[Leanan]

At least according to this Reuters article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6113780/

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')n adult living somewhere like Atlanta, with its spread-out suburbs and car-heavy culture, will have a health profile that looks like that of someone who lives in Seattle -- but who is four years older, the study found.

[NevadaGhosts]

But aren't most suburbanites just sitting around all day watching Jerry Springer on TV and eating potato chips? No wonder they have health problems.

[jrob8503]

I was reading Heinberg's replies in the "Ask the Experts" forum, and he said suburbs will suffer the worst because nothing is within walking distance. I responded with this question.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')r. Heinberg,

Could you clarify your statement on how nothing in the suburbs is within walking distance?

I live in a suburb of Chicago. It's about a 15-20 min drive to the city. I take a train to the city, where I go to school (U of Ill-Chicago), everyday. Illinois has about a dozen commuter train rails that service the what is reffered to as the Chicago Metropolitan Area.

Anyway, just about everything my suburb is within walking distance. This includes my part-time job, three grocery stores and a hospital. However, as I said before, there are commuter trains which service the metropolitan area (two of which stop at a hospital), as well as several non-communter lines which run through surrounding suburbs.

Will states/cities with more rail than others be at any advantage in the initial stages of this collapse?

[gnm]

Well, at least out here that statement is partially true - in most of the 'burbs around here you would have to walk 2-5 miles to the nearest store - 5+ to the nearest hospital, and at least 1/2-1 mile to wait for the crappy, late, and poor coverage of the bus system....

So a commute to work (I've actually done this once upon a time) would be - walk 3/4 mile... wait at bus stop for 35 minutes... bus stops 10 times down one line... wait 15 minutes for next bus... bus stops 6 times down next line.... get off at stop and walk 1/2 mile to office... lather rinse repeat....

oh and if you wanted to do any shopping add a stop and 30-45 minutes or so of waiting...

If only we had the train system like they have in Europe! Sbahn to Ubahn - slick!

-G

[mgibbons19]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jrob8503', '
')Is my concept of suburb just different from everyone else's? Is it because I live near such a big city? Because if need be, many people in our surrounding could get around (with the possible exception of commuting to a job) on foot, or at least by bike.

[big_rc]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jrob8503', '
')
Is my concept of suburb just different from everyone else's? Is it because I live near such a big city? Because if need be, many people in our surrounding could get around (with the possible exception of commuting to a job) on foot, or at least by bike.

[jrob8503]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')in most of the 'burbs around here you would have to walk 2-5 miles to the nearest store - 5+ to the nearest hospital, and at least 1/2-1 mile to wait for the crappy, late, and poor coverage of the bus system....

So a commute to work (I've actually done this once upon a time) would be - walk 3/4 mile... wait at bus stop for 35 minutes... bus stops 10 times down one line... wait 15 minutes for next bus... bus stops 6 times down next line.... get off at stop and walk 1/2 mile to office... lather rinse repeat....

[mgibbons19]

Ok. I was thinking of Oak PArk, for instance. Pretty urban, even though the locals consider it a suburb. What a suburb even is tends to be problematic. I live in a 1940s suburb, and it is walkable, but it is nothing like the brand new places going up. Nothing. My Sister in law and her husband recently bought on Minneapolis' nw side. The house value has doubled (about 5 years old), you can see the gradeschool - but it is a half mile off, across a five lane, and with no direct access whatsoever. You can see their church, but it is a mile off, again no route to it. No sidewalks. To get beer is a 15 minute drive to a strip mall. To go to dinner is a 25 minute drive. To get to work, is a 45 - 75 minute drive.

Suburbs are funny that way. Somehow what was meant to be all the beauty of the country with the convenience of the city ended up being all the convenience of the country with all the ugly of a city.

[Barbara]

Yes, I live in a European suburb and it's quite different. There is a railway/subway in walking distance (300 mt) and many buses. The hospital is very close, there are many malls but also small local shops (for vegetables too) right under our nose. Good public schools are everywhere. Also elders could go biking if needed.
City borders are 3 miles away, city center 10 miles and I go to work by scooter. And farmland... 5 miles away!

