This is my final Urban Notebook. I'm giving up the column to spend time on a project that studies the way communities make decisions. In the process of wrapping things up, I've looked back over all of those columns, searching for a unifying theme, and…well, there isn't one. But I did find a theme that bears repeating because it will almost certainly dominate conversations about metro areas in years ahead. It's how the suburbs are becoming like the city and the city like the suburbs.
Suburbs are looking more like cities did 30 years ago: commercial, crowded, ethnically diverse, hectic, poverty-pocked and unsafe in places. Suburbs are no longer the refuges we once considered them. Meanwhile, cities are getting safer, turning into gentrified magnets for empty-nesters and young singles.
It is not a one-dimensional change, with cities getting better and suburbs worse. The suburbs are becoming more important and interesting places, and their relationship with the city is roughly one of parity. The problem is the image adjustment. Reality moves faster than our images of reality, so citizens and leaders wallow in cognitive dissonance, trying to make sense of what looks like nonsense (Who put those office buildings by the interstate? Where did all these downtown apartment houses come from?).
We see this in cities, as neighborhood activists protest rising rents and the loss of neighborhood character (the invasion of chain stores, the closing of old hangouts) and city officials wring their hands over the disappearance of affordable housing. But the greater strains are in the suburbs, which aren't prepared to deal with poverty, congestion, crime and other things that come with urbanization.
There's a hopeful development, though. In my consulting work, I've found a surprising number of suburbanites who, given the chance to speak freely, say they'd like to see more compact, town-square development--with (and here's the real surprise) some sort of public transit. Make no mistake. They want traditional suburbia as well: single-family housing, back yards, trees, country lanes and so on. But they're open to other land uses and transportation choices, as long as they're logically placed and part of a larger vision.
So here's the vision that might help metro areas make this transition: the complete community. Cities that have neighborhoods with suburban sensibilities, suburbs with areas of hipness, density and transit, and places in both for all income levels. The question for future generations moving, say, to Cleveland, Dallas or St. Louis might not be whether to live in the city or suburbs but which quadrant of the metro area to live in and which land use and character they'd prefer.
The vision works because it plays on two distinctly American emotions: pride of place (everything is here that we need) and choice (we can pick the housing type we prefer), while making room for diversity of land uses, incomes and ethnicity (that's what being complete means). Will everyone embrace the new vision? Of course not. Some will pull up stakes at the first sign of change and move even further out, badmouthing the place they left behind.
But that's OK. Hope the move goes well. Settle in. Enjoy your new house. Reality will greet you again in about 10 years' time.
Footnote: Thank you for allowing me in your community of thought for the past five years.
