Why Bother?

Some will say it does not make a difference for a family to put solar panels on their roofs or to begin doing home energy audits to ensure we are wasting less. Individual actions will not do anything to reduce our country’s carbon dioxide emissions or stop us from ceaselessly consuming resources because in the age of modernity, developed countries especially the United States run on a growth-oriented system. Unless the minds of the majority of Americans are changed, we will continue to emit “an average of 20 tons of carbon dioxide a year” compared to 10 tons for Europeans. Simply considering this statistic, however, helps us notice that most Europeans live on a smaller, more human scale. This scale includes walkable places, with very defined public spaces, enabling residents to call where they live “home”. According to the outspoken expert, James H. Kunstler, this should be our goal for the 21^st century, to recreate communities so all Americans have a place they can call home, where they won’t be scared to walk and where they are willing to communicate with each other. Currently, Americans are “sleepwalking into the future” because they cannot make the distinction between “consumers” and “citizens” (Kunstler). He defines consumers as people who feel they have no obligation, and unfortunately, this is what will make us more vulnerable, and what will hinder our changes as a nation. In a TED Talks, Kunstler claims that “human spirit needs texture, not sleekness in its dwelling place, and it needs things human-sized to feel truly human, and despite all the striving to escape that, it is exactly what we’re going to get.” Making a difference depends on policy changes. 

"We have about 38,000 places that are not worth caring about in the United States today. When we have enough of them, we're going to have a nation that's not worth defending..." 

Retrofitting for Efficiency

A New Generation of Home Design (Inhabitat)

Columbia University sociologist Saskia Sessen says that working with existing cities and using elements from eco-cities which failed as livable cities but have helped in innovation, is the first step in retrofitting, while training city commissioners and superintendents is equally important. Primary ideas of innovation to be taken from such eco-cities include focusing on “saving energy” and “water and waste.” Though urbanites more often have a lower per capita carbon footprint than suburbanites, cities still emit much more carbon dioxide (emitting nearly ¾ of the world’s carbon emissions) and consuming more energy as well (Biello 68).

Extra Reading on Environmental Issues

As modern environmentalists like to remind us, the issue is a global one: climate change, pollution and nuclear radiation know no boundaries, and Public Enemy No. 1 is often the car-centric suburban lifestyle.

Green Thinking

Like most Baby Boomers, suburban creations (if they remain as they are) will be reaching retirement age soon. To speed up the retrofitting process in American suburbs will take more than just transforming civic centers and commercial areas. Citizens should receive benefits for thinking and acting sustainably in their activities. To make driving less appealing would require a nationwide effort, beginning with revenue-generating mechanisms placed on all carbon fuels. Therefore, the wealthy might begin to buy hybrid vehicles instead of gas-guzzling luxury SUVs or even switch to biofuel or electric cars. The federal government could take the revenue and use it to support funding for transforming infrastructure to transit-oriented development and works and cross-country railroads, for example, as Al Gore had hoped to accomplish. State and local governments could invest in clean public transit and works as well, such as improved sidewalks and bike paths. Counties like Miami- Dade and "villages" like my own would gradually switch their zoning from Euclidian to Form-based. 

Also, local governments could offer tax incentives to residents who make improvements under the terms of sustainability, such as installing solar panels, xeriscaping or planting vegetable gardens, and switching to more efficient air-conditioning systems or not using air-conditioning at all, benefiting working class citizens as well. On the contrary, those who would go over a certain limit would have to pay a percentage each time they consumed more of a natural resource such as using more energy and water. The government could use this money to further fund local initiatives to improve efficiency and reduce the carbon footprint. Hopefully, this would begin to create awareness for conservation and generate a change in our culture toward long-term green thinking.

(Urbanism and the New Economy)

The Death And the Revival of the Shopping Mall

Along with suburban homes being sold, other suburban creations such as the shopping mall will undergo a period of pseudo-metropolis sickness until abandonment or have to vie for survival. In rough economic times, with shopping centers and strip malls having a vacancy rate of "11 percent in the last quarter of 2011" according to a New York Times editorial, suburbs are experiencing the death of malls and big box stores, but abandoned malls have given way to innovative urban transformations (Clifford). A Cleveland mall, Galleria at Erieview, recently had begun to close on weekends and now has only eight retail stores and fewer smaller stores. In an attempt to make use of the suffering mall, a section of it covered with a glass-roof has been transformed into a vegetable garden, a smart move to promote local agriculture and community. And with that, there will be less consumption if more shopping malls go down this path. Retailers are beginning to notice that malls are overbuilt, and city commissioners do not have the funding to shut down malls, so they retrofit them. Urban planners have taken this opportunity to creatively “spruce up and rethink the uses of many artifacts” and replace stores with schools, clinics, churches, and offices. Galleria at Erieview has rented out some space for weddings and events, while other malls have built in mini golf courses and aquariums. Urban planners from Buffalo, New York have taken advantage of the spaces in malls for housing and created them into neighborhoods and Columbus, Ohio planners have replaced the City Center mall with a park.

