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Summary CityReader-Bruegmann
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Samenvatting van de City Reader over Bruegmann
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No spatial policy issue has preoccupied urbanists more than urban sprawl. Spread out, lowdensity, suburban development patterns are the norm in virtually every American
metropolitan area.
Questions:
1. Why do we have sprawl?
2. Is sprawl good or bad?
3. Should we do something to control it?
Bruegmann argues that we have sprawl because that is what people want: a natural market
response to the desires of millions of individuals.
Do Americans have sprawl because of their frontier roots and anti-urban bias? That’s one
common explanation. Bruegmann disagrees. He notes that the amount of space per capita
in European cities and American cities is converging, despite the fact that Europeans never
experienced a frontier of unlimited land.
How about racism? Do Americans have sprawl because middle- and upper-income whites
have fled central cities to get away from poor Blacks? Hispanics of other foreign immigrants?
Maybe in some cases. But Bruegmann makes three counter arguments:
a. that relatively homogenous cities like Minneapolis - where most residents come from
Scandinavian stock and there are few Blacks - are sprawling about as much as other
US cities
b. middle- and upper-income Blacks have been just as eager as their white
counterparts to move out to suburbs, and many have done so
c. spatial ethnic and income segregation is prevalent worldwide
Bruegmann notes that at the turn of the century, housing advocates attacked greedy
developers for crowding people into city neighbourhoods like New York’s lower east side.
Bruegmann rejects the notion that residents of suburbs have been forced or duped into living
in low-density suburban developments rather than choosing to live there. In his view,
developers build suburbs because that is what people want.
Finally Bruegmann rejects the argument that technology - specifically the invention of the
automobile - is responsible for sprawl.
Bruegmann gives two fundamental explanations to sprawl: affluence and democratic
institutions. In his view, people want to live in low-density suburbs. As income rise, more
people can afford to do so. Democratic institutions allow people to choose for themselves,
and people choose to live in low-density, sprawling developments.
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