The distinction between pre and post WW2 suburbs is SO important. The neighborhoods built as "suburban" between say 1880-1940 remain incredibly desirable places to live, because they are quiet and leafy *but also* walkable and mixed-use and connected to transit. It may be that we don't think of them as suburbs today simply because they are often within city limits-- think of western San Francisco, say, or much of Brooklyn, or parts of the Twin Cities in Minnesota.
I think it's still under explored how and why we stopped building residential neighborhoods like that, and what it would take to retrofit existing postwar suburbs to that standard and re-legalize building new places that way.
Why do you present this as a unique American phenomenon? The same happened in Europe, just instead of building suburbia, people started to commute from the already existing villages around the cities, eventually gentrifying them, like banning pigs and chicken and the peasant lifestyle, replacing the old peasant homes with more modern ones. It is generally nicer, there are sidewalks, gardens and more individual style houses, but it is much harder to afford and the car traffic still leads to gridlocks and pollution.
The reason is probably that people in cities started to behave less nicely. It has been dogshit and loud neighbors that chased us out from the center of Budapest in the 1990's.
I know it is easy to feel nostalgic for old times, but remember how different standards of behaviour were.
The distinction between pre and post WW2 suburbs is SO important. The neighborhoods built as "suburban" between say 1880-1940 remain incredibly desirable places to live, because they are quiet and leafy *but also* walkable and mixed-use and connected to transit. It may be that we don't think of them as suburbs today simply because they are often within city limits-- think of western San Francisco, say, or much of Brooklyn, or parts of the Twin Cities in Minnesota.
I think it's still under explored how and why we stopped building residential neighborhoods like that, and what it would take to retrofit existing postwar suburbs to that standard and re-legalize building new places that way.
Agreed! I’ll be covering how the shape of the suburbs evolved in the next essay, which will get at some of these issues.
Why do you present this as a unique American phenomenon? The same happened in Europe, just instead of building suburbia, people started to commute from the already existing villages around the cities, eventually gentrifying them, like banning pigs and chicken and the peasant lifestyle, replacing the old peasant homes with more modern ones. It is generally nicer, there are sidewalks, gardens and more individual style houses, but it is much harder to afford and the car traffic still leads to gridlocks and pollution.
The reason is probably that people in cities started to behave less nicely. It has been dogshit and loud neighbors that chased us out from the center of Budapest in the 1990's.
I know it is easy to feel nostalgic for old times, but remember how different standards of behaviour were.
Suburbs are ideal. Obviously mass underclass and one party dem states make cities unlivable these days, but having some space is just really nice.