WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.500 I want to start this off by trying a little experiment 00:00:02.500 --> 00:00:04.639 I want you to close your eyes for a second okay 00:00:04.639 --> 00:00:07.019 unless you're driving of course please don't 00:00:07.019 --> 00:00:09.220 close your eyes if you're driving but if you 00:00:09.220 --> 00:00:11.119 can just for a moment close all right they're 00:00:11.119 --> 00:00:13.660 closed now I want you to picture the suburbs 00:00:13.660 --> 00:00:16.359 just let that image pop into your head I'm very 00:00:16.359 --> 00:00:18.300 curious what you're seeing right now okay well 00:00:18.300 --> 00:00:22.640 personally I'm seeing a A very specific shade 00:00:22.640 --> 00:00:25.480 of green, you know, that perfectly manicured, 00:00:25.480 --> 00:00:28.079 almost unnaturally green lawn. Oh, yeah. The 00:00:28.079 --> 00:00:30.719 golf course green. Exactly. Maybe there's a sprinkler 00:00:30.719 --> 00:00:33.399 going chick chick in the background. I see a 00:00:33.399 --> 00:00:35.539 winding cul -de -sac where kids are riding bikes, 00:00:35.579 --> 00:00:38.409 but. You know, not too far. Right, just in that 00:00:38.409 --> 00:00:41.130 little loop. And a two -car garage. It's quiet. 00:00:41.350 --> 00:00:44.890 It's safe. It's basically the set of every single 00:00:44.890 --> 00:00:47.630 American sitcom from, I don't know, Leave it 00:00:47.630 --> 00:00:50.289 to Beaver all the way up to Modern Family. That 00:00:50.289 --> 00:00:53.030 is the dominant cultural image, without a doubt. 00:00:53.090 --> 00:00:55.049 It's the American dream package. It's what's 00:00:55.049 --> 00:00:58.310 been sold to us for, what, 80 years now? At least. 00:00:58.409 --> 00:01:01.030 But, and I kind of hate to shatter the illusion 00:01:01.030 --> 00:01:03.710 right here at the start, if you're clinging to 00:01:03.710 --> 00:01:07.239 that specific image, you are basically missing 00:01:07.239 --> 00:01:09.980 the entire story. The entire story. Of what is 00:01:09.980 --> 00:01:12.180 actually happening to our planet, yes. That feels 00:01:12.180 --> 00:01:14.560 like a very heavy start for a discussion about 00:01:14.560 --> 00:01:17.319 lawns and garages. It sounds dramatic, I know. 00:01:17.540 --> 00:01:19.620 But the research we're about to dive into today 00:01:19.620 --> 00:01:22.459 suggests that the whole Desperate Housewives 00:01:22.459 --> 00:01:26.000 version of the suburbs is a tiny, tiny fraction 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:28.540 of the global reality. So that image in my head 00:01:28.540 --> 00:01:30.980 is just a mirage. It's not a mirage, it's just 00:01:30.980 --> 00:01:34.250 incomplete. Yeah. The actual story of suburbanization 00:01:34.250 --> 00:01:38.269 is so much messier. It's a massive global engine 00:01:38.269 --> 00:01:40.950 that is, and this is no exaggeration, fundamentally 00:01:40.950 --> 00:01:43.769 rewriting our economics, our psychology, the 00:01:43.769 --> 00:01:45.829 environment, and even the very way we interact 00:01:45.829 --> 00:01:47.870 as human beings. And that is exactly why we're 00:01:47.870 --> 00:01:49.650 here today. We have a mountain of research articles, 00:01:49.829 --> 00:01:52.469 historical deep dives, economic reports, and 00:01:52.469 --> 00:01:55.590 our whole mission is to deconstruct the sprawl. 00:01:55.590 --> 00:01:57.709 We're going to find out that this isn't just 00:01:57.709 --> 00:02:00.340 about where you sleep at night. This is about 00:02:00.340 --> 00:02:03.260 a population shift that might be one of the most 00:02:03.260 --> 00:02:05.659 significant and maybe one of the most overlooked 00:02:05.659 --> 00:02:09.919 events in human history. It's really not an exaggeration 00:02:09.919 --> 00:02:13.860 to say that. We are talking about a total reorganization 00:02:13.860 --> 00:02:17.280 of how the human species lives. And frankly, 00:02:17.439 --> 00:02:19.419 we need to move past that white picket fence 00:02:19.419 --> 00:02:22.780 to even begin to understand the true cost of 00:02:22.780 --> 00:02:25.000 that reorganization. OK, so let's start at the 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:27.099 very, very beginning. We throw this word around 00:02:27.099 --> 00:02:29.789 constantly, suburbanization. All the time. I 00:02:29.789 --> 00:02:31.490 realized while I was prepping for this that I 00:02:31.490 --> 00:02:33.849 probably used the word suburb three or four times 00:02:33.849 --> 00:02:36.810 a week. But if you, you know, put a gun to my 00:02:36.810 --> 00:02:38.469 head, I'm not sure I could give you a perfect 00:02:38.469 --> 00:02:41.250 dictionary definition. Is it just not the city? 00:02:41.599 --> 00:02:43.039 That's how most people define it, really, by 00:02:43.039 --> 00:02:44.800 the negative. It's not the city and it's not 00:02:44.800 --> 00:02:46.580 the countryside. It's that in -between space. 00:02:46.900 --> 00:02:50.419 The gray area. Exactly. But technically, suburbanization 00:02:50.419 --> 00:02:54.120 is a process, not just a place. That's the key 00:02:54.120 --> 00:02:56.180 distinction. Probably a process. It's defined 00:02:56.180 --> 00:02:59.199 as a population shift, a movement of people from 00:02:59.199 --> 00:03:02.020 central urban areas or sometimes even from rural 00:03:02.020 --> 00:03:04.939 areas outward. And what it results in is this 00:03:04.939 --> 00:03:08.139 low -density peripheral growth. Peripheral growth. 00:03:08.319 --> 00:03:10.860 Yeah. That sounds like a medical condition. It 00:03:10.860 --> 00:03:12.539 sort of behaves like one sometimes, spreading 00:03:12.539 --> 00:03:14.340 and changing things. But a good way to think 00:03:14.340 --> 00:03:16.879 about it is like a target. Okay. The bullseye 00:03:16.879 --> 00:03:19.080 is the city center. That's your high density, 00:03:19.240 --> 00:03:22.340 your skyscrapers, the tight streets. Suburbanization 00:03:22.340 --> 00:03:25.060 is the ripple effect when you drop a stone in 00:03:25.060 --> 00:03:27.520 the water. It's the process where the population 00:03:27.520 --> 00:03:30.240 moves into those outer rings. That's a great 00:03:30.240 --> 00:03:32.300 visual. And urban planners have a name for this, 00:03:32.300 --> 00:03:34.020 right? You do. It's called the concentric zone 00:03:34.020 --> 00:03:36.599 model. It's this classic idea that settlement 00:03:36.599 --> 00:03:39.139 just naturally drives outward from a central 00:03:39.139 --> 00:03:41.520 point. So the city is the stone dropped in the 00:03:41.520 --> 00:03:44.180 pond and the suburbs are the ripples. Ideally, 00:03:44.300 --> 00:03:46.939 yes. In a perfect, neat world, that's how it 00:03:46.939 --> 00:03:50.039 works. But here is the catch. And this is really 00:03:50.039 --> 00:03:52.080 where our sources open my eyes. What's the catch? 00:03:52.340 --> 00:03:55.319 That ripple looks totally, completely different 00:03:55.319 --> 00:03:57.159 depending on where in the world you drop that 00:03:57.159 --> 00:04:00.789 stone. Meaning in the U .S. The ripple is that 00:04:00.789 --> 00:04:03.710 car -centric sprawl we all know, that image you 00:04:03.710 --> 00:04:05.870 had in your head. But if you go to Eastern Europe 00:04:05.870 --> 00:04:10.949 or East Asia or the Global South, suburbia looks 00:04:10.949 --> 00:04:13.330 nothing like a cul -de -sac. It's a completely 00:04:13.330 --> 00:04:15.250 different animal. I saw that in the notes and 00:04:15.250 --> 00:04:16.949 it honestly confused me at first. We're going 00:04:16.949 --> 00:04:18.829 to be talking about things like chaotic suburbs 00:04:18.829 --> 00:04:21.930 in Romania and rail -oriented suburbs in Japan. 