Is America too big?

And no, I'm not talking about a weight issue again, I mean, our cities. In April I flew to Boston to go to the American Planning Association's National Conference (and loved it). While there I went to a talk about Detroit, and the excitement in shrinking cities. Detroit has a great opportunity to redesign their city as people are moving out and run-down houses are demolished to make room for parks, open space, or maybe more dense housing?

I am not 100% against suburbs, at least not in theory, I understand the draw to suburbs and the desire to really have your own space and have the safety and the good schools, but I don't understand why that isn't possible in a denser environment. I live in a not so dense part of the city in a neighborhood where you say good morning to the neighbor waiting for a friend to pick them up or stop to chat with someone on the way home (at least in the summer, when it's not too cold to stay outside for an extra five minutes). While this neighborhood may not be the "best" in terms of safety, it has a lot to offer and I see children playing on my way home from night class often, so there must be some kinda of expectation of safety for children in the area as well. The schools are not the best, but as more families move into neighborhoods like this, and property values continue to rise schools will improve. Parent who used to commute an hour and a half for work can now dedicate that hour to helping their children with homework, or decorating for a dance at the middle school, or playing basketball at the local park. This article about Detroit and "right sizing" makes some good points, the suburbs of Detroit keep growing, even as the city itself is shrinking (so it's not that people don't want to live in the area). If you think about it, people choosing to live just outside of the city are actually making the problems in the city worse, they are using some of the amenities the city provides without paying taxes to the city to help support it. If a majority of these people moved into Detroit, the crime would probably drop, but it takes a large group of people to reduce crime, not just one person, so no one wants to take the first step.
Buffalo, New York has a similar problem to Detroit, and if shrinking cities were not already grabbing your attention, read this article too! The sprawl is costing the city and the state and the county and all of the residents more money than that extra space is really worth.
Let's look at this from another perspective though, according to an article in Good, and article in Slate and so many other things we have all heard about lately, long commutes are terrible for us! They are causing divorce, back problems, heart problems, lung problems, emotional problems, healthy diet problems, and destroying the planet while we're at it. Many people believe New York knows what they are doing because they have a great bus system, and in a way I agree. I know most people don't want to live in the densest part of the city, either because they can't afford it or they want to be able to look out a window not into someone else's apartment, but perhaps moderately dense suburbs (like the neighborhood I live in in Chicago) are the way to go. We still have a sense of community, and there can still be great schools with active parents and safe roadways. I, personally, am all for everyone living in high rises and reducing our on-the-ground impact a lot more than even these moderately dense suburbs could do, but I know most people want their own space and don't want to hear their upstairs neighbor walking around in heels after work.
Yes, we might all have to have smaller houses, but that can actually be good for the environment (that's just a bunch of fun pictures mostly...) and can make you appreciate the things you have a lot more. I know that living in an apartment is so much cheaper for utilities than living in a house because you can steal heat and air conditioning from your neighboring apartments (literally steal the heat, not take control of their thermostats though) and therefore you can spend more money on food, or decorations or even furniture, which you would need less of now, so you can maybe afford the collections you've always wanted instead of needing to buy more furniture just to fill the space.

Denser means more transit which means more fun!
 Because riding transit is fun!

I think we need to take into account the cost of sprawl, but we also need to start thinking of cities as a blessing and a benefit to our way of life, instead of eyeing our neighbors with suspicion, we should say hello, forming a feeling of community in an apartment complex or on the block can make a neighborhood that much more fun to live in. And the denser the area is the better public transit service there is and the easier it is to bike from place to place, or walk to the grocery store, because, in case you haven't heard yet, it can actually help you live longer if you do groceries every day instead of once a week!

R