Can Suburbs Transition from Unsustainable to Economically Viable?

Growing up, I rode my bike through a network of cul-de-sacs and bendy roads. This empire's democracy was run through HOAs and a binding mentality that each person should own a half-acre with a never-used backyard.

Since the 1950s, this has been the stereotypical archetype of the American Dream.

Unfortunately, this is decimating suburban towns, reducing environmental sustainability, and slowly depleting towns’ financial resources.

Will there ever be a way out? Yes, but only through strategic action.

The Suburban Experiment in the 1950s

The “Suburban Experiment” largely emerged from a post-World War II economic boom, coupled with federal policies like the creation of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the development of the interstate highway system. New communities were created with the intent of being car-accessible rather than walkable.

Programs from the Veterans Administration, like the GI Bill, made long-term, low-interest mortgages widely available. These mortgages were biased towards new construction on the suburban fringe, making it cheaper to buy a new home in the suburbs than to rent in the city.

The proliferation of suburbs was a masterclass in strategic marketing, interwoven with a carefully constructed design philosophy that promised an idealized lifestyle.

Large-scale developers like Levitt & Sons sold a lifestyle rather than just a home. They heavily advertised affordability, modern amenities like a full kitchen, and family-friendly environments of mass-produced communities.

Flash forward almost one hundred years, and almost nobody in the United States is still alive from before the detonation of suburbs across the country.

The Correlation Between Density and Sustainability

While the romanticized image of the suburb once symbolized prosperity and idyllic living, modern suburbs now face significant environmental and economic concerns.

Sustainability, economic viability, and density of a town are usually correlated.

When the density of a town increases, this makes systems like recycling, renewable energy grids, and transportation more effective. This is in contrast to less dense suburban communities that require more individual commuting mechanisms, longer distances traveled for deliveries and waste management, and individual systems for single-home electrification.

This utilizes tax dollars more effectively and allows communities to operate more sustainably.

Similarly, Urban3, a company that designs geospatial mapping tools displaying value per acre, shows that denser communities are more productive for the space they take up.

Typically, the larger and shorter a building is, the less value it has. For example, a single-family home in a suburban community may take up half an acre. It only produces an average of $1,889 per year in property taxes.

In a more dense community, the same acre might be taken up by a mixed-use building that includes several shops on the bottom floor, producing tens of thousands in sales tax, and housing on the top that pays property tax.

The Suburban Downfall

Unfortunately, suburbs are in decline. They are not economically viable.

This is primarily due to infrastructure. Since suburbs are spread out, everything must be elongated to serve fewer people.

For example, water and energy can be 2.5 times more expensive to deliver in the suburbs. Roads in subdivisions are still government property and must be repaired, requiring millions in infrastructure spending only to benefit a hundred families.

In a 2015 study from the London School of Economics, the US spends $1 trillion per year on inefficient infrastructure. This comes from inefficient land usage, car dependency, traffic congestion, pollution, and the lack of revenue per acre.

The result has been a rising crime rate, deterioration of buildings, and growing abandonment of properties like strip malls. In a few more decades, suburbs will be an outlawed remnant, transforming into ghost towns.

Can Suburbs Be Fixed?

As a Midwestern native, I hope so.

The organization Strong Towns has compiled a Housing Ready framework for communities. This includes tactics like ending minimum parking requirements, allowing accessory dwelling units on properties, allowing multifamily homes in residential zones, and streamlining permitting for new construction.

In my opinion, one of the most promising concepts is building over large parking lots, like ones found at dying mall complexes or outside superstores.

One of the prime examples is the ongoing Stonestown Galleria redevelopment project in San Francisco, California. While San Francisco is certainly not a suburban community, this demonstrates a framework for future redevelopment projects.

Stonestown Galleria is a shopping center that has 11 acres of shopping and 27 acres of parking lots. Over the next few years, the City of San Francisco will transform the parking lots into a residential neighborhood with 3,500 housing units, parks, plazas, community space, offices, and structured parking.

Brookfield Properties’ planned Greenway in the Stonestown redevelopment project

This can be replicated across the entire United States to create stronger communities.