The Crossroads facing First Generation Suburban Cities.
In these tumultuous days it is not easy to be a mayor, city councilor, alderman, city manager, or planning official. Public backlash to most policies is increasing especially in cities designed in suburban car centric typologies. My opinion is that this backlash is the result of arriving at a crossroads and the tumult of opinions on which diverging road to take. This opinion piece seeks to encourage the suburban city official of first-generation suburban cities; in meeting and leading their city through the great suburban crossroads moment. I’ll discuss what is causing it, and where each direction from the crossroads will lead us.
Historical context
It is well known that Post WWII the single-family suburbs began exploding in growth. As residential suburban developments pushed beyond the first ring suburbs of older urban centers, they often created first generation suburban cities or FGSC’s. Eventually retail commercial tenants began to follow the customers to these suburbs creating a brand new auto centric drive-to suburban style commercial (SSC). As the incredible growth of the residential suburbs accelerated these SSC also grew and thrived at the expense of older urban downtowns. Peak vibrancy of FGSC were in the days of the thriving regional mall. The pinnacle of big box success. All seemed well in Suburbia.
FGSC housing developments were originally sparse and spread apart leaving much vacant land within the city boundary. Driving an automobile into the new SSC of FGSC was easy and convenient. This new lifestyle of living in the quasi-country while having quasi-urban shopping nearby was a desired lifestyle available to the middle and upper class. Over time something very slowly and imperceptibly changed.
As the checkerboard of vacant land in FGSC slowly in-filled, traffic to the SSC imperceptibly lost the ease and became more tedious especially for non-resident shoppers living in second generation suburban and exurban cities and towns. Automobile infrastructure expanded at great costs as two-lane main streets turned into 7-lane stroads. Reliance on low efficiency car transport to support SSC’s quickly hit the traffic limiting factor. Attracting more customers meant bigger roads and ever larger parking lots diminishing the quality of the experience. Auto centric design quickly creates a limit to quality horizontal city expansion.
The FGSCs were typically the first cities to build non-urban drive-to commercial centers and have enjoyed a great deal of success over the ensuing years. The incredible growth of the suburbs as well as growth in ancillary bedroom communities have given these FGSCs decades of prosperity as growth has been the primary driver of their primarily retail success.
These FGSC have benefitted from an interesting imbalance. As retail commercial moved into the fledgling center of these new FGSC their outsized success came from pulling customers from both the edges of the old city as well as from the several bedroom communities (exurbs) that surrounded them.
Over time, FGSC continued in-filling mostly with denser but primarily single-family detached development. This helped increase commercial development viability, but it also created traffic headaches for non-resident shoppers. This is where many FGSC communities find themselves today.
The FGSC in many parts of the country have passed the pinnacle of expansion they can accommodate in the current stage of growth. This is exemplified in the revolving door of tenants that occupy the once thriving SSC. As traffic reached the limits of delightful transportation, the FGSC encountered greater competition from second generation cities, which have begun building out their own commercial portfolios and the old urban has begun experiencing a revival of commercial development. The FGSC struggle to compete with the shiny and new in both cities. FGSC will feel ever more pressure as commercial interests grow in previously bedroom exurbs. Without any change the FGSC commercial portfolio has no choice but to right size and serve fewer outside residents as it loses its commercial base to other communities.
Origins and destinations
Since traffic is often the limiting factor to increased growth in a FGSC let’s dive into a traffic principle. Simply, we all start each day at an origin. Home. We leave the origin and travel to many different destinations. A secondary origin type may be a place of employment, or a school of higher education.
An origin: somewhere a person returns to often and spends a great deal of their time.
A destination: somewhere a person visits infrequently, or for a short amount of time.
A person rarely leaves and returns to a destination in the same day. Within a community the average distance between origin and destination, as well as destination to destination coupled with transportation typology used determines the origin/destination coefficient. This coefficient determines the limit of growth and the vitality of a city’s commercial success. More people = more sales. To get more commercial vibrancy, a city needs to get more people into their SSC.
For a nearly built-out and typically low relative density FGSC to continue to grow, it must adopt a strategy to improve the efficiency of the human traffic load. In the simplest terms, the more people you have living near or in your SCC coupled with a more efficient transportation system, the higher the chance for increased vibrancy and continued growth. Adding smaller neighborhood commercial for basic needs to the fringes of a city’s residential zones will also reduce pressure on transportation systems into the SSC.
When origins are near the destinations more transportation options open to get to all the destinations. Walking, riding a bike, or a streetcar can take you from your origin to all the destinations. This reduces the absolute need for the least efficient transportation option, the automobile.