With all these pros, we have also some cons: there's no town/village more than 5 miles far from another town/village in the whole West Europe I think.

[Leanan]

No, no. They're too busy driving their kids to soccer games and clarinet lessons in their monster SUVs to sit around watching Jerry Springer.

[Whitecrab]

Interestingly, I recall watching on the news (CBS?) one night where they tried to argue country living wasn't particularily healthy: men's average sperm counts were lower in the country then they were in the city.

On the other hand, I've read reports (I forget if it was for humans or just mammals in general) of animals building up more sperm when their mate is away or spends time with other males, and having less when housed together in a safely monogamous relationship. So the arm-chair psychologist in me says it could just be there's less "competition" in the country.

[small_steps]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gnm', 'W')ell, at least out here that statement is partially true - in most of the 'burbs around here you would have to walk 2-5 miles to the nearest store - 5+ to the nearest hospital, and at least 1/2-1 mile to wait for the crappy, late, and poor coverage of the bus system....

So a commute to work (I've actually done this once upon a time) would be - walk 3/4 mile... wait at bus stop for 35 minutes... bus stops 10 times down one line... wait 15 minutes for next bus... bus stops 6 times down next line.... get off at stop and walk 1/2 mile to office... lather rinse repeat....

oh and if you wanted to do any shopping add a stop and 30-45 minutes or so of waiting...

If only we had the train system like they have in Europe! Sbahn to Ubahn - slick!

-G

[nigel]

Interesting?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3680484.stm

[PhilBiker]

I highly recommend to everyone who reads this forum to readJames Howard Kunstler's "The Geography of Nowhere"[/quote]. It's educational and very humorous, like his [url=http://www.kunstler.com]website and blog. Learn all about the glorious suburbs!

Bottom line, jrob8503, your situation is highly atypical. Very few suburbs are walkable. New Urbanist neighborhoodsare a big step in the right direction, but even most of them are doomed for the future.

[PhilBiker]

dammit i wish you could edit on this effing forum.

[PhilBiker]

I highly recommend to everyone who reads this forum to readJames Howard Kunstler's "The Geography of Nowhere". It's educational and very humorous, like his website and blog. Learn all about the glorious suburbs!

Bottom line, jrob8503, your situation is highly atypical. Very few suburbs are walkable. New Urbanist neighborhoodsare a big step in the right direction, but even most of them are doomed for the future.

[pea-jay]

"Suburban" to me really doesn't imply to me political arrangement such as Oak Park and Schaumberg are to the City of Chicago; Pasedena and Covina are to Los Angeles; Alexandria and Columbia are to Washington DC. In each case above the suburb is a separate entity from the city. But the first suburbs listed for each city have many "urban" characteristics while the latter have little or none. Nor does being part of a city preclude "suburban" development. Many cities in the west grew later in the 20th century and kept annexing with the development. Consequentially cities such as Phoenix and San Diego have dramatically grown both population and area. (San Diego city limits now stretch 22 miles from the Mexican border to just south of Escondido)

Rather I frame it on the age of development. When did the area develop? In the US there is a pretty good dividing line for this determination: 1945. Prior to then the US had seen about 15 years of little to no significant development due to depression and war. After that the floodgates opened so to speak and a building ensued. But thanks government policies such as the GI Bill and the interstate highway network, the increased use of the automobile and the collusion by car makers and oil companies to buy and close streetcar lines created a paradigm shift in development.

So generally if you live in live post-war developments, you are living in "suburbia". And it is these areas Heinberg refers to as having no future.

[mgibbons19]

That is exactly what I was getting at. Early postwar stuff is now deeply buried in the city, and was at one time more mixed use than more recent stuff. As you went along it got more and more single use, with high concentrations of each use.

Plus so much development has happened since the postwar startpoint, that suburban-style development is how we build cities. It is our urban form.

So the question re peak oil is, how much of this infrastructure can be creatively modified to higher transportation costs? Which areas can be, and which cannot be?

I'm guessing the early suburbs might work, the high density late subrubs might work (like Schaumberg). My guess for failures are the newer suburbs, where enmeshed in only mid sized cities. The distances are prohibitive, but the density isn't adequate for malleability post peak.

