Not Your Mother’s Suburb: Remaking Communities for a More Diverse Population

Abstract

The United States is a suburban nation with a majority of Americans living and working in this landscape. But the suburb is more than a physical location; it is also a social production. Built upon a middle class, white, nuclear family ideal, the suburb is now diversifying demographically and economically, yet zoning ordinances and the built environment continue to reflect this outdated ideal. Today’s suburb is not your mother’s suburb. We argue that these demographic changes create both a point of rupture that challenges traditional land use regulations and actual uses of space, and an opening for communities to embrace and plan for new residents. In order to respond to the needs of a diversifying suburban population, communities need to challenge the underlying assumptions of traditional zoning ordinances – the separation of uses and preference for single-family housing. We present an agenda for the future that includes planning responses that rethink the zoning hierarchy, promote new forms of densification, move beyond restrictive family definitions, and experiment with new forms of service delivery.

1. Introduction

The American suburb is at a crossroads, a pivotal moment when demographic and economic changes exist in tension with the ideal and design of the suburban landscape. The suburban ideal is apostwar cultural construction of the American Dream - a single family detached house, surrounded by a yard, and inhabited by the nuclear family. However, as the suburb becomes more ethnically and economically diverse, scholars and communities are faced with an important decision: will they embrace and support this shift or undermine it with a rigid adherence to historical conceptions of family type and zoning rules?

To fully discuss the implications of a more diverse suburb, both the tools that created the landscape and the social processes that restructure that landscape must be explored. The tool is Euclidean zoning and the social processes that frame it are a separation of public and private spheres and the dominance of the white nuclear family as the archetype for which the suburbs were built.

2. Methodology

This paper begins by discussing the mutual constitutivity of society, space, and law through the value-laden assumptions embedded in the suburban landscape and ethos. Support is provided from case law through a discussion of the spatial barriers facing suburban women. The second portion of this paper focuses on the increasing diversity of the suburb by family type, ethnicity, and income using decennial census data from 1950 to 2010. The paper explores the tensions created when occupants and uses exist in conflict with the built environment and municipal regulations. These demographic changes create new opportunities for urban planning to rethink the zoning hierarchy, increase density and embrace new approaches to service delivery. The paper combines legal, historical, and demographic analysis to suggest that an evolution in planning practice is needed for suburbs to meet the needs of a twenty-first century population.

3. Theoretical Framework: Mutual Constitutivity of Society, Space, and Law

Society and space are mutually constitutive. Space not only contains social processes, but actively constructs them.¹ The spatiality of a community determines its material character. In the American suburb, the cultural norm of the nuclear family resulted in the low density, single-use developments of the postwar period. This form of development has become so engrained in American society, that even as residents change, the mechanisms that regulate this form of development are slow to evolve.

The most pervasive of these mechanisms is Euclidean zoning; a land use tool that separates ‘incompatible’ land uses and gives preference to single-family detached residential uses. This uniquely American form of zoning epitomizes suburban development since World War II. In the postwar period, the United States embraced rapid suburbanization leading to the eventual dominance of the suburban ethos in American life. The suburban ethos, or ideal, refers to the postwar cultural construction of the American Dream – a single-family detached home in a residential neighborhood, inhabited by the white nuclear family, and maintained by the idealized suburban housewife.² This ideal is embedded in the suburban landscape through Euclidean zoning ordinances that privilege single-family residential as the highest and best use. Even today, 70% of suburban housing is single-family,³ evidence of this heteronormative feedback loop.

Complementary to the reinforcing processes of society and spatiality is the mutually constitutive nature of the legal and the spatial,⁴ of which zoning ordinances are a prime example. Early American ordinances were guided by the belief that land uses form a hierarchy or pyramid, privileging the detached single-family home at the top.⁵ Uses were banned from levels above them; consequently residential zones contained little except housing. However, with the increased separation of public and private spheres in the postwar period, zoning ordinances became less hierarchical and more segregationist, prohibiting the mixing of uses. This led to the sprawling landscape of suburban America.⁶ See Figure 1. The resulting housing patterns are not only spatially exceptional, but also legally exceptional in that American zoning ordinances support the “special status of America’s landmark housing form—the detached single-family home.”⁷ More recently we are seeing a reprioritization of the zoning hierarchy to privilege commercial uses.⁸ This creates the opportunity for mixed use (discussed later in the paper), but also the risk of pushing residential uses out of spaces deemed more profitable for commercial development.

