And Everything In Between

Where does "urbanism" happen?

I received this interesting comment on my piece about the parent/non-parent divide in urbanism and the desirability of city life:

There is a middle way—a life that’s not EITHER living in the city center or downtown OR living in the city’s suburbs.

I live in Cincinnati. We have a downtown core and 50+ other neighborhoods within the city’s limits. Many, like mine, have their own business district. Nearly all are located somewhere along a series of major arteries that run from the river to the city’s limits. We can walk (and increasingly bike) to many nearby locations, and an improving transit system offers alternatives to getting in your car and going downtown or to area universities and hospitals.

My neighborhood is situated along two major road arteries. There are three schools, three churches, restaurants, bars, salons, craft stores and gas stations—everything but a grocery store. It’s possible for me to bike, bus or walk to pretty much anywhere I want to go.

The biggest danger are the speeding cars on these “walkable” streets. They’re the reason communities like mine are clamoring for engineered traffic calming. We’ve tried the cute signs, pedestrian flags and other measures and they don’t work.

I don’t care how big the vehicles are. I just want everyone to realize that no matter what they’re driving, they're strapping themselves into something that weighs anywhere from 1-5 tons that can do incredible damage to people and property when driven recklessly.

The last bit is in reference to a part of my essay about whether or not families need SUVs. The whole bit about cars reducing the desirability of walking even in walkable places is interesting. But the part I’m focusing on here is the first half of that comment, about living in what are essentially city neighborhoods outside of downtown, and places like that.

In that vein, I replied in response:

Yeah. When *I* say “city” or “urban” I mean the whole gamut from big-city downtown core down to probably an old-school inner-ring suburb. Including legacy small towns and modern New Urbanism. But you’re right, a lot of people think somehow that we’re either talking about Manhattan or we’re talking exurban Atlanta or Charlotte. We’re mostly talking about everything in between those!

This is really key. It’s obvious to me—so obvious that I don’t stop to explain it all the time. Some people hear “urban” and think “big noisy dirty dangerous city.” That’s part of why I use the term to mean basically anything that isn’t rural or suburban, from a village or small town up to Manhattan. I even look for urban characteristics in places that really are suburban by any typical definition.

I also received this related comment on a recent piece:

When you think of urbanism, do you reference it personally as small towns and small cities? Is a major component of your thinking anti suburban sprawl?

I ask, because most of your writing seems to revolve around small towns and inner ring suburbs of major cities that do, or did, have concentrated commercial districts or dense main streets. What they don’t have is high rise buildings and apartments that never see the sun or sky.

I’ve lived most of my life in two major cities; New York and now Philadelphia. I’ve never lived in a suburb.

Walkability (sidewalks), access to public transit, and close proximity to shopping and parks has been a determining factor in where our family has chosen to live.

But the urbanism I experience as a city dweller doesn’t quite match what I experience in your writing.

Yeah, I guess that’s true. I don’t write that much about big cities. I’ve never lived in one—I’ve always lived in a suburb of some description, though looking back I quite enjoyed living in College Park, Maryland, which has a lot of streetcar-suburb DNA and, I think, lands on that sweet spot between privacy and proximity. And Washington, D.C. is not as intense as New York or Philadelphia, so I just have less experience with that kind of big city, even though D.C. generally counts as one.

So I’m just clarifying and stating here that I think “urbanism” as a set of attitudes or policies applies basically everywhere, to different degrees, but especially everywhere between Manhattan and exurban Atlanta. This big middle is where most people live, and it’s how most developed land is developed. These vast areas of older suburbs, small towns, small cities, and outer urban neighborhoods are not going anywhere. I see urbanism as a way to leaven them, to enhance them. Not to make them into something totally different.

I can say this in a practical, plain way, or I can say it in a more philosophical way: “city” or “urban” is more than land use—in some way it’s a spirit or a bundle of characteristics—and so any physical place can to some extent or in some sense be a “city.” That’s the way I think about the streetcar suburbs and early automobile suburbs.

I understand that a lot of the people who actually live in these places see them as set against, or at least distinct from, the city. But I think that’s based on an incorrect taxonomy of built places. What Americans think of as “the city” is just the most intense incarnation of an urban place. Most places are somewhere on that urban continuum. Maybe even those Sunbelt exurbs will grow into themselves eventually.

I write all of this because it underpins so many of my pieces, but I’m not sure I’ve ever articulated it straightforwardly, at least not in quite awhile. So there you go.

Question/quiz: what’s your favorite “urban” (broadly understood) place that isn’t a major American downtown?

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Related Reading:

When I Say “City,” You Say...

If By “War On Cars” You Mean...

An Embryonic City

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