Below is a TED video (20 minutes) of Ellen Dunham-Jones presenting the case for the wisdom and effectiveness of "retrofitting suburbia"--actually the name of her book--to a more urban form. Below that are excerpts from a lengthy review of Dr. Dunham-Jones' book by Aaron M. Renn on his Urbanophile blog that takes a critical look at her assumptions and analysis while ultimately giving it a good recommendation. Both are well worth a good look and read.
...Retrofitting Suburbia takes a look at a cross-section of
sub-urban forms, principally commercial, and shows how they can be
redeveloped. This includes a mixture of both technique and case
studies. I think the case studies are particularly relevant. Because
the area of suburban redevelopment is so new, it is critical to get
feedback from the real world about what is working and what is not. The
book provides many examples to study, in areas ranging from enclosed
malls to edge cities. The authors are pretty fair in showing both the
good and the bad of these. . .
The “Urban Design Solutions” portion of the title shows the thinking
of the authors. In their view, suburbia as a design form is flawed in
its concept. The solution is not to build better suburbs, but rather to
figure out how to make our suburbs more urban. In effect, it is a new
urbanist tract. They contrast the signature attributes of urban vs.
suburban development (single use vs. multi-use, auto-dependent vs.
multi-modal, low density vs. high density, etc.) and basically show
projects that all are designed to turn the dials in a more urban way.
This is certainly one valid approach and it appears to be popular.
In fact, it seems to be the orthodox strategy of the moment. It also
appears to be working in some places. However, I think we need to be
cautious about promoting one-size-fits-all solutions, as well as
rejecting the development patterns of suburbia. As I noted in my recent posting about mid-century modern architecture,
we did this once before. The previous generation decided that it was
the traditional urban form that was obsolete and “unsustainable”. Their
solution was to obliterate that form and replace it with something that
they saw as self-evidently better: ie., urban renewal.
I think the history of failed conventional wisdom planning solutions
should inspire in us a dose of humility. While I’m all for trying out
the idea of urbanizing our suburbs, we have to be sure we cast a wide
net, try a lots of different things, be ready to abandon our theories
when they don’t work in practice, and avoid collapsing to a single
“school solution” that is promoted to the exclusion of all others.
It is also clear that Dunham-Jones and Williamson mean something
different by sustainability than I do. One thing that has always irked
me is how ordinary English words get co-opted as terms of art with a
political agenda embedded them. . .
The majority of the case studies in the book involve converting
commercial sites into mixed use “town center” type developments. I like
town centers. But when these new town centers are themselves 20 years
old, and every suburb has multiple of them, many of which are newer and
represent the next generation of design and taste, what then? My money
says we’ll be right back where we started. . . .
I like the part where they redevelop dead shopping malls and uncover streams. Here in Reston we certainly have hundreds of acres of "underperforming asphalt" in the Dulles corridor. But eco acre transfer development? Removing suburban neighborhoods for food and energy production? And who will buy out all those homeowners? How can you make enough money with food production and energy production to offset the cost of homes? Sounds like Agenda 21 stuff.
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