Does Suburbia Have a Future? Research Paper Example

Introduction

Without doubt, the world’s natural resources are depleting at a very alarming rate in the face of explosive population increase.  Natural gas, oil reserves, minerals and forests: with the exception of forests, these are nonrenewable resources. Accordingly, continued and uncontrolled exploitation will eventually lead to their exhaustion. Nevertheless, suburbia lifestyle is a major factor in the rapid depletion of the world’s resources is suburbia; an energy-intensive lifestyle culture. Within the suburbia system, people live further away from major towns, industrial centers and their places of work. As a result, suburbia systems depend on a vibrant infrastructure for people to commute daily to and fro work, as well as for the supply of social amenities and consumer goods. Similarly, the suburbia lifestyle uses more resources to serve less people, such as sewage, water and electricity infrastructure for single families, as compared to urban dwellings where compact residences share such facilities. Consequently, the suburban living style has sparked off debates about its sustainability on the ever depleting natural resources. This essay explores the challenges facing suburban living in the face of depleting natural resources and increasing demand for energy. It concludes that the suburbia system must transform into a low-energy system in order to survive.

Background

Suburbia is a direct consequence of the 19^th century industrial growth, which saw upper-class earners move to cleaner neighborhoods far away from industrial centers. Government investment in transport infrastructure enabled people to live away from their places of work, while accessing basic goods and services.[1] At the same time, the growth of the automobile industry gave rise to the personal car, which made it more convenient for workers to commute daily to work from far-flung residences.  After the Second World War, the housing boom and the growing automotive industry facilitated massive development of suburban neighborhoods around major cities. Economic growth during the 20^th century and the emerging ideas of “The American Dream” encouraged families to seek better living conditions; which meant the adoption of suburban lifestyles.

Suburban living has its lifeline in the availability of cheap oil. Abundant oil energy is essential for people to live comfortably in suburban settings.  In a documentary portraying the unsustainability of suburbia, The End of Suburbia, director Gregory Greene portrays suburban living as the most energy consuming lifestyle that will cease to function in an energy-crisis situation. He predicts this eventuality, by noting that suburbia competes against the 21^st century industrial energy needs and resource-intensive consumer culture.[2] Not surprisingly, hordes of people are still chasing the American Dream into the suburbia world, which in turn pushes up its energy demand.  In major cities of North America such as Toronto, there is an increasing demand for more expressways and expand existing ones. As such, the existence of suburbia depends on the continued exploitation of the world’s energy resources. This is necessary to sustain the high-energy dependence culture of suburban lifestyle. In fact, America’s aggressive foreign policy reveals the country’s over-consumption culture, which supersedes its natural resources capacity. While it constitutes only 4% of the world’s population, and with about 150 million people living in suburban neighborhoods, America consumes more than 25% of the world’s resources. The fact that most of these resources are not available domestically points to the bleak future of suburbia.

The 2008 oil crisis reveals an uncomfortable truth about the state of the world’s oil resources, and by extension, the impending crisis facing suburban living. Oil and gas production has reached its peak level, while consumption is steadily increasing. Consequently, it has created a gap in the supply-demand equation. Oil is a nonrenewable resource, which means that its supply cannot be increased beyond the earth oil reserve capacity. On the other hand, demand has to give in to par with the rate of supply. The implication of this situation is that human and industrial consumption will have to adopt more economical strategies in order to survive in a low-resource environment. This makes the future of suburbia bleak, as there will be a scramble to leave suburban neighborhoods due to worsening oil crisis and plummeting property value.[3] On the other hand, the current trends in the North American society are unsustainable in the present energy demand situation. Similarly, alternative sources of energy such as solar energy and biogas cannot sufficiently meet the requirements of its present spending culture. Even advancements in technology will not produce more oil or natural gas; at best, it will only improve efficiency. In this regard, suburbia is grossly uneconomical, and it has to transform by giving up its high-energy consumption culture. To this end, the survival of suburbia depends on the ability to re-urbanize. It will involve the centralization of residential areas, industries and markets into a single neighborhood to become low-energy efficient. It is inevitable, then, that suburbia will eventually collapse and pave the way to a living system that will function with a limited energy supply, such as re-urbanization.

