Suburban lifestyle suits American values

Though the political climate suggests it's a popular time to complain about suburban sprawl, an Ohio State professor said the suburban lifestyle is what most Americans want -- because it suits our values.

"It's culturally chic to slam suburbs right now, and people have been slamming suburbs since the 1950s. But it's still the preferred lifestyle," said John Warfield Simpson, associate professor of landscape architecture and natural resources and author of Visions of Paradise: Glimpses of Our Landscape's Legacy (1999, University of California Press). "We want homeownership, private property, our own little corner of the world."

In Visions of Paradise, Simpson examines the physical forces, people, policies, programs and values that have most shaped the American landscape. One issue he explores is the growth of suburban living in the United States.

By Kevin Fitzsimons

John Warfield Simpson

Despite the current popularity of suburban living, Simpson said he believes Americans eventually will find the lifestyle too isolating.

"An interesting question to me is whether suburbs on the outer rings of cities now will have the same desirable characteristics as the ones built 50 years ago," he said. "I don't think so. I think they're too low-density, provide too few opportunities for social contact, and the economics of suburbanization will undermine their affordability. Gas isn't going to stay cheaper than water forever."

Simpson argues that Americans would take better care of the land if they sought a deeper understanding of the landscape and developed a stronger connection to the earth. He said Americans have developed a sense of separation from and superiority over what they perceive as a limitless land supply of abundant resources -- and that such a perception has blinded people to the environmental consequences of their actions.

A suburban dweller himself, Simpson considers himself not so much a critic of suburbs, but rather an observer and chronicler of why suburbs exist, how they look and why they are so prevalent. In Visions of Paradise, Simpson describes the transformation of America from wilderness into an agrarian and suburban landscape, highlighting the role of significant people in that transformation and the policies and programs used to acquire, survey and dispose of public land.

Roads and highways have had "phenomenal importance" in development of the landscape because they are the structures "around which the country was formed," Simpson said. "Where do we experience the landscape? In a car, driving down the street. The landscape is lost as an organizing element in our lives."

Public policies -- such as subsidies for highway development and mortgage interest deductions as a tax benefit -- have promoted suburbs more than an urban lifestyle, Simpson said.

"Government policy has been to promote suburbs' development at the same time it hasn't created anywhere near the same number of programs to promote urban development," he said. "Suburban sprawl is a product of that, but it also reflects American attitudes."

Despite Americans' historic connection to low-density living and its consumptive nature, Simpson is optimistic that the nation's collective lifestyle can change over time. Ideally, he said, Americans should behave as residents who enjoy a deep connection to the land rather than as its temporary occupants.

"As we become more informed about the world, and science helps us understand nature, our values will change. We'll become less focused on consumerism and consumption and more focused on community," he said. "Our joy in nature will be reaffirmed. But this applies to urban areas, as well -- our relationships with people will change. As we become more informed about natural systems and social systems, we'll have a better landscape vision."

The gradual change in lifestyle is likely to lead to eventual recycling of land in the interior of cities, Simpson predicted.

"As people become more landscape literate, they have a better ability to see the history embedded there and understand social continuity," he said. "That connection enriches us the same way our family lineage enriches -- it gives that sense of continuity, connection, belonging."

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