Figure 1.

Evolution of Land Use Planning Hierarchy

Often overlooked is the power of zoning ordinances to spatially direct lives, the location of support systems, and the composition of households.⁹ The Supreme Court first legitimated a belief in the ‘rightness’ of the single-family lifestyle and purely residential zones in 1926 with the Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Corp. case.¹⁰ The Court’s decision, delivered by Justice Sutherland, approved excluding multi-family housing from single-family residential districts because “very often the apartment house is a mere parasite, constructed in order to take advantage of the open spaces and attractive surroundings created by the residential character of the district.”¹¹ As a result of this case, valuing single-family dwellings as the ‘highest and best use’ became the common method of regulating land use. In its original conception, the phrase ‘single-family’ was meant to be a designation of a physical structure, but quickly led to the regulation of dwelling occupancy – occupancy by the traditional nuclear family.¹²

Traditional zoning ordinances have been used to enforce a specific social agenda. For example, zoning was used in the South to segregate the races within communities and between them as part of a broader set of Jim Crow laws.¹³ Districts were zoned white single family or colored single family. These lines not only determined where people could live, but also affected the type and style of single-family homes. Because colored zoned neighborhoods were limited from growing geographically, the density in these neighborhoods was higher, and this racial zoning relegated African Americans to a second class American Dream of smaller homes, smaller lots and more crowded neighborhoods.¹⁴ Today, jurisdictional boundaries often exclude lower-income minority neighborhoods from access to equal public infrastructure in urban, suburban and rural communities.¹⁵

American land use classifications, definitions, and standards continue to reflect social and cultural categories but also control what are believed to be the correct relationships among them. The ‘rightness’ of the single-family in American society was reinforced in 1974 the case of Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas¹⁶ which challenged the definition of family in the Belle Terre zoning code. The majority opinion, written by Justice Douglas, recognized the preservation of traditional family values as a legitimate state objective. The Supreme Court’s opinions in the Euclid and Belle Terre cases represent the Justices’ conception of an ideal community. This idealized notion of the single-family community was challenged by the Mount Laurel I/II¹⁷ decisions that argue that all communities have an obligation to provide a fair share of affordable housing. By recognizing the externalities of exclusive single-family zoning, Mount Laurel offers a revised conception of the suburban ideal, one that permits some minimal level of affordable multi-family housing.¹⁸ For nearly a century, the American zoning paradigm has crafted the suburban landscape by determining where on a lot a house may be placed, privileging who may live in that house, and how they may interact in that space.

Women, for example, are constrained by the inadequacies of the physical design of suburban residential neighborhoods, which were built and planned to facilitate the private role of women within the nuclear family. Markusen¹⁹ notes that the most striking aspect of the modern U.S. city is the significant spatial segregation of residence from workplace, a separation that roughly corresponds to the division of responsibility between men and women for household production and wage labor, respectively. This segregated land use pattern discourages extended family or community sharing of housework and replaces public play spaces such as parks with private yards.

The postwar emphasis on suburban development and the nuclear family increased domestic labor for women. Mothers who navigate the suburban landscape illustrate the intersectionality of society, space, and law. These women face not just a double burden - responsibility for home and child care in addition to paid jobs they perform;²⁰ but a triple burden due to the segregation of uses, auto-dependence, and prevalence of single-family homes in the Euclidean suburb. This is a direct result of the antiquated and value-laden assumptions underlying the Euclidean zoning and planning paradigm, and engrained in the suburban landscape and American consciousness in the postwar period.