00:04:22.329 --> 00:04:24.750 It seems like the only thing they have in common 00:04:24.750 --> 00:04:27.350 is that they aren't the city center. They do 00:04:27.350 --> 00:04:30.139 share one other crucial thing. A fundamental 00:04:30.139 --> 00:04:33.480 tension. A trade -off. A trade -off. No matter 00:04:33.480 --> 00:04:35.959 where you are in the world, suburbanization always 00:04:35.959 --> 00:04:38.660 boils down to trading proximity for space. Okay, 00:04:38.699 --> 00:04:40.639 break that down. You are making a conscious or 00:04:40.639 --> 00:04:42.680 unconscious decision. You're saying, I want more 00:04:42.680 --> 00:04:44.879 room, I want more affordability, and you are 00:04:44.879 --> 00:04:47.100 willing to pay for it with distance from the 00:04:47.100 --> 00:04:49.100 center. And as we are definitely going to find 00:04:49.100 --> 00:04:51.220 out, that payment comes with a lot of hidden 00:04:51.220 --> 00:04:53.819 interest. We're talking about social isolation, 00:04:54.240 --> 00:04:57.060 massive infrastructure bills that come due decades 00:04:57.060 --> 00:05:00.959 later, environmental costs. Exactly. That is 00:05:00.959 --> 00:05:03.720 the central conflict of the last century of human 00:05:03.720 --> 00:05:07.220 development. We traded proximity for space, and 00:05:07.220 --> 00:05:10.199 we are just now, as a society, getting the final 00:05:10.199 --> 00:05:12.990 bill for that transaction. Okay, so to understand 00:05:12.990 --> 00:05:14.930 how we all bought into this trade -off, we have 00:05:14.930 --> 00:05:17.790 to look at the history. And I think for most 00:05:17.790 --> 00:05:20.470 of us, especially in the West, we assume this 00:05:20.470 --> 00:05:24.370 is a post -World War II story, right? The 1950s 00:05:24.370 --> 00:05:27.009 boom. That is certainly the Big Bang of the modern 00:05:27.009 --> 00:05:29.310 American suburb. You absolutely cannot ignore 00:05:29.310 --> 00:05:31.810 it. It's the moment it goes from a gradual process 00:05:31.810 --> 00:05:34.410 to an explosion. What was the trigger for that 00:05:34.410 --> 00:05:36.920 explosion? Well... You had millions of veterans 00:05:36.920 --> 00:05:39.360 returning home from World War II, an entire generation 00:05:39.360 --> 00:05:42.040 coming back at once. And you had the GI Bill, 00:05:42.160 --> 00:05:44.660 which was just this massive government injection 00:05:44.660 --> 00:05:46.720 of capital into the housing market. Right. It 00:05:46.720 --> 00:05:49.180 basically gave veterans access to these incredibly 00:05:49.180 --> 00:05:51.560 low interest mortgages. It made buying a house 00:05:51.560 --> 00:05:53.980 possible. It made homeownership accessible to 00:05:53.980 --> 00:05:56.240 a demographic that historically would have been 00:05:56.240 --> 00:05:59.180 renting for decades. Suddenly, a young family 00:05:59.180 --> 00:06:01.420 in their 20s could afford to buy a brand new 00:06:01.420 --> 00:06:04.100 home. But there was a problem. A housing shortage. 00:06:04.589 --> 00:06:06.769 A massive one. There just weren't enough homes 00:06:06.769 --> 00:06:08.990 in the cities to accommodate this boom. So they 00:06:08.990 --> 00:06:10.670 had to build them. And they had to build them 00:06:10.670 --> 00:06:14.329 fast. And, most importantly, cheap. You couldn't 00:06:14.329 --> 00:06:17.250 build cheap, spacious, single -family homes in 00:06:17.250 --> 00:06:19.550 downtown Manhattan or Chicago. The land was too 00:06:19.550 --> 00:06:21.970 valuable. You needed cheap land. So developers 00:06:21.970 --> 00:06:24.310 looked at the vast tracts of farmland on the 00:06:24.310 --> 00:06:26.850 edge of town and said, We can pave that. We can 00:06:26.850 --> 00:06:29.170 pave that and put up a thousand identical houses. 00:06:29.550 --> 00:06:32.629 And they did. And thus, the Levittowns of the 00:06:32.629 --> 00:06:35.480 world were born. But I do want to push back a 00:06:35.480 --> 00:06:37.699 little on this idea that suburbanization just 00:06:37.699 --> 00:06:41.000 magically started in 1945, because one of the 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:42.879 most fascinating parts of the research you sent 00:06:42.879 --> 00:06:45.560 over was this really deep dive into the history 00:06:45.560 --> 00:06:48.060 of Brooklyn, New York. Yes. The Brooklyn case 00:06:48.060 --> 00:06:50.019 study is absolutely essential. I'm so glad you 00:06:50.019 --> 00:06:51.560 brought that up. If you want to understand the 00:06:51.560 --> 00:06:54.220 mechanics of how a city grows, you have to look 00:06:54.220 --> 00:06:56.589 at Kings County. Which is so funny because today, 00:06:56.709 --> 00:06:58.949 if I say Brooklyn, nobody, and I mean, nobody 00:06:58.949 --> 00:07:02.949 thinks suburb. Brooklyn is the city. It's dense. 00:07:03.129 --> 00:07:06.050 It's urban. It's gritty. It's where you go to 00:07:06.050 --> 00:07:08.350 pay way too much for coffee and live in a converted 00:07:08.350 --> 00:07:11.670 loft apartment. It is now. Absolutely. But that's 00:07:11.670 --> 00:07:14.009 the point. Suburbs are not these static statues. 00:07:14.329 --> 00:07:17.449 They evolve. They have a life cycle. And if you 00:07:17.449 --> 00:07:20.389 go back to the 18th century, Kings County, which 00:07:20.389 --> 00:07:23.370 is the landmass of Brooklyn, was just farmland. 00:07:23.740 --> 00:07:26.500 Really? Just farms? That's it. It was the countryside. 00:07:26.600 --> 00:07:28.800 Its entire purpose was to grow vegetables for 00:07:28.800 --> 00:07:30.560 New York City, which at the time was really just 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:33.339 the southern tip of Manhattan Island. So you 00:07:33.339 --> 00:07:37.160 had Manhattan as this dense, packed urban core, 00:07:37.300 --> 00:07:39.720 and Brooklyn was just the peripheral resource. 00:07:39.899 --> 00:07:41.959 It was totally rural. Completely rural. You would 00:07:41.959 --> 00:07:44.500 not have recognized it. Yeah. But then you have 00:07:44.500 --> 00:07:48.000 a technological shift, a game changer. The steam 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:50.540 ferry arrives. The iPhone moment of the 19th 00:07:50.540 --> 00:07:52.889 century. In a way, yes. I mean, think about it. 00:07:52.889 --> 00:07:55.029 Before the steam ferry, crossing the East River 00:07:55.029 --> 00:07:56.850 was a huge hassle. It was weather dependent. 00:07:57.029 --> 00:07:59.689 It was slow. It was unpredictable. But the steam 00:07:59.689 --> 00:08:02.730 ferry, that makes the commute reliable. And the 00:08:02.730 --> 00:08:04.389 moment you have a reliable commute. You have 00:08:04.389 --> 00:08:06.250 the birth of the commuter town. Enter Brooklyn 00:08:06.250 --> 00:08:09.810 Heights. Exactly. Brooklyn Heights became the 00:08:09.810 --> 00:08:13.509 first true suburb for Wall Street. You had these 00:08:13.509 --> 00:08:15.870 wealthy bankers who worked in the chaos and, 00:08:15.949 --> 00:08:18.629 frankly, the filth of lower Manhattan. Right. 00:08:18.990 --> 00:08:21.370 But they could take this nice, pleasant ferry 00:08:21.370 --> 00:08:25.350 ride home to a quiet tree -lined street in Brooklyn. 00:08:25.529 --> 00:08:28.029 They had fresh air. They had space. They had 00:08:28.029 --> 00:08:31.689 a garden. That sounds incredibly modern. That 00:08:31.689 --> 00:08:33.990 is essentially the exact same pitch that real 00:08:33.990 --> 00:08:37.899 estate agents use today. Work in the city. It's 00:08:37.899 --> 00:08:40.620 the exact same pitch. The fundamental human psychology 00:08:40.620 --> 00:08:44.409 hasn't changed in 200 years. But then the technology 00:08:44.409 --> 00:08:46.750 leveled up again. You get the streetcars. And 00:08:46.750 --> 00:08:48.509 the streetcars changed the geometry of the entire 00:08:48.509 --> 00:08:50.370 thing. They completely changed it. We can't do 00:08:50.370 --> 00:08:52.309 it. The ferry only opens up the land that's right 00:08:52.309 --> 00:08:54.289 next to the water. The streetcar allows you to 00:08:54.289 --> 00:08:56.710 penetrate miles inland from the ferry terminal. 00:08:57.049 --> 00:08:59.269 Suddenly, the city of Brooklyn starts to sprawl. 00:08:59.269 --> 00:09:00.929 It just keeps pushing outward, following those 00:09:00.929 --> 00:09:02.929 streetcar lines until it fills up the entire 00:09:02.929 --> 00:09:05.070 county. And as more and more people moved in, 00:09:05.230 --> 00:09:07.470 businesses must have followed. It couldn't just 00:09:07.470 --> 00:09:11.350 be houses forever. Precisely. This is the critical 00:09:11.350 --> 00:09:14.269 phase shift that we so often miss in this story. 00:09:14.929 --> 00:09:17.190 Initially, it's just a bedroom community. People 00:09:17.190 --> 00:09:18.889 are sleeping there and leaving for work. Right. 00:09:19.009 --> 00:09:21.509 But eventually, factories moved to Brooklyn. 00:09:21.750 --> 00:09:24.700 Why? They wanted to be near their workers and 00:09:24.700 --> 00:09:27.360 they wanted the cheaper land to build bigger, 00:09:27.379 --> 00:09:29.840 more modern factories than they could in Manhattan. 00:09:30.159 --> 00:09:32.620 So the jobs followed the people. And then the 00:09:32.620 --> 00:09:34.740 services followed the jobs. And then apartment 00:09:34.740 --> 00:09:36.799 buildings started to fill in the gaps between 00:09:36.799 --> 00:09:39.779 the single family homes and the factories. And 00:09:39.779 --> 00:09:42.379 then suddenly one day you wake up and Brooklyn 00:09:42.379 --> 00:09:45.929 isn't a suburb anymore. It is. It's become a 00:09:45.929 --> 00:09:48.129 city in its own right with its own gravitational 00:09:48.129 --> 00:09:51.330 pull. So the suburb of today is, in some cases, 00:09:51.429 --> 00:09:53.289 the city of tomorrow. In the American model, 00:09:53.389 --> 00:09:56.389 that is the organic growth cycle, yes. Farm to 00:09:56.389 --> 00:09:59.690 commuter town to edge city to full -blown metropolis. 00:09:59.730 --> 00:10:01.769 Okay, so that's the American model. Organic, 00:10:01.769 --> 00:10:04.230 technology -driven expansion, pulling people 00:10:04.230 --> 00:10:07.190 outward. But the source material throws this 00:10:07.190 --> 00:10:09.970 massive curveball when we look at Eastern Europe. 00:10:10.009 --> 00:10:12.210 It talks about something called under -urbanization. 