The Case for Suburban Renewal

Richard Florida in the Wall Street Journal:

Remaking America's sprawling suburbs, with their enormous footprints, shoddy construction, hastily built infrastructure and dying malls, is shaping up to be the biggest urban revitalization challenge of modern times—far larger in scale, scope and cost than the revitalization of our inner cities.

The Case for Suburban Renewal - WSJ.com

UPDATE: HERE is the unedited version.

Here are some resources on retrofitting the suburbs for sustainability and livability.

• The Sprawl Repair Manual
• Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning the Suburbs
• Design Charrettes for Sustainable Communities
• Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design With Nature
• Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability
• Superbia: 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods

The Only Real Option is Beauty

Fascinating interview with designer Bruce Mau, courtesy of The Climate Desk, a collaboration of Mother Jones,Slate, Wired, The Atlantic, PBS’s Need to Know, Reuters, Grist, and the Center for Investigative Reporting.


His arguments: suburbs are evolving, they are wildly successful so we have to work with them, it is possible to have a beautiful life experience in a low-density environment.  We need to reframe the sustainability discussion to make it positive, emphasize opportunities, and inspire people to live and work in a new way that is more compelling and more meaningful than the old way.

Place Samplings 10/9/2010

Better Burb Contest- "The time for thinking cautiously is over"
From the website: 
There has been a crisis of imagination, and your bold new ideas are urgently needed. There should be no preconceptions about what is or is not possible. What would you do on these acres of opportunity? Build a car-free community for thousands? Plant an oasis of urban agriculture? Produce renewable energy and provide well-paying green jobs? Use landscape systems to repair ruptures in regional ecologies? Introduce armatures to enhance public space and the civic realm?


Other Links of Note:

Obama Administration Rolls Out the Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative

Designing Buildings that Battle Obesity

Creative Placemaking Through the Arts

Detroit

• How To Be The Ultimate Metro Detroit Locavore
• Time wanes for Detroit project: Some question impact after a year of reporting 

Blog Spotlight: PlaceShakers

Suburbs Go Head To Head With The City | Planetizen

Can suburbs be sustainable?  

According to some thinkers, the term "sustainable suburbs" is an oxymoron.  

Others have more hope that the suburbs can be retrofitted to increase density, mix uses, improve walkability, grow food, and provide alternative forms of transportation.  

The next fifty years will likely bear this out.  


Suburbs Go Head To Head With The City | Planetizen

Image Source: Financial Times