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Suburban Nation

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Suburban Nation

The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream

North Point Press,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Text available

What's inside?

Suburban spread is spreading, wrapping tentacles of traffic and congestion around underutilized central cities. But neighborhood planning can save lawn-mower-ville.

Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Innovative

Recommendation

Think of a typical suburb, and you’ll conjure images of congested traffic, tacky convenience stores and unattractive strip malls. This development pattern is suburban sprawl. Sprawl strictly segregates offices, homes, shopping centers and schools. Even simple errands require a car. Authors and urban planners Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk decry sprawl as a costly, inefficient and deeply unsatisfying way to live. Heavy traffic in boomtowns like Atlanta, Orlando, and Phoenix demonstrates sprawl’s detrimental effects on the quality of life. The alternative is traditional neighborhood development, such as in San Francisco and Boston, where it’s possible to walk to stores and take mass transit to work. This cogent, if strident, manifesto against sprawl includes both the ugly truth and the beautiful alternative. getAbstract.com recommends this book to executives and anyone else interested in the future and well being of the suburban neighborhoods that house their businesses and their families.

Summary

is Sprawl?

Suburban sprawl has defined development in the U.S. since World War II. Sprawl is a rootless gathering of housing developments, strip malls, and office parks. Each type of property is strictly segregated, so that you can’t even go to the store to buy a gallon of milk on foot. Instead, you must drive - everywhere. The low density of development requires miles of roads. Sprawl’s inevitable result is congested traffic. Because sprawl emphasizes private spaces inside homes and offices over public spaces along streets, parks, and front porches, residents feel a growing sense of isolation and unease about the places where they live and work.

Traditional neighborhood development stands in direct contrast to sprawl. This philosophy was the basis of all settlement in North America through World War II, and is the prevalent development pattern outside the United States. Traditional neighborhoods are mixed-use communities. In other words, homes, offices, and stores occupy the same block. Traditional neighborhoods are pedestrian-friendly, with sidewalks for strolling from homes to stores.

A growing movement - away from sprawl and toward more traditional neighborhoods...

About the Authors

Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk head Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., a Miami-based firm that has designed more than 200 neighborhoods and communities. Its best-known creations are Seaside, Florida, and Kentlands, Maryland. Plater-Zyberk is dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Miami. Jeff Speck is director of town planning at Duany Plater-Zyberk. He is a former investment banker and art historian.

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