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i dont think the question of whether you or i likes the suburbs is of much consequence if the claim in the op holds--that the conditions which enabled the suburban model are coming unraveled. it'll be the case that some folk prefer living in the city, others in the country and still others in that mass-produced nowhere that is suburbia. the notion of the homogenous "bedroom community" tied to an equally homogenous--what---"walking around while awake" are to a "production area" (or city, often) is not sustainable--the reliance on cars---the the longterm fate of the toll brothers cookie cutter housing---the idea that real estate is necessarily a generator or wealth...problems with these underpinnings or assumptions go way beyond whether you like relative isolation or prefer being able to walk to stuff, whether you can sleep while hearing people doing things outside or not.
the burbs are an extreme extension of the logics of separation of functions and specialization. they are a priori not sustainable simply because the logic that underpins them is the opposite of sustainable. one alternative future, the one outlined in the op article, the one in keeping with this logic of separation and specialization, is reversal--the burbs remain an expression of class warfare american style, but the signs gradually reverse as populations migrate from these spaces to what are (to my mind anyway) more sustainable/diverse spaces--like cities, but also more diversified smaller communities outside the reach of the burbs. another might be the transformation of these suburbs themselves into something more like small diversified towns--but that ain't happening without a plan. and typically, there is no plan.
then there's the question of shabby mass produced houses themselves and what happens to them physically over the long term---but that's another matter--if the op is right, they'll end up being elements within reservations for poor folk, fenceless camps where they'll be kept until fashion reverses and they get driven to another reservation. america's nice like that.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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