An Abandoned Shopping Mall (Treehugger)

Galleria at Erieview's Gardens Under Glass Education Space offers workers and residents occasional free hour-long seminars on composting (Examiner)

The Suburban Flight

Fortunately, new research has shown that my generation, Americans in their teens and twenties, have a much different mindset from the Baby Boomers, who after World War II shaped the America we see today. Accounting for half of the population, they are heading into retirement age and want to leave their large homes for smaller living spaces in neighborhoods with more walkability. And along with them, today’s younger generation is moving into the work life and family life, wanting a more communitarian, small-scale lifestyle shaped by human interaction and walkability in an urban or semi-urban neighborhood. Suburban sprawl does not appeal to many of them because suburbs are not as livable as they once seemed. 

Christopher B. Leinberger, professor of practice in urban and regional planning at the University of Michigan, claims that property values in urban, walkable neighborhoods are increasing, while property values in fringe suburbs are decreasing. He claims that we have “over-invested in the wrong places” and that today’s market demands mixed-income city environments and walkable suburbs, which will promote sustainability and generate job creation (Leinberger).  He bases this on a Realtors survey which shows that “only 12 percent of future homebuyers want the drivable suburban-fringe houses that are in such oversupply” (cited in Leinberger). It is not within government control that Boomers will be selling their houses over the next few decades, and it does not help the situation that homes were “built with cheap materials” (Leinberger). The cyclical downfall that happened to the North End and Morning Side Heights as described in Jacobs’ book is now happening to suburbs which are “turning into slums, with abandoned housing and rising crime.” 

Changing our Perception

We should be paying attention to solutions to these stories, especially the car and bike accident stories. There is a visible problem in our metropolitan environment, so why not fix it? We could implement more public transportation. Then parents and grandparents would not have to fear their children getting into a car collision. We could designate safer bike lanes so that young fathers like Aaron Cohen would not have to risk death during their early morning recreational activities. We could reduce speed limits because drivers have proven to drive irresponsibly at current speeds. People in Florida should be fearful, not of finding Burmese pythons wrapped around their vehicles, but of the somber statistics of accidents proving how pedestrian-unfriendly our state is. According to the Florida Department of Transportation, in 2010, Miami-Dade County had 43,260 overall vehicle crashes compared to 26,233 in Broward County. Transportation for America recorded that 5,163 pedestrians were killed from 2000 to 2009. Most of these victims were black and Hispanic, who typically use more public transportation or walk. 3,386 fewer Americans have died in Afghanistan fighting in the military since 2001. We have a way to reduce vehicle-related accidents and focus on the issue rather than the random incidents. Likewise, we should realize that driving in Florida brings out the worst in us. Traffic frustrates us and makes us anxious, so we should find alternatives to car commuting. To keep mentioning trivial accounts of killer bees in the local news should not be at the center of our attention. Instead, we should realize that our unsustainable way of living is just as threatening to American children and future generations, but this somehow does not make the cut for an “interesting” story.

As Red Book was able to advertise a highly unsustainable lifestyle and car companies like GM were able to turn the truck into the must-have sports-utility vehicle, new media devices must be found to compete with the local news, which has captured the attention of so many today. A similar technique to the one used in the 1960s fallout shelter ads could be used to prepare Americans for climate change, resource depletion, and survival during post peak-oil. Advertisements for a safe life in the suburban home, which could ideally be turned into atomic fallout shelters worthy of protecting American families from nuclear attacks, were very convincing, some showing all the amenities needed to survive. If one would use this technique today, the rooftop community garden, solar panels, and the six-floor energy efficient apartment complex could spread an equally convincing message, making people believe they are much less vulnerable to 21^st century environmental problems because they are self-sufficient and community-oriented.

Faulty Perceptions (cont'd)

After having filmed Bowling for Columbine in the aftermath of the Columbine school shootings to point out our culture of fear and our infatuation with guns, Michael Moore would not be surprised to know that leading to the Trayvon Martin shooting was another trend, a more privatized criminal justice system. This love of private ownership is of course not beneficial if we are trying to encourage connection between different people in society and community values among all American citizens. Many U.S. states, such as Florida, have laws which allow Americans to protect private property, even if that means shooting and killing others in “self-defense.” Once these laws change and a modification occurs in the way we view safety, we will emancipate ourselves from this cycle of fear; living in gated communities, owning firearms, and avoiding contact with other diverse people. This way we will be able to cleanse ourselves of this bias toward “the other” and work on communicating and become activists.  Maybe we should even ask “the other” for help because sometimes “they”, the poor, the African-Americans, the Latinos, and young people are especially talented and experienced at establishing vibrant communities, like Overtown, Miami, which was once a well-connected neighborhood for talented black artists and musicians before it was dissected by a highway.