[pea-jay]

Lets add an additional factor into the question of retrofitting: Street network. This small, but significant element plays an important role in the viability of post peak suburbia and whether retrofit or removal works better.

Prior to cars, street networks were compact, taking one of two forms: rectalinear or organic. The use of one over the other depended on whether the city was planned or just happened. Typically cities in the western hemisphere took on rectilinear based street layout while more organic networks predominate elsewhere (though there are noteable exceptions to this.) In anycase both forms allow for a generally free flow of movement by offering a shorter distance to travel to get from point A to B. It also formed areas of land where development could occur and as time progressed, redevelopment into alternate uses. Low density residential land could develop into higher density residential land uses or over to commercial uses, only to return back to residential a generation or two later. Before you scoff about the thought of living in a former industrial district, think about loft living. Those buildings were former commercial districts and are quite sought after.

Suburbia turns this system on its head. Most development now proceeds on a hierarchical network, where smaller roads lead to larger roads leading to arterials leading to freeways. This thought process while logical in the mindset of an engineer has proven less than optimal in reality. People are not water molecules flowing in a distribution network. Grid and organic networks permit people to re-route themselves to utilize the shortest distance. In a heirarchical network you may be a quarter mile from your destination, but you may have to travel a mile and a half to get there. This is inefficient to say the least. It precludes walking and increases fuel consumption. With one or two ways out, a typical suburban development also has fewer options. Everyone has to utilize the same route, increasing congestion and blockages are hard to handle. If an intersection is blocked in urban chicago due to an accident, people will re-route themselves if the back up gets long enough. Why not, they have options? No such luck in suburbia. If a major arterial is blocked, you sit.

Thats now. In the future I see trouble, trying to retrofit suburbia to be functional, if not liveable. Why? The heirarchical street network for one. It creates odd shaped blocks that do not lend themselves to redevelopment, vast areas of uniform land use type. Plunk a small store down in the city, people shrug. Do the same in Le Olde Oake Estates and you have an eyesore and plus you have a lack of passerby traffic to support it. Not to mention complaints. So what you have left is essentially is somewhat oversized lots that are too small to grow anything, street networks that require extra distances and commercial areas that require a geographically wide market. People stuck in the olde oake estates will be literally stuck. Unlike urban areas where walking and transit are an option, there is no way busses could plausibly ply all of those twisty streets. Retrofit isnt going to mean allowing additional uses in, its going to require a wholesale removal of the housing and street networks and replacment with either new rectilinear street grid or reversion back to agriculture, if thats feasable.

If not, I believe these street networks will encircle our core cities like a necklace of thorns, a monument to our collective stupidity. Suburbia will be a wasteland at best, a breeding ground for criminal activity at worst. Note I stated that the street networks would remain. I think over time the abandoned housing and stores would be scavenged for raw materials.

Urban areas that inserted suburbia into a super grid network of streets may fare slightly better than organic suburbia. When I say supergrid, think of Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and not Washington DC, New York or Boston. It may still be suburbia, but the arterials still occur in regular intervals and future urban development can insert a grid sub network.

How much urban development will be needed in the future remains to be seen. If too many people check out, suburbia may never redevelop.

[eastbay]

In a few years, as fuel prices begin their final rise, it will become increasingly important to recognize that continued urban sprawl can no longer be justified on any level. The developers and their vocal supporters seem to realize this and have now reached the bottom in their search for justifications for more open-space destruction.

The proponents of increasing suburban sprawl appear to have completely run out of arguments in their push for more and more destruction of the remaining suburban open spaces. And having lost public support, the vocal supporters of the big developers have scraped the bottom of the sewers and pulled out the last final remaining argument supporting more sprawl.

Those who are pro-sprawl are now (falsely) accusing those who are pro-urban limit with charges of racism (!!) showing the pro-sprawl forces are getting desperate in their efforts to push sprawl to the last remaining final limits of undeveloped suburban open land.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/searchresults/ci_2570165 It seems like the era of continued urban sprawl may be coming to a close, at least in this area. The final card has now been dealt.