By: Bob Wise, AIA, is the president of AIA San Antonio. He is an architect with Parsons.
A house is the most important and most expensive investment that most families will ever make, and, as any real estate agent would suggest, the location of one’s home usually ranks as the most important selection criterion.
There are tradeoffs and costs associated with any choice; sometimes the costs are personal, and sometimes there are unintended costs to the greater community.
The American dream of having a big house on a large lot with plenty of trees, a park and shopping nearby and good neighbors with same-age children stems from the notion of frontier spirit of entitlement that Americans have had over the centuries — the attitude that everyone can build a homestead in the abundant open space of the West.
But part of the dream has for the past few decades resulted in sprawling development patterns.
Sprawl brings the more obvious costs that people experience every day: long commutes and miles of congestion on the freeways, choking air pollution, disjointed subdivisions of homogenously built houses, sterile office parks, uninspired strip shopping centers and the rapacious encroachment into the natural areas that surround our city.
The largely hidden cost of sprawl is reflected in downtown areas where vacant buildings signify the void of economic activity. The financial burden that is placed on municipalities to extend services and infrastructure — new power lines, sewer lines, police and fire services, highways and streets — to the fringe areas of a city often is at the expense of inner-city infrastructure redevelopment.
Sprawl also can result in economic and social stratification, sort of socioeconomic “redlining,” which diminishes the diversity of the traditional city. It also impacts inner-city schools; as fewer students live in the almost abandoned urban areas, school systems are forced to close schools with low attendance in favor of consolidating students in more remote schools.
The disappearance of neighborhood stores and shops, the closure of schools and declining property values are often hard to reverse.
Perhaps the most significant costs have been in the social contact realm. So much time is spent in the private commute of the personal automobile that little time is left for unplanned social contact with neighbors on the street or the experience of public spaces that comes with the more traditional design of walkable neighborhoods. With the associated lack of aesthetic distinction, these environments can lessen opportunities to respond to good design and cultural influence.
An alternative to sprawl is a smart design approach to planning that includes more efficient higher-density housing, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, mixed-use developments and convenient public transportation that serves the full population. Such developments incorporate planning practices and principles that enhance the economy, environment and community. The criteria for personal home selection may start to recognize increased quality-of-life factors.
Mayor Julián Castro has declared this decade to be the Decade of the Downtown. The sign of a healthy city is a healthy downtown. A smarter way of growing our city would place resources at its nucleus and turn growth back inward to benefit us all.