Cars, Suburbs, The New Urbanists, and FREEDOM

My partner recently read me an excerpt of an article that was both anti-suburb and anti-automobile.  It spoke of how the automobile culture ruined America, while the suburbs destroyed community, cohesiveness, and culture.

I thought back to the period right after WWII when GI's were returning home, getting married, having kids  --  and there was no place to put them.  We were short of housing.  There weren't enough apartments or houses these folks could afford.

Does anyone remember "Quonset Hut Communities"?  They were thrown up on vacant land to provide temporary housing for families post war.  They were all over the country.  Basically they were mobile homes built a bit better, with steel exteriors.  Veterans, their families, multitudes of kids  --  people desperate for permanent housing.

Along came Levitt.  Levittowns were a boon to all these folks.  They were affordable homes, in areas where either farmers or wealthy folks lived before.  Many of the veterans were from cities.  Many from old, cramped apartments in cities with antiquated housing stock.  If you grew up on a block where all the houses looked exactly the same (it doesn't matter if they're "row houses", "brownstones", "semi-attached two family houses", or an apartment in a complex where every building looked the same) living on a block where Cape Cod after Cape Cod lined up was not a problem.  In addition, these early "suburban pioneers" were not the upper middle class home owners who lived in far more splendor.  The Republicans feared this influx of "rabble" in THEIR parts of town.

The automobile was a natural extension of suburban living.  Fuel was cheap, cars were not all that expensive - after the initial demand was met.  Try to remember, during WWII passenger cars were unavailable and gasoline - as well as everything else - was rationed.

After the war we were in a new land of plenty. The depression was over, we had won, life looked good (especially if you were white and Christian).

The only downside was that dad gave up his time going to and from work - so his family could live better.  This was the tradeoff.  Kids had better schools (or, at least newer schools), you had a little piece of land, a bit more room - and you were no longer in a 4th floor walk-up in Brooklyn, Queens, or The Bronx  --  with 2 or 3 kids sharing a bedroom, and that constant smell of cooked cabbage.

In any case, if you did live in an apartment, you usually had to take public transit, or drive to your job.  In the suburbs, folks usually drove to the station, took a train into "the city", and then took public transportation to work.  Folks who were not well-to-do did not usually drive their automobile to work - unless there was a company parking lot.  Some folks drove into the outer boroughs and took a Subway, or El. to work.  Life was much simpler - and we neither needed, nor had as much "stuff".

I don't think you can blame the proliferation of "stuff" on either the automobile or the suburbs.   Nor can you really blame them for our current lack of "community".  Doesn't anyone remember when the "faceless cities", where "you never knew your neighbors" were to blame?  Doesn't anyone recall early suburban living where they had Community Centers, block parties, cookouts, etc., etc., etc.?  Where do you think Little League and other organized kids sports came from?  Don't you understand they were seen as an improvement over the pick-up games of stickball, and the total lack of places for city kids to play baseball?

In any case, unintended consequences abound NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO!

As far as the automobile goes  --  what was the entire Beat Generation about?  It was freedom, movement, new ideas  --  it was "On The Road".  That's the automobile.  Cars allowed us to go from here to there - not only in our minds, but in reality.  People who were neither "Beats" nor "Hippies" went elsewhere - and reinvented themselves.  After WWII we had new music (can you say "be-bop"), poetry, art (N.Y. School, abstract expressionism, etc).  Pent up creativity  --  which also scared the s**t out of "the establishment".
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About after war housing:  Veterans are called for housing project (NY Times, 10/16/1946)

"The selection of occupants for the first seventy-five apartments at the huge Federal temporary housing development at Northern Boulevard and Seventy-first Street, Jackson Heights, Queens, got under way yesterday, just ten days after construction had begun...."

(notice FEDERAL temporary housing  --  today's Republicans would say any Federal activity to help veterans would be "unprecedented", and an "attack on private industry"  --  back then, we often did what was needed.)
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I suggest a lot of the anti-suburb, anti-automobile ideas that abound today come from folks who grew up in suburbs, and have an idealized view of "The New Urbanism".  The kid who could not wait to own a car so he/she could "get away" from the city has been replaced by the kid who could not wait to get away from those cold, restrictive suburbs.  We carry those ideas with us into what some call "adulthood"  --  only to recognize how childish we really are only when we get old, and are no longer held saptive by our lusts, dreams, and wants.

I'm quite sure that when, or if, The New Urbanists" get their way  --  kids who grow up there will lust for the open spaces of their idealized idea of the suburbs, and the freedom of a personal means of transportation  --  other than their sensible bicycle.

As I said  --  EVERYTHING has unintended consequences.