Southern California may be one of the most unique areas in the country. For those of us who have grown up in the area, it is easy to take certain elements of our landscape for granted. There are few other places on this planet where, within a hundred miles, one finds dazzling beaches, inland areas with a temperate climate, picturesque mountains with forests and snow, and deserts of breathtaking beauty. Yet over the course of six decades this natural beauty has been gobbled up by the great blight of sprawl. It is a trend that has resulted in cities like Irvine, whose beige landscapes, vast parking lots, and generic chain superstores could place it just about anywhere in the United States. Sprawl quashes any sense of community, and has led to a lifestyle of destructive consumption.
Sprawl is a product of the reigning zoning laws and use of federal and state dollars on highways and sewer systems since World War II. The zoning of land has resulted in single-use areas, separating residential and commercial spaces. These zoning laws have allowed for the creation of tremendous residential neighborhoods stretching out over vast distances. For those of us who have grown up in such areas, it is difficult to imagine that there was ever a time when one could walk down the street to the grocery store on the corner, or where, in more densely populated areas, our apartment building may have also housed a small shop on its first floor. But there was such a time, and there are still places where this is the case.
Sprawl is also a product of our interstates. The development of the interstate system began under the Eisenhower administration and has been responsible for encouraging sprawl throughout the United States. In many industrialized countries with comparable systems, such as France or Germany, highways often form a ring around cities and are used for traveling from one city to another—but not here in California. The development of the highway system allowed for the development of ranches that had begun as Mexican land grants, such as the Irvine Ranch in Orange County or San Diego County’s Rancho Bernardo and Rancho de los Peñasquitos. Often with advance knowledge of plans for interstates, the planners of cities such as Irvine developed towns in which the freeway became a framework around which the city grew. This in turn contributes to the need to use an automobile for performing even the most mundane tasks within a city. Instead of driving from city to city on the highway, as one might in Europe, here one relies on the highway to travel from neighborhood to neighborhood. Furthermore, the reliance on the highway as a framework for new cities makes it difficult to set up an efficient mass transit system.
The immediate impact of the development of the highway system is that areas that in the 1920s and ’30s would have been more difficult to reach were suddenly made accessible to anybody owning an automobile. More far-flung, previously rural areas (such as most of Orange County) were suddenly brought a lot closer, fueling the out of control development that has reshaped the Southern California landscape.
Irvine’s original architect, William Pereira, designed Irvine to be a series of “villages” separated by streets wider than some highways. While Pereira’s plans for Irvine did not entirely become reality, his concept of “villages” is typical of exurban trends to develop insular communities closed to the outside world, be it through the actual presence of a gate or merely through the high walls and wide streets that border each development. This philosophy, coupled with the substitution of gaudy shopping malls for genuine public space, has left Irvine—like so many other exurbs—without anything resembling a city center, stifling any sense of strong civic identity. Because the layout of these areas tends to emphasize automobile transport over walking or bicycle riding, Irvine and other areas of sprawl are contributing to a lifestyle that ultimately pumps more carbon into our atmosphere. Here in Irvine, booster literature often gives lip service to such nice words as “sustainability,” usually citing the preservation of X amount of undeveloped land. Laudable though this may be, the fact remains that we already have a city in which the excessive consumption of energy is encouraged, no matter how many acres of land the Irvine Company sets aside.
Irvine is only one of countless examples of the way in which sprawl is an integral part to the increasing homogenization of American cities. Travel from one place to another throughout the United States and it becomes apparent that the corporate mentality that has driven sprawl over the last 60 years has taken its toll on the uniqueness of our communities. Certainly Irvine has its share of smaller businesses, but these are tucked away in strip malls anchored by businesses one could find most anywhere. Aside from taking in Southern California’s famous scenery and climate, any visitor to Orange County would be hard-pressed to find activities that do not include dropping a fortune at Disneyland or patronizing one of Orange County’s many oversized shopping malls. We watch our movies at Regal Cinemas, we buy our books from Barnes and Noble, our clothing comes from the same stores and the same designers, we dine at the same restaurants, and, at the end of it all, we retire to houses that all look the same.