00:10:12.840 --> 00:10:15.179 I had to read this section twice because it seemed 00:10:15.179 --> 00:10:17.399 to completely contradict everything we just said 00:10:17.399 --> 00:10:19.860 about Brooklyn's growth. It's a fascinating inversion 00:10:19.860 --> 00:10:22.220 of the model. It really is. You have to remember, 00:10:22.340 --> 00:10:24.519 in the mid -20th century, while the U .S. was 00:10:24.519 --> 00:10:27.460 busy building highways and shopping malls, Eastern 00:10:27.460 --> 00:10:30.840 Europe was under socialist regimes. And socialism 00:10:30.840 --> 00:10:33.320 tweets cities very, very differently than capitalism 00:10:33.320 --> 00:10:35.679 does. How so? I mean, at the end of the day, 00:10:35.720 --> 00:10:38.039 people still need places to live, right? Of course. 00:10:38.259 --> 00:10:41.080 But in a market economy, developers build where 00:10:41.080 --> 00:10:43.960 people want to buy. In a command economy, the 00:10:43.960 --> 00:10:47.429 state decides where people live. and, more importantly, 00:10:47.710 --> 00:10:50.590 where investment goes. And the number one socialist 00:10:50.590 --> 00:10:53.570 goal was rapid industrialization. They wanted 00:10:53.570 --> 00:10:56.789 to build things. Factories, steel mills, power 00:10:56.789 --> 00:10:59.870 plants, big, heavy industry. Exactly. And they 00:10:59.870 --> 00:11:01.870 often built these massive industrial complexes 00:11:01.870 --> 00:11:04.370 on the outskirts of existing cities or sometimes 00:11:04.370 --> 00:11:06.149 just out in the middle of rural areas. Okay, 00:11:06.169 --> 00:11:07.889 so if the jobs are on the outskirts, wouldn't 00:11:07.889 --> 00:11:10.230 the people just naturally move to the outskirts? 00:11:10.269 --> 00:11:12.009 That's what happened in Brooklyn when the factories 00:11:12.009 --> 00:11:14.450 moved in? You would think so. It's the logical 00:11:14.450 --> 00:11:17.350 conclusion. But the state didn't have the money, 00:11:17.389 --> 00:11:20.370 or frankly, the political priority, to build 00:11:20.370 --> 00:11:22.929 housing fast enough to keep up with the factory 00:11:22.929 --> 00:11:25.529 jobs. They invested in the machines, not the 00:11:25.529 --> 00:11:28.409 bedrooms. Perfectly put. Plus, you had strict 00:11:28.409 --> 00:11:31.330 political controls on migration. They often restricted 00:11:31.330 --> 00:11:34.029 people from moving into the major cities to prevent 00:11:34.029 --> 00:11:36.629 what they saw as overcrowding and social instability. 00:11:37.309 --> 00:11:39.889 So you had this really bizarre situation where 00:11:39.889 --> 00:11:42.470 rural populations were commuting into these new 00:11:42.470 --> 00:11:44.710 industrial zones, but they weren't allowed to 00:11:44.710 --> 00:11:47.110 actually move there and live there. Right. It 00:11:47.110 --> 00:11:48.970 was very difficult. So they stayed in their villages. 00:11:49.049 --> 00:11:51.990 They remained rural on paper, even though they 00:11:51.990 --> 00:11:54.809 were working industrial jobs. So the urbanization, 00:11:54.929 --> 00:11:58.529 the growth of cities lagged way behind the industrialization. 00:11:58.610 --> 00:12:01.190 That is under urbanization. That explains the 00:12:01.190 --> 00:12:04.830 socialist era. But then everything changes. The 00:12:04.830 --> 00:12:08.029 Iron Curtain falls. The barriers vanish. The 00:12:08.029 --> 00:12:10.590 1990s arrive. And the pressure cooker that's 00:12:10.590 --> 00:12:13.470 been building for 50 years just explodes. This 00:12:13.470 --> 00:12:15.710 is what the research calls the post -socialist 00:12:15.710 --> 00:12:19.029 boom. And if you think American sprawl is chaotic, 00:12:19.289 --> 00:12:21.990 this was on a completely different level. The 00:12:21.990 --> 00:12:26.070 sources use words like informal and wild and 00:12:26.070 --> 00:12:28.610 chaotic. It was the wild west of development. 00:12:28.870 --> 00:12:32.090 Suddenly, the state... completely withdraws they 00:12:32.090 --> 00:12:34.389 aren't providing housing anymore right but there's 00:12:34.389 --> 00:12:36.470 also no functional mortgage market right you 00:12:36.470 --> 00:12:40.110 can't just walk into a bank in say 1991 albania 00:12:40.110 --> 00:12:42.129 and get a 30 -year fixed rate loan with five 00:12:42.129 --> 00:12:44.769 percent down that entire financial infrastructure 00:12:44.769 --> 00:12:47.509 just did not exist yet so if you need a house 00:12:47.509 --> 00:12:49.889 and the government won't give you one and the 00:12:49.889 --> 00:12:52.879 bank won't lend you any money What on earth do 00:12:52.879 --> 00:12:55.759 you do? You build it yourself. Literally. Literally. 00:12:55.820 --> 00:12:58.620 We saw this phenomenon of self -provision just 00:12:58.620 --> 00:13:00.620 skyrocket. People would just go to the edge of 00:13:00.620 --> 00:13:03.019 town, find a plot of land. Sometimes it was agricultural 00:13:03.019 --> 00:13:04.779 land that they owned. Sometimes it was public 00:13:04.779 --> 00:13:06.899 land that they just occupied. And they started 00:13:06.899 --> 00:13:09.360 laying bricks. With no permits, no zoning laws, 00:13:09.539 --> 00:13:13.600 no inspections. Often, yes. The sources mention 00:13:13.600 --> 00:13:16.669 Tirana, the capital of Albania. As a prime example, 00:13:16.929 --> 00:13:19.769 the city essentially doubled in physical size 00:13:19.769 --> 00:13:22.490 during the 90s. And a huge chunk of that growth 00:13:22.490 --> 00:13:27.470 was this informal owner built sprawl. It wasn't 00:13:27.470 --> 00:13:29.610 a developer with a blueprint drawing pretty lines 00:13:29.610 --> 00:13:32.470 on a map. It was thousands of individual families 00:13:32.470 --> 00:13:35.090 desperate for housing, taking matters into their 00:13:35.090 --> 00:13:38.090 own hands. That is such a stark, stark contrast 00:13:38.090 --> 00:13:42.850 to the American veteran. buying a prepackaged 00:13:42.850 --> 00:13:45.269 cookie cutter home in a cul -de -sac. Completely 00:13:45.269 --> 00:13:47.950 different world. It really highlights that suburbanization 00:13:47.950 --> 00:13:51.490 isn't one single thing. It's a process that adapts 00:13:51.490 --> 00:13:54.029 to the local political economic reality. It's 00:13:54.029 --> 00:13:55.830 a shapeshifter. Absolutely. In the U .S., it 00:13:55.830 --> 00:13:58.149 was driven by wealth and deliberate policy. In 00:13:58.149 --> 00:14:00.389 post -socialist Eastern Europe, it was driven 00:14:00.389 --> 00:14:02.389 by survival and the total collapse of policy. 00:14:02.590 --> 00:14:06.149 But the physical result is strangely similar. 00:14:06.960 --> 00:14:09.279 the city spreads out. Okay, so that brings us 00:14:09.279 --> 00:14:11.419 perfectly to the drivers of the spread. We've 00:14:11.419 --> 00:14:12.960 touched on the history, but I want to get deeper 00:14:12.960 --> 00:14:15.120 into the mechanics. What actually pushes and 00:14:15.120 --> 00:14:17.139 pulls people to the edge of the city? We mentioned 00:14:17.139 --> 00:14:18.779 the steam ferry, so obviously transportation 00:14:18.779 --> 00:14:22.679 is huge. Transportation is destiny. I cannot 00:14:22.679 --> 00:14:26.440 stress this enough. The type of transport a society 00:14:26.440 --> 00:14:29.820 prioritizes dictates the entire shape of its 00:14:29.820 --> 00:14:32.059 suburbs. And the research really splits this 00:14:32.059 --> 00:14:34.179 into two main models, right? You have the car 00:14:34.179 --> 00:14:36.480 model and the rail model. Right. The car model 00:14:36.480 --> 00:14:38.860 is what we see in the United States, in Canada, 00:14:38.960 --> 00:14:42.279 Australia, much of the Middle East. If you build 00:14:42.279 --> 00:14:44.379 massive highways as your primary infrastructure, 00:14:44.720 --> 00:14:47.679 you're basically inviting low density scrawl. 00:14:47.980 --> 00:14:50.759 Why is that link so direct? Because a car allows 00:14:50.759 --> 00:14:53.340 you to cover vast distances relatively quickly, 00:14:53.500 --> 00:14:56.259 but it also demands a huge amount of space. You 00:14:56.259 --> 00:14:59.279 need space for multiple lanes, space for exits 00:14:59.279 --> 00:15:01.539 and on -ramps, and most of all, space for parking 00:15:01.539 --> 00:15:03.980 at both ends of the trip. So everything naturally 00:15:03.980 --> 00:15:06.220 spreads out to accommodate the machine. Versus 00:15:06.220 --> 00:15:08.159 the rail model, which we see in places like Japan 00:15:08.159 --> 00:15:10.559 or parts of Europe. Exactly. Take a city like 00:15:10.559 --> 00:15:13.679 Tokyo. It has massive suburbs, millions and millions 00:15:13.679 --> 00:15:16.450 of people commuting every day. but the vast majority 00:15:16.450 --> 00:15:18.450 of them are commuting by train. So what does 00:15:18.450 --> 00:15:20.590 that do to the shape of the city? It creates 00:15:20.590 --> 00:15:23.190 density. The suburbs are clustered tightly around 00:15:23.190 --> 00:15:25.549 the train stations. You get these pockets of 00:15:25.549 --> 00:15:27.750 high -density housing, shops, and offices right 00:15:27.750 --> 00:15:30.070 at the station, and then the density drops off 00:15:30.070 --> 00:15:32.470 as you get further away. It's like a string of 00:15:32.470 --> 00:15:34.929 pearls along the rail line, whereas the American 00:15:34.929 --> 00:15:37.509 car model is more like a spilled bucket of paint. 