An interesting recent article in Atlantic Cities asked the question of whether we’ve reached “Peak Sprawl”?
Metropolitan Atlanta, long a symbol of car-dependent American sprawl, has recently passed a threshold where a majority of its new construction spending is now focused in high-density, “walkable” parts of town.
Since 2009, 60 percent of new office, retail and rental properties in Atlanta have been built in what Christopher Leinberger calls “walkable urban places” – those neighborhoods already blessed by high Walk Scores or on their way there. That new construction has taken place on less than 1 percent of the metropolitan Atlanta region’s land mass, suggesting a shift in real estate patterns from expansion at the city’s edges to denser development within its existing borders.
“This is indicative that we’re seeing the end of sprawl,” says Leinberger, a research professor with the George Washington University School of Business, who led the study in conjunction with Georgia Tech and the Atlanta Regional Commission. “It does not say that everything turns off. There will still be new drivable suburban development. It’s just that the majority will be walkable urban, and it will be not just in the redevelopment of our downtowns, but in the urbanization of the suburbs.”
Sure Atlanta is just one place, but in recent decades it has taken over from Los Angeles as the real poster child of urban sprawl – which really makes one think that if sprawl seems to be on its way out in Atlanta then it’s really time to sit up and take notice.
There’s also a really interesting connection between the different shape of our built environment going forward and the road to economic recovery:
“People might be saying, ‘Oh, get real Leinberger.’ But we invest 35 percent of our wealth in the built environment,” he says. That refers to both infrastructure and real estate. “So, it’s a pretty significant sea change in how we build the country. The country’s going to look fundamentally different over the next generation than it has over the past two generations.”
Plenty of other people will inevitably argue that it’s too soon to declare sea changes of any kind while the recovery is still ongoing (we have, after all, been having the exact same conversationabout trends in the decline of driving). Won’t we go back to building how we’ve been building for decades once the economy picks back up? Perhaps it’s the economy, and not changing consumer tastes, that’s holding sprawl at bay?
Leinberger looks at his data, and then looks at this question differently.
“I think there’s a cause-and-effect issue here,” he says. “I think that when the economy picks up steam, it’s going to be because we learn how to build walkable urban places. Real estate caused this debacle, and real estate has always acted as a catalyst for economic recoveries.”
He figures we’re sputtering along at 2 percent growth precisely because we’re not building enough of the walkable urban product that the market wants. “And it’s signaling with pretty flashing lights,” he says, “to build more of this stuff.”
The connection made with driving trends is a particularly interesting one because I think that fundamentally they both relate to two particularly important demographic changes going on in both the USA and New Zealand (and obviously other developed world countries):
- The baby boomers are shifting into retirement age and therefore both not driving as much as well as wanting different housing options from the large standalone houses they’ve lived in for decades.
- Younger people (Gen Y, Millennials or whatever you want to call them) aren’t following the same housing and travel trends as their parents – instead driving less and often preferring more urban and walkable environments. Technological change may be playing an important role in this shift.
I think that this cuts to the heart of why we find the gutting of the Unitary Plan’s provision for intensification in inner areas so frustrating. It’s not (just) that providing for intensification will lead to better transport and other outcomes, it’s that all signs suggest the type of housing Auckland will most need in the future – to respond to these changes demographics and in step with international trends – will be smaller apartments and terraced housing in walkable, inner suburban areas with good access to public transport.
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No doubt this is a trend Matt as you can see in this article on Houston and its move away from unlimited sprawl:
http://www.governing.com/topics/urban/gov-houston-urban-revival.html
Looks like Auckland is becoming more conservative on density than the poster childs of sprawl, Houston and Atlanta. How depressing.
Absolutely!
Alex Steffen has written a small book that’s an easy read: “Carbon Zero: Imagining Cities That Can Save The Planet” – He makes the point that there will be more built environment constructed in the next four decades than in the history of the world to date- it’s a one-off opportunity to do it right.