Commuting to and fro work is a central factor for the unsustainability of suburbia.  Millions of people drive themselves in fuel guzzling personal cars daily to and from work daily, which contributes to the mass wastage of energy. The convenience of driving to work compares dismally with the cost in terms of resource wastage. On the other hand, compact residential homes through re-urbanization will reduce energy consumption significantly. People will use economical means of transportation e.g. public transport, and reduce expenditure on social services such as water and sewerage infrastructure. Similarly, the cost of accessing basic necessities will reduce greatly as a result of locating shopping malls near residential areas. These advantages of re-urbanization over suburbia make the former a prospective solution to the problem of depleting natural resources. Consequently, for suburbia to survive it has to transform and adopt a cost-effective way of life.

This notwithstanding, some pro-suburbia pundits have argued that the problem will be a nonissue with the decentralization of work. With the modern world’s advancements in information technology, individuals can work from their homes, thereby eliminating the need of having to commute to their places of work.[4] In any case, they point out, the process of re-urbanization will be expensive and beyond the means of governments. There are over 40 million homes in suburbia neighborhoods, which will require extensive resource investment by governments to transform. In the case of the US, its mortgage debt IS nearly the size of its GDP, which undermines any prospects of an en mass movement of people to newly constructed and centralized residential neighborhoods. Consequently, many people believe that the suburbia is not reversible.  Former President Bush senior’s remarks during an Earth Summit in 1992 are telling in this regard. He observed that the American lifestyle is not negotiable, which reflects the centrality of suburbia in the American Dream. Regardless, Americans will soon have to awaken to the reality that suburban lifestyles operate in a self-destroying mechanism. Ecologically, decreasing land resources cannot accommodate more single homes and expansive lawns. Economically, the suburbia system exploits more resources such as oil-energy, land space and infrastructure investment to serve few people. Economist James Kunstler terms the creation of suburbia as “the greatest misallocation of resources in world history.”[5] In this regard, high-energy consumption will eclipse the earth’s capacity to produce nonrenewable resources to sustain the suburban energy-consumption culture. This will consequently lead to the collapse of the suburbia system.

In conclusion, the suburbia system developed as a result of the 20^th century industrial revolution and the resultant economic growth. As a result of a growing automobile industry and government investment in transport infrastructure, more people found it convenient to move into residential neighborhoods far away from their places of work. However, the system is not sustainable in the face of rapidly depleting natural resources. It encourages a high-energy consumption culture, which contributes to the exhaustion of nonrenewable resources. In the North American society, rapid industrialization has seen more and more people move into the suburban neighborhoods. Increase in purchasing power has encouraged families to seek comfortable living conditions in a suburban set up, which captures upper class families’ pursuit of the American Dream. Nevertheless, suburbia will have to transform into more economical and energy-efficient lifestyles in order to survive in the face of decreasing resources and increasing demand.

Bibliography

Brown, Lester, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia, 2008.

Greene, Gregory, The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the End of the American Dream. Canada: The Electric Wallpaper Co. 5 May 2004 < http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0446320/>

Henderson, Paul, Earthwatch- Does the End of Oil mean the End of Suburbia? Vitality Magazine, Toronto: The Wire Inc. 2005 < http://www.vitalitymagazine.com/node/316>

Kunstler, James, The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century. New York: Grove Press, 2006.

Vail, Jeff, “Rescuing Suburbia,” Energy Bulletin, New York: Post Carbon Institute, October 31 2010 <http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-10-31/rescuing-suburbia

Wheeler, Thomas, “It is the End of the World as We Know It,” Baltimore Chronicle& Sentinel, Baltimore: The Baltimore Chronicle, August 3, 2004 < http://baltimorechronicle.com/080304ThomasWheeler.shtml>

[1] Henderson, Paul, Earthwatch- Does the End of Oil mean the End of Suburbia? Vitality Magazine (Toronto: The Wire Inc. 2005) < http://www.vitalitymagazine.com/node/316>

[2] Wheeler, Thomas, “It is the End of the World as We Know It,” Baltimore Chronicle& Sentinel (Baltimore: The Baltimore Chronicle, August 3, 2004) <http://baltimorechronicle.com/080304ThomasWheeler.shtml>

[3] Brown, Lester, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia, 2008) 44.

[4] Vail, Jeff, “Rescuing Suburbia,” Energy Bulletin (New York: Post Carbon Institute, October 31 2010) <http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-10-31/rescuing-suburbia>

[5] Kunstler, James, The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century (New York: Grove Press, 2006) 248.