America has paved itself into a corner.  This country's automobile dominated culture can be credited
with many of the most difficult social, financial, environmental and foreign policy challenges we
face as a nation.  Peace on Earth will be difficult to come by if Americans continue their shotgun affair
with the automobile.

In 1998, the US automobile industry spent over $14 billion on advertising, this amount was half again as
much as the entire rest of the world combined.  Of the six largest corporations in the world, four are auto
and oil.  The largest of the oil companies, Exxon Mobil, with revenues exceeded only by Wal Mart and
for comparison, the government budgets of the seven wealthiest nations in the world.
 

Let's take a look at some of the highlights of suburbia's history.

Early street car suburbs were escapes for the elites from the gritty industrial cities of the NE and Midwest.
They were bucolic, privileged and limited in extent.

During the 1920's and 30's, many of the country's largest public transportation systems were bought up by
National Cities Line, a front company for General Motors, Standard Oil of California, Firestone Rubber, Greyhound
and Mack Truck.  Over a period of years, the trollys, tracks and trains were purposefully allowed to run down
then destroyed only to be replaced by busses and later cars.  The public good was sabatoged and the corporations
were found guilty of conspiracy in a federal court and fined a minimal amount. The damage was done and we continue to pay a heavy price.

As early as the 1930's suburbia emerged in the LA area, ironically, some of them land speculation/development deals promoted by trolley companies.  Intrigue, corruption and violence came together as
water was brought to the San Fernando Valley.  Inside speculators made a killing as the semi desert turned
green with palm trees and dollars, much of it a public expense.

After WW II, a convergence of circumstances gave suburbia its biggest push.  There was a post war housing
shortage with GIs coming home.  There was a huge industrial capacity in need of shifting from war to peace,
there was an idealism of home ownership. The government via the FHA made guaranteed financing available
to developers and guaranteed mortgages to veterans.  There was also an increasing mobility due to the
automobile along with innovations in industrial process based upon the economy of scale.

These circumstances manifested in Levittown, named after Bill Levitt, a self styled entrepreneur and
promoter who recognized the opportunity to make a lot of money.  He pioneered mass construction of box
like houses far beyond anything else at that time.  Suburbia was in full swing.  Levittown had no fences,
included ball fields, a few swimming pools, no Blacks and no Jews.  The houses sold like hot cakes.

Through the 50's and 60's there were other landmarks directly associated with suburbia.

The Interstate Highway System may rank as the most important companion of suburbia.  This titanic federal
road building project opened up vast amounts of cheap land beyond the urban area.   Cars  plus new highways
made it easily accessible.

Affordable FHA loans from the mid 40's to the mid 60's were available almost exclusively for suburban use while inner cities were neglected. Part of that policy was segregationist as well.  The suburbs were almost exclusively whites only.

In the 50's, new advances in  air conditioning  made the south and south west habitable.  The sunbelt was born.

Shopping malls from the 60's made down towns into ghost towns.  Acres of free parking and usually
located near freeway interchanges made them convenient and also accelerated the phenomena of the
franchise/chain store.  The economy of scale in retailing was doom to many local merchants.

De industrialization of the central cities meant loss of jobs, tax base and civic vitality.  Changing economies
and cheap land on the periphery  meant closing of inner city factories.  Many of those factories left for the
suburbs, then the south and more recently in the form of globalization, out of the country entirely.

Urban renewal added to the erosion of urban vitality.  Decaying communities were leveled and replaced by
often dysfunctional high rises.  Highway construction was also famous for destroying minority and low
income neighborhoods.

The urban riots of the 1960's also have a close relationship to suburbia.  The segregation of suburbia, the
loss of tax base in the urban core, the closing and relocation of factories, the decline of urban community all
lead to the  eruptions of the late 60's.  Government policy such as the interstate highways, urban renewal and
discriminatory FHA practices can take a good deal of the credit for the riots.

More Recently

Sprawl is accelerating.  Developed areas are growing faster than population increase would suggest.  Average houses
are larger even as family size is smaller.

Americans drove over 3 times as many miles in 2000 compared to 1960.

The average American driver spends over 450 hours per year behind the wheel.  That's over 55 eight hour
days.

The world auto fleet was about 53 million in 1950.  Now it is over 500 million.

