American-Style Suburbia Spreading Across The Globe

"For good or bad, the USA's suburbs have become a living laboratory for the world. Developing countries contending with explosive population growth and economic expansion are looking here for hints about how to manage growing cities. For many, modern suburbia — a largely American concept and lifestyle for more than 50 years — is a nirvana worth emulating. Others want to avoid it.

"They both admire and fear it," says Robert Lang, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech. "There are two lessons they take out of the U.S.: unfettered development or sprawl and an appreciation for well-done, master-planned communities."

Copied for years on a smaller scale and adapted to deal with more stringent environmental standards and limited land in Western Europe, American suburbs now have gone truly global:

•Affluent gated communities are sprouting up next to shantytowns outside Buenos Aires.

•On the outskirts of Lahore, Pakistan, new single-family homes are a testament to that country's rising middle class.

•Across China, entire suburban cities are being built at a dizzying speed to keep up with population growth. Outside Beijing and Shanghai, tract-home developments designed to mimic Spanish or Italian architecture have all-American names: Yosemite and Napa Valley.

Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe have unleashed such a development boom that they have turned to the USA for lessons on how to do it — and how not to."