The increased separation of spheres and emphasis on gender roles following World War II was a result of the United States’ effort to reintegrate returning soldiers into civilian life.²¹ Relegated to the domestic sphere in the postwar by culture, economy, and the emerging suburban environment, a middle class white woman’s place was in the home; and her primary job was to provide a safe haven for the breadwinning husband after he returns from working in the masculine (public) city, and to raise children in order to sustain the workforce.²² A feminist backlash against this position beginning in the 1960s, and the stagnation of the family wage in the 1970s, forced most women with children to engage in the formal labor force, with resulting changes in family and household structure.²³ Despite changes in the household structure and the role of women, the postwar suburban development style is perpetuated in most new development today.

The physical design of a community represents a moment in time that is continually reevaluated by subsequent inhabitants. At present, the American suburb is experiencing a demographic transformation with increases in singles, elders, and multi-generational and ethnic households. These demographic changes illustrate the tensions that arise when a space is inhabited by a new set of residents for which it was not originally planned.

4. Changing Demographics and Economics, Conflicting Ideals

Changing Demographics

The American suburb is undergoing a significant demographic and economic transformation. The nuclear family, the ideal for which the suburb is built, is in decline and multi-generational families are making a resurgence. The number of non-white and senior residents is also increasing, creating an imperative for communities to rethink the way they plan, and provide for their residents.

In 1950, over 50% of households conformed to the nuclear version of the family – married two-parent household with their own children – compared to only 20% of households in 2012. Of these remaining nuclear families, both the husband and wife are employed in 70% of households.²⁴ Single parents and parents who combine the domestic and wage earner roles are confronted by additional constraints resulting from the spatial structure of the suburbs. For example, zoning ordinances may exclude or highly condition the location of childcare in residential districts because it is not a residential use of property. This is ironic as there is no other use as integral to single-family district as the raising of children. Ritzdorf states, “since the original decision establishing the constitutionality of single-family zoning (Euclid v. Ambler) in 1926, the importance of this housing district for children is brought up in virtually all defenses of zoning”.²⁵ But the actual impact of this zoning paradigm on children is questionable: limited walkability leads to obesity, limited public space creates a sense of isolation that reduces opportunities for play and exploration, and concerns over security relegate children to the private sphere.²⁶

The construction of the workplace separated from the residence, male space from that of the female, and city from suburb constrains suburban men as well. The fragmented landscape has young families reconsidering whether the suburb is, any longer, the ideal place to raise a family with the forced separation of work and family spheres and the increased commuting costs and stress for all family members.²⁷ Communities are beginning to respond to these tensions and attempts are being made to break down these barriers and plan for more family-friendly communities.²⁸

The separation of uses characteristic of traditional zoning ordinances has significant implications for working suburban parents in terms of commuting time and distance.²⁹ Women have shorter commute times and distances on average than men, but growth rates vary considerably between sexes.³⁰ Over the past two decades, married women with children saw their work trips lengthen by 34%, while married men with children experienced half that growth, and married women have, on average, shorter trips than single women.³¹ One explanation is that marriage leaves the average woman with additional family responsibilities, encouraging greater proximity between work and home, while doing just the opposite for men.³² The disparity in commute time and distance between men and women, and between married and unmarried women, is a reflection of the triple burden that is created when landscapes remain stagnant against societal changes.

As postwar suburbanization supported the rapid growth of the nuclear family, it also saw a decline in extended family households during the same period. In 1940, approximately a quarter of the population lived in a multi-generational household, and by 1980, just 12%.³³ Over the past decade the percentage of multi-generational households increased to 16.1% of households in 2010.³⁴ This is a significant trend reversal, and signals a change in how the suburban landscape is being used.

Non-white families are most likely to live in multi-generational households, with Asians (26%), blacks (24%) and Hispanics (23%) accounting for the majority of these households in 2009.³⁵ With the increase of these groups in the suburbs, the role of the multi-generational household is becoming more important. As poverty rates are highest for Black and Hispanic families,³⁶ residing in a multigenerational household could improve the financial situation for some families by reducing housing and childcare costs.

