“Satan’s Suburbs”
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008A few days back, Stephanie sent me a link to Veritas Magazine, a not-for-profit e-zine featuring lots of fun things to do around Des Moines, IA. Des Moines is a really nice place: it has a lot of the same small-town feel of Urbana, with a somewhat more vibrant arts/entertainment scene, owing in part to its status as state capital.
The recent article in Veritas entitled “Satan’s Suburbs” does a great job of identifying some of the problems the US faces as a result of its post-WWII zoning practices, among them a highly energy-intensive lifestyle, and an overall reduction in community strength, with fewer people out walking the streets. However, the article neglects one thing I feel is supremely important to understanding how we live: mobility. People are moving more than ever before, to places farther away, with higher frequency than at any point in history. Such mobility creates a lot of social problems, including reduced investment in communities, less incentive to participate in community events, etc. Even with stratospheric oil prices, I don’t see the US population becoming any less mobile soon; people follow economic opportunity, and the opportunities of big cities are just too much for highly-educated people to justify giving up (especially after investing so heavily in their education).