The End of the Suburbs: Where the American Dream Is Moving

by Leigh Gallagher

  Many housing watchers say the most remote exurban developments could, with enough time, fall apart. Construction on these homes was breakneck, and many were built on the cheap. It’s not inconceivable that if they don’t sell, without care and upkeep many will deteriorate. This could be bad: without proper policy programs to manage their depopulation, these neighborhoods risk becoming hotbeds for crime, squatters, and blight, speeding their decline. James Howard Kunstler has been saying this for years. “The suburbs have three destinies,” he says. “As slums, salvage yards, and ruins. And those are not mutually exclusive.”

  Much of the future of U.S. residential development will be dictated by policy. If, for example, the government decides to move forward with location-efficient mortgages, that would increase demand for those kinds of places. Right now, our housing policy still encourages the purchase of single-family homes. “It’s pretty damn easy to securitize the single-family product,” says Brookings’ Katz. “This isn’t something that our policy system has responded to yet.” Katz also points out that having choices is only going to become more important: unlike other mature countries—like, say, Germany or Japan—we’re still experiencing massive rates of growth; the U.S. population is growing at the rate of thirty million a decade. Our racial and ethnic makeup is evolving. We have many different cohorts and a continuum of housing preferences. “People really just want more alternatives,” Katz says. Now, they will undoubtedly get them.

  But there’s still some of what Chuck Marohn of Minnesota would call “lobster-eating” going on. Driving around the far reaches of Summerlin, Nevada, after my visit with Zappos’s Tony Hsieh, I found myself at what seemed like the end of the earth. It was really just a small subdivision up a hill right off Paseo Breeze Drive, but as I drove up the half-developed street, it seemed like the final frontier, the edge of the developed United States itself. Soon the pavement turned to dirt road, and I pulled over when the road ended and got out of my rental car. There was a chain-link fence with alarming DANGER/NO TRESPASSING! signs. All I could see in front of me were vast acres of arid land and mountains in the distance.

  And yet as I faced the empty desert I heard a familiar sound ring out, that of a single spare hammer hitting away, its familiar echo reverberating across the neighborhood and signaling new home construction. On one side of the street behind me a few new homes were going up, and crews were toiling away on top of the roof working in the hot sun. This was Barcelona, a sign soon told me, a new upscale community from Toll Brothers. I walked inside the completed showhouse across the street and toured the thirty-three-hundred-or-so-square-foot home, which had all the trappings of suburban Toll: a two-story foyer, a great room, gourmet kitchen with a large island, dual vanities in the master suite. The house was opulently decorated and highly staged, complete with fictitious handwritten notes on the bulletin board in the girl’s bedroom (“don’t forget! sleepover @ Emily’s”). It was high quality: walls were thick, doors heavy, carpeting lush; all the touches seemed just right for the upscale buyer. “The ideal destination for moving up,” the materials advertised. But were there any upscale buyers anymore, especially here in housing’s post-bust wasteland? I asked the real estate agent why they were building new homes when there was still so much for sale. The foreclosure glut had actually only increased the demand for new construction, she told me. If you buy a foreclosed home, she pointed out, you don’t know if the insides will still be there; your money could be held in escrow for six months, only to have an all-cash buyer come in and pull it out from under you. New homes were safer. I signed the guest book, and when I got home, I got a nice thank-you card from Toll Brothers for taking the time to view its exciting new community. Less than one year later, all seventeen Barcelona homes had sold out.

  But what gets built in Vegas might very well stay in Vegas. Elsewhere in the country, the market, consumer demand, demographics, and consumer preferences are all pointing in a different direction. “The notion that we’re all going to be living in cities is wrong,” says Diana Lind, editor of Next City. “But the idea that we’ll have suburbs that have a different kind of lifestyle than we have right now is just inevitable.” Even Toll Brothers’ CEO, Douglas Yearley, says there will be a broader mix of choices available to meet the demands of an increasingly diverse population. The urbanist and architect Peter Calthorpe likens the discussion to the debate over gay marriage. “We’re not saying that the suburbs are wrong or should go away,” he says. “Just like we’re not asking to stop heterosexual marriage just because we want gay marriage. We just want to have a choice.” There will still be exurbs for people who like to live that way and can afford to do so. But the changes afoot mean that there will be many more options.

