What's Next For American Urban Development?
The rapid acceleration of climate change impacts, and the health, cultural and societal effects of a global pandemic have caught urbanists - like this one - by surprise. Time for new forecasts.
Pete Saunders | a Corner Side Yard feature
Uncertainty about the future of the preferred American development pattern is at a point seen only twice before in our nation’s history. If a theory I’ve been playing around with is right, our nation is in the midst of a transformation that won’t fully work itself out until the start of the next decade. And, once the transformation is complete, we may witness a change that many urbanists would be pleased to behold.
That’s how I started a blog piece I wrote eight years ago introducing what I called the “Big Theory” of American urban development. The theory borrows from the Strauss-Howe generational theory that led to the book The Fourth Turning, which basically suggests that history follows certain patterns as new generations with shared values are born, reach adulthood and supplant their elders, and then grow old themselves. Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe put Mark Twain’s quote, “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme” to the test. They examine 500 years of British and American history and find repeating cycles of generational eras (High, Awakening, Unraveling, and Crisis), and repeating generations who play a role in carrying out the eras (Prophets, Nomads, Heroes, and Artists). If you haven’t read it I’d encourage you to check it out.
For my “Big Theory”, however, I don’t go quite as deep. But I do look at American urban development history and find that I can organize American urban development into three broad eras – an Early Era, an Industrial Era, and an Auto Era – with four shorter development periods within them. After the fourth period of one era reaches an end, I found that our development patterns reach a point where the nation is bereft of new development ideas, until something new starts to take hold. The big point I made eight years ago was that the 2010s would be a decade of uncertainty when it comes to American development patterns, and it would be sometime in the 2020s that we’d see things more clearly. You can see below how I organized it …
The Early Era (1795-1860)
Revolutionary Period (1795-1815)
Plantation Period (1810-1830)
Mercantile Period (1825-1845)
Frontier Period (1840-1860)
The Industrial Era (1870-1935)
Railroad Period (1870-1890)
Industrial Period (1885-1905)
Streetcar Period (1900-1920)
Recreational/Garden City Period (1915-1935)
The Auto Era (1945-2010)
Levittown Period (1945-1965)
Split-Level Period (1960-1980)
Edge City Period (1975-1995)
McMansion Period (1990-2010)
Three years ago I took my first stab at imagining what the next phase of urban development might look like. I didn’t try to name it at the time, but I did try to lay out what might occur over the next seventy years …
Urban Revival Period (2020-2040): The rebirth of cities actually does take hold nationally, as growth filters downward from our superstar coastal cities to other cities. Interior cities will tout their assets and amenities and become cheaper alternatives to the coasts.
Urban Suburbia Period (2035-2055): Suburbs will begin a period of adaptation largely based on their proximity to urban growth areas. Suburbs adjacent to strong urban areas will urbanize (incorporate more mixed use development, a variety of housing types, and more walkable) as a complement to renewed interest in urban areas. My guess is that the older forms of the Auto Era, from the Levittown and Split-Level periods, will lead the way here (after a fairly dark period that they've recently entered into).
Exurban Retrenchment (2050-2070): Not all suburbs will have the benefit of adjacency and proximity to build on. I foresee a period where many revert into a semi-rural form, since we'll discover that their current form is economically unsustainable. They'll become local agriculture producers in the way that market gardens (or truck farms) used to be. These will be the areas that developed during the Edge City and McMansion periods.
Climate Adaptation (2065-2085): Some aspects of climate change adaptation are already underway (indeed, some aspects of everything noted here are already underway), but I'm guessing that by the middle of this century climate adaptation will take center stage. Sea rise, super storms, droughts, fires and excessive heat will make places that were perfectly and enjoyably habitable in the 19th and 20th centuries into places far less habitable in the next few decades. Some cities will adapt to the changing climate. Others will have to adapt to the climate refugees -- domestic and international -- that result.
Probably not a bad start, but in retrospect, perhaps premature. Why? There was no way that in 2018 I could anticipate two things that have dramatically impacted us since then: the rapid acceleration of climate change impacts, and the health, cultural and societal effects of a global pandemic.
As a result, I’m refining my theory of how urban development might take place through, roughly, 2085 …
Pandemic Recovery (2020-2040): The shock of the pandemic began in 2020, but the full recovery response has yet to begin. We’re seeing, however, some aspects of it. Work-from-home will become much more prominent, meaning that many downtown office skyscrapers and suburban office parks will increasingly become obsolete. What happens during this period will set the tone for the next 50-60 years. We will start to look at the reuse of vacant office buildings in the same way we look at the reuse of vacant malls and big box stores. And if you don’t think the pandemic will be viewed as so impactful on development, it’s not a stretch to think that the 1918 pandemic, and not simply the rise of the automobile, led to the expansion of suburbia in the 1920’s. The quest for open space, at a time when the Garden City movement was at its peak, was an appropriate response in what was still a largely pre-vaccine world.
Climate Change Adaptation (2035-2055): I’m moving this up from my earlier take, because it’s clear that the pace of climate change is accelerating and the need for humanity to adapt grows. I think this is the period where we’ll see the expansion of practices meant to keep our communities habitable – seawalls that will protect against rising sea levels, better and more comprehensive stormwater management strategies to deal with increased precipitation, measures to prevent the spread of wildfires into heavily populated areas, even ways to transfer water from rain-soaked locations to drought-stricken ones. Of course, another adaptation will be climate change migration, and the U.S. would be impacted domestically and internationally.
Urban Suburbia/Rise of the Rest (2050-2070): At some point in the future people will look back at the 2010’s as the peak back-to-the-city moment. If I’m right, and pandemic recovery and climate change adaptation take hold in the first half of the 21st century, the next urban movement could kick off the second half. However, I think it will look quite different. I foresee more of the conventional suburban sprawl patterns finally become more dense and diverse in their housing stock and land uses, while cities that didn’t benefit from the first back-to-the-city movement get another look.
Exurban Retrenchment (2065-2085): Things improve for cities and suburbs, and it’s likely they’ll look more similar to each other than they do today. But, as I said three years ago, “not all suburbs will have the benefit of adjacency and proximity to build on. I foresee a period where many revert into a semi-rural form, since we'll discover that their current form is economically unsustainable.” Yes, I can see the exurban communities that were so reliant on highways and auto use dialing down to something closer to rural. Part of it will be because obsolescence, but part of it will also be to a stronger urban/wild interface that helps us further deal with climate change.
There’s no better way to end this than the way I did three years ago …
A simple projection of current development trends into the next six decades? Perhaps. A hubristic attempt to outline future development patterns, when we don't have full knowledge of what economic or technological breakthrough might alter the pattern? Almost certainly. But we should start with some base so we can prepare for whatever happens next.