Old Suburbanists vs. New Urbanists

The Old Suburbanists Strike Back: Readers respond to the New Urbanist defense of Portland (below):

Regarding the preference for a private yard. First I'd refer that reader to an article at Reason on-line entitled Crime-Friendly Neighborhoods by Stephen Town and Randal O'Toole, which will introduces such concepts as "defensible space" to address how private yards help to reduce crime while, for instance, alleys tend to increase crime. I'll let them draw their own conclusions, but I'll suggest that the reason higher densities seem to work reasonably well in Portland is more than likely linked to their point about minorities being pushed to the suburbs. Portland's "gentrification" of older neighborhoods has most likely all but eliminated lower-income areas from around those neighborhoods, which has the (politically incorrect) effect of reducing crime. In short, if you don't perceive that you need a defensible space buffer around your home, you won't feel as compelled to relocate your family from a higher population density locale.

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Thanks for writing the Feb. 6 column. That's what we did, we lived in 'Norfeast DC' with our two daughters and when they were 3 and 6 there were 3 murders within two blocks of our house so we skedaddled 30 miles out to the suburban Howard County where everyone is perfect and boring and peeceewhipped, but thankfully ...not a criminal. I have got to say you have a lot of courage saying the things you do in print. You have got to get a lot of grief for it. Thanks for saying the stuff about black crime, I have always been amazed that that little undeniable fact is mentioned as seldom as it is (7x or 9x murder rate of whites).

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Regarding your item about why families desire large yards when most children won't use them, well, it seems as if the trend these days is away from large yards - consider the McMansion, shoehorned into the smallest possible lot. In places where new houses are being built with sizeable yards, it may be a result of zoning codes that mandate large lots as a way of keeping property values high. Finally, some people may prefer large yards as a way of showing off their landscaping/gardening skills.

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I woulda killed for a big back yard when I was a kid of 12. For one thing, you can put the dog back there. And keg parties.

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And when I was a kid in the suburbs, I really envied the kids from reruns of "Family Affair" -- you know, with Mr French -- their New York highrise and neighborhood really exciting to me growing up in suburban Orange County. Seriously, I think it is a shame that many of the youngest kids of professionals are missing out on the museums, orchestra concerts, concentrations of playmates that can be found outside 'structured' activities.

Of course, we all know why young portand couples with kids can stay in the urban environs, it is one of the few in US that is still overwhelmingly white.

The bottom line seems to be that various schools of urban planning succeed or fail mostly because of the two things they don't like to talk about: their impact on the cost of housing, which in turn impacts the quality of residents (e.g., law-abiding or not law-abiding), and the quality of residents is pretty much the whole ballgame. For example, for a few years I lived in a Le Corbusier-style high rise in Chicago that was almost identical physically to the much denounced Le Corbusier-style high rises in Chicago's hellish public housing projects like nearby Cabrini Green. Yet, my highrise was pleasant and harmonious and nobody murdered anybody in it while I was there. Of course, the reason my highrise was 100% less lethal than Cabrini Green's was that mine charged fairly high rents and thus was full of yuppies like myself, while Cabrini Green was free, if you were poor, and thus was full of poor people.

That's one reason I talk about immigration policy so much. That's the single easiest way for government policy to have an impact on the quality of the residents of our country. When we're looking to buy or rent a place to live, we obsess over the quality of the residents of different neighborhoods (that's what "Location! Location! Location!" is all about.) Yet, the Establishment doesn't want to think about trying to influence the quality of residents of our country by picking and choosing the best immigrants.