A Possible Solution To Suburban Retrofitting?

Don't take on zoning. Take on "stroads."

The sign for U.S. Highway 30. At 3,112 miles, it’s the third longest U.S. Highway in the numbered highway system. Source: wikipedia.org

Urbanism discourse has had a lot of focus on the retrofitting of suburban environments. But there’s been little agreement on the proper policy course. I’ve been running an idea in my mind lately that I think could significantly shift discourse and set a new policy direction.

The Stalemate

From my perspective there’s been a 40-year-plus battle that urbanists and suburbanists have been waging. The following summary is simplistic and glosses over a lot, but it makes my point.

Ever since the rise of New Urbanism in the early 1980s, urbanists have been steadfast about the kind of urban development we should complete to make our living environments more sustainable, less destructive to the environment, less auto-dependent, more walkable – in general, much more human-scaled. It’s the way cities were built long before the automobile was invented, urbanists argue, and it should still be the predominant way we build cities today.

Of course, there’s been push-back from the suburban sprawl establishment that’s ruled over American metropolitan growth since the end of WWII. We have a society and economy that’s built around automobile use, and there are banks, developers, retailers, construction companies, auto companies and their suppliers – and perhaps most important of all, homeowners – that depend on a reliable system, even if that system is imperfect.

Urbanism advocates going back to early modernists like Le Corbusier, and mid-century versions of the type like Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, envisioned better design as crucial in the creation of better places. The 1960’s saw the rise of neighborhood advocates like Jane Jacobs, who appreciated the urban environment and thought it was worth preserving. Both urbanism types attracted followers, but they did little to turn the tide of late-twentieth century suburban development.

There was, however, a return to cities by many across the country. Cities saw a fantastic rebound that began in earnest in the ‘80s on the east coast and spread nationwide in the ‘90s and 2000s. A new demographic was emerging that appreciated cities; they loved the energy and dynamism of cities, and yearned for more places like it. Yet the sprawl machine remained fixated on suburban development patterns, especially in the Sun Belt cities of the South and West.

But as the number of single-family home subdivisions continued to grow, so did home prices – and the tension between homebuyers seeking affordable homes in a dynamic environment, and homeowners seeking to profit from their investment. I’d say that was the driving force behind the YIMBY movement’s efforts to open up housing markets to more housing development, with a focus on zoning reform. And that’s where we are now.

Today, YIMBYs have made progress. They’ve successfully made cities look at the dominance of single-family home zoning and its impacts, and they’re changing. Although in my mind, it’s happening too slowly.

Why? Because as much as single-family zoning was the outcome of suburban development, I don’t see it as the catalyst. We’ve been treating the symptoms, not the problem.

The Problem

To me, if you’re going to single out the one catalyst for our suburban-oriented nation, it’s the Interstate Highway System. Not in the “forcing people into cars and away from public transit” way, but in an “opening new frontiers” way. There were “push” factors at work as people sought to escape urban decay, but there were “pull” factors as well, served up by access via new highways.

We built this way because the federal government incentive was there, state and local governments ate it up, and we produced the environment we have.

The Solution?

When I came to that conclusion, it changed my thinking on how suburbs could be retrofitted. In fact, it changed my thinking on how cities and suburbs could be retrofitted. I realized it would require the kind of singular federal investment that was made in the 1950s with the Interstate Highway Act.

I think the public transit segment of urbanism has acknowledged this for some time. Transit enthusiasts of all types – favoring heavy rail, light rail, high-speed rail, bus rapid transit, whatever – have been calling for the kind of infrastructure investment needed to break our suburban fixation. But sadly there’s little appetite for it. And, as the book Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson spells out, our super-regulatory political landscape makes it difficult to get the kind of impact we need.

So, what could do it? A large, new federal investment into a 100-year old network: the U.S. Numbered Highway System.

I’m not talking about the high-speed Interstate Highway System we all know and love/hate. I’m talking about the one established in 1926 by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). The network that overlaps much of the Interstate system, but still operates tens of thousands of miles of state- and locally-controlled roadway coursing through America’s cities and suburbs.

The Idea

Imagine this scenario. The federal government announces it will assert its role as the creator of the U.S. Highway System. It proposes investing in a public works program focused on the remaking of arterial roadways through cities and suburban areas. Federal funding would flow through state governments, but local governments would coordinate with state departments of transportation to improve arterial roads.

Why arterials? This targets the land use that gets the most ire from urbanists and suburbanists: the stroad. The term was coined by Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns, and it means a street-road hybrid. They’re the 4-6 lane, 45-50 mph divided highways that have high concentrations of deeply set back commercial development, or the sides or rears of (mostly) single-family home development that connect them to the metropolitan area. Stroads are poorly functioning systems because they diminish their ability on both fronts. They don’t serve high-speed travel well, and they don’t provide inviting, human-scaled street environments.

Let’s say the federal government creates a program to reimagine stroads. In my mind it would be similar in magnitude and scale to the Interstate Highway Act but would look more like the type of urban renewal projects supported by the Housing Acts of 1949 and 1968. The transportation focus would mean roadway improvements could be made that “humanize” stroads through streetscape design. Including stroad frontages could mean the assembly of underutilized parcels that could be developed for more housing, more compact commercial uses, and an overall improved human-scaled environment. It could be seen as a way to introduce missing middle housing into place that currently outlaw it through zoning.

Look at your metropolitan area. There are hundreds of miles of arterial roadway that would benefit greatly from retrofitting. But unfortunately, there’s nothing to incentivize such development. Here’s an idea. Tell me what you think.