Sprawl also contributes to the growing alienation that is the natural result of our nation’s ideology of individualism. More and more we seek to hide from the world around us. Many who can afford to lock themselves up in gated communities that are impenetrable to members of the lower class, with the exception of those who have come to make sure that the lawn is still perfectly manicured.
As the population of the United States continues to rise, it becomes clear that places such as Irvine cannot be continuously built up without planning. Instead we must focus on redevelopment, recycling materials and already developed land to create denser communities while remaining affordable. The result would be a nation in which the quality of life is above and beyond that which much of our current generation of exurban children has ever known.
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An earlier version of this article appeared in The Irvine Progressive, a Campus Progress sponsored publication.
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Comments
Amen!
— Austermann - Jul 9, 06:46 PM - #Very good article. I can recall when Irvine was mainly a rural area. It was as little as 25 years ago when the junctions of I-5 and I-405 was nothing more than a simple split where two lanes went off in one direction while the other two went off in another. Did you know also that there was once a Lion Country Safari in the Irvine area? It was essentially a zoo that you drove through in your car. It’s been gone for years now but the original one in Florida is still there. I went to it once.
— leskataus - Jul 10, 12:24 AM - #Know what? I liked living in a gated community. I loved being able to ALMOST insulate myself. I PAID for that. It is my right to do that. I will not apologize for it, and I will continue to do so. I also prefer to mind my own business and not my neighbors’, and I prefer to not broadcast my family news to everyone. Yes, shameful, egotistical me!
— kathy - Jul 10, 09:06 AM - #Kathy,
I am the author of this article and I am astonished by your defensive reaction. I’m glad you’re so happy with your living situation. If somebody wishes to “insulate” themselves, far be it for me to suggest that they shouldn’t be able to. What I was attempting to examine with this article was the effect that high walls, wide streets, and vast parking lots have on us. I criticise my own community, for instance, yet plenty of people here seem to love it. Loving life in the exurbs, however, doesn’t change the deleterious effects it has on our society or on our psyches.
When you talk about broadcasting your family news, I assume you are attempting to contradict my argument for genuine communities and a sense of civic identity. That isn’t the same as exposing yourself to the world. I’m hardly for the neighbors knowing every little secret about each other. Rather, I envision communities that are more open, more tolerant, friendlier, and more adaptable to future changes in the American lifestyle. I fail to see how our current soulless exurbs can be any of these things.
— Alex - Jul 10, 06:06 PM - #I hate to say this, but one of the things I missed most after moving to the big city was the lack of a Target shopping center.
— C.J. - Jul 10, 06:18 PM - #Have you ever been to one of these quaint little towns that you like to romanticize? They’re usually quite poor and dilapidated. Day to day life isn’t about scenery. I’m glad we have large amounts of preserved state and national parks that I can visit with my car on weekends or for vacation, but are you going to tell people how to use their private property by imposing your values about what’s right and wrong on them?
— Kevin - Jul 11, 09:20 AM - #Alex, this is a great article. As a UCI Alum, I believe that the shopping centers and housing communities of Irvine have banned creativity and spontaneity in this community. Everywhere you look, everything looks the same and Irvine is the quitenscential suburban city. It is a shame that the Irvine Company continues to monopolize the city of Irvine as well as other cities of Orange County.
— Rupa - Jul 11, 01:18 PM - #Kevin,
To answer your question, yes, I have been to all kinds of small towns as well as to many big cities very different from Southern California. If you read my article, however, you’ll see that what I’m advocating isn’t enshrining some kind of kitschy small town ideal in our development practices. I’m advocating smart, sustainable growth that allows for the development functional and adaptable communities. This isn’t some romantic dream of mine, such places do exist and I don’t see why we have to continuously build monstrous highways and shopping malls until the end of time.
I would also be careful of accusing smart growth advocates of telling people what to do with their private property. Whose “private property” do you mean. An individual home owner’s? A developer’s? Zoning laws already govern how property is to be developed. Fortunately, you can’t just do whatever you please with a chunk of land, even if you have a chunk of land big enough to build a city on, as the Irvine Company does.