The American suburb is also becoming more racially diverse. In 1990, just 17% of suburban residents were non-white.³⁷ By 2010, non-whites represented 35% of suburban residents, similar to their share of the US population and higher than any other time in history.³⁸ In many of these metropolitan areas, immigrants are bypassing the central city and moving straight into suburban areas, bucking historical trends that have been in place for over a century.³⁹

The Hispanic population is primarily responsible for this demographic shift, accounting for 49% of suburban population growth – compared to only 9% of growth due to whites between 2000 and 2010. In the decade prior (1990–2000), Hispanics accounted for only 38% of suburban growth, compared to 26% for whites.⁴⁰ Today 45% of metropolitan Hispanics live in suburbs.⁴¹ However, segregation remains high in areas with a fast growing Hispanic population.⁴² See Table 1.

Table 1.

Population, by Suburb and City: 1950 – 2012

	1960	1970	1980	1990	2000	2012
Total US Population	179,323,175	203,211,926	226,545,805	248,709,873	281,421,906	309,138,711
Metropolitan Population	119,594,754	139,418,811	169,430,623	192,725,741	225,981,679	258,777,679
Central City	50.1%	45.8%	40.0%	40.4%	37.8%	43.4%
Suburb	49.9%	54.2%	60.0%	59.6%	62.2%	56.6%
Black Metro Population	12,194,000	16,749,356	21,477,741	25,122,054	29,893,271	33,571,696
Central City	79.6%	78.4%	71.2%	68.3%	61.6%	59.8%
Suburb	20.4%	21.6%	28.8%	31.7%	38.4%	40.2%
Hispanic Metro Population	Not Available		12,794,946	20,204,818	32,173,942	46,778,854
Central City			57.4%	57.0%	51.2%	54.7%
Suburb			42.6%	43.0%	48.8%	45.3%
Age 65 and over Metro Population	9,813,103	12,896,938	18,124,676	27,945,232	26,958,060	32,500,612
Central City	Not Avail.	53.2%	44.2%	42.6%	36.6%	40.6%
Suburb		46.8%	55.8%	57.6%	63.4%	59.4%

NOTES:

Based on all metropolitan areas in census year. Number has increased since 1960

1960–2000 data from decennial census publications (source: http://www.census.gov/prod/www/decennial.html)¹⁰⁵

2012 data from American Community Survey, 5-year estimates 2008 to 2012¹⁰⁶

2000 and 2012 Black population for One Race, Non-Hispanic

2000 and 2012 Hispanic for All Races

Increasing diversity is not just linked to the Hispanic population; for the first time, 40% of blacks in metropolitan areas now reside in the suburbs.⁴³ Historically blacks have had a lower rate of suburbanization due to racial zoning, housing discrimination, and significant income disparities.⁴⁴ The increase could be explained by a dual process of deconcentration of low-income households to the suburbs⁴⁵ and movement of wealthier black households to suburbs seeking better educational or employment opportunities.

The increase in racial diversity implies a transformation of the suburbs’ cultural identity. A 2009 study of suburban immigration in Prince William County, Virginia – a suburb of Washington DC revealed significant increases in Hispanic homeownership, but also a change in the ‘feel’ of older neighborhoods traditionally inhabited by non-Hispanic residents. These differences included changes in the outward appearances of houses and property – parking on lawns, overcrowding as evidenced by multiple vehicles and unrelated persons sharing homes, home based businesses and an increase in outdoor activities and noise levels.⁴⁶ Many of these uses were violations of local ordinances – regulations that were created to foster the postwar suburban ideal of a nuclear family with one vehicle.

