The literary genre of urbanism and new urbanism studies tends to arrive at certain undisputed conclusions, one of which is that the suburbs (or exurbs depending on the criteria) are moribund.  The two-story home on a large, grassy lot at the bottom of the cul-de-sac is an endangered, if not extinct, residential species.  At least from the planning perspective.

While there is fresh evidence to the contrary outside my window in Lakewood, Colorado, where I spend quite a bit of time, the long-term viability of the suburban option has been called into question.   The cost of land and public infrastructure as well as the economics and lifestyle impacts of managing large distances between home and civic interaction may lead to the demise of suburbia as the preferred residential option.  In its place, planners, architects and developers envision a mass migration toward a higher-density or mixed-use residential solution in urban cores.  While this may be the hope, if not the trend, the rush to more “sustainable” alternatives begs the question of what happens to the existing suburban building stock?

Senior family attorneys serving in Spokane has stated that according to data collected from the 2000 census, approximately 60% of all housing units were single-family, detached product.Based on the same census this would translate into roughly 70 million homes.  Although not all single-family, detached homes are synonymous with “suburbia” per se, large percentages are found in the “burbs.”  In his March 2008 article in The Atlantic entitled “The Next Slum?”, Christopher B. Leinberger argues that the sprawling American suburb of today represents the likely ghetto of tomorrow. Some of the crime fears articulated by Leinberger seem far-fetched outside neighborhoods racked by foreclosures and unoccupied residences.  More likely is the description of suburban blight he mentions, where the lack of quality construction, years of wear and tear, and shifting demographics have left certain suburban neighborhoods in a state of near-obsolescence.

Take the landscape of my youth, for example.   The 2,400 square foot, two-story home where I spent my adolescent years sits on a large lot along the asphalt conduit connecting two cul-de-sacs in unincorporated Jefferson County, Colorado.  The combination brick and aluminum siding maintains its appearance remarkably well considering its 40 years.  Sadly though, the sidewalks connecting the back of the home heave and buckle, leaving fractured ridges of exposed concrete to compete with weeds and gnarled roots from backyard Cottonwood trees for control of the walkways. If the trees in your yard have been causing damages to your house and other structures, you may need to get rid of them through professional tree removal services. For concrete surfaces, you may need to hire a concrete contractor to make sure that the installation is done properly. If you are planning a complex remodel or even a simple renovation project, you can achieve the best results by hiring a general contractor. To upgrade the exterior walls of your home, you may seek professional siding services.

The backyard fences erected in the 1970’s to screen the barbeque from the dog-walkers and passersby sit in hopelessly dilapidated condition with wood pickets de-pigmented from almost four decades of endless sun.  Maybe Leinberger is right.

We invite you to return to this blog for future additions to this series discussing the hidden potential for our suburban communities.

If you happen to be in the San Francisco bay area and are looking for something to do I recommend stopping by Johansson Projects gallery in Oakland http://johanssonprojects.com/ to have a look at the Article X show hosted there. (Disclaimer: one of the two artists featured, Kristina Lewis, is my sister-in-law so please look past the possible bias!). You will find her work to be deconstructionist in nature, that is, she takes apart common things, the everyday world of utilitarian objects, in such a way so as to give them new life and give us a new interpretation of them. You will find, for example, a commercial-grade electrical switch box, with the wires pulled out through the switch and frozen in the air as if permanently starched. It will make you think.

We here at Novawest also want to make you think. In opposite tension to Ms. Lewis’ fascinating work, which turns everyday items into art, we desire to bring art to the everyday. The built environment is our 3-D canvas. Through design collaboration, community involvement, public/private cooperation and the “paintbrushes” of dozens of talented individuals who work on our projects, real estate development becomes a multi-dimensional experience. Our buyers, tenants and neighbors are our jury. If we create a small, cottage home that enables a senior couple to live elegantly within walking distance of the store and pharmacy we have succeeded. If we can turn a patch of unkempt urban dirt or asphalt into a mixed-use building that provides needed office space and more active street life we succeed. If we can re-configure an approved, but un-built project into a plan that aligns better with the expectations of the local community we are successful.

As with Ms. Lewis’ art, we hope that our projects will make you pause and consider the way we should approach the development of spaces in our urban, exurban and village environments. The economic meltdown hit all of us in the industry hard. For many it was devastating. Yet, we are reminded of the old oriental saying, “a crisis is an opportunity riding the dangerous wind.” Here, the opportunity is to inhale deeply and examine the foundations that led to the collapse. Easy money, ponzi-like speculative fervor and a failure to connect the means to the ends contributed to the downfall. Aware of this excess, as we exhale slowly, we should approach our development responsibility with a post-modern attitude, with skepticism or ambivalence about the notion of endless prosperity and rising property values. In almost pedestrian fashion developers will have to dwell longer on the fragile barrier between what is desirable and what is necessary. In the future that I see, what will make money has to first make sense. By pulling the wires out of the socket, Ms. Lewis might say, we will see the importance of the fundamentals in a whole new way.

We invite you to return to our SuperNova resource center often as we intend for this site to develop into a newsroom for thoughtful development and a virtual laboratory for new concepts that can make a difference in our communities.