John Gallagher of the Detroit Free Press lays out some reasons for the failures of suburban sprawl including the closings of Northland and the SIlverdome:
How could metro Detroiters go so far wrong when they bet big on suburban sprawl from the 1950s onward? Wouldn't a much more compact urban area today, with walkable communities linked by public transportation, have offered better living at a lower cost in resources and pollution than our region's low-density, auto-dependent world?
Those of us who criticized suburban sprawl over the years as a vast game of musical chairs now feel justified in saying we told you so. The demolition of Northland and the Silverdome exemplifies the throw-away culture that can discard infrastructure worth hundreds of millions of dollars when tastes change.
He writes about he obvious reasons for the failure of Northland and the Silverdome: The Silverdome lost the Lions and Northlandwas a victim of demographics, as people moved further north. But he says suburban sprawl also played a role.
He writes:
Racism, bad intel, profits, taxes – all played a part in our unsustainable suburban sprawl. The pending demolitions of Northland and the Silverdome bring that home.
He lists eight reasons for bad suburban sprawl.
Here a sampling:
► Bad demographic estimates: Back around 1950, when Southeast Michigan still enjoyed a heady population growth, some regional leaders believed that perhaps 10 million people would call the region home in the year 2000. Today the real number is a little more than 4 million. Planning for a population surge that never came lay behind much of the urgency in suburban growth.
► Urban planning: Urban planners during the era of suburban sprawl paid more attention to the concerns of vehicle traffic than to concepts of walkability and urbanity. The result: Vast expanses of low-density suburbia are given over to paved parking lots and extra-wide streets. Northland and the Silverdome were typical in being plopped amid acres of concrete.
► Racism: Toxic racial conflicts between blacks and whites did more than drive middle-class residents out of the city of Detroit. It also gave the newly minted suburbanites a sense of correctness – that Detroit had become a hell-hole best left abandoned. Better race relations no doubt would have lessened the urge to sprawl.
