen editorial staff based its 2010 edition list on a number of criteria, including editorial reviews, popularity, Planetizen reader nominations, number of references, sales figures, recommendations from experts and the book's potential impact on the urban planning, development and design professions.

This year, historical analysis dominates the list, with five or more books reaching back into the past for insight. Erik Sanderson reaches back all the way to 1609 in Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City, and Mark Ovenden digs into the history of the Paris Underground with a lushly illustrated coffee table book. But the future and present are not forgotten, with several books tackling today's realities and strategies for improvement.

We present our list in alphabetical order, and are not assigning rank. And now, on to the list!

• “The Bicycle Diaries,” David Byrne (former lead singer of The Talking Heads, and now solo artist). Viking Press 
• “The Smart Growth Manual,” Andrés Duany, Jeff Speck and Mike Lydon. McGrawHill Professional
• “Wrestling With Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City,” Anthony Flint. Random House
• “On Private Property: Finding Common Ground on the Ownership of Land,” Eric Freyfogle. Beacon Press
• “Building Up and Tearing Down: Reflections on the Age of Architecture,” Paul Goldberger. The Monacelli Press
• “The Architecture of Community,” Léon Krier. Island Press
• “The BLDGBLOG Book,” Geoff Manaugh (writer of the well-know BLDGBLOG). Chronicle Books
• “Paris Underground: The Maps, Stations and Design of the Métro,” Mark Ovenden. Penguin
• “Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability,” David Owen. Riverhead Books (also read “Urban is Good,” a New York Times review of this book).
• “Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City,” Eric W. Sanderson. Abrams Books (also read "Island in the Stream,” a New York Times review of this book).

Read detailed reviews of each book at: Top 10 Books - 2010 | Planetizen

Smart Growth principles vs. the rigorously mundane in Franklin

At the Economic Development Commission Meeting on November 23rd (the one where we were introduced to the mind-boggling concept of the Aerotropolis), Franklin Automotive presented a site expansion proposal for their location on Ryan Road. They also brought a laundry list of potential incentives for the ECD to consider, everything from "waive Plan Commission fees" to having the city provide the driveway approach and culvert.

Do I even have to show the architectural elevations to confirm your fear of another suburban McBuilding? Behold "Multi-Tenant Building #3," potential one-story home to dental offices and maybe a chiropractor or two:

 

Site plan? Again, typical building-behind-parking-moat, with no pedestrian considerations. 

None of the Commissioners present for the meeting (there were four absentees) were keen on providing incentives for the project, mainly because they feared setting a precedent for other proposals. After all, why provide breaks for one project and not another?

Why not, indeed ...

While the Franklin Automotive site (yellow box below) faces "Death Race 2000" Ryan Road, it is surrounded to the north and west by subdivisions. The current proposal provides absolutely nothing in terms of amenities for the surrounding residential population, who could easily access the site by foot and bike. 

I suggested the following: Why not reward and/or incentivise the sorts of Smart Growth principals that Franklin's Comprehensive Master Plan supposedly embraces?

For example: We are presented here with a pretty rigorously mundane proposal that offers little more than possible property tax income in its current configuration. Andy's service center on Rawson and 51st already has vacant space exactly like this; so does Shoppes at Wyndham Village. Do we need another one-story, by-the-numbers, moated-by-asphalt professional building?

On the other hand, what if the proposal was reconfigured to serve the surrounding neighborhood rather than simply act as an offramp from the Ryan Road speedway?

What if  "Multi-Tenant Building #3" were built right up to 31st street, with parking behind the building so pedestrians could stroll to and from the location?

How about a multistory building that can host a neighborhood ice cream shop, coffee shop, or even a deli?

And how about a break for locally-owned businesses who might lease space there? (Why the emphasis on local business? For every dollar spent at a local business, 45 cents is reinvested locally. That same dollar spent at a corporate chain reinvests 15 cents locally. Locally-owned businesses generate as much as two to three times the local economic activity as do chains. [PDF link to one example study])

While not the ideal spot (a location near the library would be best), here's a place for a co-working facility that could serve the business travelers staying at nearby Staybridge Suites (a hotel which is itself the recipient of a city grant).

And, while these business travelers are at it, they can leave some out-of-town money at whatever locally-owned food and beverage establishments take advantage of local-ownership lease incentives. (And, surely the management at Staybridge Suites - which is located right below the "G" in "Google" on the map above -  would like to offer its guests nearby amenities beyond the On the Border gentleman's club and the Buckhorn tavern.)

How about a LEED building certification?

So, Mr. Developer: You've shown us the "default" proposal, and, frankly, you are welcome to roll the dice on another mundane professional building with no municipal incentives.

HOWEVER, reconfigure your project using some or all of the quantifiable, economy- and community-boosting ideas above, and why shouldn't the city of Franklin find ways to grease the rails for a "seed" development that will encourage more of the same Smart Growth thinking?

Unfortunately, my expression of the ideas above at the EDC meeting was met with confused stares at best, and at least a couple sets of rolling eyes - par for the course at a meeting where we were pedantically told "Business will tell you where it wants to go."

Glutton for punishment that I am, I will present the above to the EDC at our next meeting as an agenda item.

In the meantime: While the building pictured below is not appropriate for the Franklin Automotive site, the ideas presented in its accompanying post at CoolTown Studios - which, eerily, I only read after writing my post above, while searching for a "co-working building" image to illustrate this entry - are almost entirely applicable to our situation in Franklin.

From Cooltown Studios:

The motivating factor behind writing entries for this blog is that I get to work directly with progressive creatives and developers to crowdsource these concepts into built reality.

So, considering the state of the economy, what are creatives’ solution in how the development of a building can become a symbol for economic growth? The following framework of a building will soon be crowdsourced in Washington DC as an answer:

- Local, independent businesses on the ground floor. Not only do local businesses have four times the economic impact over nationals, but the entrepreneurs who run them are a key source for job growth. The ideal business in this building would be a third place restaurant/cafe/coffeehouse/lounge.

- Coworking on the second floor. Once again, support the entrepreneurs, the future Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Debbi Fields… providing an attainably-priced (can’t emphasize that enough) open plan shared workplace for them to work among other entrepreneurs, inspiring, motivating and supporting one another. This is the backbone of any strong economy. The third place below serves as a great casual meeting spot both during and after work, sourcing the next great napkin ideas for business (ie the ideas for Pixar’s A Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, and Wall-E were generated at such a venue).

- Mini-condos on the upper floors. These are pretty much the same sized units in most of the world, except in the U.S. we’ve become accustomed to living in spaces larger than we really need, or can afford, as the housing crisis showed. The American Dream is no longer the McMansion. 380 s.f. one-bedrooms, even 250 s.f. efficiencies are selling out rapidly in San Francisco and Seattle, and are a sign of things to come.

- Limited parking. Creatives are increasingly preferring a car-free lifestyle. Add in the real possibility that GM could be bought out by China, and one realizes that the auto industry is no longer be the heart of the U.S. economy, and its culture will follow. Oil was never central to our local economy, but has been devastatingly costly to maintain. The proposed building will look to eliminate as many parking spaces as possible, where current laws require one to two spaces per unit.

- Green. This has become a no brainer for creatives. The building will be as green as its future buyers can afford, continuing to support the growing green and renewable energy economy.

- Increased disposable income. Much smaller units can realistically save a few hundred thousand dollars in many cities, and that’s no exaggeration. The second highest cost is automobile ownership. Imagine if that money can be invested in fulfilling the true American Dream of starting your own business instead. That is more of an economy multiplier than the home building industry, and more sustainable as well.

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