There are some other factors driving a renewed interest in urban living as America ages.  One of those is the better medical care available in urban areas (when you are in heart attack age range, being closer to doctors and hospitals seems like a better idea).

    Interestingly, for a long time the census has predicted a revival of urban cores as America ages,   regarding this as part of a natural cycle.

    One of the issues in suburban sprawl that Anthony Flint doesn't deal with is race.  Fear of African-Americans contributed to the rush to the suburbs.  It is not clear how that fear will play out as people seek to move back into cities.

    In some cities, poorer people are being driven out of the city into the nearby suburbs creating a situation similar to what exists in many European cities.  That is a relatively well off urban core with poorer suburbs ringing the city (where minorities are typically housed).  San Francisco is a good example of this.

    While the planning for smart cities is a good idea, we can hope that it will not solely become a process of planning for upper middle class cities.

patrick

Anthony Flint says about the exurbs: "I'm not sure what to say about those places -- we've built enough of them, and we should probably knock it off about now."

I used to experience a similar lack of ideas about what to do in the exurbs, and then I sublet a unit in a cohousing community called Cobb Hill on an organic farm, 20 minutes drive from Hanover, NH, home of Dartmouth College. They have 23 families living on 2 to 3 acres of a 275 acre property that includes an organic farm (on about 10 acres), pasture and sustainably managed forest. All of this is owned in common.

I believe this kind of arrangement can simultaneously help to: save the family farm, create a much more sustainable farming system, with much better treatment for farm animals, offer a greener version of rural living, and build rich community in rural settings. Transportation to jobs "offsite" is a weak link in this system, from an energy use perspective, but there are a number of jobs onsight, and residents share rides when possible etc. In the long run, public transport could link "villages" like these, like they do in Europe, although those villages are larger, but you get the idea.

Rob
wikiforgood.org
sustainableinvesting.net

  Dear Rob,

     Your housing find sounds like a lovely individual choice.  What kind of density would be needed (and would you and your fellow dwellers) support before public transit would be possible?

patrick

Patrick,

I don't have a good answer for you on density needed to get public transit to community-owned farms/eco villages. But how about bringing the jobs to the communities? At Cobb Hill I believe we have 8.5 households who work on site and 3.5 households with retirees. With 23 households total, more than half the community household heads don't commute to work. The kids who go to public school carpool with a teacher in a minivan and the balance are home-schooled. If the non-profit located here (called the Sustainability Institute) grew, we could have more households working on-site. The Ecovillage at Ithica has a bunch of on-site businesses and non-profits. Telecommuting is bound to grow.

Even so, your question is very important, and someone should think it through. In the novel Ecotopia they have "necklaces" of small villages served by light rail. Maybe there could be light rail down the CT river valley and then we could bike or drive electric cars to the train. This whole region is pretty low density though, so making it work financially, given society's current priorities would be challenging for sure. And you're asking how many people would each village need to make public transit work, and I don't know the answer.

Rob
wikiforgood.org
sustainableinvesting.net

 Rob, I agree with you about bringing jobs to the communities.  I think that the zoning that seperates American communities into different functions is a serious mistake.

     In China, many people live at (above) (or below sometimes) work, or within a short walking distance.  A lot of old style jobs include housing (as do poorly paying jobs such as restaurant work).  (Some of which have other benefits, but that is another topic!).

     For instance, typically, a university will include not only student, but faculty and worker housing on campus.  As schools grow and change, this is not always feasible, but some schools participate in building or buying into a new housing community, so that folks still live near each other, and the school can provide bus or minivan service.

    In modern times, as people, alas, follow the American model, they are finding themselves commuting more and more.  But there is still resistance to this, and many many of the service jobs provide housing on site or close by.

    (For some small business people, they close the shop door, and take out their furniture and live on site!).

    I was not too impressed with Ecotopia, partly because it never dealt with issues such as economic sustainability.

    I hope people in your community will think long and hard about density and transportation.  We really need models that can be used by numbers of people, and that means considering these issues.

    Sounds like a nice place to live (though I love my city of 13+ million!).

patrick

Patrick,

I contacted the Ecovillage at Ithaca (population of about 90 people) to ask about public transit and here is their response:

"We are two miles from town and there is local bus service. It does not run as often as we might like but it does exist."

So, for a small city like Ithaca, NY, it is possible to have a community farm served by public transport.

Rob

P.S. In my earlier post I said that all of Cobb Hill is owned in common. This is not accurate. The land is owned in common, as is the common house for group meals etc., but the individual units are owned by the individual families. (Also, the land has a conservation easement type thing on it.)

Rob,

     Great!  It's good to know that there is some public transit in a similar location.  When I first gave up my car, I was actually surprised to find that bus service (which everyone was always complaining about) was much better than I had ever imagined (without being great, but I had really low expectations!).

     I do wonder whether the service is frequent and reliable enough that anyone in the Ecovillage feels that they can live "carless".

     There are car-sharing programs (which seem to discourage unneccessary car usage by getting people to plan their trips), I know Cambridge MA has one (Zip Cars?).

     I am curious about how your community relates to the pre-existing surrounding community?  Are there any conscious planned connections?  Common activities?

take care,

patrick

I used to experience a similar lack of ideas about what to do in the exurbs, and then I sublet a unit in a cohousing community called Cobb Hill on an organic farm, 20 minutes drive from Hanover, NH, home of Dartmouth College. They have 23 families living on 2 to 3 acres of a 275 acre property that includes an organic farm (on about 10 acres), pasture and sustainably managed forest. All of this is owned in common.
I think Flint's comment is about existing and proposed big-lot exurban subdivisions, outweighing village-type cohousing development in the the US by, oh, I'd guess about 100,000 to 1.  No usable shared land, no neighborhood community, no onsite employment, no onsite community resources of any substantive kind, no chance in hell of any kind of public transportation.  Utterly dependent on a twenty to forty minute car trip for, well, just about everything.  What do we do with these projects when they go out of style?  There are real adaptive upgrade options for the first ring suburbs that can make them part of a sustainable future.  It's hard to say that of the kind of exurban development (not co-housing style) that is gobbling so much of our land, energy and infrastructure resources right now.  As a design professional trying to act responsibly I'd love to know of a positive vision of the future of these developments.

  Dear MorganParis,

      There is no positive vision of their future.  They are a tremendous mistake, and a symbol of all that is insane about American environmental policy.

      Interestingly, Beijing was planning to grow outward in rings, but changed it's mind.  It now envisions a series of urban-like centers connected by transit.

     (This is a GROSS oversimplification, for illustrative purposes only!).

     I sympathize with you, it is a tough position to be in.  There seems little (no) public support for even recognizing the problem, much less dealing with it.  Which is perhaps why we try to avoid it here.

     What ideas do you have?

patrick