So what?

American cities are different from European cities. Even lots of Americans who've never been to Europe realize this, although they may not understand exactly what the difference is. But what difference does it make?

Let's say you live in a typical European urban area. You're likely to live in an apartment in a multistory building. There's a good chance that there are shops in the ground floor of your building and of the buildings near you. Even if there aren't any shops in your building, there most likely are some within a block or two.

Let's say you live in a house, not an apartment, in a typical European urban area. In all likelihood, your house is quite small by American standards, and more importantly for the purposes of this discussion, so is your lot. Your next-door neighbor is probably very close to you, although there is probably some kind of arrangement to afford both of you some measure of privacy. And you probably don't live more than a couple of blocks off a main street or road that offers shops and other services. Since European cities don't enforce any kind of zoning, there's a reasonable chance that there are even shops on your street, a short distance away -- not only because there's no zoning, but because the smaller lots shorten distances (having to walk past twenty houses in Europe is not at all the same thing as having to walk past twenty houses in the U.S.).

Now let's say you live in a typical American urban area. There's a good chance that this means you live in an American suburb, and even if you don't, there's a good chance that you live in an urban neighborhood that is American-suburban in character. You probably live in a house, large by European standards, that sits on a lot that is positively huge by European standards. Also, since almost all American cities enforce zoning, you almost certainly live in an area that is zoned residential (and, probably, zoned single-family residential, meaning no apartment houses, or even duplexes, are permitted); that means that unless you live at or near the edge of your residential area, there are no shops or other services near you.

(An aside: Strangely enough, this is one reason European cities tend to have older architecture than American cities.

We are all familiar with the cycle that afflicts American cities. An area, let's call it Oakwoods, gets built, or "developed," all at once. The buildings, be they houses, office buildings, whatever, are popular because they're new. Then, as these buildings age and other, newer areas are constructed, Oakwoods becomes less popular. House prices and rents in Oakwoods decline; people with the means to do so leave Oakwoods for the newer areas. As Oakwoods continues to age, and even newer areas are constructed, its popularity declines further until it becomes, essentially, a slum, inhabited by people with no economic choice.

Why does this happen? Recall from my previous post Jacobs's observation that successful city neighborhoods tend to contain buildings of various ages. Because American districts usually are built all at once, they age together and arrive at the various points in this cycle in a depressingly predictable pattern. This happens not only because the buildings age together, but because they are also economically homogeneous; they tend to be occupied by people of pretty much the same station in life because they are the same age [newer buildings almost always cost more to occupy because the initial cost of construction has to be recouped].

In Europe, there tends to be much more mixing not only of types of use -- residential mixed with commercial, usually -- but also of building age. This mixes people of various financial situations together in the same city district. Consequently, there is less tendency to abandon an area that is "changing," a concept that generally does not apply in Europe anyway. Even if your financial situation changes, you can probably move within your area, to something either more or less expensive.

One obvious consequence of this is that European city districts tend not to decline precipitously in the way American ones do. But a less obvious one is that when districts contain buildings of various ages, there is much less reason to tear down the older buildings that make up part of the fabric of a district; instead, there is much more tendency to rehabilitate older buildings when the time comes.

So European cities tend to have retained more of their older buildings than American ones.)

We often tend to ascribe these differences to the respective urban cultures in both regions, and not think further about them. This is a serious mistake. These differences have two major consequences that it would behoove Americans to consider:

- Having shops nearby means you can walk to them.
- Having denser development means public transport can be provided at a reasonable cost.

Both of these differences contribute to four further consequences of the American type of city, based on one simple fact: If you can't walk or take transit to the things you need to get to, you have to drive a car. In fact, you end up driving a car to pretty much everything. (I am ignoring the bicycle option, which I myself use some of the time for commuting, because I realize most Americans aren't going to do it. They should, but they won't. One reason for this is that the sheer prevalence of the car makes American streets much less friendly to bicycles.) Which means:

- Automobile use is the primary driver, no pun intended, of our dependence on oil, and specifically on foreign oil. This in turn drives our foreign policy in directions that generally don't make a lot of sense, to put it mildly.
- Driving an automobile everywhere means that you get entirely too little exercise. This sedentary life is a major contributor to the high cost of health care in this country.
- Driving an automobile everywhere means you are pouring huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the environment, making global warming much worse.
- Having an automobile, and driving it everywhere, is appallingly expensive.

This is why I think the way our cities are built is the primary problem the United States faces. It urgently needs to be solved, but we have to realize that solving it means we will have to fundamentally change the way we live.