  • • •

  None of this will happen overnight. Right now it’s a challenge to build anything when the economy is stalled and incomes are stagnant. But like most big changes, the reconstitution of our landscape will happen a little bit at a time. “It doesn’t mean that all of a sudden there will be these huge wagon trains moving in and deserts in the cul-de-sacs,” says the Urban Land Institute’s John McIlwain. It’s a shift that’s just beginning, he and others point out, and we won’t know until we look back, census by census, to see how it played out.

  If the changes suggested in this book sound extreme, that’s because they are. But consider other transformations that have happened over the course of our nation’s history. In 1910, no one could have looked forward and imagined cities turning into the slums they did in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, just as in today’s city-as-Disneyland era, we can’t now imagine them that way, either. Or imagine the 1950s, when most women didn’t work; now, that’s hard to fathom. Or similary, imagine the ’80s and ’90s, when smoking was considered cool. That same kind of reversal can happen again when it comes to how and where we choose to live. The suburbs as we know them had an exceptionally long run, remaining basically unchanged for more than half a century. “We’re turning what happened in cities fifty and sixty years ago on its head,” says Sam Sherman, the urban developer in Philadelphia. “Don’t ever say it can’t happen. It happened before.”

  Besides, it’s when trends are just beginning that they’re the hardest to spot. “When a strong trend is in its early stage, it doesn’t look strong,” says the University of Virginia’s William Lucy. The 1950 census, he points out, did not contain clear evidence proclaiming what would happen during the next half century. And yet a slightly visible trend soon became a wave, which became a movement, which became a contagion, which became our suburban-majority country. “In ten years,” says housing economist Jonathan Smoke, “we’ll know what happened.”

  Whatever things look like in ten years—or twenty, or fifty, or more—there’s one thing everyone agrees on: there will be more options. The government in the past created one American Dream at the expense of almost all others: the dream of a house, a lawn, a picket fence, two or more children, and a car. But there is no single American Dream anymore; there are multiple American Dreams, and multiple American Dreamers. The good news is that the entrepreneurs, academics, planners, home builders, and thinkers who plan and build the places we live in are hard at work trying to find space for all of them.

  ©Bill Westheimer, courtesy Llewellyn Park Historical Society

  Built in the mid-1850s, the communities of Llewellyn Park, in West Orange, New Jersey (above), and Riverside, Illinois (next image), designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, were the first suburbs designed specifically to mimic the bucolic feel of country life.

  Courtesy of the Riverside Historical Museum, Riverside, Illinois

  ©Meyer Leibowitz/The New York Times/Redux

  The history of the modern-day suburbs begins with Levittown, the massive development on Long Island built immediately after World War II.

  ©Superstock/Everett Collection

  By the mid-1950s, the suburban way was the only way.

  ©Michelle Wolfe Photography

  The earliest U.
S. suburbs sprouted organically around railroad stations. With their village-oriented town centers, these suburbs are better positioned for the future than their more modern, subdivision-style counterparts. Here, the Village of Scarsdale, New York, in April 2013.

  ©Michael Valdez/istockphoto.com

  Tract housing developments like these in Las Vegas now blanket much of the country.

  ©Michelle Wolfe Photography

  The strip mall is one of the most identifiable elements of modern-day suburbia. Instead of a centralized downtown, commercial activity takes place in a series of shopping centers like this one on Route 59 in Rockland County, New York.

  Courtesy of the Gallagher family

  The author’s suburban experience: her family circa 1992 (above) and childhood home in Media, Pennsylvania (next image).

