Post-war suburbia has its defenders and its detractors. Recently, I encountered a truly staunch supporter of suburbia and a well-spoken critic. One of them sees black where the other sees white. It was a good reminder of how difficult planning is in California.
Helen Allen, a city councilmember in Concord, is an unapologetic defender of the suburbs. I spoke to Allen several weeks back while preparing a story on reuse plans for the closed Concord Naval Weapons Station. The council approved an urban blueprint centered on a BART station. Although she voted for the plan simply to move along the process, Allen hates the plan.
People choose to live in places like Concord because they are attracted to quiet neighborhoods of single-family homes with nice yards, Allen said. The plan for the Navy property emphasizes transit-oriented development, high densities and mixed uses. How, she asked, can such a design be considered "smart" when it departs so radically from the rest of town, which people like very much?
A well-known firebrand in the East Bay, Allen is in her fifth term on the Concord City Council. Previously, she served on the Clayton City Council and Planning Commission. She's been a player in Contra Costa County land use planning for 35 years, a period during which Contra Costa County's bedroom suburbs have boomed. That's because people find those suburbs desirable, Allen said.
The high-density, transit-oriented plan for the Navy property? "Nobody wants to say the king is naked," Allen told me. "I'm trying to be realistic."
A little more recently, I spoke with Graham Brownstein, executive director of the Environmental Council of Sacramento, for an upcoming story in Planning magazine on fast-growing cites. One of the cities I examined is Elk Grove.
In many respects, Elk Grove is the epitome of modern-day suburbia: massive single-family subdivisions, several commercial power centers, and broad boulevards connecting to highways that carry commuters to jobs in nearby Sacramento. From Brownstein's perspective, Elk Grove also epitomizes everything that's wrong with suburbia. There are no real alternatives to the automobile, there are few employment centers, and the low-density development has paved over hundreds of acres of prime farmland and valuable habitat.
"It's not a question of growing or not growing, but rather, how do we grow and are we growing in ways that harness our investment in the best way possible?" Brownstein said. "Even if there weren't economic benefits, you could make an argument that it makes more sense to build communities for people rather than for cars."
Brownstein pointed to midtown Sacramento as a better model. Midtown's grid and street design make walking and bicycling feasible, there is a nice mix of structures and uses, traffic is congested but does move, and large employers are located in the neighborhood and close by. He also cited central Folsom, which has a walkable grid, mixed uses and a light rail transit station.
So which vision is correct? Allen's suburbia, which characterizes California since World War II ended? Or Brownstein's urbanism, which predominated prior to the war? Passage of Senate Bill 375 suggests Brownstein's vision may win. I would suggest, however, that we're still in the very early innings.
- Paul Shigley
