Quote:
Originally Posted by slide_rule
cause kotkin's a shill.
from a dispassionate third party perspective, suburbia is inherently more expensive and more dysfunctional than urbanity. yet the real estate industry has a lot of media/political/financial power, makes huge money from continually transforming greenfield land into autocentric suburbia (with many of its costs externalized), and wants to maintain its vested interests.
thus a lot of the supposed journalistic articles about development are really just veiled PR releases for the real estate industry. kotkin just happens to be a slick and somewhat articulate voice of his patrons.
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Tehcnically, the real estate industry would be just fine with a more urban future. It's really the oil-car industry that has beef.
Suburbanism in the US, to me, is almost more a cultural and social phenominom that something that can objectivley be seen as a brick and mortar issue. Many posters have made very rational and logistical arguments regarding why urban areas thrive over suburban and yet the exasperation continues.
American suburbia, IMHO, is simply people acting on their inner desires a) To be "King of One's Castle and b) To have a builtform that specifically isolates oneself from others in society, which is attractive to those with intolerance issues.