Furthermore, before you accuse me of dictating to people what they can and cannot do with their property, bear in mind that that is exactly what happens in many new housing developments. In some neighborhoods here in Irvine, you aren’t allowed to leave your garage door open for more than fifteen minutes. Your house has to be a certain color, and your grass a certain length in others. Why, I even had a friend who lived in such a development, who, as a child, had a playhouse in her backyard. Her family received a letter from the homeowner’s association telling her that they had to either paint the playhouse to match the actual house, or they had to take it inside. Now that’s dictatorial.
— Alex - Jul 12, 01:17 AM - #Our road-building priorities and minimum lot sizes /frontage requirements that produce consistent subdivisions also produce unaffordable homes, fat unhealthy children and adults, huge school-bus transport costs, huge personal transport costs (since you can’t get around w/o a private car) and endless traffic congestion (such a problem in Atlanta now that businesses don’t want to locate here)...plus the social isolation and (to me) shocking conformity that we see around us…. fortunately not everyone is buying into this failed system…
— JohnP - Jul 15, 12:25 PM - #Kathy, I used to live in a gated community and I would not like to live in one again. It doesn’t keep out people. All it does is make it harder for people in their cars to enter. However, those who are on foot can walk right in. The house I lived in was right across the street from the main gate. I regularly saw the gate posts getting broken from trucks whose drivers misjudged how long they would stay up or from drivers “piggybacking” behind the cars of residents who opened them. Having those gates didn’t make the complex any more secure. Several of my neighbors got their homes burglarized. In one particular case, the people were away for about a week. While they were gone, a large truck pulled up to their house and cleaned out all their furniture. Nobody thought anything of it. People generally don’t know their neighbors so they assumed the residents were simply moving out.
— leskataus - Jul 15, 06:48 PM - #This is a great article and I hope this country wakes up and realizes that our problem is not so much the automobile as it is our housing choices.
I am going to defend Kathy, though. I don’t like her response, but I respect people like her who openly admit they do what they do because they are rich.
Here in Arizona, I would have to say that environmentalists are as much, if not more, responsible for the destruction of this once beautiful state.
Of course we have the ones who choose to live like Kathy, put up a few solar panels, buy a hybrid vehicle and then start lecturing everyone on the evils of hunting, ranching, logging, mining and pickups. Being wealthy, they don’t need a job and seem to fulfill their desire for power by running for public office.
So here in my once beautiful state, we are plagued with urban sprawl because so-called environmentalists don’t want to admit that natural resources can be harvested using responsible methods. Their latest focus seems to be on putting ranchers out of business. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know what happens when a ranching family sells off their privately owned parcels.
Neither of the two major parties will address this issue, although the Democrats give the most lip service. I am a Democrat, but the last candidate for Senator not only claimed to be an environmentalist but also immune from special interests by largely financing his own campaign.
How did he afford this? He got rich by bulldozing large sections of the state.
I don’t change my affiliation because it gives me a chance to answer the phone every election day. I tell the nice person that I have already voted and then explain why I chose an alternative candidate.
They usually hang up before I finish.
— RAGGEDSTEP - Jul 16, 08:59 AM - #Alex
I agree with you about the highways. If gov’t didn’t spend so much on roads and highways our living areas would be more dense and have very efficient privately run transportation systems because it would be profitable.
I also agree with you about zoning laws. I should be able to do with my land what I please as long as it does not infringe on the rights of somebody else.
And I’m right with you on being against telling people how long their grass can be and so forth.
So it seems we agree on a lot. Where we disagree is probably how to do it. I believe less government, respecting private property, and protecting individual rights is the answer. I’m sorry for accusing you of telling people what to do with their property, but the word “planning” you used to me implied that.
— kevin - Jul 17, 04:03 PM - #A few years back, I was visiting relatives in a city in Texas. We were driving through the newest part of town which was being developed as many newer areas are these days with a large freeway surrounded by a string of chain stores and shopping malls on either side.
My oldest son (who at the time was 5), jumped in his seat with excitement and exclaimed “I’ve been here before!” I told him that he had never been to Texas before. He very adamantly disagreed. As I looked around and then looked at my wife, we both shook our heads at the sad realization that the landscape we were looking at could be anywhere in America. In some ways, my son was right – he had seen similar landscapes to think he had been there before.