The suburb is also aging with the 65+ age group accounting for 13% of suburban residents in 2010,⁴⁷ with dramatic increases projected over the next 30 years as a result of the aging baby boomer generation. As table 1 shows, 59% of metropolitan seniors now live in the suburbs. This phenomenon is not restricted to the Sun Belt, as the recent trend of aging in place combined with declines in youth in suburban areas have led to greater concentrations of seniors in suburban areas outside of traditional ‘retirement magnets.’⁴⁸ Those aging in place are forced to reevaluate the space in which they have spent their lives. Maintaining homes and yards requires more effort, driving everywhere becomes expensive and eventually impossible, and the absence of sidewalks and infrastructure in most suburban areas limits older adults’ civic engagement.

As the proportion of elders rises in the suburbs, pressure will mount to increase walkability, service and housing options that enable elders to stay and age in their home communities. However, many zoning and building regulations actively function as barriers against adapting spaces to meet the needs of an aging population resulting in “Peter Pan neighborhoods built to serve residents who will never age.”⁴⁹ Prohibitive regulations include the exclusion or heavy regulation of accessory dwelling units, cohousing arrangements, and elder care facilities.⁵⁰

Changing Economics

Suburbs are not only facing changing demographics, but they are also dealing with changing economics. In 2008, for the first time, suburban poverty rates were higher than those of cities, making suburbs home to the largest and the fastest-growing poor population in the country.⁵¹ The migration of poverty⁵² is the result of employment decentralization, gentrification of central city neighborhoods, declining regional economic conditions, and decreased housing prices in the inner-ring.⁵³ Employment decentralization is one of the largest contributors to the suburbanization of poverty as the US economic base shifted from central city-based manufacturing into a mix of high and low skill service jobs in the suburbs.⁵⁴ However, the movement of commercial and retail establishments to the suburbs created a labor shortage in which low-wage service jobs struggle to find workers.⁵⁵ This spatial mismatch led to a federal response with the Job Access Reverse Commute (JARC) program that seeks to meet the transportation needs of low-income persons to suburban jobs. However, JARC is a ‘band-aid’ solution, and a more permanent solution needs to be enacted at the local level, such as constructing affordable multi-family housing in the suburbs for these workers.⁵⁶ This development type would enhance workers’ productivity and reduce environmental costs of commuting, but is often prohibited by zoning ordinances that privilege single-family housing.

The fate of the suburb is tied to the fate of the city, and declining regional economic health has increased poverty rates in the suburbs. Many poor suburbs have a large portion of their population engaged in manufacturing or low skill services, and are characterized by low property values, low rates of owner-occupied housing, and an above-average rate of vacant houses.⁵⁷ Lee-Chevula⁵⁸ finds a clustering of low-income populations in inner ring suburbs located closest to principal cities.

The combination of economic and demographic change forces many suburban communities to confront the ‘problems of little cities’ such as a limited tax base and lack of affordable housing. These communities also lack the social service agencies necessary to meet the needs of a low-income population.⁵⁹ Suburbs have traditionally been considered the privileged location in the metropolitan landscape, with low service and infrastructure costs, high property values, and low poverty.⁶⁰ However, much of the postwar, inner-ring suburban tract housing is low quality and the infrastructure built in this period needs to be replaced.⁶¹ These suburbs face significant fiscal barriers due to the shortage of commercial or industrial land, a limited tax base and high social needs.⁶²

The United States is a suburban nation, but the residents of the suburb are changing. The suburb is now as diverse as the overall US population. But these residents are often confronted with a built environment governed by regulations that create unnecessary tensions between home and work and challenge shifting cultural norms. These tensions, however, offer a potential for change. The first zoning ordinances were a reaction to the tensions created by rapidly industrializing cities at the turn of the last century. Planners and residents, therefore, have the opportunity to take advantage of the tensions today to reshape planning practice to better meet the needs of the modern suburban community.

5. Potential for Remaking the Suburb

American land use classifications, definitions, and standards need to be remade to reflect changing cultural and economic standards. In order to remake these communities, practitioners and scholars need to challenge the underlying assumptions of the planning paradigm to meet the needs of these new residents who conceive and produce space in different ways.