00:15:37.669 --> 00:15:42.070 A spilled bucket of paint is a very evocative 00:15:42.070 --> 00:15:46.990 and slightly terrifying image. But let's talk 00:15:46.990 --> 00:15:49.970 about the money, the push factors. Why do people 00:15:49.970 --> 00:15:52.370 leave this city in the first place? Is it really 00:15:52.370 --> 00:15:54.570 just that they want a yard for the dog? The yard 00:15:54.570 --> 00:15:57.090 is nice, but usually it's about the wallet. The 00:15:57.090 --> 00:15:59.549 housing market is the primary engine. Rising 00:15:59.549 --> 00:16:02.230 costs in the city centers push people out. It's 00:16:02.230 --> 00:16:04.429 simple supply and demand. There's limited space 00:16:04.429 --> 00:16:07.149 in the core, so prices go up. And there is a 00:16:07.149 --> 00:16:08.990 phrase from the U .S. real estate market that 00:16:08.990 --> 00:16:10.809 the source material mentions, which I think just... 00:16:10.990 --> 00:16:13.929 perfectly captures this entire dynamic. Drive 00:16:13.929 --> 00:16:16.590 until you qualify. It's a brutal phrase, isn't 00:16:16.590 --> 00:16:19.669 it? But it's the absolute reality for millions 00:16:19.669 --> 00:16:22.389 of people. Can you walk us through what that 00:16:22.389 --> 00:16:24.590 actually means for a potential home buyer? What 00:16:24.590 --> 00:16:27.889 does that process look like? So imagine you are 00:16:27.889 --> 00:16:31.009 a young couple. You both work in the city. You've 00:16:31.009 --> 00:16:32.870 saved up a down payment. You want to buy a house. 00:16:33.450 --> 00:16:35.610 You start by looking at the prices in the city 00:16:35.610 --> 00:16:38.230 center. Which are, of course, way out of budget. 00:16:38.389 --> 00:16:40.600 Completely unaffordable. So you get in your car 00:16:40.600 --> 00:16:43.220 and you drive 20 minutes out. You check the prices 00:16:43.220 --> 00:16:45.279 in that first ring of suburbs. Still too high. 00:16:45.399 --> 00:16:47.419 So you drive 40 minutes out. Okay, maybe getting 00:16:47.419 --> 00:16:50.860 warmer. You drive a full hour out. Finally, you 00:16:50.860 --> 00:16:52.620 hit a price point where the bank looks at your 00:16:52.620 --> 00:16:54.879 income and says, okay, based on your salary, 00:16:54.919 --> 00:16:58.139 you qualify for a loan here. So the commute isn't 00:16:58.139 --> 00:17:00.679 really a lifestyle choice for many people. It's 00:17:00.679 --> 00:17:03.379 a financial necessity. You are literally trading 00:17:03.379 --> 00:17:06.559 your time two, three hours a day in a car for 00:17:06.559 --> 00:17:09.400 the ability to own a roof over your head. Precisely. 00:17:09.839 --> 00:17:12.440 You are monetizing your free time and your well 00:17:12.440 --> 00:17:15.440 -being to pay for your mortgage. And we have 00:17:15.440 --> 00:17:17.920 to be clear, government policy plays a huge role 00:17:17.920 --> 00:17:20.630 in this. In North America, we prioritize roadway 00:17:20.630 --> 00:17:23.490 investments above all else. We made it easy to 00:17:23.490 --> 00:17:26.549 drive that hour. We subsidized gasoline for decades. 00:17:26.769 --> 00:17:29.730 We built the interstate freeway system. And crucially, 00:17:29.829 --> 00:17:32.470 we zoned the land in these outlying areas so 00:17:32.470 --> 00:17:34.670 you couldn't build dense apartments, only single 00:17:34.670 --> 00:17:37.369 family homes. So we basically designed the entire 00:17:37.369 --> 00:17:40.049 system to force people to drive until they qualify. 00:17:40.349 --> 00:17:44.029 We greased the skids for sprawl. Yes. We made 00:17:44.029 --> 00:17:46.210 it to the path of least resistance. Now, compare 00:17:46.210 --> 00:17:49.130 that to many places in Europe or East Asia where 00:17:49.130 --> 00:17:52.210 they often have policies like green belts. These 00:17:52.210 --> 00:17:54.690 are the protected natural zones around a city, 00:17:54.750 --> 00:17:57.630 right, where you can't build. Exactly. London 00:17:57.630 --> 00:17:59.910 is the most famous example. There is a literal 00:17:59.910 --> 00:18:02.250 ring around the city where you simply cannot 00:18:02.250 --> 00:18:04.690 build new developments. It forces development 00:18:04.690 --> 00:18:07.269 to either go back inward and be more dense or 00:18:07.269 --> 00:18:10.609 to leapfrog over the belt entirely to plan satellite 00:18:10.609 --> 00:18:13.019 cities. It puts a hard cap on the stilt pink. 00:18:13.599 --> 00:18:15.480 There's one more driver we have to mention, and 00:18:15.480 --> 00:18:16.920 it's one that I think people don't think about 00:18:16.920 --> 00:18:19.160 nearly enough. We always think of suburbs as 00:18:19.160 --> 00:18:21.400 where people live, but the jobs move too. They 00:18:21.400 --> 00:18:23.700 absolutely did. This is such a critical point. 00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:26.619 It wasn't just people fleeing the city. Industry 00:18:26.619 --> 00:18:29.759 fled too. Think about the logistics of the modern 00:18:29.759 --> 00:18:32.380 world. If you are running an Amazon distribution 00:18:32.380 --> 00:18:35.440 center or a car factory or a massive data center, 00:18:35.559 --> 00:18:38.380 do you want to be in the middle of a congested 00:18:38.380 --> 00:18:41.940 city center with narrow one -way streets and 00:18:41.940 --> 00:18:44.900 no parking for trucks? No way! It's a nightmare. 00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:47.000 You want to be right next to a highway exit with 00:18:47.000 --> 00:18:50.119 acres of land. Exactly. Modern logistics demand 00:18:50.119 --> 00:18:52.710 space and speed. Trucks need to be able to get 00:18:52.710 --> 00:18:55.289 in and out quickly. So warehouses and factories 00:18:55.289 --> 00:18:57.569 move to the periphery to reduce their transportation 00:18:57.569 --> 00:19:00.410 and land costs. And of course, once the jobs 00:19:00.410 --> 00:19:02.910 move to the suburbs, the workers have even more 00:19:02.910 --> 00:19:04.809 of an incentive to move there to be closer to 00:19:04.809 --> 00:19:07.329 work. It's a feedback loop. A powerful one. And 00:19:07.329 --> 00:19:09.430 then, of course, you get the 21st century curveball 00:19:09.430 --> 00:19:12.009 that changed everything again. Telecommuting. 00:19:12.109 --> 00:19:14.569 Right. The rise of broadband Internet and then 00:19:14.569 --> 00:19:17.529 the COVID -19 pandemic just massively accelerated 00:19:17.529 --> 00:19:19.450 this trend. If you only have to go into the office 00:19:19.450 --> 00:19:21.839 one or two days a week. Maybe you don't mind 00:19:21.839 --> 00:19:23.900 driving an hour and a half on those days. It 00:19:23.900 --> 00:19:26.019 effectively stretches the tether. The leash gets 00:19:26.019 --> 00:19:28.480 longer. You can drive even further until you 00:19:28.480 --> 00:19:30.440 qualify because you don't have to make that grueling 00:19:30.440 --> 00:19:33.259 drive every single day. Which means the sprawl 00:19:33.259 --> 00:19:35.920 can go even deeper into rural areas than ever 00:19:35.920 --> 00:19:38.680 before. It creates these so -called Zoom towns 00:19:38.680 --> 00:19:41.079 in places that used to be just for vacation. 00:19:41.680 --> 00:19:44.420 Which brings us to a massive looming problem 00:19:44.420 --> 00:19:46.500 that's been hiding in plain sight this whole 00:19:46.500 --> 00:19:49.480 time. We've built all this sprawl. We've driven 00:19:49.480 --> 00:19:51.720 until we qualified. We've paved the farmland. 00:19:51.880 --> 00:19:55.200 But who pays to maintain all of those roads and 00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:59.039 pipes and sewers forever? Ah, yes. The bill always 00:19:59.039 --> 00:20:02.099 comes due. This is Section 3 in our research, 00:20:02.339 --> 00:20:04.799 The Economics of Sprawl. And there is a number 00:20:04.799 --> 00:20:07.140 here that genuinely made my jaw drop when I read 00:20:07.140 --> 00:20:08.599 it. I think I know the one you mean. It's a big 00:20:08.599 --> 00:20:10.880 one. The infrastructure deficit. The research 00:20:10.880 --> 00:20:12.660 we're looking at cites a projection that between 00:20:12.660 --> 00:20:16.140 2005 and 2030, just the cost of maintaining water, 00:20:16.420 --> 00:20:18.859 sewer, and roads for new sprawl in the U .S. 00:20:18.859 --> 00:20:22.079 alone could cost the government $1 .12 trillion. 