  Courtesy of the Gallagher family

  Ralph Nardell Photography

  The author’s hometown, Media, has unique elements like a main street lined with boutiques, bars, and restaurants and a working trolley (above); a courthouse; and a restored 1927 theater (next image).

  Courtesy of the Gallagher family

  ©Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection

  The rise and fall of American suburbia has been mirrored in popular culture. The Wonder Years depicted idyllic suburban family life in the late 1960s.

  Everett Collection

  References later turned dark in the 1999 film American Beauty.

  Michael Desmond/©Showtime/ Everett Collection

  In 2005, Showtime debuted Weeds, which portrayed the life of a pot-dealing mother in the fictitious suburb of Agrestic, California.

  ©Leigh Gallagher

  In the suburbs of Gaithersburg, Maryland, lies Kentlands, an anti-sprawl community built on principles like narrower streets, a smaller scale, and a mixture of home sizes and types.

  ©Srenco Photo 2008/Courtesy of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company

  There are hundreds of New Urbanist communities across the country like Kentlands and New Town at St. Charles near St. Louis, Missouri; big commercial builders are now replicating their concepts.

  ©2010 Minnesota Historical Society

  Anti-sprawl activists point to street design at the turn of the century as the ideal. Chuck Marohn, founder of StrongTowns.org, uses this picture of Brainerd, Minnesota, in 1905 in his TED talk to demonstrate a street “that rocks.”

  ©Michelle Wolfe Photography

  Morristown, New Jersey, has given its downtown a dose of urban chic, adding penthouse loft apartments, boutiques, restaurants, and a walkable promenade.

  Nancy McLinden/ Pink Olive Photography

  In Libertyville, Illinois, John McLinden developed School Street, a neighborhood of twenty-six houses in dense arrangement just off the town’s Main Street. Many buyers are McMansion refugees who tired of the wasted space and relying on their car.

  ©2010 Belmar Colorado www.belmarcolorado.com

  Developers are turning dead suburban shopping malls into residential villages. In Lakewood, Colorado, the old Villa Italia shopping mall is now Belmar, a community with one thousand housing units, as well as restaurants, boutiques, cafés, and outdoor entertainment plazas.

  Toll Brothers/www.JimWilsonPhotography.com

  Toll Brothers’ big luxury suburban homes—like this one in Southlake, Texas—used to make up 70 to 80 percent of what the company builds and sells. Now it’s more like 50 percent.

  Design by Atelier Christian de Portzamparc, courtesy of Toll Brothers, Inc. ©AECDP Permission to publish this image

  The rest is coming from things like this new forty-story glass tower in Manhattan (above) and a chic condo building in Brooklyn’s DUMBO (next image). New York City is “our hottest market by far,” CEO Douglas Yearley has said.

  ©RobFaulkner.com

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book took a village, or at the very least a pedestrian-friendly suburb. The contributions of many people show up in these pages.

  The End of the Suburbs would never have come into being were it not for Lew Korman, who gave me the nudge off the ledge I needed. Thanks, Lew, and to all the Kormans—Sharon, Raina, Mike, Cynthia, and Eric—for their support. I owe a debt of gratitude to Eileen Cope for her clear vision and expert guidance early on. From there I am grateful to have landed in the savvy and skillful hands of Melissa Flashman at Trident, who might have been an urban planner in another life and whose enthusiasm was more critical than she knows.

  My thanks to the entire Portfolio team: to Adrian Zackheim, who saw the potential for this idea when it was little more than a few sentences and committed to it on the spot; to Will Weisser, Allison McLean, Kristen Gastler, and Tracy Brickman for their strategic guidance and tireless work; to Katie Coe for deftly managing our many moving parts; and to Julia Batavia, Bria Sandford, Dan Donohue, and Sharon Gonzalez. I’m especially grateful for the editing firepower of Brooke Carey, who is a gifted wordsmith and a master of structure, and who gingerly ushered this project from its earliest days. This book is as much Brooke’s as it is mine.

