Syracuse Suburban Sprawl, good or bad? (New York, Clay: low income, apartment complex, credit)

[beckyhuggs]

There seemed to be a lot of comments on another thread about Syracuse's issue with suburban sprawl, so as was suggested on that thread I am going to pose the question: is suburban sprawl good or bad?

IMO, All "new" developments eventually become "old". It's how we deal with the old areas and treat the old areas that says a lot about how we are as a community. If we only want new suburban areas and forget about the orginial infastructure then we do oursevles and our community a huge disservice.

What are your thoughts?

[Jeromeville]

I was just up in Clay today on Route 31 which is probably the epicenter of suburban sprawl in the Syracuse area. It's just not for me. 100% car oriented.

Then there are older areas like Fairmount and Westvale which, in their day, were suburban sprawl, but you can actually still walk some places. If they put some thought and effort (and money) into these older areas they could make them even more walk-able.

[justflow1983]

I completely agree. I've put forward elsewhere the idea of redeveloping old neighborhoods with new builds. In some of the more non-historic neighborhoods, it would make sense to tear down the older houses and put in new ones. They can be the same type of house even, I'm not advocating 1960s style "urban renewal." I know people want "new" but maybe they can have "new" in a place thats "old"?

Someone once mentioned to me that the Syracuse metro area has the same population as it did 20 years ago but now takes up twice as much space. There's something seriously wrong with that. I agree too about the driving end of things, I grew up in Syracuse but one of the things keeping me from moving back is that where I live now I can get to 90% of my destinations on foot or public transit.

[adirondackguy123]

Originally Posted by justflow1983

I completely agree. I've put forward elsewhere the idea of redeveloping old neighborhoods with new builds. In some of the more non-historic neighborhoods, it would make sense to tear down the older houses and put in new ones. They can be the same type of house even, I'm not advocating 1960s style "urban renewal." I know people want "new" but maybe they can have "new" in a place thats "old"?

Someone once mentioned to me that the Syracuse metro area has the same population as it did 20 years ago but now takes up twice as much space. There's something seriously wrong with that. I agree too about the driving end of things, I grew up in Syracuse but one of the things keeping me from moving back is that where I live now I can get to 90% of my destinations on foot or public transit.

Don't worry gas prices will soar agian in a few years just watch, that will take care of sprawl.

[RollsRoyce]

There should be some demolition in Syracuse's more transitional and non-historic neighborhoods, particularly those that directly border downtown, Eastwood, and Tipp Hill. Stamford, CT has done a good job of redeveloping some of its depressed neighborhoods adjacent to downtown. Aside from perceptions of poor school quality and crime, the reason many choose to reside in the suburbs is the abundance of newer construction and variety of retail services. If Syracuse could offer newer construction at an attractive price without low income guidelines, some neighborhoods could increase in population and density leading to more quality retail options, which are sorely lacking in some neighborhoods. The most notable in-fill development in recent years was on Tipp Hill on Burnet Park Drive. After securing federal money through the Syracuse Neighborhood Initiative, a dilapidated apartment complex was demolished with a 5 unit townhouse development featuring below grade garages taking its place. It will be difficult to advance future efforts without a strong funding stream in place, which given the economy and credit meltdown looks unlikely in the near future.

[boomvang]

I never could understand the need for a brand new house. I am a firm believer in recycling as much as possible. What is more wasteful than building new homes when there are so many perfectly serviceable older homes available. Rebuild the city, make it more livable and people will clamor to live there. The day of sprawling suburbs is ending, a good thing IMO.

[justflow1983]

Originally Posted by boomvang

Rebuild the city, make it more livable and people will clamor to live there.

I agree, look at all the people who move to New York City after college. They don't want to retreat into the suburbs and aren't ready to spend the rest of their lives driving between a job and a house that is so big its a shame to leave, so they go in search of a lively community. Same goes for portland or vancouver, that are full of young people.

