The future of the suburbs (II)

The American Prairie project is planned on the outskirts of Cedar Rapids,
near Kirkwood Community College (source: cedar-rapids.org)

I think one thing we will see is that successful suburbs of the future will get that way by becoming more urban in their orientation, not less. More density, more mixed use, more diversity of housing stock, a reimagining of the auto-oriented, shopping-center-and-big-box model that’s dominated for decades.--Pete Saunders (2022)

What happens to suburban development in a world of economic uncertainty, environmental concern, and exotic contagion? However you define suburb, the area and population and importance of American suburbs surged between 1950 and 2000, and they now represent a great deal of American capital. Their resources alone mean they have the wherewithal to respond in interesting ways to our era's stressors, but the truthful bottom line is: We don't know. But stay tuned!

I first looked at this topic six years ago, in the wake of a widely-publicized return to the city, particularly among the young and/or affluent. Businesses, too, were relocating their headquarters to central cities in search of benefits from clusters of talent (Florida 2008). Energy was cheap, but economic inequality was widening and the future of careers was anxiety-producing. (But then, when is it not?). I surmised that suburbs that were located or had been primarily designed such that they were not entirely auto-dependent would prove resilient; "the future is murkier," I said then, "for edge cities, new traditional suburbs, and whatever the hell Bedford Park is."

Village of Bedford Park (pop. 580) near Chicago
(Source: Wikimedia commons)

Since I wrote that, the return to the city appears to have ebbed; it's early to judge, but it's certainly not proceeding at the pace of 2005-2015 (Frey 2022, Cortright 2020).  Meanwhile, American society has been shaken by a series of earthquakes. The governmental tantrum that was the Trump administration had impacts on immigration, social trust, and local-state-national relations. The police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis continues to ripple through the practice of public safety in complicated ways. The sudden arrival and slow receding of the COVID-19 pandemic led to a surge in remote work and, however unfairly, demonized population density (cf. Badger 2021). Dislocations created by the shutdown and restart have created even greater uncertainty around the economy than before. Burgeoning changes to the global climate have proliferated heat waves, droughts, floods, and other such disasters. "I've been thinking a lot about doom," a friend told me at a gathering last weekend.

Urban and suburban areas are both relevant, whatever's coming next. A Brookings Institution analysis of 2020 U.S. Census data found the largest metropolitan areas--56 metros have populations of more than a million--grew faster in the 2010s than their smaller relatives, while nonmetropolitan parts of the country shrank (Frey 2022, cf. also Brasuell 2022). In a decade of historically low national population growth, the largest metros actually grew nearly as much as they had in the previous decade (9.6% vs. 10.7%) [Frey's Fig. 1]. Individual experience varied, though: metros in the south and west mostly grew a lot faster, with those in the northeastern quarter growing more slowly [Frey's Fig. 2].

Cedar Rapids MSA grew 5.3 percent between 2010 and 2020,
below the nationwide average for small metros (7.1)
(Google Maps screen capture)

Within the metros, central cities grew faster than they had, while suburban growth slowed relative to the 2000-10 decade [Frey's Fig. 3]; "However," cautions Frey, "it should be kept in mind that the bulk of city growth occurred in the first part of the decade. In most metro areas, suburban growth began to re-emerge to some extent as the economy picked up in the latter half of the 2010s."  None of this leads "to a straightforward forecast about their future prospects," he concludes.

Lisbon, Iowa, 19 miles east of Cedar Rapids,
grew 13.4 percent between 2010 and 2020
(Wikimedia commons)

The pandemic has tilted the metropolitan scales back to the suburbs, according to crack urbanist writer Addison Del Maestro (2022). This is particularly pronounced in coastal cities, where high housing costs are worth less if you're not commuting anyway. But, as Del Maestro points out, "The demand for something like urban living is real." New suburban developments are often mixed-use and denser than what had been typical a few decades ago, and the suburbs are radically more diverse. Over 60 percent of immigrants live in suburbs, for instance (Del Maestro cites Bochsma and National Journal 2014). The result is "diverse and evolving places, still distinct from the big city but just as distinct from their own 'first drafts' a few decades ago." He cites "vibrant dining scenes... nightclubs, taller buildings, and walkable developments" in New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, and Georgia. The Chinese cultural center of Greater Washington, D.C. used to be around 6th and H Streets NW; now it's Rockville, Maryland.