The physical design of a community represents a moment in time that is continually reevaluated by subsequent inhabitants. Lefebvre defines these ‘moments’ as points of rupture in the rhythms of work and leisure that enable residents to subtly remake the spaces in which they live and work.⁶³ Urban scholars are giving increasing attention to these moments and the ways in which residents alter both the physical space and their interpretation of it through use, without formally challenging ideals and power structures. This potential to remake space has especially captured urban scholars’ attention as regards public space in cities.⁶⁴ We argue this process is occurring in suburbs as current residents use the built environment, both private homes and public spaces, in new ways such as converting dead malls into productive community spaces.⁶⁵

Applying Lefebvre’s triad of spaces⁶⁶ - perceived, conceived, and lived - offers the potential for remaking the suburb. Perceived space is the space of every life; it is created through popular belief and action and experienced by all. Conceived space is the theoretical space in which urban planning sits. Lived space involves the imagination and has the power to reconfigure the relationship between popular perceived space and official or municipal conceived space. As the suburbs become more diverse and used in ways other than originally conceived, scholars and planners are faced with two questions. What do these demographic changes imply about a transformation of the suburb’s cultural identity? And, will communities embrace and support this shift or undermine it with a rigid adherence to historical conceptions and uses of zoning structures?

Three major factors create an opening for a planning response: the marketing imperatives created by changing demographics, the fiscal stress facing many suburban communities and the actions of current residents that challenge traditional land use regulation. Suburban communities are especially responsive to developers, and the pressures of demographic change create new opportunities for the growth coalition of government and real estate developers⁶⁷ to be responsive to changing resident needs. As population shifts, there will be demographic and marketing imperatives for reshaping suburbia; a market demand for smaller houses, multi-generational houses and location efficient mortgages.⁶⁸ Harnessing the growth coalition of business, developer, and local government interests to retrofit suburban space could be an efficient and cost effective method to meet market demands of the aging and non-white population.⁶⁹ Indeed, communities that plan for elders have been able to generate a market response to providing more services for elders,⁷⁰ thereby relieving some of the burden on government services.

In addition, residents themselves have the power to reshape the suburb. This is occurring both inside and outside the home as residents use land, housing and services in new ways and challenge traditional regulations governing land use. For example, new technology and ease of communication allows many suburban residents to merge home and work.⁷¹ However, working from home violates one of the most protected norms of zoning, the separation of workplace from residence;⁷² as a result, many zoning ordinances restrict or prohibit home-based business.⁷³ Rather than challenging these new uses as a violation of zoning codes, communities can incorporate these innovative responses into revised zoning and incentive schemes to better meet the needs of current residents and encourage participation in the process of reshaping suburbia. Residents may become “insurgent suburbanites,” helping to increase density, promote mixed use, and address inadequate public space and service provision through their actions. The question is, will planning and zoning schemes respond and allow a permanent, formal reshaping to take place?

6. Planning Responses

To respond to new suburban realities, the underlying assumptions of traditional zoning ordinances – the separation of uses and preference for single-family housing – need to be challenged. In this next section, we highlight four planning responses that work towards this transformation: rethinking the zoning hierarchy, new forms of densification, moving beyond family definitions, and new forms of service delivery.

Rethinking the Zoning Hierarchy

A critical component of remaking the suburb is changing rules and structures, especially zoning regulations. Reprioritizing the zoning hierarchy (see Figure 1) might allow for a range of housing options, increased tax base, and reduce the environmental and social impacts of single-use zoning. This is already occurring in many localities, where Euclidean zoning ordinances are being supplanted by form-based codes that allow for a greater mixing of commercial, residential and industrial uses.⁷⁴ Some communities have started to reprioritize commercial over residential uses since the Kelo vs. New London⁷⁵ case in 2005, which held that economic development on private property was a legitimate public use because of the increase in tax value. Fiscally constrained localities are privileging commercial development as the highest use in order to boost tax revenue (sales and/or hotel occupancy tax). This reprioritization of use may provide for the introduction of mixed use in suburban neighborhoods, helping suburbs become more full service communities, if planned appropriately. Indeed the 2008 APA survey found that 90% of planners reported that their communities allow mixed use.⁷⁶ However such reprioritization also risks demolition of lower valued residential housing in favor of commercial development.⁷⁷ A proper balance needs to be found.

