Lecture 20: Sequel to Suburbia: Glimpses of America’s Post-Suburban Future

2017/9/13 13:39:07

Lecture 20: Sequel to Suburbia: Glimpses of America’s Post-Suburban Future             Sep . 13 . 2017

Speaker: Professor Nicholas Phelps, Pro-vice-Provost, Chair Professor, Bartlett School of Planning, UCL

             Hosted by Dean Yang ZHONG

Time：10:30-12:00, Sept. 11 Monday

Venue：R307, Ji Xie Bldg 

Introduction of Seminar:

The outer suburbs were the ‘spatial fix’ that fuelled the domestic and international expansion of American capitalism in the second half of the twentieth century. They were thoroughly modern in their conception and planning and yet they have had unintended consequences. They pose problems in terms of the environmental sustainability of urbanisation in the United States given the energy consumption associated with them. They also may represent something of a barrier to further local and national economic development. As such, retrofitting of suburbia is considered the major challenge of this century in American society. It may also be a major challenge that other nations will eventually have to face – since the American suburban model is now being widely exported. This presentation charts some of the problems and prospects for a re-working of America’s suburban landscape. It focuses on three case studies: Kendall-Dadeland in the Miami metropolitan area which is a past experiment with new urbanism; Tysons Corner near Washington DC where it is hoped that that mass transit will help fashion a city from an edge city, and; Schaumburg near Chicago which was an outer suburb deliberately designed as a new kind of city. The cases reveal just a glimpse of a post-suburban America but also the formidable strength of suburban business as usual.