And there's more:

• Bensley, a first-ring suburb of Richmond, Virginia, is adding an "agri-hood," mixing affordable housing and urban agriculture (Gordon 2022)
• Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, an hour's drive from New York, is adding residences and amenity services to a 1980s office park, while 40 miles to the south Holmdel has seen the conversion of Bell Labs' campus into a "metroburb" (Berg 2021)
• Columbia, Maryland has moved its downtown towards smaller establishments and more residences, with improved transit service, over the last ten years

Of course, it's not hard to imagine how retrofits can fail. (For a satirical example that strikes uncomfortably close to the truth, see Oleary 2022.) Cedar Rapids has done some great things in its core, but the suburban areas are stuck in the 1980s and 90s. Ten years ago, the city opened its coffers to help turn Westdale Mall into... a bunch of strip malls. Development around the Highway 100 extension may some day produce walkable  multi-functional neighborhoods, but so far its biggest accomplishment has been... a bunch of strip malls. The casual approach to suburban development taken by Cedar Rapids, and indeed pretty much all of Iowa, is not going to be viable in the future. 

Fleet Farm on Cross Pointe Blvd NE, Black Friday 2021

Even where suburban retrofit is seriously attempted, Daniel Herriges at Strong Towns notes that a lot of such projects "get the density and the height, without much action at all. Some of the form, none of the function" (Herriges 2020). They're building what is perceived to be fashionable right now, but neither the developers nor the municipalities "actually understand or care about the purpose."

"What would you even walk to?" Herriges asks about a Florida development he profiles. Outside the attractive-looking apartments, auto-dependent suburbia persists, as much as it ever did. "The main street onto which the Harrison [apartment complex] empties is a six-lane divided stroad.... The adjoining businesses are all entirely auto-oriented, many with drive-thrus." Residents don't get the community/ health/lifestyle benefits of true urbanism, municipalities don't get the financial benefits, and the planet doesn't get the environmental benefits if everybody still has to drive.

I grew up in a western suburb of Chicago. Significantly, it had been its own town until the metro area grew to engulf it. There was (and still is) commuter train service to downtown Chicago, and I could walk less than a mile to school all the way through 12th grade. We could walk to a small grocery store three blocks away, and there was a large city park four blocks away, albeit both required crossing a state highway that gave our parents palpitations. That development approach might have proven sustainable, but decades have passed, and it doesn't speak to the experience of suburban life today even in that town. My town more than doubled in population between 1960 and 1990; the town to our south grew sevenfold in that same period. Both towns accommodated the growth through annexation, building and widening streets, and weirdly-laid-out subdivisions. The good bones remain in the cores, but most of both towns is predominantly auto-dependent. This is the present of the suburbs with which the future must work.

The future of at least some suburbs includes much more diversity and density and multimodal transportation. Small projects can start this process (cf. Steuteville 2022). One challenge for suburban areas, as opposed to traditional city design, is connectivity; it's difficult to plot transit on an area not built for it. Another issue is timing: will suburban municipalities act proactively or will they wait until their hands are forced, until it's too late to respond effectively to challenges? Potentially radical change to the world of work (Korinek and Juelfs 2022, sec. 2) would present challenges to places at all levels of median family income. But, no question, sustainable suburban development is in everyone's interest. What makes any part stronger and more resilient makes the whole metro stronger.

Ellen Dunham Jones TED Talk (2010):

SEE ALSO:

Emily Badger, "Lonely Last Days in the Suburban Office Park," New York Times, 5 July 2022

Addison Del Maestro, "Oak Tree Road and the Second Life Cycle Blues," Strong Towns, 21 July 2022

Richard Florida, Who's Your City? How the Creative Economy is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life (Basic, 2008)

Grant Nordby, "'Better Together?' Urbanism Lessons from the Pandemic," Wits' End, 27 November 2021

Robert Steuteville, "Eleven Ways to Retrofit Suburbs," Public Square: A CNU Journal, 13 June 2019

Galina Tachieva, Sprawl Repair Manual (Island, 2010)

Jane Williamson and Ellen Dunham Jones, Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Strategies for Urgent Challenges (Wiley, 2020)