Urban Design for an Urban Century: Shaping More Livable, Equitable, and Resilient Cities, 2nd Edition

Chapter 6Urban Design for an Urban Century: Principles, Strategies, and Process

For roughly sixty years, the American dream of a community shaped around a suburban single-family house with a yard and two cars in the driveway promising easy access to jobs, shopping, recreation, and education served as a near universal template for shaping American communities. This dream drew on a powerful American belief in self-reliance and the rewards of individual endeavor. A man’s home was his castle, went the pre-feminist formulation, and hard work would guarantee anyone the ability to buy that castle.

The dream grew naturally from its era. In the 1950s and ’60s, individual hard work did pay off for many Americans: the middle class grew while income disparities shrank; industries and their jobs stayed put. The “environment” for most people meant a national park. A sense of community developed naturally in ethnically and culturally homogenous neighborhoods: three-quarters of all households included children, and residents in the same neighborhoods shared the same schools, parks, and churches. Main Streets were for running errands. In an entirely human reaction to two decades of economic depression and wartime privation, most Americans concentrated on achieving middle-class economic status and enjoying the material comfort that came with it—most visibly, a chance to trade the confines of a small urban apartment for a car and a detached house in the suburbs. While this picture oversimplifies ...