00:20:22.619 --> 00:20:26.299 It's a staggering number. $1 .12 trillion with 00:20:26.299 --> 00:20:29.039 a T. That is an almost incomprehensible amount 00:20:29.039 --> 00:20:31.400 of money. How do we even get that deep in the 00:20:31.400 --> 00:20:33.680 hole? How is that possible? To understand that 00:20:33.680 --> 00:20:36.000 number, you have to understand what some economists 00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:38.079 and urban planners call the maintenance trap, 00:20:38.259 --> 00:20:40.460 or if you want to be a little more provocative 00:20:40.460 --> 00:20:43.859 about it, the Ponzi scheme of asphalt. Whoa. 00:20:44.240 --> 00:20:47.680 Okay, a Ponzi scheme. That's a strong word. That 00:20:47.680 --> 00:20:50.440 implies fraud, or at the very least, an inevitable 00:20:50.440 --> 00:20:53.619 collapse. Walk me through that logic. Okay, think 00:20:53.619 --> 00:20:56.619 about how a new suburb is typically built. A 00:20:56.619 --> 00:20:59.119 developer comes to a small town council and says, 00:20:59.829 --> 00:21:02.130 I want to buy that big farm on the edge of town 00:21:02.130 --> 00:21:05.569 and turn it into 500 beautiful new homes. And 00:21:05.569 --> 00:21:07.690 the town council sees dollar signs. They see 00:21:07.690 --> 00:21:10.289 500 new families paying property taxes. They 00:21:10.289 --> 00:21:12.470 see fees for building permits. It looks like 00:21:12.470 --> 00:21:15.150 a huge immediate influx of cash. A windfall. 00:21:15.329 --> 00:21:17.789 Yeah. And usually the developer pays to put in 00:21:17.789 --> 00:21:20.210 the initial roads and pipes as part of the deal, 00:21:20.309 --> 00:21:22.609 right? Right. They build the infrastructure for 00:21:22.609 --> 00:21:25.089 their subdivision. Exactly. So for the city, 00:21:25.170 --> 00:21:28.250 that brand new road is essentially free and it 00:21:28.250 --> 00:21:31.799 has a warranty. For the first, say, 20 years, 00:21:31.980 --> 00:21:34.160 that road crossed the city, almost nothing to 00:21:34.160 --> 00:21:36.680 maintain. It's just pure profit coming in from 00:21:36.680 --> 00:21:39.140 the new tax revenue. Feels like free money. A 00:21:39.140 --> 00:21:42.380 no -brainer. It's the sugar high of growth. But, 00:21:42.559 --> 00:21:45.339 and this is the big but, asphalt doesn't last 00:21:45.339 --> 00:21:47.440 forever. Pipes don't last forever. Fast forward 00:21:47.440 --> 00:21:50.460 25 or 30 years. The road starts to crack. The 00:21:50.460 --> 00:21:52.839 water mains start to break. The pumps in the 00:21:52.839 --> 00:21:55.779 sewer station fail. And suddenly, the city is 00:21:55.779 --> 00:21:58.740 on the hook to replace all of it. But here's 00:21:58.740 --> 00:22:01.160 a fair math problem, and it's a deadly one for 00:22:01.160 --> 00:22:03.700 municipal budgets. In a low -density suburb, 00:22:03.779 --> 00:22:06.900 you might only have, say, 10 or 20 houses on 00:22:06.900 --> 00:22:09.359 a specific mile of road. Those 20 households 00:22:09.359 --> 00:22:11.539 are paying property taxes every year. But is 00:22:11.539 --> 00:22:13.400 the total tax collected from those 20 houses 00:22:13.400 --> 00:22:15.900 over 30 years enough to pay for a million -dollar 00:22:15.900 --> 00:22:18.200 road replacement project? I'm guessing the answer 00:22:18.200 --> 00:22:20.920 is a resounding no. The answer is almost always 00:22:20.920 --> 00:22:24.339 no. Not even close. Now contrast that with a 00:22:24.339 --> 00:22:27.440 dense city block. You might have 500 households 00:22:27.440 --> 00:22:30.319 and several businesses paying taxes on that same 00:22:30.319 --> 00:22:32.779 mile of pipe. They can afford the maintenance. 00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:35.960 The suburb can't. The tax revenue generated per 00:22:35.960 --> 00:22:38.759 mile of infrastructure is just too low. So when 00:22:38.759 --> 00:22:41.380 the 30 -year bill comes due, the city doesn't 00:22:41.380 --> 00:22:44.119 have the cash set aside. Right. So what do they 00:22:44.119 --> 00:22:46.579 do? They can't just raise property taxes by 500 00:22:46.579 --> 00:22:49.099 percent. The residents would revolt and vote 00:22:49.099 --> 00:22:51.819 them out of office. So they approve another new 00:22:51.819 --> 00:22:54.039 development even further out on the edge of town. 00:22:55.039 --> 00:22:57.299 They use the sugar high from the new development 00:22:57.299 --> 00:22:59.700 to pay for the old development's crumbling roads. 00:22:59.940 --> 00:23:02.519 Exactly. They use the permit fees and the initial 00:23:02.519 --> 00:23:05.359 cash influx from the new subdivision to patch 00:23:05.359 --> 00:23:07.619 the holes in the old subdivision. They have to 00:23:07.619 --> 00:23:10.119 keep growing forever just to stay solvent. That 00:23:10.119 --> 00:23:12.180 is literally the definition of a Ponzi scheme. 00:23:12.319 --> 00:23:14.799 You need a constant stream of new investors to 00:23:14.799 --> 00:23:17.079 pay off the old ones. That is the growth Ponzi 00:23:17.079 --> 00:23:19.769 scheme. And eventually... You either run out 00:23:19.769 --> 00:23:22.609 of land to develop or the growth slows down for 00:23:22.609 --> 00:23:25.670 economic reasons. And when the music stops, you 00:23:25.670 --> 00:23:27.609 are left with billions and billions of dollars 00:23:27.609 --> 00:23:30.230 in unfunded maintenance liabilities. That is 00:23:30.230 --> 00:23:32.690 where that $1 .12 trillion number comes from. 00:23:32.789 --> 00:23:35.170 That is genuinely terrifying. It's like finding 00:23:35.170 --> 00:23:37.710 out your entire house is built on a giant sinkhole, 00:23:37.829 --> 00:23:40.069 but the sinkhole is financial and it's 30 years 00:23:40.069 --> 00:23:42.799 wide. It explains why so many American municipalities 00:23:42.799 --> 00:23:46.559 are constantly, perpetually broke. Despite looking 00:23:46.559 --> 00:23:49.339 wealthy and prosperous on the surface, they are 00:23:49.339 --> 00:23:52.180 drowning in these long -term liabilities they 00:23:52.180 --> 00:23:54.380 can never hope to pay off. And this economic 00:23:54.380 --> 00:23:56.579 pressure also fundamentally changes the commercial 00:23:56.579 --> 00:23:58.920 landscape. Right. We aren't just seeing houses 00:23:58.920 --> 00:24:00.519 spread out. We're seeing these things called 00:24:00.519 --> 00:24:03.299 edge cities pop up. Right. Because the central 00:24:03.299 --> 00:24:06.079 city is often broke or congested, developers 00:24:06.079 --> 00:24:08.420 start building these massive self -contained 00:24:08.420 --> 00:24:10.539 clusters of office buildings and shopping malls 00:24:10.539 --> 00:24:12.380 way out in the suburbs. Look at a place like 00:24:12.380 --> 00:24:14.920 Tyson's Corner in Virginia, outside D .C. or 00:24:14.920 --> 00:24:18.039 Century City in Los Angeles. These are edge cities. 00:24:18.200 --> 00:24:21.299 They're these strange high density dots in an 00:24:21.299 --> 00:24:23.940 otherwise low density map. And this ties directly 00:24:23.940 --> 00:24:26.539 into the brownfield versus greenfield debate 00:24:26.539 --> 00:24:29.519 that the research brings up. This is a huge issue 00:24:29.519 --> 00:24:32.420 for sustainability and smart growth. A brownfield 00:24:32.420 --> 00:24:35.200 is a piece of land in the city that was previously 00:24:35.200 --> 00:24:37.700 used for industrial purposes. Maybe it was an 00:24:37.700 --> 00:24:39.779 old factory or a contaminated warehouse lot. 00:24:40.099 --> 00:24:42.740 It's often ugly, might be polluted, and it's 00:24:42.740 --> 00:24:44.789 expensive to clean up and redevelop. But it's 00:24:44.789 --> 00:24:46.789 already connected to the existing roads and pipes 00:24:46.789 --> 00:24:48.910 and transit. It is. The infrastructure is already 00:24:48.910 --> 00:24:51.190 there. Right. But developers, for obvious reasons, 00:24:51.390 --> 00:24:55.150 much prefer greenfields. This is fresh, untouched 00:24:55.150 --> 00:24:57.670 farmland or forest on the edge of town. It's 00:24:57.670 --> 00:25:00.410 cheap. It's clean. There are no demolition costs. 00:25:00.690 --> 00:25:02.750 And often the suburban taxes are much lower. 00:25:03.079 --> 00:25:05.259 So all of the financial incentives are stacked 00:25:05.259 --> 00:25:08.220 to encourage expanding outward, eating up more 00:25:08.220 --> 00:25:11.019 nature rather than recycling and fixing the land 00:25:11.019 --> 00:25:13.680 we already have. Yes. And suburban municipalities 00:25:13.680 --> 00:25:17.339 will often offer massive tax breaks to attract 00:25:17.339 --> 00:25:20.420 industry to their greenfields. You have places 00:25:20.420 --> 00:25:22.920 like the City of Industry in California, which 00:25:22.920 --> 00:25:25.220 was incorporated basically just to be a tax haven 00:25:25.220 --> 00:25:28.750 for businesses. desperately want those commercial 00:25:28.750 --> 00:25:31.509 taxes to help pay for the residential infrastructure 00:25:31.509 --> 00:25:34.210 deficit we just talked about. It's a really vicious 00:25:34.210 --> 00:25:37.880 cycle. Okay. Now, we absolutely cannot talk about 00:25:37.880 --> 00:25:40.180 the history of suburbanization, especially in 00:25:40.180 --> 00:25:42.700 the U .S., without talking about race. It is 00:25:42.700 --> 00:25:45.500 foundational to how and why the suburbs were 00:25:45.500 --> 00:25:48.160 built the way they were. It is. Section 4 in 00:25:48.160 --> 00:25:50.660 our research covers race, inequality, and demographics. 