The American Dream Isn’t Static

Early in the history of this blog, I wrote a post about the American Dream and how it might be evolving to include urbanism. 

Following up on the more scholarly efforts of others, I suggested that urbanism might be an element of the 21st century American Dream for many.  Reading my words almost 18 months later, I think my key paragraph was:

“I’m unsure that the universal American Dream of the next generation which will be an urban life, but neither were small farms or suburbia the universal American Dream of past generations.  However, I believe fervently that an urban life will be the American Dream for some.  I also believe that those who find fulfillment in an urban life will bring particular creative value to our communities.”

The theme of the changing American Dream continues to recur in discussions of urbanism.  First, the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. opened an exhibit on the history of house and home in the U.S., with thoughts that urban homes might soon have a role in the American Dream.  Emily Badger of Atlantic Cities offered an overview of the exhibit.

Next, GenConnect produced a video of Peter Calthorpe, well-known urban planner, talking about the changing American Dream.  Calthorpe specifically notes the policy changes made by Portland, Oregon twenty years ago and the positive results that have resulted from redirection toward urbanism.

Adding to this trend, some are pointing to “The End of the Suburbs: Where the American Dream is Moving” as the most influential urbanist book of 2013.  Author Leigh Gallagher postulates that there is a fundamental change underway in the American style of living, with folks increasingly relocating to walkable urban settings.

Gallagher didn’t set out to write a book about the end of the suburbs.  Instead, her goal was to write about changes occurring in the U.S. as a result of the Great Recession.  But she soon found that the key change underway was a move toward cities.  Furthermore, although many have suggested that the urban trend is a temporary result of the recession and will disappear as the economy improves, Gallagher came to believe that the relocation is more fundamental and was underway before the economic hard times.

In her introduction, she cites facts that show how suburbia is dwindling and reasons why that may be so.  She notes the flawed suburban model, the dwindling oil supply, the environmental concerns around fossil fuels, and the love of many Millennials for urban settings.

Furthermore, she identifies the financial sustainability issues around suburbia, writing at length about StrongTowns’ Charles Marohn.

I’ll return to the “The End of the Suburbs” at another time for a more comprehensive review.  Today, my only intention is to identify Gallagher as the latest in a line of observers who have spied the American Dream deserting the suburbs for the urban core.  And to be cheered by that trend.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

“Mormon Country” and Building a Community Life

Two books were suggested as pre-reading for the recent annual meeting of the Congress of the New Urbanism.  To my credit, I secured both books.   To my discredit, I didn’t begin reading either until I was aboard the airplane.

The meeting location of Salt Lake City presumably affected the selections.  The first book, “Town Planning in Frontier America”, is filled with interesting information, but is also dry.  It couldn’t hold my interest on a crowded airplane.  I quickly set it aside.  It now lingers on my shelf for future reading.

The other volume, “Mormon Country” by Wallace Stegner, was far more compelling.  I suspect that it was recommended to give a sense of history to those who would be visiting Salt Lake City for the first time.  But I found that it also offered lessons that apply to urbanism.

Stegner is mostly known for his fiction.  His comfortable, understated prose has a distinctive, but not overbearing, style.  The lessons that he imparts are conveyed slowly, but surely.  I’ve haven’t read his entire body of fiction, but have enjoyed several of his novels, of which “Angle of Repose” is my favorite.

In addition to his fiction, Stegner wrote several well-respected works of non-fiction.  “Beyond the 100th Meridian”, which describes the early Grand Canyon explorations of seminal figure John Wesley Powell, is perhaps the best known.  “Mormon Country” is another worthy effort.

Stegner, who was neither raised a Mormon nor became one, but spent much of his life among Mormons, had a complicated relationship with his subject.  He’s skeptical of much of the Mormon religion, particularly the aspects that touch on prophecy and mysticism.

In 1942, when Stegner published his book, Mormonism was still evolving and adjusting to the secular world.  The religion still contained elements of the divine revelations reported by Joseph Smith and the folklore that had been conveyed to the intermountain west by Mormon converts from around the world.  Stegner didn’t disdain that part of Mormonism, but neither did he embrace it.

However, Stegner was enamored of the quiet dignity and contentment of daily life in Mormon towns.  And he respected how the community members who partook of that life had been able in a relatively few years to tame and to make profitable a region that most non-Mormons thought without value.

