Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
pansion of various types of suburbs, often varieties of planned neighbourhood units
(Perry
1929
). These units were zoned as mainly residential, except for a small row
of shops, so the main commercial development from the 1950s occurred in strips
along arterial roads or in increasingly large suburban shopping centres, which were
mainly accessed by cars. Such developments have been incrementally added on to
the edge of urban places, with limited thought of the spatial consequences of these
successive additions (Langdon
1994
; Kunstler
1993
; Knox
1992
; McCann
1995
;
Thompson-Fawcett
1996
). Hence, the resultant auto-oriented and increasingly low
density suburbs of the last half of the twentieth century led to the problems of urban
sprawl. It led to distinctive separation between places of work, residence, shopping,
and public gathering—resulting in a spatial disjuncture between the private and
the public realm, and between the geography of domesticity and that of production
and consumption (Grant
2006
). The sprawling suburbs that developed also required
considerable infrastructure investment to access them and to supply utilities, were
too far removed from the city centre, and are considered wasteful of space. The
resultant sprawl produced traffic congestion, gridlock, poor air quality, and neces-
sitates automobile usage to access every key urban function, whether employment,
shopping or leisure activities, even within decentralized concentrations of employ-
ment and retail in the so-called 'edge cities' that seem like small downtowns on
the outskirts of the built up area (Garreau
1991
). The result has been that suburban
sprawl, even of planned communities, has produced automotive-dependent life-
styles with negative health consequences because people lacked exercise—leading
New Urbanists to argue for the need for new approaches, in particular to reduce the
excessive use of the car (Duaney and Plater-Zyberk
1992
, p. 44).
There are also problems of the morphology of suburbs. They are typically com-
prised of low density single family housing, with substantial lots, large setbacks for
the dwelling unit, curvilinear streets and cul-de-sacs that are wider than necessary
and lined with large homes with snout-like front garages, such that people move
from workplace to house within their vehicles with little human contact with neigh-
bours in their daily commutes. Their internal morphology is low-rise and expan-
sive—characterized by excessive “horizontal” infrastructure (Duaney and Plater-
Zyberk
1992
, p. 44). Given their similarity, these places are seen to have little sense
of identity and few architecturally redeeming qualities. As Jacobs (
1961
) observed,
this development is the antithesis of urban, as suburbs lack the heterogeneity, inter-
action and facilities of urban places, creating a “geography of nowhere” (Kunstler
1993
).
For New Urbanists the social problems of the suburbs are equally worrying.
They are primarily relatively homogeneous places, principally defined by income or
socioeconomic status characteristics. Few are socially inclusive, although Duaney
and Plater-Zyberk (
1992
), perhaps naively in the light of past history, claim that the
economic segregation found in suburbs is not the American way. In addition, they
point to the problems of isolation in these areas, even though many paid lip service
to Perry's 1920s ideas that his planned neighbourhoods would create cohesion and
togetherness. Like Putnam (
2001
), who entitled his topic on contemporary life as
'
Bowling Alone
', New Urbanists generally argue that the social experience of com-
