Originally Posted by Comrade
The problem with a great deal of the logic in this thread is that it's under a false narrative. No one is saying suburban Salt Lake should mirror Manhattan. Guess what, guys, Salt Lake City, probably the most urban city in the entire state, is still mostly single-family detached housing. Most cities, beyond the cluster of the more urban, older historic centers, throughout the United States consist of single-family detached dwellings.
Salt Lake's two most popular neighborhoods - the Avenues and SugarHouse - are not dense, apartment filled areas that lack single-family homes. But they're infinitely more urban than 90% of suburban Salt Lake because of the way the neighborhoods were developed 60-plus years ago.
And that is the difference/problem. There's nothing wrong with a suburb. There is, however, something wrong with sprawl and, unfortunately, that's what still dominates much of the development around this state.
Sadly, people don't have any problem with it. You see it in this thread. Here, on a forum mostly designed to discuss urban living and development, you have individuals excusing it away as a lifestyle and this is America! If someone wants to live in a gigantic house in a sprawling suburb and drive their SUV every place they go, by god, they should have that right! If that's the mindset of supposed urban enthusiasts, what hope is there with other average folks who don't give two shits about urban design?
The mindset so many people employ is destructive. It's killing our cities. Hell, look how long it took Salt Lake City to bounce back from that mindset - 30 years? And we're still not quite at the level the city was before everyone ditched city living for the wide-open suburbs.
You know, the problem isn't that people don't want to live in the inner-city. I get that. It's that no one wants to take the initiative to dictate smarter growth and instead embrace sprawl and then dismiss the legitimate criticisms about that lifestyle.
Sprawl should not be accepted and embraced and dismissed as just another lifestyle choice. It's damaging our cities, it's eating up our land, it's isolating our communities and, yes, I believe it's having an impact on our overall health - both through pollution and a lack of overall activity because no one walks anywhere anymore.
You know, when I was a kid growing up in Salt Lake, I walked everywhere. My parents owned ONE CAR. During the summer, if I wanted to do anything, I had to walk because my dad was always at work. So, what'd we do? We walked. We walked to the store. We walked to the bakery. We walked to the park. We walked to the movies. We walked to a friend's house. We rode our bikes down to Liberty Park. We would take the bus into downtown and spend all day there.
How many kids in suburban Salt Lake, beyond the length of the older suburbs, can do that today? There are pockets, to be sure, but I'd wager, for a great deal of people living in Draper, Sandy, West Jordan, South Jordan and Herriman, probably don't have near the options because the development patterns absolutely stunted that possibility.
If you live in a maze of suburban sprawl, where you have to walk through a mess of concrete subdivisions just to reach the outlet, something that could take 20 minutes for a great deal of people, then walk down a busy highway, or underdeveloped road, to reach any sensible retail area that offers half of what I mentioned above, you're probably going to be discouraged. Who wants to do that?
So, not only are we using up a lot more land than we should, our cities are less walkable than they were 50 years ago, and because of that, people are forced to drive more. That creates pollution. It leads to ugly strip-malls and a substantial amount of more parking. Of course, you need busy roads and even busier highways to lead into these retail areas, which, obviously, discourages even more people from walking. So, there really is no point to having any of these businesses engage in any street interaction because no one is walking here, anyway. Let's build 'em in a sea of parking.
Brilliant!
What's that give us? Ugly, car-oriented development that adds hardly any character to any of these suburban communities. They're not very visually appealing. There is really no sense of community because there really is no identity.
But that's okay. Personal freedom! Who care if we don't have an infinite amount of space? Who cares if the gobs of parking is unappealing and forces more and more people to abandon any hope of walking?
Look, you don't have to give up your suburban living to live smartly. The fact thousands of people have raised families in Salt Lake City, either the Avenues, Central City, SugarHouse or even on the westside, proves this. No, I'm not demanding you all move into SLC and I realize, as I've seen it firsthand, how unaffordable it can be. But that doesn't excuse suburbs from not having regulations in place to develop some semblance of a walkable city. Sandy, West Jordan, Draper, South Jordan, Herriman and beyond (going into Utah County, where it's even worse) lack this.
You can get the suburban life but also live in walkable communities that don't force residents to drive everywhere, or at least, when they are forced to drive, are given options closer to their porch so they're not driving as much.
Even if I have to drive somewhere in my neighborhood, I guarantee you, on the whole, my options are going to be closer than people who live in a subdivision isolated from the rest of the city.
That shouldn't be acceptable and dismissed as a lifestyle choice. We're better than that and sadly, even after we've witnessed a huge uptick in pollution, more and more population growth and less and less land, we're still set in our ways.
This lifestyle is not sustainable.
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