Stegner’s own childhood had been subject to regular dislocations.  The stability and quiet pleasure of life in a Mormon town was a revelation to him.

There are lessons in what Stegner saw in the Mormon communities of the 1930s and early 1940s.  And those lessons have application to our 21st century world.

The American Dream, as usually depicted in the media and as perceived by many, is largely individualistic.  It’s about individual achievement and individual rewards.  And reasonably so.  Much of the American economic success has been the result of the vision of people from Vanderbilt and Carnegie to Gates and Jobs.

But that vision of the American Dream led to many defining their version of the dream as a suburban home on a small parcel of land.  It was to be their little fortress of individualism.

For the last week, an advertisement for a Marin County raffle has been appearing on my email page.  The prize has been described as a “dream house”.  A photo of an architecture detail is shown, but no hints are given of the community in which the home is located, the neighbors who might share gardening tools, or the businesses which might be a short walk away.  The raffle conforms to the version of the American Dream in which one’s four walls are all that matter.

But Stegner’s understanding of the Mormon communities of his time points the way to a different vision.  Home is still important, but also important are civic functions and involvement.  Indeed, the Mormons of whom Stegner writes seem more content than the Americans who chase the more individualistic dream.

I like my home.  My wife has done a fine job of decorating it and making it a good place to live.  Walking in the front door and plopping into my favorite reading chair feels like home, as does sitting down to a quiet dinner with my wife.

But there are other things about my life that also feel like “home”.  Chatting with a neighbor about pruning the rose bush on our property line.  Trading rumors about new restaurants with my barber.  Being greeted with familiarity in a pub.  Exchanging greetings at a City Council meeting.

Opponents of urbanism often invoke the fictitious Coercion Myth, suggesting that everyone will be forced to live colorless lives in featureless block buildings.  For many, not only is that specter false, it is also wrong-headed.  It’s living in a stucco palace on a block filled with stucco palaces that is thin and unsatisfying.  Living where one can walk between a network of favorite places is what offers true contentment.

The Mormon communities of Stegner’s time may have little in common with American life in the 21st century.  But the sense of satisfaction that Stegner noted as comes from living in a welcoming and comfortable community offers lessons that apply nicely to our time.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Urbanism and the American Dream

Professor Walter Russell Meade writes a blog in which he ponders coming societal changes. His premise is that the social model for which suburbia is the American Dream is coming to an end, just as the social model for which the small farm was the America Dream came to an end a century ago.

I don’t concur with his every premise. I also find him too willing to point out the shortcomings in others. Nonetheless, he raises points that are thoughtful and insightful. In a recent three part series (one, two, and three), he summarizes his perspective and lays the groundwork for his ongoing contemplation of coming changes. Unless you’re particularly motivated, I won’t recommend it reading the entire series. It is long and requires serious chewing. However, I point you to a key paragraph near the middle of Part Two.

“I start with the assumption that the 21st century must reinvent the American Dream. It must recast our economic, social, familial, educational and political systems for new challenges and new opportunities. Some hallowed practices and institutions will have to go under the bus. But in the end, the changes will make us richer, more free, and more secure than we are now. The means will often not be the progressive and bureaucratic institutions of the last century, but the results will be something that most Americans will perceive as progress.”

I note this passage because its message is noted in a second blog. This latter blog is written by Kevin Hartnett who ruminates on the points raised by Meade and then concludes with the following thought.

“But if I had to guess, I’d venture that the Third American Dream will be an urban dream—where physical proximity allows work life, home life, and social life to be more coherently integrated—and it will be an information technology dream that gives people more flexibility about when and where they work and more freedom in general about how they spend their time.”

I’m unsure that the universal American Dream of the next generation which will be an urban life, but neither were small farms or suburbia the universal American Dream of past generations. However, I believe fervently that an urban life will be the American Dream for some. I also believe that those who find those who find fulfillment in an urban life will bring particular creative value to our communities.

And ultimately that is why this blog exists. To help establish the places in which fulfilling and creative urban lives can be lived. For eighty years, we neglected that lifestyle, adopting policies that discouraged the downtown living land-use alternative. The momentum has begun to shift, but there is still far to go.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated. Please comment below or email me. And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Reminder: A fledgling Petaluma new urbanism group will meet on the second Wednesday of every month at the Aqus Café. The next meeting will be March 14. We’ll convene around 5:30. Feel free to join us for casual conversation about land-use planning and whatever else may come up.