One quibble- your last paragraph equates a compact city with “smaller apartments” – I think we need a range of sizes if we’re going to change Auckland, but still with minimal land use. Part of the problem is that the the no-change brigade see apartments as what young people live in until they can afford to be like them. We need to change that perception, and to do so we need lots of examples of people who consider compact footprint living a viable all-of-life option. While there’s lots of families with 3 or less people, families with 2 kids or more aren’t quite extinct yet, and there’s blended families, the Asian model of having your parents live with you, etc…..
Last thing: there’s a certain irony that a lot of the complainers are on their way to apartment living in the oldies corrals run by Ryman et al. If we could build communities that were more compact (no berms!) but also diverse, at lot of older people could live in them rather than be herded together, creating richer communities for them and for others.
NCD – ” Last thing ” Very true in my age group (77 whew! ). So many of our friends have downsized to retirement homes but not me. I can still get up on a ladder and cut my own hedges meantime……………………….
But I firmly believe oldies belong in the whole community for as long as possible!
With the right mix of housing options in the greater community, there would be no need to retire to a retirement village. The 1/4 acre dream, and the subsequent development restrictions, are what is preventing this from happening so the only options are where a developer has been able to build an entire village.
You could also interpret “smaller apartments” to mean the same floor area but less land area. A 100m2 house with land would require more space than a 100m2 apartment.
Absolutely detesting suburbia, when my kids started to reach school age I had no choice but to exile myself to a horrible suburban 800sqm plot with a house made by skirting boards and cheap imported shit US timber on (Meet 90% of Aucklands new houses – and I was smart enough to evoid cladding so i shouldnt whine much…)
Outside my plot runs the small local road and I just like all my neighbours drive to and from work and park on my own little piece of land. Depressing.
Why cant we build neighbourhoods that put the communal area in the centre and roads on the outside?
Its done all the time with new developments in suburban Europe.
Why does every kiwi need access to a road?
Its possible to walk 50 meters actually, its possible to have garages like terraced houses and then neighbourhoods with playgrounds and pavements where kids can play and run around without risking meeting cars.
Something is seriously wrong with how architects in this country think and are taught.
They are taught to plan and build based upon the needs of drivers and not families. We all suffer from it. Do we ever see kiwi families meet their neighbours?
Spontaneous BBQ by the local neighbourhood? Parents having a drink at the playground while there kids play around?
No we see kiwi parents drive to a playground that has a nice and cozy parkingspot next to it and then let their kids play there for 30 minutes before taking off in their cars again.
The communal playground where there are no parkingspots, no roads and no interferences brings people together. We miss that here. Instead people sit at home in front of the Tele all by themselves drinking watered down lagers and premixed cheap shit bourbon&coke till its time for bed.
What kind of life is that really?
Is that what kiwis want?
Depressing if you ask me.
Why cant suburbia be built like in Europe? (And people use the car there too when they live in suburbia)
Why cant we get liveable communities in the suburbs. Its a pity, neighbours becomes strangers and we share zero common ground or cause. heck I dont even know my neighbours, I knocked the door and introduced myself when i moved in. Scared the neighbour, a person walking in on our property just to be friendly oh scary how should we treat him. Socials skills of a hermit and whats worse is that seems to be the norm among kiwis in Auckland suburbia.
Ah well, I protest by cornering off the street and have kids play tennis, football, landhockey, cricket etc on it. Telling neighbours the road is closed and they can go the other way round instead. And with big signs saying kids playarea, go around, the polite kiwis do. And Surprise, surprise, around 40 kids usually turn up :-). these days a few brittish dads come along and we have a few beers while the kids get down and dirty and get their knees full of small wounds.
My suburbia guerrilla strategy, as daring and socially acceptable protest that a soon 40 years old man can undertake. Corner off the street for kids once on Saturdays…
I used to live in Europe. I can tell you a story. Originally I lived in an apartment block in a village 1 hour from Vienna. It was a building that was 4 floors high with 9 apartments and communal underground parking and utilities. In my street there were at least 6 other apartment buildings that looked exactly the same and there was a common grass area where children could play. Most of my town was split between similar apartment complexes and older single dwelling houses in the centre of town.
