A few of us buck the trend, but we pay the price. From shitty mass transit and development laws that make traditional urban structure nearly impossible in most cities, living a normal life without adhering to the prescribed lifestyle can be a hassle. Furthermore, those who decide to live in multifamily units and reject the multi-car ethic are made to subsidize the lifestyles of the majority, not only because we pay the same taxes and get vastly differing levels of service, but also because buying a home provides a tax break that renters never get ( though condos and townhouses do provide the tax benefit) and even though drivers pay taxes and fees that others don't, the money collected comes nowhere near the monetary cost of meeting the demands of the driving public, much less the total cost to society, which includes things like pollution and resource depletion.
Considering these things, I am forced to wonder about the 80% statistic touted by builderonline and undoubtedly reiterated by the industry as a whole. How deep does a survey go in probing the desires of the American public? Do Americans actually want the lifestyle associated with that single family home, or are they simply responding to an entire century of marketing and social pressure as well as the financial benefits of being part of the home ownership system?
I think the answer is in where we spend our leisure time. On those occasions where we can pull ourselves out of normal, everyday life and we get to choose where we are and how we live for just a few minutes or a few days, where we choose to go is very telling. Specifically, I think the places where we shop and where we vacation are excellent indicators of the environments we actually like to be in. You may find this argument to be a stretch, since the examples I give are wholly part of the suburban, low density lifestyle. But that's my point. Within that suburban lifestyle, constant efforts are made to emulate a normal urban structure. One that works and is comfortable for the patrons. And the ones that do it well are able to charge a premium for the experience, which I think indicates that it's in high demand.
One of the first places I can think of that exemplifies this trend is the suburban shopping mall. Yes, going to one is to be in the belly of the beast, but at the same time, the standard suburban shopping mall in the United States emulates the streets and shops of a small town. Keep in mind that on this blog, I'm not concerned with aesthetics. Once inside, the mall functions like a street in an economically healthy small town. With a corridor of traffic, as well as major nodes and intersections. Each 'street' is lined with shops and/or restaurants. Most malls have no actual residents, of course, but even that is being corrected as New Urbanist planners design more of their own malls. Even as residents and shoppers have been drawn away from our city centers, the successor has been forced to repeat the feel, if not the look, of the traditional town center.
And some have copied that look as well. Or at least elements of it. The New Urbanists pride themselves on shopping centers that emulate the look, if not the feel, of a small town, despite being filled with high end shops and expensive eateries that would never appear in any normal American small town.
But it isn't just the New Urbanists that are at it. While they may be attempting to copy the look of the American small town, the suburban malls and big box retailers are getting more and more successful at copying the the feel. And by that I mean the way stores function on the inside. Wal-Mart is the perfect example. While the internal structure of a Wal-Mart is, in many ways, like a town. There is usually a 'Main' street that circles the store, going by virtually every department, with smaller access roads here and there, taking the shopper past various sub-departments. These 'streets' are usually differentiated by tile floor, while the sales areas have carpeting. Each department of the store represents a type of business that used to exist in towns, but has all but disappeared today. Clothing stores, electronic stores, a pharmacy, a plant nursery, a sporting goods store, an automotive service station, a shoe store... and the grocery 'department' of a Wal-Mart replaces a store that, itself, replaced a half dozen viable businesses.
And it's not just where we shop, it's where we vacation as well. With just a couple of exceptions, people almost always choose to vacation somewhere that emulates the workings of the urban environment. Whether it's the forced density of Key West, or a trip to enjoy everything that big cities have to offer, vacations are usually made to the type urban environments that Americans don't live in. The obvious exceptions, seemingly, are Las Vegas and Orlando. Surely these two don't exhibit the same sorts of qualities that I've discussed above? Well, I would argue that they do.
Firstly, Las Vegas. Anyone who has been to the Las Vegas strip will likely tell you that it couldn't be farther from a genuine urban environment. While I would agree that this is true, I would point out that the strip's aesthetics create the feel of a city skyline, albeit one where modernized Egyptian pyramids and replicas of the Eiffel Tower dominate. Nevertheless, there is an urban-looking skyline. But more importantly, the trip down the strip feels like a trip down the main street of a major metropolis. It's only after turning off the strip and travelling about a block does one realize that the entire thing was a facade. But I think that that urban feeling is exactly what people are going after when they go to Las Vegas.
Besides aesthetics, the more important simulation can be seen in the tourist offerings (besides gambling). Las Vegas used to be only a gambling mecca. There wasn't much else there. Of course, there are also standard tourist offerings such as spas and massages, but Las Vegas has also become famous for fine dining and theater. Broadway theater. High rise buildings line the strip and the most recent mega resort to open on the strip is actually called 'City Center' and the buildings are all modern glass and steel high rise buildings. But this development isn't just one of a variety of different themes. Las Vegas has turned toward the direction of having all of its newer casinos built along these lines. From the modern glass look of the Wynn, Encore and Fontainebleau (did that ever get finished?) to the 'toning down' of the Egyptian theme at Luxor, Las Vegas seems to be trying to create a strip of hotels that do nothing but simulate a row of modern buildings in a mid-sized American city.
On to Orlando. Surely Orlando, where vacationers are not treated to high rise modern buildings or Broadway shows, isn't trying to simulate the big city. That's right. It's trying to simulate the small city. More accurately, a series of small cities. The most obvious, of course, is the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. The entrance to this 'amusement town' is even set up to simulate a turn of the century town in middle America. But the idea of being in an 'amusement town' goes further than the look of the area around the entrance to the park. The concept of any amusement park is similar. They're an area that can be easily traversed by foot several times in a day. Everything you need during the day is accessible, from food and shopping to first aid stands and the ever-present entertainment. Granted, the focus in an amusement park is the entertainment, rather than industry of some sort. And the park accommodates a completely different population every day, but the experience of the park goer is one that somewhat simulates life in a small town. If they one day put the hotels inside the park, that would make the illusion more complete.
All this leaves me wondering if maybe the thing we're looking for in our vacations, shopping, and other leisure time isn't a better environment. Maybe we're seeking out the sort of urban surroundings that would have been normal a century ago in America, and still is in other parts of the world. I haven't even touched on our overseas travel. I'll save that for another post, but I think that there may be something else we're searching for when we get a temporary escape from the suburban lives we've been told we want.
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