Finally . . . some sanity

After finally dipping into the Amazon hegemony, I was able to get a copy of Robert Bruegman’s Sprawl, the long-awaited academic response to the ever-present anti-auto screeds of urban reformers. Not necessarily pro-sprawl per se, he traces the history of the development of urban banlieues and faubourgs in cities throughout history. The most interesting discovery is the history of literature bemoaning the suburbs of the day. With London as the most instructive example, everything from the Garden City movement to the districts of semi-detached houses that are now held up as the shining examples of urbanism was denigrated when new by the urban elites of the time as soulless destruction of both town and country. What amazed me was the implicit undertone in the work: History is a history of class warfare.

Bruegman notes that anti-sprawl movements only seem to spring up when the middle classes create for themselves cheaper versions of the lifestyles that the upper classes already enjoy (Tuxedo Park, anyone?) In his observation, the upper-middle class scribbling set looks with disgust on the democratization of the idea of the house in the country by their aesthetically challenged inferiors. The thesis is that disurbanization (technically “flattening density gradients”) are tied not to technology or planning structure but to affluence. The private car replaced not the public streetcar, but the private carriage. Only as the personal transportation always available to the gentry became readily available to the less-well heeled did the detached house at the perimeter of the city come into its own. (This would help explain the structure of Gaudi’s work in nineteenth century Barcelona, see Answer Before the Question below.)

His bibliography is to die for, and covers a breadth of material that tells us that the phenomenon is not new, and isn’t quite as simple as one would think. Some observations: New suburban developments are actually getting denser, as lot sizes get smaller (but houses larger) and much development occurs in the water-strapped southwest where municipal piping dictates increased density. Statistical Los Angeles is denser than statistical New York (think about Westchester and Bergen counties), and actually the densest large city in the U.S. Poster-child Portland is still one of the least-dense cities in the country, and less than half as dense as their bogeyman L.A. Both density gradients and auto-trip numbers follow identical trends in the U.S. and Europe, only with a time-delay representing post-war rebuilding. (finally, someone that realizes that Paris has suburbs – and here I thought I was alone.) Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

The urban problem still seems one of desire rather than conspiracy. But how to evaluate the consequences of desire?

Evidence apropos: I came across this in a completely unrelated work on history of the mainland villas surrounding Venice; one city fathers crowing over the benefits of the agricultural estate. Growth boosterism, Renaissance style.

“All holdings will be improved. Many families will transfer themselves there and there will follow an increase in tax receipts. The harm that was done in earlier times when men and animals were obliged to drink muddy, swirling waters gathered in the ditches will cease with this operation for the conservation of life.” Alvise Cornaro, Venice, 1556.