We never spoke to the neighbours, everyone pretty much hated everyone else because when you live on top of each other you grow to be annoyed of hearing the neighbour arguing, flushing his toilet, or slamming doors. There were strict laws on when you could use the utilities, not at lunchtime (quiet hour) when the children were made to come inside and be silent, and never on Sunday (holy day). I found that attempts to make friends with the community was met with suspicion and jealousy.
I left Austria with my job and moved to live in England. There because I was earning a lot of money I lived in a country estate where my nearest neighbour was 2km away. In the mornings we would have deer on our lawns as well as rabbits and other wildlife. We lived surrounded by trees in a park like setting with no noise and no intrusions. A very good friend of mine lived in a new build development in the nearby town. He had a 3 bedroom terrace house with a tiny bit of outside area. It was large enough to have a BBQ and a table but not big enough to invite anyone around. In there immediate area, lets say 1 square kilometre there must have been 100 such houses with everyone living on top of each other. Inside the houses you could here the people next door all the time and the density was depressing. We used to let our friend bring his children to our place so they could see what it was like to be able to kick a ball around on grass rather than on a street.
A couple of years ago we moved to New Zealand and bought a nice home with some land. One of the deciding reasons to emigrate to NZ was because you are lucky enough to have a lot of cheap land and a small population. Last year my friend from England also emigrated and now he lives in a 4 bedroom home in Browns bay. I told him about this web blog and he thinks you are all crazy. In fact he said there are millions of people in Europe that would be happy to swap their rabbit warren for your 1/4 acre properties if you crave more density.
Maybe none of you have actually experienced life outside of Auckland because if you had lived in over crowded housing estates you would never wish that on even your enemies. What was it that you Kiwis used to sing ‘We don’t know how lucky we are mate’.
Some people like density, some don’t. There’s a heap of suburban dwellings across Auckland and likely always will be.
The issue is that there’s not much else.
Not to mention that Germanic people are known for being incredibly closed to making new friends…….
Also, there are ~600,000 stand alone dwellings in Auckland, and room for 100,000 more in the UP. How few do you honestly think are going to be left after 30 years?
A racist stereotype and, in my experience, total BS.
Ok, interesting to hear, I found it to be quite true of older Germans in Frankfurt, but maybe it is a changing thing, or regional thing, or maybe I was just the young kiwi in Frankfurt’s Milford….
I think you are right Sailor Boy that it is inevitable that as the city population grows there will be more high rise apartments, more density and more suburban sprawl. No doubt this is why the Government is pushing ahead to extend the northern motorway and second harbour crossing. I do believe that there will always be a premium for stand alone houses on large sections close to the CBD. Anyone with one would be wise to hang onto it for a few more years.
The government are pushing to extend the Northern Motorway, and build the AWHC because of ideology.
Sydney has almost 4 times the population of Auckland and manages with fewer lanes on their bridge than us, for the same money we would be better to build DLM trains to takapuna, Albany, and Glenfield. It wpould do more to ease congestion, and allow the density that many people want.
Of course large sections close to the CBD will attract a premium, the value of section increases proportionally to size and inversely proportional to distance from the CBD, that is obvious.
I find it interesting that in almost all the discussions around urbanisation, density and the unitary plan, no one is talking about the land that is being sanitised and lost under housing. The earth has a very finite amount of truely productive land, the areas of Auckland that are currently proposed for future development include the only areas with what are defined as premier soils, Riverhead, Kumeu, Pukekohe… when discussing carbon, congestion, how people want to live and play, let’s also talk about how we ensure that soil types and productivity for food production are retained.
That has been covered briefly here, but I think that it is better used as a counter point to an argument than as an argument in itself.