Florida Hometown Democracy

"You see fast-food outlets and office parks and shopping malls rising out of vast barren plains of asphalt. You see individual subdivisions spreading like inkblots, obliterating forests and farms in their relentless march across the landscape. You see cars, thousands of them, moving sluggishly down the broad ribbons of pavement or halting in frustrated clumps at choked intersections or packed in glittering rows in front of every building. You see a lot of activity, but not much life. You see the graveyard of livability. You see communities drowning in a destructive, soulless, ugly mess called sprawl."

The scene described above is all too familiar in Florida, one of the top states for sprawl. Traffic jams, fields sprouting housing tracts, far-flung neighborhoods seemingly devoid of people - all are symptoms of our lives amid sprawl.

A few decades ago I began noticing some effects this was having on society. Though our culture supposedly was advancing, it seemed that we were evolving lifestyles that were unduly isolated, stressful and expensive. Our circles of friends and acquaintances were shrinking; children needed to be protected far more than in the past; and more and more otherwise-healthy individuals were behaving like shut-ins. Someone or something was killing community, I concluded.

It wasn't always this way. Prior to World War II, people knew their neighbors. They knew the shop keepers. They knew the local druggist. They knew the mailman. They knew the cop on the beat. They knew all the kids on the block. They knew the gang at their favorite haunts. All of these community contacts enriched their lives and promoted civic involvement. Such casual, daily give-and-take with a diverse assortment of people from throughout the community provided valuable information, entertainment and relaxation. But sprawl has robbed us of that.

The stage for sprawl was set in 1926 when single-use zoning was mandated. No longer would neighborhoods be allowed the mix of residential, retail, shop and office use that had put essential goods and services within walking distance of homes - and put life on the streets.

Instead, under single-use zoning, housing units could be located only among other housing units; stores and restaurants had to be grouped together; office buildings needed to be built by other office buildings, etc. The building industry favored single-use zoning because it brought a much faster return on investments than mixed-use development.

But there was an insidious, hidden cost. As people's daily activities were separated according to zoning categories, the natural socializing that creates and sustains a sense of community was diminished. As the urban architect Raymond Curran put it, "personal isolation and independence from community" are the major characteristics of the way we live now.

Our technological advancements played a big role in this shift. The automobile became the mode of transportation, and it could connect all things. And since it could go anywhere, things could be located anywhere. Congestion was inevitable, and it was compounded in large cities by the ill-advised decision to run interstate highways right through them, a mistake Germany avoided when building its autobahns. The precious social hour that adults enjoyed between work and home was lost to commuting in heavy traffic. Life became more stressful.

Also compounding matters was a shift in our national economic policy that went into high gear after World War II. The emphasis changed from establishing a favorable balance of trade to achieving the highest possible rate of internal consumption. "It is un-American not to buy!" President Eisenhower proclaimed. And, on the heels of 9/11, President Bush advised us to "go shopping!" The imperative was to have as many people working and spending as possible.

The home became an oasis that had to provide more than ever for its residents. What a boon to our high-consumption economy this has been. Houses have grown bigger as families have become smaller. The average new house built in America today is twice as large as the average house built in Europe. In the absence of community and its sense of belonging, we try to compensate with more private space, more entertainment gadgetry, and more attempts to show an uncaring world that we are doing well.

We rely more now on family, close friends and co-workers. But we don't learn as much from them as we would from a diverse mix of community acquaintances, because they are too like-minded. And as we become more insular, our involvement in civic life diminishes.

What can we do about this? In "The Great Good Place," a book I wrote in 1989, I developed and introduced the rather simple concept of the "third place" and assessed its application and vitality in the United States today. Community depends upon a diversity of people regularly associating with one another beyond the portals of home and work (the first and second places). Third places are the informal gathering spots where people can get together, such as coffee shops, diners, taverns, beauty parlors and barber shops.

Third places have served many important functions for people in their localities. They are "ports of entry" where newcomers can get a quick orientation to the neighborhood and what it offers. They are "staging areas" in times of emergency. (Many men, seeking to be helpful after Hurricane Andrew, found they had no such place to join others.) Third places unify the neighborhood. (In the heyday of the American tavern, 80 percent of the trade typically came from within a two-block radius.) They lower the cost of living as the "members" help one another, provide information and give or loan tools and other useful items. They are a spiritual tonic in that friendship and laughter make for easier days. They make it possible for people to have a goodly number of friends and meet them often.

The dearth of gathering places these days has given new life and new purpose to several older establishments. A few years ago I was invited to speak to the management and staff of the Central Florida YMCA in Orlando. An annual survey of the membership found that the desire to "be with people" ranked much higher than ever before. After existing for years as a service-for-fee gymnasium, they determined to become a "third place." I was invited to the Greater Los Angeles YMCA for the same purpose and with the same result. The Houston YMCA has done the same thing on its own.

The nation's libraries are reshaping their facilities and their offerings. Challenged by the book chains and the Internet, they have learned from both. Comfortable seating, coffee, toddler rooms, small theaters and even beer-tastings are reported. "What patrons wanted," said one library director, "was a place to meet people and relax." Library visits have recently increased by 28 percent nationwide.

Churches and synagogues are adapting to meet third-place needs. I spent considerable time with the Community Christian Church in Naperville, Ill., after which they built a new church affectionately called the "Big Yellow Box." It has no stained-glass windows and no high ceilings.

The clergy wear no vestments and the main entrance is through their Ground Level Cafe, which is open to everybody. There are classrooms everywhere and carpeting that is safe for small children as they run about. When parishioners are scattered as they are today, more than formal services are needed to preserve some semblance of community.

Though the efforts of the libraries, the churches, the "Y's" and or private sector movements are much-needed and admirable, the future looks grim. Government has failed miserably at preserving downtown vitality against the continual addition of big-box stores at the edges of our cities. It has failed to preserve any cohesive overall urban design. It has failed to halt the corporate colonization of the public realm.

There is much talk about "smart growth," the "new urbanism," the "new suburbanism," etc., but will there be any space left for "enlightened" development? Will any substantial portions of the environment be reclaimed? Will anything within the next decade or two stop the juggernaut big-box corporations from advancing sprawl at a rapid clip?

Worst of all, perhaps, sprawl has given the citizenry a few things it will be reluctant to give up, and reform measures will not be roundly applauded. When I visited Seaside on northwest Florida's Gulf Coast (a "new urbanism" showcase) I walked behind visitors and listened to their comments. The most common negative went like this: "Oh, look how close the houses are to one another - I wouldn't like that."

One writer wisely observed that the two birds, growth and progress, used to sit side by side on the same limb. They don't anymore. The American experience in the decades to come will be that growth, the reckless way we've accomplished it, will not equate with progress but with a declining quality of life.

How Florida lost its sense of place