00:25:51.079 --> 00:25:53.720 And this isn't just uncomfortable history. It's 00:25:53.720 --> 00:25:56.519 structural history that has echoes to this day. 00:25:56.660 --> 00:25:58.819 You cannot separate the American suburb from 00:25:58.819 --> 00:26:01.039 the history of racial segregation. It's impossible. 00:26:01.339 --> 00:26:03.740 We often use the term white flight to describe 00:26:03.740 --> 00:26:06.339 what happened in the 1950s and 60s. And I think 00:26:06.339 --> 00:26:08.480 sometimes people hear that phrase, white flight, 00:26:08.619 --> 00:26:11.859 and they imagine it was just a series of millions 00:26:11.859 --> 00:26:14.259 of individual choices, like white families just 00:26:14.259 --> 00:26:17.059 happened to decide to move all at the same time. 00:26:17.579 --> 00:26:20.210 That's the sanitized version of the story. The 00:26:20.210 --> 00:26:22.650 reality is that it was heavily, heavily engineered 00:26:22.650 --> 00:26:25.309 by government policy. We talked about the GI 00:26:25.309 --> 00:26:27.809 Bill earlier, that great engine of middle -class 00:26:27.809 --> 00:26:30.349 wealth. Well, it was largely administered by 00:26:30.349 --> 00:26:32.799 local states and banks. And in many places, black 00:26:32.799 --> 00:26:35.599 veterans were systematically denied those benefits. 00:26:35.680 --> 00:26:37.559 They were shut out. And then on top of that, 00:26:37.680 --> 00:26:40.539 you had the official policy of redlining. The 00:26:40.539 --> 00:26:43.000 Federal Housing Administration, the FHA, literally 00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:45.579 drew red lines on maps around black and integrated 00:26:45.579 --> 00:26:48.400 neighborhoods and told banks, do not insure loans 00:26:48.400 --> 00:26:51.329 here. These are high risk. Meanwhile, they were 00:26:51.329 --> 00:26:53.529 actively subsidizing and insuring the loans for 00:26:53.529 --> 00:26:56.569 the brand new all -white suburbs. So you had 00:26:56.569 --> 00:26:58.190 a government -backed system that was helping 00:26:58.190 --> 00:27:00.349 white families build generational equity in the 00:27:00.349 --> 00:27:03.450 suburbs while simultaneously locking black families 00:27:03.450 --> 00:27:05.410 out of that same wealth accumulation. And what 00:27:05.410 --> 00:27:07.849 was the economic effect on the cities that those 00:27:07.849 --> 00:27:09.930 families were left in? Absolutely devastating. 00:27:10.529 --> 00:27:13.150 As white households left taking their tax dollars 00:27:13.150 --> 00:27:15.529 with them, the cities faced a catastrophic revenue 00:27:15.529 --> 00:27:18.549 crisis. Services were cut. Schools declined. 00:27:19.130 --> 00:27:21.829 Infrastructure crumbled. And housing prices in 00:27:21.829 --> 00:27:24.109 those redlined or transitioning neighborhoods 00:27:24.109 --> 00:27:26.410 fell. So it became a self -fulfilling prophecy. 00:27:26.630 --> 00:27:29.089 The city became worse because the money left, 00:27:29.250 --> 00:27:32.029 which then justified more people leaving. Exactly. 00:27:32.150 --> 00:27:35.150 It created the stereotype of the dangerous, decaying 00:27:35.150 --> 00:27:37.829 inner city that dominated the news and media 00:27:37.829 --> 00:27:41.289 in the late 20th century. And this is a really 00:27:41.289 --> 00:27:43.329 important update to the narrative. That was the 00:27:43.329 --> 00:27:45.890 20th century story. The 21st century story is 00:27:45.890 --> 00:27:47.849 starting to shift. Right. The sources are very 00:27:47.849 --> 00:27:49.910 clear on this point. The suburbs are no longer 00:27:49.910 --> 00:27:52.369 monolithic. If you drive through a typical American 00:27:52.369 --> 00:27:54.829 suburb today, it does not look like the set of 00:27:54.829 --> 00:27:58.890 a 1950s sitcom. Not at all. Since the late 90s, 00:27:58.890 --> 00:28:01.529 U .S. suburbs have become increasingly and rapidly 00:28:01.529 --> 00:28:05.339 diverse. You now have significant... African 00:28:05.339 --> 00:28:08.500 -American, Asian -American and Latino populations 00:28:08.500 --> 00:28:11.480 moving to suburbs, often for the same reasons 00:28:11.480 --> 00:28:14.079 white families did generations ago. Better schools, 00:28:14.279 --> 00:28:17.779 more space, a perception of safety. The white 00:28:17.779 --> 00:28:20.180 picket fence is being painted in many, many different 00:28:20.180 --> 00:28:22.920 colors now. The text uses this really interesting 00:28:22.920 --> 00:28:26.240 term, suburban immigrant gateways. This is a 00:28:26.240 --> 00:28:28.319 global phenomenon, not just an American one. 00:28:28.569 --> 00:28:30.549 In many places around the world now, when new 00:28:30.549 --> 00:28:32.589 immigrants arrive, they don't go to the traditional 00:28:32.589 --> 00:28:35.170 Little Italy or Chinatown in the dense city center 00:28:35.170 --> 00:28:37.150 anymore. They go straight to the suburbs. Why 00:28:37.150 --> 00:28:39.450 is that? What's the pull? It's where the jobs 00:28:39.450 --> 00:28:41.670 are now. We talked about the factories and warehouses 00:28:41.670 --> 00:28:44.210 moving out to the periphery. If the Amazon Logistics 00:28:44.210 --> 00:28:46.589 Center is in a suburb 30 miles outside of town, 00:28:46.809 --> 00:28:49.130 the immigrant workforce moves to that suburb 00:28:49.130 --> 00:28:51.460 to be close to work. It's that simple. But this 00:28:51.460 --> 00:28:53.880 new diversity plays out very differently in other 00:28:53.880 --> 00:28:56.259 parts of the world. In Europe, the word suburb 00:28:56.259 --> 00:28:58.940 often has a totally different, almost opposite 00:28:58.940 --> 00:29:01.960 connotation. Oh, massively different. It's an 00:29:01.960 --> 00:29:04.640 inversion. In Paris, for example, the beaux -lieus, 00:29:04.880 --> 00:29:07.440 the suburbs, are often where the massive high 00:29:07.440 --> 00:29:10.180 -rise public housing projects are. That is where 00:29:10.180 --> 00:29:12.599 the marginalized populations, the immigrant communities 00:29:12.599 --> 00:29:15.200 and ethnic minorities tend to live. The wealthy 00:29:15.200 --> 00:29:17.140 and elite live in the historic center of Paris. 00:29:17.420 --> 00:29:19.680 It's the complete inverse of the traditional 00:29:19.680 --> 00:29:22.359 American model. So in the U .S. for decades, 00:29:22.720 --> 00:29:25.339 inner city was often used as a code word for 00:29:25.339 --> 00:29:29.140 poor and minority. In Paris, suburb is the code 00:29:29.140 --> 00:29:32.140 word. Broadly speaking, yes. The periphery, the 00:29:32.140 --> 00:29:34.859 edge, is the zone of social and economic exclusion. 00:29:35.180 --> 00:29:37.099 And if you want to see the most stark contrast 00:29:37.099 --> 00:29:39.299 of all, you have to look at the global south. 00:29:39.500 --> 00:29:42.099 The mix of formal and informal development side 00:29:42.099 --> 00:29:44.839 by side. You see this in Brazil, in South Africa, 00:29:44.980 --> 00:29:48.400 in India. you will literally have a gated, high 00:29:48.400 --> 00:29:50.799 -security, middle -class suburban development 00:29:50.799 --> 00:29:53.619 with private security guards, swimming pools, 00:29:53.859 --> 00:29:56.380 and manicured lawns. And right next to its wall, 00:29:56.519 --> 00:29:58.859 sometimes literally leaning against it, you'll 00:29:58.859 --> 00:30:01.299 have an informal settlement, a shantytown, with 00:30:01.299 --> 00:30:03.599 no running water or electricity. It's inequality 00:30:03.599 --> 00:30:06.279 made physical, a literal wall between two worlds. 00:30:06.539 --> 00:30:10.160 It is. It's a visual representation of completely 00:30:10.160 --> 00:30:13.579 uneven infrastructure planning. One side has 00:30:13.579 --> 00:30:16.000 clean water and reliable power. The other side 00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:18.480 often has to steal it from the grid. But they're 00:30:18.480 --> 00:30:21.039 both technically part of the same suburban expansion. 00:30:21.299 --> 00:30:24.440 That is a very heavy reality. And it segues perfectly 00:30:24.440 --> 00:30:27.539 into the human cost of all this. Because we move 00:30:27.539 --> 00:30:29.720 to the suburbs for a better life, right? That's 00:30:29.720 --> 00:30:32.799 the promise. Fresh air, safety, happiness. But 00:30:32.799 --> 00:30:35.440 Section 5 of our research suggests that might 00:30:35.440 --> 00:30:37.779 be the biggest myth of all. The happiness myth. 00:30:38.299 --> 00:30:40.380 It's a fascinating and deeply counterintuitive 00:30:40.380 --> 00:30:43.160 part of this story. Tell me about this 1974 study 00:30:43.160 --> 00:30:45.000 that the sources mentioned, because if we've 00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:46.940 known this for almost 50 years, I feel like we've 00:30:46.940 --> 00:30:49.299 been actively ignoring the results. So back in 00:30:49.299 --> 00:30:51.599 1974, a group of researchers decided to actually 00:30:51.599 --> 00:30:54.680 test the core hypothesis. Do people who live 00:30:54.680 --> 00:30:56.960 in the suburbs feel better? Are they measurably 00:30:56.960 --> 00:30:58.799 happier than people who live in the city? And 00:30:58.799 --> 00:31:02.420 what did they find? They found nothing. No statistically 00:31:02.420 --> 00:31:05.440 significant difference whatsoever. Suburbanites 00:31:05.440 --> 00:31:07.440 reported neither greater satisfaction with their 00:31:07.440 --> 00:31:10.200 neighborhood nor a better overall quality of 00:31:10.200 --> 00:31:12.480 life when compared to urban dwellers. That seems 00:31:12.480 --> 00:31:15.460 absolutely wild to me. If I have a yard and a 00:31:15.460 --> 00:31:18.460 big house and quiet streets, shouldn't I be happier 00:31:18.460 --> 00:31:20.519 than the guy living in a cramped apartment hearing 00:31:20.519 --> 00:31:23.680 sirens all night long? You would think so. That's 00:31:23.680 --> 00:31:26.319 the tradeoff we all assume we're making. But 00:31:26.319 --> 00:31:28.980 you have to factor in what you lose in that trade. 