The incorporation of new urbanist principles or mixed use into both new and existing neighborhoods rethinks the zoning hierarchy (Figure 1). However, new urbanism has limited reach for many suburbs;⁷⁸ the density of demand in many suburban areas may not justify such development patterns and research suggests these new urbanist developments are generally unaffordable for most families. Just as suburban areas waxed with the rise of the automobile, they risk waning with the shift toward lower commuting times and efforts to redevelop the city for families and promote more transit-oriented development within the inner ring.⁷⁹

With new urbanism’s limited applicability in suburban areas, communities must look to other solutions that build from the increasing diversity of the suburb and respond to the needs of all suburban residents. These solutions include the densification of single-family neighborhoods and the elimination of family discriminatory definitions from traditional zoning ordinances.

Forms of Densification

One method to increase density and housing options in an existing community is to permit accessory dwelling units in single-family neighborhoods. These spaces provide legal residence for extended family members, child or elder caregivers, or may increase the affordability of housing. However, the 2008 American Planning Association survey found that only 25% of responding planners reported their communities allowed accessory flats by right, and 36% by special use permit.⁸⁰ Restrictive zoning regulations are the most influential barrier to creating accessible and affordable housing for the aging population.⁸¹

Resistance to the inclusion of alternative forms of housing may stem from neighbor concerns regarding overcrowding, degradation of neighborhood quality, and declining property values. These concerns may be attributed to accessory dwelling units being framed only as an affordable housing issue, not as a family caregiving issue.⁸² They also may be unwarranted as demonstrated by Seattle’s successful accessory flat legislation.⁸³ In a more radical vision, Hayden⁸⁴ imagines the conversion of a single-family suburban block to one that includes multifamily housing, a common vegetable garden, childcare, and community kitchen area. Co-housing arrangements, such as this, are limited by land cost and prohibitive zoning regulations⁸⁵ but may be an effective response to the desire for more inter-generational living. However, the 2008 APA survey found only 19% of planners reported their communities promoted cooperative housing or common living spaces (e.g., shared yards).⁸⁶

The retrofitting of existing single-family homes offers perhaps the greatest potential for remaking the suburb. Both large and small residences can be converted to senior or multi-family housing in response to the needs of the aging and diversifying suburban population. A traditional three-bedroom home can be transformed into a three-unit structure by reconfiguring the interior space to allow for smaller apartments and additional kitchens. This is part of the “green homes” design being promoted for seniors today.⁸⁷ However, traditional ordinances that prevent conversion of single-family homes need to be amended.

The opportunity for reconfiguring single-family housing may be driven by empty nest and downsizing households, which are expected to account for about 75% of the demand for new housing between 2010 and 2030, contrasted with only a 25% demand from the starter home and peak space demand households.⁸⁸ The Great Recession left many new platted housing developments unbuilt,⁸⁹ and this creates an opening to reimagine the form these new development might take.

Amending the traditional Euclidean-based zoning ordinances to permit a variety of housing types in a single zone, and the conversion of single-family houses into multi-family, commercial, or mixed-use structures are ways in which planners can respond to changing suburban demographics.

Elimination of Discriminatory Family Definitions

Discriminatory family definitions, such as those that unduly limit the number of unrelated individuals living together, need to be eliminated from zoning ordinances and replaced with reasonable standards for neighborhood densities that apply to both related and unrelated individuals. The most effective approach to provide for the needs of ‘non-traditional’ households is to eliminate the right of communities to define family at the state level as New Jersey did in the State vs. Baker (1979) decision⁹⁰. At the local level, municipalities have two choices – to define family functionally or not to define family and employ regulations to prohibit overcrowding. Defining a functional family can be troublesome for policymakers because the definition needs to be enforceable. In many cases, a functional family is synonymous with a single housekeeping unit identified by communal cooking, pooled finances, or shared domestic responsibilities.⁹¹ The functional family definition offers some promise because it removes the marriage or blood-related requirement from the regulation, but still conforms to a traditional view of what makes a family. Another option for policymakers is to adopt lifestyle-neutral ordinances or form-based codes. These types of ordinances retain the height and yard restrictions of traditional single-family ordinances without regulating the household composition with restrictive definitions.⁹² This incremental change would provide for a range of household types to occupy a single-family neighborhood with minimal impact on the surrounding residences.