At the same time, while we live fearfully, thinking about shark attacks and contracting AIDS, people die at random, crossing our streets. We hear all sorts of stories from car crashes to bike crashes. According to the Miami Herald, a few weeks before I wrote this, four people had died suddenly as a result of our failures at good infrastructure and just one very dangerous way of commuting: driving (Roth). Among these fatalities was Digna Camacho, a seventy-year old, who was run over as she crossed the road for a short walk to drop off some letters. Last February (2012), Aaron Cohen, a young father of two, passed away after being critically injured by a hit-and-run drunk driver, while biking with his friend early in the morning on the bike lane on Rickenbacker Causeway. Before that, a flower vendor was killed by a car while waiting at the bus stop. We worry about small incidents, but even these frightening accident statistics should not be seen as random. However, we should be looking at public safety more critically. Reckless driving and high speeds combined in an automobile paradise without any pedestrian protection can be improved, but the media simply reports on these stories for one or two weeks and then moves on to the next. Along with this, the media’s way of brainwashing society to point out unimportant things which will always exist enables it to thrive off the viewer’s fear. 

A road close to the Florida Marlins Stadium. How much closer to the road could this sidewalk get? (Transit Miami)    

The Gated Community Mentality

Americans, perhaps unconsciously, live with a gated community mentality. Most Americans could call themselves “Trayvons” (Trayvon Martin case 2012) because we are victims of our culture’s negligence of community, and reuse of place, and we have created a separate, isolated “bunker mentality” (Benjamin). Since the 1950s, the suburban home in the exurbs served as a protecting force in the case of an atomic bomb blast. As a result, we are the alleged perpetrators, the “George Zimmermans,” for supporting this mentality by owning these homes and keeping up with this lifestyle, by surrounding ourselves with walls and security systems. 

At least this imaginary community has a little greenery; many such communities do not. 

We fear criminality, whether or not it has to do with race, even though we are clearly exaggerating perceived threats. Sometimes we reassure ourselves that gated communities are okay and not backward ways of living because we listen to realtors give these neighborhoods pleasant names like “Serenity” and “Sierra Valley II” (these communities actually do exist). Real estate agents now brand them “master-planned community,” “landscaped resort community,” “secluded intimate neighborhood” to make Americans feel better (Benjamin). This is as foolish of a label for a product as the packaged, turn-pike suburban home which was once the Jeffersonian country estate because gated communities are artificially traditional, overly “safe” and secluded settlements which often bring together people from the same income or ethnic background, and even if they don’t do that, the residents will almost always be like-minded. This sheltered lifestyle sets residents up for a false image of security and comfort, and worst of all, complacency because they have no vision of actual threats in the world like the energy crisis, poverty, or climate change. What is actually threatening them is paranoia, the most dangerous of all, which leads them to own multiple firearms and discriminate against harmless people.

Faulty Perceptions

 Bestselling author of The Culture of Fear, Barry Glassner addresses contemporary social issues getting at the notion that the media ingrains fear in the people by blowing up a problem in unnecessary proportions, or as Glassner puts it, getting at the wrong story and the wrong crisis. We fear sidewalks even in a nice neighborhood because the local news sowed an abduction incident, which in reality happens so rarely. Some Americans fear riding buses, even when they are available to us because black men ride them, and we perceive black men as the biggest threat toward white women. However, we neglect to understand that black men face more violence than the average American, and that in fact they should be fearful, not us. We often do not try to realize that we face more danger getting in our cars every day because of accidents, not because some “thugs” will rob us at gun point at the stop sign. 
As a result, Americans need their cars to feel somewhat comfortable. Americans also stay in their homes, watch more local news and more “scary” television, which distorts our perception of reality, and in a synergistic effect, we become more fearful, stay inside, and then watch more of this kind of television. But the question remains: why do people worry about and respond to these problems rather than larger-scale problems like the oil crisis or climate change? Why aren’t we more concerned with obesity or mental health problems plaguing our most helpless society members? Why don’t the American people demand a change in life-style if their current life style is threatening them? This may be because the media makes money off the trivial problems which also seem closer to home. The local news would rather write an article on killer bees than children being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.

Is this how Americans feel? (Edvard Munch's The Scream)