The US imports over 60%  of its oil.  Over 2/3 of that for transportation.  Much of that oil comes from
countries with extensive human rights abuses, in particular, abuses related to resource [oil] extraction.
 
 The US burns up nearly 21 million barrels of oil per day.  Alaska's North Slope extraction peaked in 1988 at
2 million barrels  per day and is now less than half that amount at about 800,000 barrels per day.

Studies show that auto use is not a close function of affluence, rather more a function of limited
transportation choices largely determined by land use patterns.

Low residential density, the hallmark of suburbia, is a virtual guarantee of auto dependency.

The graph shows the relationship between residential density and miles driven.

Hybrid cars and hydrogen fuel do not address many of the problems of auto dependence.  They are certainly preferrable
to internal combustion, in limited respects, in a future where cars are far less neccesary in the first place because our urban landscape will not [best case scenartio] require cars as they do today. Efforts to maintain auto dependency are flawed regardless of the energy source of the vehicle. Cars require enormously expensive infrastructure and suburbia is a monumentally poor choice for taking care of residential needs, see below.
 

Automobiles dominate the urban landscape.  What are some of the effects?

1.  Environment- public heath suffers from air and water pollution.  Degraded water quality impacts aquatic
habitat.  Particulates from vehicle fuel combustion cost the US between $25 and 75 billion per year in
damaged public health according to government studies.

2.  Cost of infrastructure-  moving people in more sensible ways costs less than moving cars.  We are
becoming less able to pay for what we have already built as increasing amounts of older infrastructure come
due for repair, like in Eugene now.

3.  Social-  Money spent on expensive auto infrastructure could be better spent on sensible public
investment.   Suburbia is not a land use form that normally brings people together.  Congestion is frustrating
and degrades our quality of life in many ways.

4.  Political-  Foreign policy to secure access to oil is expensive and adds to international instability.
Corporate highway lobby and car lobby have excessive political influence

5.  Aesthetic-  The auto dominated urban landscape is ugly and degrades the spirit.

6.  Economy-  Automobiles are expensive.  The average household in the US spends more $ on
transportation than on health care and food combined.  Congestion is expensive as time stuck in traffic is not
productive.  The Texas Transportaion Insititute extimates that the annual cost of congestion in  68 US urban
areas amounts to $72 billion per year.
 
 Food

Suburban sprawl paves over nearby farmland while our
communities and nation become less secure as its food supply
becomes ever more distant, of uncertain quality and vulnerable to
disruption.

View of Eugene's Urban Growth Boundary. Oregon land use laws, far from perfect, still have limited the amount of suburbia poaching on valuable farm and forest land. Rural subdivisions are rare in Oregon, unlike nearly all other states where suburban style development can be found miles for town, jobs and shopping. Measure 37 threatens to unravel the benefits of Oregon's visionary land use laws.

Environment

Plans to reinvent our urban landscapes must also include protection
and restoration of the urban environment.  Habitat, wetlands,
wildlife, trees, waterways provide countless useful aesthetic and
economic benefits.

Institutional

Oregon and Eugene already have wonderful land use policies and
goals.  They do not receive the kind of political support they
deserve.  Campaign finance reform is essential to break the
political grip of economic interests stuck in park that frustrate urban
solutions.  The permitting process and the financing for creative
projects need to become much more friendly.

Community Culture

A new kind of urban landscape needs a new kind of urban culture.
Public pride in public places, citizen participation in public
affairs; a democratic, transparent, accountable civic process are all
essential ingredients of a reinvented urban landscape.

Neighborhood organizations, informal social groups, non profits,
volunteer work all contribute to a healthy community culture.
People are motivated when they feel like they are a part of a
movement or culture that makes a positive difference.

Update, the sub prime mortgage fiasco is likely the most ill conceived effort to stimulate suburban style land use. It is not so different from previous easy credit schemes , only in the degree to which it made loans available to people who were unable to pay it back. The no downpayments, delayed adjustable rates and the rest assumed an ever strengthening and growing housing market and economy. A closer and more cirtical look at so called conventional lending and credit would show it too assumes a stable and properous economy.

Global trends in natural resources, population, climate change, political instablility, water clearly suggest we live in a sub prime civilization, highly dependent on cheap resources, a familiar climate and stable politics. What has existed before is no guarantee of existing into the future. Culture Change assumes the future will be far different.