  I am deeply grateful to Fortune managing editor and my spirited boss, Andy Serwer, who was a champion of this idea from the minute he heard about it. Stephanie Mehta and Hank Gilman gave me their early and unwavering support (Hank also gets a hat tip for the Don Henley epigraph in chapter 2). I’m grateful to several other colleagues at Fortune: Nick Varchaver read the entire first draft—talk about sprawl—and weighed in with editorial suggestions along with encouragement that helped me soldier through the rewrite. Adam Lashinsky and Carol Loomis shared lessons they had just gleaned writing their own excellent books. Pattie Sellers not only cheered me on but lent me her apartment for a week when I was displaced during Hurricane Sandy (Pattie: I wrote my favorite chapter in your living room). Special thanks to Dan Roberts, who was an eager reader and who weighed in with sharp suggestions and copy edits; to Omar Akhtar for skillful fact checking and research; and to Erika Fry for lending her research and reporting talents. Other Fortune colleagues including Ryan Bradley, Brian Dumaine, Brian O’Keefe, Jennifer Reingold, Jessi Hempel, Chris Tkaczyk, Megan Barnett, Steve Koepp, Mina Kimes, Kate Flaim, Julie Schlosser, Mia Diehl, Alix Colow, Armin Harris, Kelly Champion, Carolyn Walter, Marilyn Adamo, John Needham, and Lisa Clucas all helped in specific ways; Michelle Wolfe calmly and coolly saved the day with eleventh-hour photo research.

  I could not have written this book without Doris “with enough time, you can find anything” Burke, Fortune’s senior research editor. Doris signed on late in the process, probably against her better judgment and without a doubt not knowing what she was getting herself into. Doris is part research sleuth, part story whisperer, and part shrink; I can’t imagine getting loopy on census data and giggling over bad suburbs jokes with anyone else.

  I’m grateful to Ali Zelenko, Daniel Kile, Danny Leonard, and Vidhya Muregesan for their daily and invaluable guidance. My deep thanks to Terry Rooney for his support and generosity, and to David Goldin for sharing his time and counsel for this book and always.

  Writing a research-intensive book on a limited schedule required some help. In chronological order, thanks to Maggie Boitano, Catherine Siskos, Amanda Erickson, Dave Plotz, Tracey Samuelson, Caroline Fairchild, and Betsy Feldman for their research. I’m also grateful to David Dobkin, who, after a a serendipitous encounter during which we bonded over Jane Jacobs, agreed to be my “eyes on the story,” reading for accuracy, history, and context. Whatever the future of cities looks like, Dave will probably have a hand in it.

  I am indebted to several sources who were generous with their time. Thanks to Jonathan Smoke, Chuck Marohn, Scott Bernstein, Jeff Tumlin, Andres Duany, Diane Dorney, John McLinden, Sam Sherman, Graham Hill, Tony Hsieh, Spencer Rascoff, Scott Griffith, Kenneth Jackson, and Frank and Deborah Popper. Special thanks to Jason Duckworth, who was a go-to source on all matters, and Irina Woelfle, who connected me with many of the aforementioned people and provided festive builders’ show hospitality in
Orlando. I’m grateful to Linda Keenan, Diane Roseman, Maribeth Reinbold, Annette Lee, and Bethany Daily for sharing their personal stories.

  I leaned heavily on my author friends Kate Kelly, Bethany McLean, Joanne Gordon, and Katherine Eban. Jim Ledbetter, Erin Arvedlund, Jon Friedman, David Kaplan, Mark Halperin, and Meredith Whitney all contributed wise counsel. Jonathan Dahl was a key reader at a critical point, John Brodie offered early support, and Dan Mandel lent his publishing savvy. Thanks to Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Alex Korson, Jesse Rodriguez, and the entire Morning Joe team, and to Alex Wagner, Dana Haller, and the team at NOW. Deep gratitude goes to Robyn Twomey, Barbara Vesely, Ariel Lawrence, Brian Cook, Christos Karantzolas, Richard Prinzi, and the ever-helpful Samantha Baker.