Question
Why does U.S. society cling to the suburban model despite its inefficiency, unsustainability, and many social ills?
Answer
Why on earth do you think people want to do efficient, sustainable, social-good things? Most people don't make life choices based on those variables. They are at best garnishes applied later, to create a thin veneer of good citizenship.
Three causes, interrelated:
There is also a role played by the growth of household appliances (ranging from refrigerators to washing machines) that gradually eliminated the "servant class" in America, and removed the need for the "served" class to live near the "servant class." This conspired with the era described by Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique (1950s mainly) and the baby boom, that created a demand for full-time housewives, and culturally legitimized it.
In my opinion, people who are citing racism as a cause are mistaken. Read up Thomas Schelling's classic work on sorting. All you need is a very slight preference for being around your own race to completely explain the "sorting" that happens when suburbanization is enabled. The slight preference for being around your own race is hardly racism, and "sorting" of this kind can happen easily around non-racial variables as well. The mechanism of the Schelling "sorting argument" is quite subtle, so look it up before you critique it.
And finally, don't be so quick to assume that New Urbanism is a green-clean utopia. IMO neo-urbanists have vastly over-stated the case. Neo-urbanization has its big hidden costs as well, arising out of infrastructure complexity in particular. I believe there is room for the invention of "neo suburbanization" as well, that divorces suburbs from cars by using virtual/home-based work, leading to the creation of suburban self-sustained communities that are simpler than big cities infrastructure wise.
Three causes, interrelated:
- Cause 1: America has historically been a "lots of empty land" country. The national grand narrative is about expansion and settlement by (primarily) the dispossessed from Europe. Land (and later home) ownership is a very natural fit with The American Dream. The Homesteader movement after the U.S. Civil War meant that many modern-day Americans are descended from from families where settlement is central to family history.
- Cause 2: Home ownership as a financial strategy. Read Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money to understand the extent to which home ownership is anomalously linked to wealth creation in America. And if home=wealth, more home=more wealth.
- Cause 3: The automobile. Read Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media for a full analysis of the historical link between automobiles (itself an outgrowth of the vastness of America and the insufficiency of public transit as a primary transport mechanism).
There is also a role played by the growth of household appliances (ranging from refrigerators to washing machines) that gradually eliminated the "servant class" in America, and removed the need for the "served" class to live near the "servant class." This conspired with the era described by Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique (1950s mainly) and the baby boom, that created a demand for full-time housewives, and culturally legitimized it.
In my opinion, people who are citing racism as a cause are mistaken. Read up Thomas Schelling's classic work on sorting. All you need is a very slight preference for being around your own race to completely explain the "sorting" that happens when suburbanization is enabled. The slight preference for being around your own race is hardly racism, and "sorting" of this kind can happen easily around non-racial variables as well. The mechanism of the Schelling "sorting argument" is quite subtle, so look it up before you critique it.
And finally, don't be so quick to assume that New Urbanism is a green-clean utopia. IMO neo-urbanists have vastly over-stated the case. Neo-urbanization has its big hidden costs as well, arising out of infrastructure complexity in particular. I believe there is room for the invention of "neo suburbanization" as well, that divorces suburbs from cars by using virtual/home-based work, leading to the creation of suburban self-sustained communities that are simpler than big cities infrastructure wise.