A few months ago, I was talking to a faculty colleague who lives in a part of Jacksonville even more sprawl-bound where I live, an area about a mile or so from the nearest bus stop and with a single-digit Walkscore. He said Jacksonville was "safe and clean." I was a little surprised: "clean" is one word I would never* use to describe Jacksonville. When I walk down the sidewalks of San Jose Boulevard, I notice litter aplenty - and from what I know of Beach Boulevard (the grim commercial strip near my colleague's house) I doubt that it is much better.
Suburbia
Rethinking Suburban Design
Farm Chic is the Latest Trend in Housing Developments
Graying of the Suburban Image
Seeking Suburbia's Future in Its Past
Frank Lloyd Wright's Sustained Relevance
Commercializing the Landscape
When is a Suburb Not a Suburb?
Friday Funny: Elder Speaks of Bygone Suburban Ways
Good Capitalists and the Meltdown
Video: Time to Urbanize Suburbia
Suburbia Isn't The Problem
How Sprawl Created the Gulf Oil Spill

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Box?
As a young kid, skirting aimlessly throughout my suburban municipality from one car-optimized shopping center to the next on my bicycle in search of stimulation (and perhaps trouble), I vividly recall - though I likely didn't describe it as - the internal conflict between interesting commercial destinations on the inside, and the banal, cruel approach to these places on the outside. Although the primitive human desires of my psyche subconsciously longed for a central place to congregate with other lost children of the suburbs, I never had a downtown; I never had a community center. In this vacuum, I compensated with all that was available.






















