Report: Suburbs must compromise on traffic for economic success
It’s just one sentence, but it speaks volumes: “Accept some traffic congestion near activity centers as a tradeoff for dense, economically productive uses.”
That suggestion, buried within an exhaustive new report on Houston-area suburbs, is nothing less than a radical idea in a region where congestion has been a universally recognized demon for decades. The state has spent billions to widen freeways.
Neighborhood groups have wielded traffic studies like bludgeons in their battles against unwanted developments. The paramount importance of keeping vehicles moving as quickly as possible has rarely been questioned.
The heretical statement about congestion appears in a report, “Building Stronger Suburbs,” released last week by Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research and the nonprofit Urban Land Institute. Among several case studies, the report examines the Imperial Market development, a $200 million mixed-use project planned at the site of Sugar Land’s historic sugar refinery. The report notes that Sugar Land is reviewing its land-use policies; the item about accepting “some traffic congestion” is one of several proposals.
Before traffic-weary residents storm City Hall, I should note the obvious fact that no one enjoys inching along a backed-up freeway, and no one is suggesting that efforts to ease congestion should be abandoned. The idea is that in certain circumstances, a little congestion might be a reasonable tradeoff for the benefits of dense activity centers like the popular Sugar Land Town Square.
In search of a central message to distill from the 68-page Kinder Institute report, I came away with this: If suburbs are to flourish in a sustainable and equitable way, they must become more like cities. This means that their residents must
learn to embrace, or at least to tolerate, some of the things they sought to avoid by living in the suburbs.
Apartments are one example. A Sugar Land developer’s proposal to include 900 multifamily units in a mixed-use projects led to strong opposition. And suburban residents often object to plans calling for pockets of higher density, which remind them of crowded central cities.
“The reaction to density is, ‘That’s not why I moved to the suburbs,’ ” said Kyle Shelton, a Kinder Institute postdoctoral fellow who wrote the report. “Whether or not these are legitimate concerns, they are certainly deeply felt and deeply held by a lot of folks.”
‘Urban suburbs’
As the report notes, many suburban communities already are becoming more urban. If “urban suburb” sounds like an oxymoron, it’s because we think in terms of geography rather than development styles. Sugar Land and The Woodlands are suburbs, obviously, but Sugar Land Town Square and The Woodlands Town Center are fine examples of the dense, walkable developments with a mix of uses — offices, homes, entertainment — that define contemporary urbanism.
A key theme of the report is the need for cooperation and coordination across the area’s municipalities and suburbs. This is a difficult challenge in a region that has hundreds of jurisdictions, from cities and counties to special-purpose districts.
This is not to say that all of the region’s suburbs should look or feel the same. But a broad consensus on goals and visions — “adopting and sharing best practices,” as the report puts it — would be a useful starting point.
Brave leadership needed
Achieving this will require navigating the tension between the conventional view of suburbia — tidy neighborhoods of single-family homes on spacious lots, separated from commercial centers — and the evolving vision laid out in the Kinder Institute report. And making high-quality suburban developments affordable, Shelton acknowledged, is a “huge challenge.”
Brave, thoughtful leadership will be required if the area’s suburbs are to grow in a sustainable way, and if their best features are to be available to families across a range of incomes. It will be interesting to see who steps up, and where.