New Approaches to Service Delivery

Suburban communities, by providing a variety of housing options, will begin to meet the needs of aging and low-income residents. However, suburbs lag in providing the transportation and community services needed by such groups.⁹³ Many suburbs, especially those in the inner ring, also lack adequate public space and parks. Communities can tackle these barriers by embracing multi-generational planning methods to address the provision of community services and space, promote joint use agreements with schools, and foster greater resident engagement.⁹⁴

Joint Use Agreements with Schools

A joint-use agreement outlines specific terms and conditions for shared use of a facility between a school and a municipal or community organization.⁹⁵ As the population ages and diversifies, the potential to use school facilities for a broader range of services increases. Typical uses include: elder care, childcare, community recreation, community kitchens and social engagement space. Joint-use agreements can extend beyond a brick-and-mortar facility to include a transit system (the school bus) that connects housing to the school. Especially for suburban neighborhoods that lack much public space, the school can become a community-wide center. Challenges in funding, liability and security can be overcome with careful planning.⁹⁶

Developer Impact Fees

One method of increasing service provision in suburbs is through impact fees in new developments. In California, planners have imposed impact fees to ensure childcare is built in new neighborhoods, and have used transportation planning dollars to build childcare centers in bus transfer stations.⁹⁷ Australia has a long history of using impact fees to fund a wide array of neighborhood services – from bikeways to parks to libraries and childcare.⁹⁸ A recent study in the United States found communities using impact fees for child and family services benefitted from lower crime rates.⁹⁹ However, impact fees only work in places experiencing development pressure.

Neighborhood Improvement Districts (NID)

For older, built-out suburbs facing financial stress, one option might be the creation of neighborhood improvement districts, similar to Business Improvement Districts, but for improving residential services.¹⁰⁰ NIDs could be utilized in existing suburban neighborhoods as a means to help residents redesign neighborhoods for their needs, enhance services, and increase the amount and diversity of public space. Such an approach would increase investment by residents, help stabilize declining neighborhoods, and reduce costs to government.¹⁰¹ New York Academy of Medicine advocates the neighborhood improvement district concept as a public participation tool to ensure that the needs and voices of seniors are heard in neighborhood planning.¹⁰² However, these NIDs need to be designed so they accommodate rather than suppress new cultural uses of space by a more diverse resident population, a problem often cited in neighborhood business improvement districts.¹⁰³ While such neighborhood-based approaches have been criticized for fragmenting the city with different service levels for different neighborhoods,¹⁰⁴ these approaches, like impact fees and joint-use agreements, may offer promise for redeveloping fiscally stressed and inner ring suburbs.

7. Conclusion

The American suburb and the planning model that created it are at a critical juncture, a moment when demographic and economic changes create both a need and an opening for reshaping the suburb. With an increasing number of non-whites, lone seniors, families in poverty, and multi-generational households, a new population inhabits the suburb. However, the materiality of the suburban built environment – low density, auto-dependent, separated uses – is in conflict with the increasing ethnic and economic diversity of the suburb. And the production of space by new suburban residents is obstructed by a stagnant built environment and land use regulations that both reflect and reinforce past perceptions of the suburban community.

Today’s suburb is not your mother’s suburb. As the new suburban population negotiates the tension created by using space in ‘un-planned’ ways, they generate new market demands and openings for innovative planning to reshape the suburb. By utilizing this tension as an imperative to reshape the suburb, communities have an opportunity to better meet the needs of a diversifying suburban population.