SUBURBIA
I read an article today on Apple News about suburbia and urban sprawl. And what I recognize is that some of the things that make the United States less attractive than the other countries I have visited lately is the American invention of suburbia, individual homes surrounded by large lawns on the outskirts of cities in contrast to the density of populations within cities. This came about as a result of the United States becoming a car centered country with lots of space to expand and also a result of the development of zoning that prevented any other kind of housing, including high density housing for people without automobiles. People want to live where the action is. The effect of urban sprawl is that the available land for housing moves farther and farther from the unban centers where people want to work and relax. Zoning keeps large tracts preserved for single family house with room to park their cars and prevents apartment buildings and high density housing. So there is a housing shortage where people want to live within commuting distance of their urban work places.
That has long been true of coastal urban centers where housing, because of demand, is more and more expensive but has now become a nation wide issue.
This is true of Asheville and why the value of my house went from $66,000 in 1990 to almost $500,000 today. It is simply demand with scarce urban land becoming more and more expensive and zoning that prevents dense living, apartment houses or condominiums which would allow the maximum amount of housing on any plot of land.
This urban sprawl means that people don’t shop downtown and so the shops follow them out to the suburbs with zoning again determining that these shops be on main roads with lots of parking since people can only visit them by car. These stores are cheaply constructed boxes with a facade of some kind to make them look a little more attractive but in a row, surrounded by parking lots, they are banal and ugly.
The result is that while downtown Asheville with its older buildings and densely packed stores and restaurants is very attractive, the surrounding suburbs stretching in all directions are unattractive.
I’ve been noticing this for years, particularly when I come back from Germany where the town of Celle has kept the 15th and 16th century fachwerk, cross beamed houses with modern stores on the first floor, a beautiful, walkable town. But even the village of Winsen, where my wife grew up is walkable or bikeable with little shops in older buildings scattered through the village. There is no haphazard building outside the village limits. The village is kept compact by houses being built close together with tiny lawns within the village limits with only farmland and forest beyond the village limits. All the buildings look permanent, not transitory.
But after my wife, Kathe, died four years ago I began to notice something else. I was living in suburbia with the houses separated by large lawns that needed to be constantly trimmed. But the effect of houses separated by large lawns, which guarantees privacy, also means that the only way to shop or visit a restaurant is by getting in your car. This meant that I rarely met my neighbors except sometimes at the mail box, even when I liked them and we were good friends. I realized that the richer you got and the larger house you buy with a larger lawn, such as in Biltmore Forest where the Asheville rich live, the less you are connected with your neighbors and the more isolated you become. I guess those people meet at the very expensive Biltmore Country Club.
Suburban life on the Warren Wilson campus was fine when Kathe was alive and we provided each other company and she walked daily with friends. But without her suburbia became empty and unstimulating.
Small town Marshall suddenly became attractive, not only because I would be closer to, and in daily contact with, my daughter, Susie, but also because I would be living in a densely inhabited converted cotton mill with 18 other couples or single people whom I would often run into. Now, just across the river, in easy walking distance, are a variety of restaurants and stores with a grocery store as well and, it turns out, a great number of community activities of one kind or another. There are a number of people whom I run into often. Life is very stimulating. And because Marshall is squeezed between cliffs and the river with no room to build except where Helene washed buildings away (where building is now discouraged) there are no big or little box chain stores and no room for parking lots. Older buildings, even after the flood, are renovated inside and seem permanent. There is not much room for parking, automobiles don’t dominate the town. There is a large big box grocery store and other chain stores up on the highway above Marshall, but Marshall, itself remains traditional. So I have moved from modern suburbia to a traditional village, but one that is rapidly gentrifying.
Reading this article and books on the same subject makes me realize that without being aware of the suburbanization of America that I was making intuitive choices to move from suburbia to densely packed small town America.
That doesn’t mean there are no tensions here. There is a culture clash between long time inhabitants of Madison County and the educated and sophisticated and wealthier outsiders escaping suburbia and urban life to live in Marshall. Women’s arm wrestling is not a traditional Marshall activity and the Queer Prom I attended a couple of weeks ago isn’t either, in fact both are probably an affront to old timers. And the restaurants of Marshall that I like so much are a result of the gentrification of Marshall, pushing up prices, and offending long time residents. Newcomers don’t attend the prayer events held by local preachers on the courthouse steps.
But this tension between traditional life and the changing urban world also makes Marshall more interesting. So far, maybe because it is a small village where most people know each other, instead of polarizing, it seems that people on both sides are trying to be accommodating and understanding and are trying to adapt to each other.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 