There's been a growing conversation about the future of suburbia in America, driven in no small part by the expectation that a car-driven society will soon become unsustainable and the more immediate impact of an economic backlash against the very consumer model that built our more modern suburbs.
BLDGBLOG just posted a tidbit about a new ideas competition called Reburbia:
In a future where limited natural resources will force us to find better solutions for density and efficiency, what will become of the cul-de-sacs, cookie-cutter tract houses and generic strip malls that have long upheld the diffuse infrastructure of suburbia? How can we redirect these existing spaces to promote sustainability, walkability, and community? It’s a problem that demands a visionary design solution and we want you to create the vision!
Reburbia is sponsored by some of the more innovative voices in modern design out there, including inhabitat and Dwell.
Naturally, this made me think of Richmond with its incredible sprawl of recent years -- massive housing blocks carved out of once-distant counties like Powhatan and Amelia, huge shopping complexes rising up out of western Chesterfield and Henrico. But it also made me think of Koln, Germany, where I spent a summer during high school riding whatever passed for a metro/light rail system from Germany's version of suburbia to the center city. Koln had long strings of villages cascading outward from its core, connected by trains.
I could re-imagine a Richmond with a rail/hub transportation system with one main east/west line essentially running along Broad Street/Main Street from Church Hill to the Goochland County line, and three north/south lines following 288 (western Henrico and Chesterfield), Powhite and I-95. But eyeballing an aeriel view of the region, there would still be vast tracts of surburban property sitting outside of those corridors and their interconnected hubs.
And as the Baby Boomers make their way into assisted living facilities or the downstairs bedrooms of their middle-aged Gen X children over the next 15 years, I wonder what sort of smart planning is going to be needed to help shape new population patterns that are smarter, more efficient, and account for a significant drop in housing demand for the foreseeable future.
It'll be interesting to see what emerges from the Reburbia project.