We live in San Francisco. We talk to our neighbors (who live very close by – possibly too close for some people). We walk whenever we can. We have shops, restaurants, trains, buses, all very nearby. Where we live was originally designed on a pedestrian scale, not on an automobile-scale. It brings you much closer to people.
I agree with this article, until we change the way we zone our towns and cities, we will get more paved areas, and generally more distance between each other. That can only lead to an increasing sense of isolation.
— Eric R - Jul 18, 07:22 PM - #Its interesting to me, and Urban Sociologist, to see the responses to this article. Glad people are talking about the ideas. I really like seeing Kathy say, “hey, I LIKE being insulated and separate” and Alex trying to explain that building landscapes that foster community doesnt mean you have to air your dirty laundry to one and all!
That does seem to be the crux of the emotional responses to the whole New Urban planning message: people either want community and connection with others (and thus see isolation as bad), or they seem to like that isolation (and thus don’t want “community” because it means “invasion of privacy”).
I have argued in print and in lectures and in meetings that its not either/or. In the New Urb developments I see around Austin you own your own house and you can either talk to your neighbors or not. But the point is you have options other than the car, and you can walk/bike/ride bus or train instead of the Almighty Car. That makes you more likely to meet other people you might like, but if you dont want to talk to them you dont have to! So you actually get the best of both worlds.
And, by the way, somebody ought to mention the other major social harm suburbanization has causes: global warming. Remember that about 60% of GW gases in America are caused by the use of individual cars, and that is caused by developing living space which is based on people driving on average 20 miles to work. Which means you have to integrate mass transit with better housing develpment.
If you are interested in seeing how that can be done, visit http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/planning/tod/ and bounce around the site to see how it can be done.
scott (or, Dr Scott, if you want to be all formal and stuff)
— scott swearingen - Jul 19, 09:09 PM - #Here’s a good presentation on this topic by a favorite author, Jim Kunstler.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/121
The new urbanists are really a conservative bunch. I think they desire the community planning how it used to be before traffic and cars became the sole focus of how we inhabit the landscape. So, it’s really ‘old fashioned urbanists’.
Kevin, I don’t think it requires any more laws and regulation than we already have. A reform of our zoning laws would go a long way in the right direction to building walkable communities.
Rattle, I wouldn’t despair about too much more development in the sun belt. As energy prices continue to rise it’s likely that sprawl like phoenix will dry up and blow away without cheap air conditioning and the water to grow food locally not to mention the cost of conducting daily life with mandatory expensive motoring.
Alex, loved the concise presentation of the topic and the small slideshow is very good to illustrate your points. It would be interesting to get the reaction from the architects and planners of these failures.
— Kurt - Jul 20, 04:21 PM - #Its an interesting discussion. I live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and the most valued neighbourhoods are the ones where you have a streetscape that is pedestrian friendly. Houses are so out of my price range I couldn’‘t even afford the taxes, let along the mortgage. I grew up in a small city in Northern ONtario (about 75,0000 people) and lived in a a similiar “porch or covered verandah..knew all the neighbours kids by first name..played with their dogs like they were are own” type of living arrangement. I sympathize sometimes with the Kathy’s of the world because sometimes it WAS like they knew too much of our business. But we knew theirs too! It sort of kept a civil air to our dealings with each other. I loved moving to the ‘big City” of Ottawa (about 1 Mill.) and luxuriated in not being my father’s and mother’s son, but my own man. But I think it is far healthier for kids to get exposed to other kids of all social and economic classes. Otherwise you are developing into a turn of the century Britain with its rigid class structure and I don’t believe most Americans would like that, at least not the ones I know.
The urban sprawl phenomenon seems unstoppable. The good people of San Jose, CA came to a smart growth summit in Ottawa and basically detailed the mistakes they made in managing growth.That was in 2001 and we have gone ahead and made all the same mistakes anyway! The tax base is eroding in the city proper, new developments in the ‘burbs demand services of all types, enviromental standards are lax ..etc etc. A developer has many ways of persuading a politician that Joe Public will never have.
The coming oil and energy and WATER crises will put a stop to the growth patterns but the problems will remain.
— Rob D - Jul 20, 04:42 PM - #