Horses and High-Speed Internet

I love cities. The bigger the better. My heart beats faster just driving by Manhattan on the interstate. The more diverse and heterogenous the better - I love Chinatowns and Little Italy's. I love neighborhoods that have some of everybody. I love streets that are alive with kids, merchants, buskers.

I love cities. I love the gritty populism of mass transit. I love the landmarks, the sophistication, the public art, the climbing architecture. I love the way cities get taller and taller as you approach their heart. And I love when parks and rivers and beaches emerge right at the heart of the city. My favorite computer game? SimCity4. I still remember my father taking me on the elevated Orange line to Dudley Station and back just before it was torn down. Did I mention that I love cities?

Every so often I encounter someone who doesn't like cities. They're afraid of the crime, they're repulsed by the smell, they're intimidated by the transportation complexity, and they're nonplussed by the sights. Often, they've lived their entire life within an hour's drive of a major city but enter it only for 4th of July fireworks and museum field trips.

Among the urban educated elite (yeah, that's me), a historical myth has arisen in the last few years, and I recently realized how fallacious it is. In our passion for New Urbanism and environmental responsibility, we have revised history to support us. The cities are old, we think, and the suburbs are new, upstart, and dangerous. We have a tangible disdain for the poor benighted white collar wageslaves who live in the endless Levittowns and cookie-cutter developments. They have 2.5 kids and bachelors degrees. They all comb their hair the same way and buy the same cheesy Christmas decorations. They go to all-white churches. Frankly, we don't think they'd much notice if we translated them to Huxley's consumerist Brave New World.

We think that cities were once the home of all, and are now being deserted. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Urbanity is not declining, it is increasing, and has been. In 1940, 43.5% of Americans lived rurally. In 1900, it was 60.4%. At the time of independence, it was 94.9%. Remember that "urban" includes what are now fairly small towns, of 2500 residents or more. [Census Bureau]

This is not to say that cities are a new innovation. Not only have they been around for all of recorded history, they have been the seat of government, culture, learning, and business. Cities are a human nexus in a way that no rural - or suburban - area can be. But the populations of cities have been small and specialized, while the majority lived in poorer but more comforting rurality.

So we arrive now at the suburbs. These remain a modern innovation and the flashpoint of conflict between multiple worlds. Much was made of the "exurbs" as a new Red stronghold last month, but much more than politics is at work. In Maryland, the suburbs seem only to be limited by the ocean (they have even leapt the Chesapeake Bay!), and Charles County saw an awful incident of arson this week that has brought the questions of unfettered growth to the forefront. The old-time residents of Charles County were small-town folks who worked manufacturing and agricultural jobs. With new developments springing up like wildfire, dominating the landscape and raising prices, residents have sympathy for those whose homes-to-be were torched but can also sympathize with whomever it was who was moved to crime by the insatiable bulldozers and builders. It's not just a question of economics, it's a question of community life. In something of a role reversal, wealthy blacks are encroaching on a working-class white community and bringing with them urban mores and pace.

So how should we as a society approach growth? Debunking the "urban myth" can give city-dwellers better respect for sub- and exurbanites, but the problems associated with growth remain. Environmental problems (both in an ecological and a sociological sense) are prominent, as are economic concerns such as the strain on the transportation and education infrastructure.

The best answer for the U.S. is not to follow the Netherlands, where central control is necessary because of the overpopulation and unique environmental fragility. Nor should it be third-world style, where anyone with the means can build any kind of dwelling anywhere he wants. Growth, like public safety, is an issue that demands local answers. Each town or county should listen closely to the demands and desires of its population, and write ordinances that allow for personal freedom but respect the nature of the community. In the Charles County community, a regulation on the size and height of houses would have been in order. Lot size is another important control, and another could mandate planting trees. Zoning should be used to keep agricultural lands safe from development as long as land unusable for agriculture remains undeveloped. Developers should be made to pay for the one-time impositions they are creating on the town's physical infrastructure, a cost they will pass on to homebuyers that compensates for some of the externalities of the move.

Affluent people today have demands that neither the city nor the country can currently meet (the desire, for instance, to have horses and high-speed internet). New Urbanism is one answer to this problem; others should be explored. We have to respect humanity's rural roots, and at the same time respect old-time residents of would-be exurbs.