I do not know if spread-out suburban land use is viable without cheap oil and cheap power. Maybe it can be reconfigured and maybe with solar energy and conservation and replanting food crops into the suburban landscape it could survive in some form. But the very real current arrangement is simply not viable without violence and large scale ecological destruction.

WT ” Various communties including suburbs can be changed if the people living there wish it.”

What people wish cannot and should not be the ruling ethic of a society. We need to maximize freedom within the limits of personal, local and global neighborliness , ecological sustainability, and accountability to the common good. Right now that means some changes.

I do not know if spread-out suburban land use is viable without cheap oil and cheap power. Maybe it can be reconfigured and maybe with solar energy and conservation and replanting food crops into the suburban landscape it could survive in some form. But the very real current arrangement is simply not viable without violence and large scale ecological destruction.

WT ” Various communties including suburbs can be changed if the people living there wish it.”

What people wish cannot and should not be the ruling ethic of a society. We need to maximize freedom within the limits of personal, local and global neighborliness , ecological sustainability, and accountability to the common good. Right now that means some changes.

“Walkable towns.” Not good for mobility-impaired people. Unless “walkable” also means “wheelchair-able.” I do agree about towns and communities being connected by trains. I've been spoiled during my visits to Japan — the Japanese have a great train system.

“Right now we are reduced to being thugs, trying to control oil with bombs and fleets and drones. We will hemorrhage blood and money till we come to our senses and make new plans.”

This is a truly over-generalizing assumption. Who is this “we?” I know that I'm not a thug. Not everyone who lives in a suburb is a gas-guzzler-loving thug.

Various communties including suburbs can be changed if the people living there wish it. We do not need an over-riding fiat to make changes. If you don't like a particular community, then move somewhere else. Or else work to change it.

You are right that the deeper, across-the-board problem is out of control consumption, but the American suburban living arrangement is planned consumption on a mass scale. We need walkable towns and cities supplied mostly by regional food and commerce, and connected by trains. If we don't start now we will be caught in a series of catastrophes as the current system implodes.

Right now we are reduced to being thugs, trying to control oil with bombs and fleets and drones. We will hemorrhage blood and money till we come to our senses and make new plans.

I predict that within the next decade suburbs will become largely dysfunctional as the age of cheap, readily available petroleum comes to an end and relying so totally on automobiles as we do now will become a non-option for many people.

But we're largely stuck with them as they are. Tearing them down won't be an option. So those of us who live there (and although I actually live in the city of Columbus proper, the area I live in has all the trappings of suburbia) will need to engage all our creative resources to develop practical solutions to the situations that are coming.

We'll be learning how to make lemonade out of the suburban lemons very soon. It's a very good idea to get to know our neighbors now.

I agree, there are many problems with suburbs — the lack of public transportation is one of them. As for ecological problems, cities are just as responsible for them as suburbs. Burning up every suburb won't stop global warming.

Read Wendell Berry, Read Margaret Atwoods new book “The Year of the Flood”, see the documentary “The End of Suburbia”. Read Yes Magazine. Look at the cost in the history of American resource wars and the dependence of the US economy on goods imported and made under dictatorships or totalitarian one party systems. Look at the global imprint of the fossil fuel industry that fuels the suburban lifestyle.

I wish we could get beyond this suburbs vs. cities debate. It's stale and filled with awful caricatures and stereotypes. A suburb can be just as racially and ethnically diverse as any city neighborhood and city neighborhood can be just as mono-racial (if that's a word) as any suburb. I suburb can be well planned or poorly planned, just like a city can be.

I live in a suburb of a major city and it has excellent mass transit. I can't think of one product I need that I can't walk to a store to buy. I can walk to a public library, community theater, bus stop, plenty of non-chain restaurants and stores and practically anything else the people who heap disdain on the suburbs laud cities for providing. I realize many suburbs aren't like this, but neither are many neighbors in the city. In fact, one of the major complaints from African Americans who live in the nearby city is that they don't have easy access to these things I've listed. It's only the trendy, upscale white city neighborhoods who have these things.

So true what you say about folks who struggle with mobility! Every time I head into the city with even my stroller it is so difficult to manage. Which has led to my pestering city officials to rethink and rework the sidewalks and systems. We need to be advocates for the sort of changes that make city life more live able in this way whenever we get a chance. The joy of advocacy here is that so many others can benefit if a change is made.

Great thoughts. You are right when you say that the suburbs are often badly planned, so true. So I wanted to add a bit to my thoughts in the post via your thoughts here. I think that the original design of the suburbs, for many urban planners, was as an escape from the city. From what they perceived as the sort of “social evils” they wanted to run from. And for this reason, even though I live in the burbs, I struggle very much with the fact that my community was partly born in that mindset (albeit over 100 years ago).

But for me, I think the best way to champion where we live (if we made a thoughtful decision to live there) is to be sure we live where we do because we are moving toward community, not running from a fear.

For us, our suburban choice was not based on fear of the city or of diversity of anything like that. It was a choice based on the fact that both my husband and I work in the burbs, our families are both here. And the cultural diversity and walk-a-bility of our community is great.

So like you said, we can create true community anywhere. As long as we are moving toward that goal rather than running from something based in fear.

Good thoughts! Thanks.

I'm originally from the Chicago area and I lived in the city of Chicago for around twenty years. When I ended up moving to Maryland (to take a new job), I moved to a suburb. Later on, I moved to a different suburb to get closer to my job.

What I like about my suburb is the more open spaces. The landscaping, the trees, the fields. My suburb happens to be quite diverse as far as race, nationality, sexual orientation, religion, etc. Which I like.

But also, being mobility-impaired, suburbs have a lot more accessibility for wheelchair users. I see mobility-impaired wheelchair users in the city and they struggle to get around in the inaccessible spaces. I'm not sure why, but it seems that cities are being signed for younger, healthier, mobile people.

My only real complaint about being in a suburb is the inadequacy of our public transportation system. Whenever I visit Japan, I get spoiled by their fabulous train system. In U.S. suburbs, far too often, we are made dependent upon autos because of the lack of efficient public transportation.

They were planned as residential, parklike tracts. i.e. places for city dwellers to pretend they are in the country away from the city but attached to the city.

They were deceptions.

And entirely dependent on freeways.

Of course they fill in and concentrate. And become cities. Eventually the deception leaves

But they weren't planned as cities/communities. And hence, don't function well as such.

Yes, one can create community in Hong Kong, Madagascar, or most anywhere one happens to be.

And I hope/pray that every person finds in their place–a place to love-that God loves.

But this does not make the conception and fundamental drivers of suburbs over the last 60 years to constitute good city building.

Different issues.

And “Yes” I affirm we each and all are fully able to challenged by the loving grace of God to become more open and loving persons–building community with all–and turning it immediately into a new strict legalism devoid of grace towards others.

It is parallel to the battle with pride–which I am just oh so pleased to announce that I have conquered. praise be to me.