The false economy of the Exurbs and how good planning and transportation options can save the American economy

I love cities so I’ve always been a little puzzled by America’s obsession with trying to create cookie cutterhalf acre, pastoral settings in the form of suburbs. I grew up on a farm, and if you aren’t working, it’s pretty boring. Why you would want all of the disadvantages of rural (driving long distances to get places, not a lot to do) and city life (traffic, putting up with neighbors, smog) rolled up in a suburban track home lot is a mystery.

This last week, the NOW series on PBS did an excellent report (viewed online here) on why the exurbs are destroying the middle class and how better planning and transportation options can save us.

Until recently, the choice of living far from work, school, and shopping seemed to be an individual choice in our society. Let the hippsters, socialists, and poor people live in the city. The suburban utopia was the lifestyle of choice for most Americans, the fulfilment of the American Dream. This dream is now becoming a nightmare for those in the exurbs, the far off rim of suburbs, caught between rising gas prices and the worst of the bust of the housing bubble.

Reconnecting America, a non profit advocacy and policy group promoting better urban planning and transportation options, recently released a report that showed while people who live in neighborhoods with good transit and where they can walk or bike for most errands spend 9% of their income on transportation, the average exurber spends 25%. The average American doesn’t do much better with 19% of income going to transportation. The part of the problem is that while money going toward the mortgage on a house builds equity, transportation dollars build no equity. The more you spend, the less you have for retirement, vacation, or widgets. Add to that fact that the infrastructure of suburbs costs more than the taxes generated by suburban development, and we see how our love affair with the car and the lifestyle it brings is bankrupting our country. And this doesn’t event begin to address the cost of lost family time and loss of life.

A lack of leadership at the national and local level has lead us down this path, one that is making the current economic crisis worse than it could be. We’ve been told we can have our cake and eat it too, that we can spend and grow with abandon and never face the consequences of our decisions.

With nearly 90% of Americans saying they are not happy with direction of the country, there is a tremendous opportunity to build new communities and an economy that will weather the storm. Americans must demand our tax dollars be spent in ways that will build wealth, not drain it. That means doing planning that benefits the community, not just developers, and building transportation infrastructure that allows us to easily choose an option other than the car. It means tax policies that don’t give oil companies with record breaking profits tax breaks while underfunding transit, sidewalks, and bike lanes. We just flat can’t afford to keep making the same dumb mistakes.

Until we come to terms with our reckless decision making, we will remain unable to restore our country to its former greatness or make a sustainable future for our children.

Related posts:

1. Drive a car: You’ll save the environment by dying! ...
2. Innovative transportation policy sacrificed on the altar of bipartisanship ...
3. Wanting more cyclists on the road? Look to what women want ...
4. Living in the city much greener than ‘burbs ...
5. A New Year, a new mindset ...