City or the Suburbs? Part I

So what's your preference, would you rather live in the city, or in the suburbs? A lot people's immediate reaction is to say the Suburbs of course! Less congestion, open spaces, more house for the money, more privacy, quite, safe etc.



That is certainly how I grew up, as you can see in the photo above. (My parents still live here!) I felt the same way about the suburbs like most Americans do. Recently however, my view has been challenged. For my current Historic Preservation class, Business, Law and Economics- I have written a lengthy paper on just this topic. I had initially started out to write about how preservation effects low income neighborhoods, but somehow it evolved to a comparison between the city and the 'burbs. And I'm glad it did- my research was VERY enlightening.

As I said, the paper turned out to be about 25 pages or so, much longer than I have room for here. So I'll try and hit on some of the main points in multiple posts. Have you had enough time to decide where you'd rather live? Make sure you really think about, and the reasons why. Then we'll see if you still have the same view after reading what I have to say about it.

What's your image of the suburbs? Is it a beautiful home like this:



And what is your view of the city, is it perhaps a view like this:



If that's correct, then you're on par with most of Americans. We have come to believe that the 'American Dream' is a big house with a yard and at least two cars. In fact, after WWII- owning a home in the suburbs became very affordable, as did gas. This is mostly due to government policies that encouraged suburban sprawl (ie, development) and the Great American Streetcar Scandal. You know, the scandal where General Motors bought up all the streetcars and discontinued them. Subsequently Americans had to rely on buses and private automobiles. Ever wonder why America has virtually no large mass transit? Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scandal

Ok, so the suburbs are now in vogue and the city is not. What's the problem? Well,there are in fact, many problems. I like to keep my posts as short as possible so that people might actually read them. In that case, we're going to have to wrap this one up. This is the simple introduction to our nation's biggest unknown problem. Stay tuned for Part II where I get more specific. In the meantime...keep thinking about where you live, what you like about it, and what you don't.