Suburban Nation Summary

When many Americans picture their perfect dream homes, they are likely to imagine them in suburbia, far from all the noise and traffic of the busy cities. However, this perfect image is severely problematic for multiple reasons. In the book, Suburban Nation the authors explain how the increase in sprawl has led to several problems. These problems range from social, to economic, to environmental. This book starts by explaining what sprawl it to its readers and gives a brief history behind the rise of sprawl. The authors demonstrate the problems sprawl creates and how cars/roads play a role. They show us that the way the United States builds houses is odd and unsustainable. Unfortunately, another problem that comes from sprawl, is that it fails

It is difficult, if not impossible for communities to form if there are no communal spaces for people to engage with one another in. In suburban areas, there is a severe lack of communal spaces, since work, play, and home are all far from one another, leaving pedestrians without a way to walk or a reason to. The authors list a few ways planners must design their cities so they are walkable. The most important component is having meaningful places for people to go to. Even interesting and desirable places are easily accessible to get to on foot; people are more likely to walk there. Three other important things needed to create walkable cities are safe streets, which are also comfortable and interesting. People don’t want to walk in open, unsafe, spaces with wide streets and continuous lines of garage doors. The authors assure us that creating walkable cities with streets that incorporate the previously listed items will create healthy, flourishing

They list several steps to do so. It is important that developers admit that growth will occur and plan accordingly. They must set up and rural boundary to help persevere some of the surrounding environments. Then develop a buffer zone where future compact communities can be developed if it is necessary. After that, several corridors or pathways need to be designated to help connect the community from place to place. Also make sure that locally undesirable land uses are fairly distributed and not all pushed to one area. According to the authors, following these guidelines, along with a few others in the textbook will help build effective and healthy cities in the region. The authors admit that in recent years there has been some push back against suburban sprawl, but ultimately not enough to stop it, or even slow it done significantly. They say by designing with the tools of traditional growth and instituting policies to help promote this kind of growth communities can be better planned in the future. This does not happen without a bottom up structure for policy making and an engaged community. Although it can be hard to listen to the community sometimes because NIMBYs are hard to work with, overall community feedback is productive and