It’s a pressing question in Dallas, one that I get asked constantly: What will happen to our suburbs in an age of high gas prices and urban hipness? My answer is that the outer ring, encompassing towns like Frisco and Southlake, will do fine as almost self-contained entities. The inner ring, say Richardson and Garland, are in for a bit of a shuffle as the housing stock deteriorates, and the infill increasingly becomes low income. For more opinions, go to this discussion on the NYTimes site.
There’s the positive:
As many “new urbanist” and “new suburbanist” projects demonstrate, suburbia is becoming a hybrid place that melds desirable traits of city living (activity, diversity) while still maintaining allegiance to primary suburban ideals of selfhood and domesticity (and, one might add, consumption). Still to be realized, but now on the horizon, are greater opportunities for aesthetic hybridity. Left behind will be master planning codes that leave critics complaining about the aridity of suburbia.Â
And the negative:
The suburbs have three destinies, none of them exclusive: as materials salvage, as slums, and as ruins. In any case, the suburbs will lose value dramatically, both in terms of usefulness and financial investment. Most of the fabric of suburbia will not be “fixed” or retrofitted, in particular the residential subdivisions. They were built badly in the wrong places.