00:31:29.140 --> 00:31:32.619 And what you lose is... Connection. It's what 00:31:32.619 --> 00:31:35.059 the research calls the isolation factor. Because 00:31:35.059 --> 00:31:37.720 sprawl separates everything. It separates everything 00:31:37.720 --> 00:31:40.779 into its own little pod. Your home is here. Your 00:31:40.779 --> 00:31:43.480 work is a 45 -minute drive over there. The grocery 00:31:43.480 --> 00:31:45.460 store is five miles that way. Your friends are 00:31:45.460 --> 00:31:47.640 10 miles in the other direction. So every single 00:31:47.640 --> 00:31:50.440 human interaction requires a plan and a car ride. 00:31:50.640 --> 00:31:53.099 Exactly. There is no bumping into people at the 00:31:53.099 --> 00:31:55.619 corner store. There is no serendipity. And if 00:31:55.619 --> 00:31:58.220 you cannot drive, you are effectively under house 00:31:58.220 --> 00:32:01.819 arrest. This hits two groups the hardest, the 00:32:01.819 --> 00:32:04.220 elderly and the young. Let's talk about the seniors 00:32:04.220 --> 00:32:06.839 first. The sources use this clinical -sounding 00:32:06.839 --> 00:32:09.759 term, driving cessation. It's a very clinical 00:32:09.759 --> 00:32:12.059 term for what is often a heartbreaking reality. 00:32:12.839 --> 00:32:15.920 When an older person living in the suburbs loses 00:32:15.920 --> 00:32:19.099 their eyesight or their reflexes and has to stop 00:32:19.099 --> 00:32:22.019 driving for safety reasons, their social life 00:32:22.019 --> 00:32:24.680 effectively ends overnight. Because there's no 00:32:24.680 --> 00:32:27.470 bus. They can't walk to the coffee shop or the 00:32:27.470 --> 00:32:30.150 library. They become prisoners in their own homes, 00:32:30.289 --> 00:32:32.630 completely dependent on others for everything. 00:32:33.170 --> 00:32:36.730 This leads to sharp, profound social isolation, 00:32:36.930 --> 00:32:39.210 which we now know from medical research is a 00:32:39.210 --> 00:32:41.769 huge health risk for seniors. It's as dangerous 00:32:41.769 --> 00:32:44.049 as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. That's 00:32:44.049 --> 00:32:47.319 the comparison, yes. Loneliness kills. And our 00:32:47.319 --> 00:32:50.180 suburbs, by their very design, are machines for 00:32:50.180 --> 00:32:52.059 creating loneliness if you don't have a set of 00:32:52.059 --> 00:32:54.579 car keys. And what about for kids? I mean, I 00:32:54.579 --> 00:32:56.400 have these fond memories of riding my bike in 00:32:56.400 --> 00:32:58.619 the cul -de -sac, but the sources paint a much 00:32:58.619 --> 00:33:00.839 darker picture of what they call limited independent 00:33:00.839 --> 00:33:03.359 mobility. Think about it from a kid's perspective. 00:33:03.680 --> 00:33:06.319 Can a 12 -year -old in a typical suburb walk 00:33:06.319 --> 00:33:08.740 to a movie theater? Can they walk to a comic 00:33:08.740 --> 00:33:11.160 book shop or a friend's house in another subdivision? 00:33:11.279 --> 00:33:13.539 Usually, no. They'd have to cross a six -lane 00:33:13.539 --> 00:33:16.509 road. Right. They are effectively trapped in 00:33:16.509 --> 00:33:18.710 their subdivision until a parent can drive them 00:33:18.710 --> 00:33:20.890 somewhere. It's the origin of the soccer mom 00:33:20.890 --> 00:33:24.250 phenomenon. Parents become unpaid full time taxi 00:33:24.250 --> 00:33:27.029 drivers. And the kids just become cargo being 00:33:27.029 --> 00:33:29.190 ferried from one scheduled activity to another. 00:33:29.329 --> 00:33:31.769 Exactly. And the research shows that adolescents, 00:33:31.950 --> 00:33:34.950 teenagers report feeling incredibly isolated, 00:33:35.349 --> 00:33:38.690 bored and frustrated by this. They have the desire 00:33:38.690 --> 00:33:41.670 for autonomy, but they have zero mobility to 00:33:41.670 --> 00:33:44.609 act on it. And that boredom. Well, that leads 00:33:44.609 --> 00:33:47.869 us directly to the drug abuse paradox. This was 00:33:47.869 --> 00:33:49.890 honestly the most shocking part of the entire 00:33:49.890 --> 00:33:52.430 body of research for me. I, like many people, 00:33:52.529 --> 00:33:54.369 grew up thinking that drug abuse was an inner 00:33:54.369 --> 00:33:56.650 city problem. That's what the news and TV shows 00:33:56.650 --> 00:33:58.849 always showed us. That is the persistent media 00:33:58.849 --> 00:34:01.809 stereotype. But the actual data tells a very, 00:34:01.829 --> 00:34:04.009 very different story. The New England study of 00:34:04.009 --> 00:34:06.670 suburban youth this was a major long -term piece 00:34:06.670 --> 00:34:09.409 of research, specifically looked at upper middle 00:34:09.409 --> 00:34:11.730 class suburban kids. So these are wealthy kids, 00:34:11.909 --> 00:34:14.530 good schools, safe streets, all the advantages. 00:34:14.869 --> 00:34:17.519 The ones who should have all. And they found 00:34:17.519 --> 00:34:19.840 that these kids displayed increased rates of 00:34:19.840 --> 00:34:22.480 drug and alcohol use compared to the national 00:34:22.480 --> 00:34:25.159 average. Wait, wait. Higher than the national 00:34:25.159 --> 00:34:28.360 average? Yes. And in some key metrics, specifically 00:34:28.360 --> 00:34:30.900 for things like binge drinking and misuse of 00:34:30.900 --> 00:34:33.420 prescription drugs, they showed higher rates 00:34:33.420 --> 00:34:35.940 of substance abuse than their inner city counterparts. 00:34:36.440 --> 00:34:39.340 Why? That's so counterintuitive. If they have 00:34:39.340 --> 00:34:42.219 the money and the good life, what is possibly 00:34:42.219 --> 00:34:44.980 driving that? The researchers point to a toxic 00:34:44.980 --> 00:34:48.449 cocktail of factors. First, the profound boredom 00:34:48.449 --> 00:34:50.650 and isolation we just discussed. If you're a 00:34:50.650 --> 00:34:52.610 teenager stuck in a subdivision with nothing 00:34:52.610 --> 00:34:54.829 to do and no way to get anywhere, you create 00:34:54.829 --> 00:34:57.610 your own entertainment. Second, you have disposable 00:34:57.610 --> 00:35:00.150 income. These kids have the money to buy drugs. 00:35:00.289 --> 00:35:02.869 And the parents are often away working long hours 00:35:02.869 --> 00:35:05.289 to pay for that big house and the two cars. That's 00:35:05.289 --> 00:35:07.309 part of it, yes. You have latchkey kids in these 00:35:07.309 --> 00:35:10.250 big empty houses. But there's also this immense 00:35:10.250 --> 00:35:13.570 crushing pressure to succeed in these enclosed 00:35:13.570 --> 00:35:16.989 social and economic enclaves. The anxiety levels 00:35:16.989 --> 00:35:19.090 are through the roof. And the sources mention 00:35:19.090 --> 00:35:21.869 a very specific and terrifying rise in heroin 00:35:21.869 --> 00:35:25.070 and opioid use in these communities. Yes. In 00:35:25.070 --> 00:35:27.929 the 2000s, there was a documented spike in the 00:35:27.929 --> 00:35:30.369 incidence of heroin use among young white suburban 00:35:30.369 --> 00:35:34.289 men and women. But here is the real kicker, what 00:35:34.289 --> 00:35:37.590 the research calls the treatment disparity. This 00:35:37.590 --> 00:35:39.909 is about how doctors perceive the problem, right? 00:35:40.050 --> 00:35:42.989 It's a diagnostic blind spot. A doctor in an 00:35:42.989 --> 00:35:45.530 emergency room sees a clean -cut kid from a wealthy 00:35:45.530 --> 00:35:48.130 zip code, maybe a high school athlete, who comes 00:35:48.130 --> 00:35:50.750 in with certain symptoms. The doctor's mental 00:35:50.750 --> 00:35:53.670 model does not immediately jump to heroin addiction. 00:35:53.989 --> 00:35:56.409 It just doesn't fit their stereotype. So they 00:35:56.409 --> 00:35:58.650 might miss the diagnosis or at least delay it. 00:35:58.710 --> 00:36:01.150 They miss it or they delay it. They look for 00:36:01.150 --> 00:36:03.650 other explanations first. Whereas if a kid from 00:36:03.650 --> 00:36:05.989 a poor urban neighborhood walks in with the exact 00:36:05.989 --> 00:36:08.230 same symptoms, the doctor might suspect drug 00:36:08.230 --> 00:36:11.849 use immediately. The perceived safety and wholesomeness 00:36:11.849 --> 00:36:14.530 of the suburbs actually masks the danger until 00:36:14.530 --> 00:36:17.010 it's often much further along and harder to treat. 