Joel Kotkin – The Future of Suburbs at #Qconf

You may be “suburbed” out from hearing of its problems and to its hope but this is a conversation that isn’t going anywhere.

Here are my notes: 

Joel Kotkin – The Future of Suburbs

Began by giving a history of how the suburbs came into our American lives.

There was the Victorian Industrial City.

The British alternative, Garden City. 

Town and country must be married,” Howard preached, “and out of this joyous union will spring a new hope, a new life, a new civilization.”  – Ebenezer Howard

In the West, the single family home became the predominated desire.  It was the social universal aspiration – everyone gets their own home and yard.

Today, 50% of immigrants come first to the suburb.

– We now have multi-generational, multi-cultural neighborhoods in our suburbs.

– Employment as moved into the suburbs.

The archipelago of the  towards “smart crawl”. It won’t end sprawl but will “smart” will make it more efficient. 

May appear as a village system.  (there was a cool artistic rendition shown of beautiful country field with a future looking “village” with a couple roads leading into it.)

The belief that work will return to the homes similar to pre-industrial models.

The goal will be to restore the “Sense of Place”           

“City is a state of mind, body of customs and traditions.

You can read a more indepth article Rule, Suburbia off his blog that was published in the Washington Post