The Crossroads moment
The phrase “What got you here won’t get you there” is a paramount mindset to understand the changes the FGSC must make to remain viable. The big box apocalypse, the great mall collapse, as well as second generation suburban cities building new commercial centers are strong signs that an FGSC is no longer the primary regional shopping hub it once was. This leaves first gen big box and the mega box malls in the FGSC ripe for redevelopment.
FGSC’s have reached a crossroads and they must decide:
- are we going to maintain our “quiet” single family suburban lifestyle and right size our commercial endeavors?
- are we going to seek a path of continued growth?
There is likely no wrong answer here, except to continue doing what you have always done expecting to get what you always got. Both the maintain and growth strategy requires a different strategy from the status quo. To keep doing what you have always done will likely only result in decline. Something no city wants.
Maintain
Maintain requires a change in tactic that could lead to eventually becoming a next generation bedroom community if other nearby cities choose to grow. Maintain means these cities choose to remain a quiet single-family drive-only suburb and let the other cities “dense up.” They choose this lifestyle, and they are happy with their choice. They may not get the next best store in their community, their movie theatre may be older and a little worn out, and their property taxes very likely will rise. That is all a sacrifice they are willing to make to keep their quiet single-family neighborhoods and drive to their commercial needs. Their number 1 focus will be in staving off vacancy and decline by offering incentives to renovate and restore. In my opinion, this is the harder option long term.
Growth
The second option a city can take is already being embraced in some FGSC’s and can be found in the principles of walkable communities, 15-minute cities, transit-oriented development, and the New Urbanism movement. Many forward thinking FGSC’s are allowing the renovation of their defunct malls into new “urban centers” as they strive to create quasi-downtowns.
The current backlash in suburban cities can be attributed mostly to two changes. More high-density housing and more public transportation which are both symptoms of the greater problem. This backlash stems from a denial that the FGSC commercial centers can continue to grow as they always have. This is false. Continued growth requires a change of strategy that increases the number of people (shoppers, office workers, entertainment seekers) while reducing the origin/destination coefficient. Many commercial centers in FGSC’s cannot continue growing while surrounded by low density and only accommodating automobile transportation. While much of the suburban single-family neighborhoods can remain without much negative consequence to them, the commercial centers and any immediately approximate single-family neighborhoods are going to change dramatically in the growth strategy.
The commercial centers in FGSC suburbs must adapt the transportation system in the SSC from drive-to only to add more walkability and public transportation. This is accomplished by diversifying the SCC with more origins (housing and office space). These two tactics increase the number of potential customers from both housing and workplace origins by reducing their origin/destination coefficient thereby reducing their dependence on the limiting factor of automobile only infrastructure. New class A office space which is often lacking in FGSC’s typically adds high paying jobs to the SCC adding more money to be spent locally. This change in transportation strategy coupled with mixed-use development creates a new platform for continued vibrant growth.
SSC’s eventually become their own neighborhoods. This means, that these new mixed-use neighborhoods must make decisions to first serve themselves and their walkable nature. Now due to the original design of FGSC’s, the single-family dwellers still need to frequent the SSC for their needs. We can’t ignore the dollars they spend, nor the method they rely on to transport themselves to the SSC. Creating micro neighborhood centers for basic needs helps them avoid some trips to the center, but what happens when they need to visit the new mixed-use SSC?
When in Rome, do as the Romans.
To get a suburban single-family car-oriented resident into the new mixed-use SSC, they must adapt to the way the SSC neighborhood travels. This means, parking their car in a lot, or parking structure which creates a temporary origin for them. Then, they walk or take transit like everyone else in that neighborhood. Plenty of examples abound that show people are perfectly happy doing this as this is the system in many old urban downtowns. Also, many vacation destinations such as: Seaport Village in San Diego, the Strip in Las Vegas, Times Square in New York City or even visiting a theme park. No one is clamoring to be allowed to drive their SUV between Space Mountain and the Jungle Cruise. The SSC must be developed in a way that makes walking as unconscious a decision as when suburban dwellers visit these walking places.
This transition has already started but will take time to fully evolve. There will be growing pains and some temporary incompatibility. Each FGSC will need to adapt in their own way by seeking local solutions within these greater principles. It may seem strange at first for long-time residents as some businesses convert from drive-to only, to more walkable typologies. Cities who adopt new strategies with optimism will see continued benefits for their residents and stave off decline. Those who fight against it and continue to seek success in the status quo, will likely only find decline and wasted effort.
Brian Henrie is a city design coach who works to teach, guide, and encourage city leaders as they develop strategies for the design of their communities. Using a system called Development Forecasting, Brian gives city executives new tools and the courage to make difficult but needed decisions. Development Forecasting adds the missing piece to zoning that has an incredible result of attracting the right developer to the right parcel, to develop the right project.