Unfortunately, the option for that kind of lifestyle has dried up in most places due to poor planning policy, which punishes redevelopment and forces developers to move to virgin land; as well as a myopic view of what people want.

[beckyhuggs]

Something that I've noticed whenever I visited Europe is that European cities are an interesting dynamic when it comes to mixing new with old. Part of the reason for that is probably because they can't really sprawl due to lack of new area to move to. When Europeans can't sprawl out of an area it seems to me that instead they learn to change and improve the old area that they are already living in.

justflow1983, you live in europe, am I completely off or somewhat on the mark?

I think that having the ability in the states to sprawl out from the cities causes a lot of our problems. When people in the states don't like something anymore they just move furthur away from it. They aren't forced to learn to change the area or make it better. In particular, in Syracuse, the south side used to be a very elite and wealthy area but once people no longer wanted to try and keep it up or improve it they just moved furthur away from the city causing the area to take a nose dive.

[justflow1983]

Its a lot more complicated beckyhuggs, and depends on where you go. I'll try to sum it up but its very nuanced. I grew up between Spain and Syracuse, so a lot of the details are fairly natural to me.

The first point is that the sprawl issue is happening in Europe too. There is still plenty of space to occupy in the outskirts of the cities that used to be kind of low-grade farmland. However there are strong anti-sprawl laws that constrict this development, and the approvals to build outside of established towns and cities are constrained by a much more onerous process. In Germany, the entire country is set up along the lines of the Adirondack park where no unbuilt land can be used. Here in Ireland, the government sets development targets for every town; they can't expand until they've filled up the space they're given, and outside of the Development Plans no building is allowed to happen. Americans would see this as a "violation of their rights." European sprawl tends to be ugly tower blocks along commuter train lines than McMansions.

Aside from the legislative aspect, there is also a cultural aspect. In Spain for instance, it is normal to go out to eat a couple of times a week, and most social interaction happen in cafes and bars. Because you don't often have guests to your place, you care less about the size of your home and more about its proximity to where you go out. In some ways, Europeans are more interested in community, and are more trusting of the government to regulate development in a way that furthers that goal. They are committed to living in proximity to each other and interacting with each other (this doesn't apply to race, there is a really dangerous undercurrent of separation in european cities). They spend a lot on public spaces, and they see it as their enlightened duty to use them. The also just like the commotion and bustle, which americans tend to find distasteful.

Another thing is design sensibility. Because most of the housing stock was redeveloped after World War II in a modernist aesthetic, people are much more comfortable with glass, steel, concrete, etc. The fact is that post-war, people lived in apartments out of the necessity of housing so many people so quickly, and they got used to the idea. They don't need pitched roofs and picket fences to feel at "home," so they are more open to a variety of denser housing types. If you look at the new sprawl developments, they are sort of cartoon versions of a cross between a 50s house and a castle. In europe "new" is a look, in the states "new" means new (preferably big too). This also goes back to the re-use issue, in that they consider a house new if its been gutted and redone, they don't care when the fabric of the building is from.

They also spend huge amounts of money on infrastructure, with projects like the AVE and the Malaga and Bilbao metros, building such high-level public transit systems that many prefer to use those systems than drive. In Europe there is no stigma to public transit, whereas in a place like Syracuse it seems only the poor take the bus. In fact, it is expected that the government provide it at a high standard. Sadly, this is changing in my generation. Old, dense cities have no parking. Europeans get around this by having alternatives to driving, americans get around it by building a parking lot city outside of the old-style city. America has pretty much castrated its government systems through its need for "small government'" and without the ability to coordinate the planning and infrastructure necessary to have a smooth-running dense city, a car-based suburban model allows people to go about their lives without much disruption.

Sorry to inject politics into it, but the root of it is as much political and sociological as a spatial problem.

[justflow1983]

btw, the AVE is the new spanish high-speed train.... operating speeds of 300km/hr