Don't be in any hurry to write off suburbia

Recently, the Ontario Heritage Conference was held in Peterborough.

The two main speakers were author and social critic James Howard Kunstler and McGill University professor Avi Friedman.

Both spun similar messages agreeing that the day of the subdivision is dead, predicting they will be replaced by walkable neighbourhoods in which inhabitants do not need cars and will be able to source their basic needs locally. Friedman particularly sneered at the suburbia cul-de-sacs where the homes look like car washes with all the garage doors.

A somewhat overblowing Kunstler decried suburbia as “the greatest miscalculation of resources in the history of the world.” He went on to say, “We squandered our national treasure by constructing an infrastructure for daily life that has no future.”

He cited a convergence of factors that will lead to the demise of not only suburbia but a homebuilding industry. He included reasons such as the current global economic crisis, the collapse of the housing market and the end of cheap energy.

GuelphMercury.com