00:36:17.210 --> 00:36:19.570 That is just tragic. It's the white picket fence 00:36:19.570 --> 00:36:22.010 literally hiding the crisis happening inside 00:36:22.010 --> 00:36:25.130 the house. Exactly. It's the danger of believing 00:36:25.130 --> 00:36:27.570 the idyllic image instead of looking at the complex 00:36:27.570 --> 00:36:31.389 reality. Wow. Okay. We have covered a huge amount 00:36:31.389 --> 00:36:34.809 of ground here. History, economics, race, psychology. 00:36:35.269 --> 00:36:37.550 We have to touch on our final section, section 00:36:37.550 --> 00:36:41.010 six. the environment. And I think most of us 00:36:41.010 --> 00:36:43.309 know the headlines here, cars are bad for the 00:36:43.309 --> 00:36:46.269 climate, but let's dig just a bit deeper than 00:36:46.269 --> 00:36:49.050 that. The carbon footprint of sprawl is massive. 00:36:49.090 --> 00:36:50.949 And you're right. It's not just about the tailpipe 00:36:50.949 --> 00:36:52.809 emissions from cars, although that's a huge part 00:36:52.809 --> 00:36:55.030 of it. It really comes down to three main things. 00:36:55.309 --> 00:36:57.889 Commuting, land consumption, and direct energy 00:36:57.889 --> 00:37:00.469 use. Commuting is the obvious one. More miles 00:37:00.469 --> 00:37:03.449 driven equals more CO2 in the atmosphere. Simple. 00:37:03.730 --> 00:37:05.849 Right. But let's look at land consumption. When 00:37:05.849 --> 00:37:08.710 you build at a very low density, you're physically 00:37:08.710 --> 00:37:11.190 eating up more of the natural landscape. You're 00:37:11.190 --> 00:37:13.710 placing forests and wetlands, which are crucial 00:37:13.710 --> 00:37:16.599 carbon sinks and help manage floodwaters. with 00:37:16.599 --> 00:37:19.179 impermeable surfaces like asphalt and chemically 00:37:19.179 --> 00:37:21.420 treated lawns. And the lawns themselves are a 00:37:21.420 --> 00:37:23.880 unique environmental problem. The American lawn 00:37:23.880 --> 00:37:27.179 is an ecological disaster. It's a monoculture, 00:37:27.320 --> 00:37:30.199 usually of non -native grass. It provides zero 00:37:30.199 --> 00:37:32.860 habitat for native pollinators like bees and 00:37:32.860 --> 00:37:36.159 butterflies. And we dump massive amounts of fresh 00:37:36.159 --> 00:37:39.440 water, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides on 00:37:39.440 --> 00:37:42.019 them just to keep them that unnatural shade of 00:37:42.019 --> 00:37:44.340 green. We are essentially farming millions of 00:37:44.340 --> 00:37:47.519 acres of a crop that nobody eats. That is a perfect 00:37:47.519 --> 00:37:49.619 way to put it. And then there's the energy use 00:37:49.619 --> 00:37:52.679 of the houses themselves. A detached single -family 00:37:52.679 --> 00:37:55.800 suburban house has four walls and a roof completely 00:37:55.800 --> 00:37:58.809 exposed to the elements. It takes a huge amount 00:37:58.809 --> 00:38:00.769 of energy to heat in the winter and cool in the 00:38:00.769 --> 00:38:02.730 summer. Compared to an apartment. Compared to 00:38:02.730 --> 00:38:05.150 an apartment or a townhouse in the city, which 00:38:05.150 --> 00:38:07.650 shares walls with its neighbors. That shared 00:38:07.650 --> 00:38:10.150 thermal mass makes it much, much more energy 00:38:10.150 --> 00:38:12.550 efficient. So we have painted a pretty complex 00:38:12.550 --> 00:38:15.070 and, frankly, a pretty challenging picture here. 00:38:15.210 --> 00:38:17.329 It's not just desperate housewives, and it's 00:38:17.329 --> 00:38:20.610 not just a boring commute. It's a massive global 00:38:20.610 --> 00:38:23.550 engine with some very real, very high costs. 00:38:23.809 --> 00:38:26.960 Let's try to synthesize all of this. The research 00:38:26.960 --> 00:38:29.780 shows that suburbanization is a progressive process, 00:38:30.179 --> 00:38:33.340 meaning it moves forward, it's driven by fundamental 00:38:33.340 --> 00:38:35.639 forces like population growth and technology, 00:38:35.920 --> 00:38:38.739 but it comes with an incredibly high price tag. 00:38:39.130 --> 00:38:41.570 A price we're all paying. Financially, we have 00:38:41.570 --> 00:38:43.670 the infrastructure deficit, that Ponzi scheme 00:38:43.670 --> 00:38:46.550 of asphalt we talked about. Socially, we have 00:38:46.550 --> 00:38:48.849 rising rates of isolation and related mental 00:38:48.849 --> 00:38:52.789 health crises. And environmentally, we have the 00:38:52.789 --> 00:38:55.650 massive carbon footprint. And it adapts. It looks 00:38:55.650 --> 00:38:57.849 different in post -socialist Europe than it does 00:38:57.849 --> 00:39:00.130 in Southern California. But that fundamental 00:39:00.130 --> 00:39:03.349 drive is the same. The underlying drive. The 00:39:03.349 --> 00:39:05.369 search for more space, the reaction against the 00:39:05.369 --> 00:39:07.869 perceived problems of the city center, that seems 00:39:07.869 --> 00:39:11.309 to be a universal human impulse. But we're clearly 00:39:11.309 --> 00:39:13.989 reaching a tipping point where the hidden costs 00:39:13.989 --> 00:39:16.469 might be starting to outweigh the perceived benefits. 00:39:16.829 --> 00:39:18.650 Before we sign off, I want to leave our listeners 00:39:18.650 --> 00:39:20.510 with that final provocative thought you mentioned 00:39:20.510 --> 00:39:22.690 when we were prepping. It connects that drive 00:39:22.690 --> 00:39:25.409 until you qualify idea with the aging in place 00:39:25.409 --> 00:39:27.369 problem. It's kind of a haunting question, really. 00:39:27.469 --> 00:39:29.650 It's the question that I think urban planners 00:39:29.650 --> 00:39:31.969 are losing sleep over right now more than any 00:39:31.969 --> 00:39:35.380 other. Think about it. We built this entire suburban 00:39:35.380 --> 00:39:39.119 landscape for one very specific type of user. 00:39:39.280 --> 00:39:41.840 The nuclear family with a car. The nuclear family 00:39:41.840 --> 00:39:44.500 with a car. That was the design specification. 00:39:45.119 --> 00:39:49.219 Mom, dad, two kids, and a station wagon in the 00:39:49.219 --> 00:39:52.360 garage. But the demographics of our society are 00:39:52.360 --> 00:39:54.639 shifting dramatically. The baby boomers are all 00:39:54.639 --> 00:39:57.099 entering retirement. The birth rate is dropping. 00:39:57.280 --> 00:39:59.179 Exactly. The kids grow up and they leave. The 00:39:59.179 --> 00:40:01.670 parents are staying behind. But as those parents 00:40:01.670 --> 00:40:04.530 age into their 70s and 80s, many of them can 00:40:04.530 --> 00:40:07.070 no longer drive safely. And they find themselves 00:40:07.070 --> 00:40:09.730 living alone in these massive houses that require 00:40:09.730 --> 00:40:12.570 a ton of maintenance in neighborhoods where you 00:40:12.570 --> 00:40:14.670 literally need a car to buy a gallon of milk. 00:40:14.829 --> 00:40:17.190 So what happens to the entire suburban experiment 00:40:17.190 --> 00:40:19.510 when the people inside it can no longer operate 00:40:19.510 --> 00:40:22.170 the machinery, the automobile that is required 00:40:22.170 --> 00:40:24.630 to live there? That is the trillion -dollar question. 00:40:25.280 --> 00:40:28.340 Are we, without realizing it, building the slums 00:40:28.340 --> 00:40:30.820 of the future? If the tax base collapses because 00:40:30.820 --> 00:40:33.019 the working -age people have moved on, and the 00:40:33.019 --> 00:40:35.079 infrastructure crumbles because of that maintenance 00:40:35.079 --> 00:40:37.840 deficit, and the remaining residents are isolated 00:40:37.840 --> 00:40:40.860 seniors who are trapped in their homes, what 00:40:40.860 --> 00:40:43.059 does that neighborhood look like in 20 or 30 00:40:43.059 --> 00:40:46.179 years? Are the cul -de -sacs of today the ghost 00:40:46.179 --> 00:40:48.820 towns of tomorrow? It's a very real possibility. 00:40:49.440 --> 00:40:52.539 unless we get very serious, very quickly about 00:40:52.539 --> 00:40:55.519 rethinking how we retrofit these places, unless 00:40:55.519 --> 00:40:57.920 we figure out how to bring some of the city back 00:40:57.920 --> 00:41:00.699 to the suburb. More public transit, more walkability, 00:41:00.960 --> 00:41:03.659 more small -scale commercial, more housing diversity. 00:41:04.019 --> 00:41:05.860 So the solution might be to make the suburbs 00:41:05.860 --> 00:41:08.699 a little less suburban. Precisely. We need to 00:41:08.699 --> 00:41:10.659 close the loop on that cycle we saw in Brooklyn. 00:41:10.880 --> 00:41:13.619 A huge thank you to you, our listener, for joining 00:41:13.619 --> 00:41:16.070 us on this deep dive. I hope you'll never look 00:41:16.070 --> 00:41:18.170 at a strip mall or a winding subdivision street 00:41:18.170 --> 00:41:20.389 the same way again. Keep questioning the landscape 00:41:20.389 --> 00:41:22.369 around you. It has a story to tell. We'll see 00:41:22.369 --> 00:41:22.869 you next time.