Conventional wisdom holds that suburbs are great places to raise a family but lack the social capital found in more densely populated areas. As is the case with most conventional wisdom, the reasoning behind the premise that suburbs are bad for social interaction just makes sense. Conventional wisdom holds that development in the suburbs is designed in such a way that you don't have to interact with your neighbors. The houses are set back from the street so you can't easily converse with neighbors walking by. Conventional wisdom also holds that people don't walk in the suburbs. Due to the auto centric nature of the suburbs, residents go from their house to work and back without every having to interact with their neighbors. Conventional wisdom holds that urban areas provide more options for neighors to interact be it in local parks, public squares or just from the front porch.
This image of the isolated suburbs has found its way into the popular media. Both TV shows and movies portray the suburbs as seas of isolation where the characters struggle with the sense of anomie created by living there. In fact, the lack of social interaction is often sited as a negative externality created by sprawl and therefor a argument against sprawl. The conventional wisdom that suburbs is bad for social interaction also has some backing from the academic community. Robert Putnam in his book, Bowling Alone attributes some of the decrease in social capital found in America due to the growth of sprawling suburbs.
Well, a recent study found the exact opposite to be true. The study found that social activity actually increased as density decreased. This suggests that suburbs are better at building social capital than urban areas. It turns out suburbs aren't the cold, isolating placed they were once thought. When conventional wisdom is turned on its head, such as this study has done, it opens up the floor to debates as people now feel free to question commonly held beliefs about the subject. Hopefully this will lead to some fresh perspectives into the social dynamics of sprawl. I for one am interested to hear the debate that follows.
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I know this is an old post but I just found it and thought I would add something to the suburban debate. I would argue that there are two factors. First, a person’s personality contributes greatly to the level of social interaction and since of community within an area and if you look for it you can likely find it. Secondly, the same level of social interaction and since of community exists in the suburbs but one may need to leave the neighborhood to find it.
I grew up in a suburban neighborhood that backed up to a golf course and I had lots of neighborhood friends to raise hell with but when I think about it my parents pretty much just kept to them selves and didn’t socialize with any of the other neighbors. Since I left my parent’s house I've lived in mostly highly dense areas. In Athens GA I lived in an urban neighborhood within walking distance to downtown. In DC I lived on Capitol Hill. In Nashville I lived in Hillsborough Village and East Nashville both similar to Cooper Young in Memphis. Now I live in Downtown in South Main. One thing that I’ve noticed is that every place I’ve ever lived I’ve felt a great since of community and neighborhood. I knew all the shop owners, bar keeps, and restauranteurs and when a go back for visits I find many familiar faces and old friends. I think this has less to do with the conditions in which I lived and more to do with my personality. Because I like social interaction I tend to gravitate toward high-density areas that allow such socialization and once I get there I go out and meet people and get involved.
As to my second point, my parents still live in the suburbs and they still look outside their neighborhood for social interaction, my father goes to the golf club and my mother goes to her church. I think one could argue that the same level of social interaction exists in the suburbs as it does in urban areas but that it just takes place over a larger area due to the low density.
If you are outgoing and look to get involved then more times than not you will find a community to act within regardless of the density of your neighborhood. It does makes since that if you live in a higher density area then you are more likely to find people with your interests within a closer proximity. While I would agree that the view of the suburbs as cold and isolated is not exactly accurate I do think that it is easier to be isolated in the suburbs (e.g. the crazy old cat lady in my childhood neighborhood) than in higher density environments.
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