To get a glimpse of [the] future, urbanists and planners need to get beyond their nostalgic quest to recreate the highly centralized 19th-century city. Instead they should hop a plane down to Dallas or Houston, where the outlines of the 21st-century American city are already being created and exuberantly imagined.
– NewGeography.com editor and swain of the suburbs Joel Kotkin, contrasting the signs of growth and economic recovery in Texas’ cities — “a growing population, a solid and expanding job base and a relatively efficient city administration” — with Chicago’s “continued loss of jobs, decaying infrastructure, rampant corruption and continued out-migration of the area’s beleaguered middle class.”
I don’t get what Kotkin’s problem with Chicago is. He keeps picking on this city.
In 2050, when Kotkin is long dead, lets see if Dallas or Houston have any “decayed infrastructure”, and are still growing by 140,000 people per year.
Truth is, Kotkin is stuck in a paradigm..
I think the lack of zoning code in Houston is bizarre, but I’ll reserve judgement until I visit the city (although it’s not very high on my list).
This sounds like a great vision for Dallas though: “This approach can be seen in remarkable plans for developing “an urban forest” along the Trinity River, which runs through much of Dallas. The extent of the project–which includes reforestation, white water rafting and restorations of large natural areas–would provide the Dallas region with 10,000 acres of parkland right in the heart of the region. In comparison, New York City’s Central Park, arguably the country’s most iconic urban reserve, covers some 800 acres.”
I can’t really argue with Kotkin because he’s picked an argument that’s very convenient for him to defend:
Dallas and Houston are growing faster than Chicago or New York, thus they are doing something right, and the other cities are doing something wrong.
I have a problem with that conclusion. First of all, I believe these Texas cities are in an earlier, steeper part of their growth curves than their northern, more established, counterparts are. Second, we don’t have a crystal ball and thus we have no idea how long they will continue to grow at this clip. Let’s not forget that in the late 19th and early 20th century, Chicago and New York were growing at a ferocious pace.
Finally, I’m not sure what Kotkin is trying to achieve here. Is he telling denser cities to tear themselves down and try to replicate Dallas and Houston? I mean, is that what anyone in his right mind would want to see New York do? Manhattan’s slow growth in the past few decades is clearly a sign of its failure, therefore lets tear it all down and replace it with Houston-style suburban development? Shall we tear down Lincoln Park in Chicago while we’re at it? What is Kotkin asking these cities to do?
Finally, I think another explanation of Kotkin’s phenomenon can best be described with an analogy: On the road you see a lot of Hondas and Toyotas, but fewer Audis, BMW’s, and Mercedes.
Chicago is an Audi. Houston and Dallas are Honda and Toyota. Chicago was once a Toyota, but has “graduated”. Lets hope Dallas and Houston sustain their growth long enough to lose their “cheaper alternative” status and actually become true global cities. Once they do, I suspect their growth rates won’t be anywhere near what they are today.