Lis here! It’s no secret I am not a fan of suburban sprawl and huge homes (being European might have a little to do with it). When I travel through America or Australia I often stop and wonder how this will all look in one hundred years. These development lots are certainly not the houses of our past that lasted generations (and not the communities I believe the dream envisioned?). They require massive amounts of resources to build, huge spaces to fill up with stuff (and constantly throw out and refill), consistent maintenance, and way-bigger-than-necessary emissions and water footprints. They are bricked up neighborhoods, highly dependent on cars, surrounded by shopping malls for more consumption. And rarely ever flourishing with native plants and fruit-producing trees for our shared lives.
I’ve written a little about this and would love to hear your thoughts on sprawl and the environment. I haven’t touched at all on affordability, the booming population that saw the need for this, or solutions (big topics in themselves). Have you seen somewhere trying deeply to pivot on this model? To do right by the environment, all people, neighborhood spaces we want to create and the future? That future is what we’re building right now.
I think what we really need to remember is that urban development is social justice. Town planning is user experience design. Architecture is environmental policy. Housing policy is climate policy. They need to get into cahoots together for much more than the money.
