Home Sweet Home

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I’ve always lived in the suburbs. Whether it was on the outskirts of New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, Boston or Tampa, in almost all places where I’ve laid my head, I’ve been surrounded by the familiar visage of sprawling well-kept lawns and knotty pines. Even when I briefly lived in an apartment in Miami, my complex was well within range of dozens of housing developments. Now despite being suburbs, they may not have been the best of neighborhoods; that is to say that in my youth growing up in Uniondale, Long Island (NY) I could find my way to the local elementary school by closely following the crack vials that lined the curbed sidewalks. The nearest park was forbidden for me to enter by my parents as it was infested with gangs and drug dealers.

Aside from the occasional descent into city-like criminal patterns, the suburbs are, in my humble opinion, a nice place to live and bring up a family. Where I’m living now, in a suburb outside of Tampa, FL, I just got back from walking my spoiled, inbred Pomeranian around the neighborhood and there was nary a person in sight. Mind you, it was 11:00 PM when I went on this jaunt.

Typically people want to live in suburbs not only because of their aesthetic value but also because in theory, they are the safest places to bring up ones family. Another reason people tend to prefer the suburbs to the city is because it is assumed that environmentally speaking, there are fewer hazards among the sprawl than there are in urban centers. We all know that city’s are blighted not only with endless noise pollution but are also scarred with tons of toxins in the air. Surely rolling hills of finely mowed lawns accenting well kept two story homes is preferable to an army of skyscrapers blocking out the sun and factories blowing plumes of black death into the atmosphere. At least you’d think that was the case.

According to an article in USA Today, our beloved suburbs are, “also environmentally more worrisome than people realize, according to researchers reporting at a meeting this month of the American Geophysical Union, an international association of scientists.

Suburbs today make up an area very likely three or four times the size of Ohio, says Jennifer Jenkins, a professor of environmental economics at the University of Vermont.

And a standard feature that is raising red flags is the septic tank. Where houses are far apart, individual septic tanks are much less expensive than sewer lines for dealing with human waste. And as municipalities limit sewer extensions to save money and limit growth, more subdivisions are being built with septic tanks.

Lawrence Band, a professor of geography at the University of North Carolina, says his research shows that septic tanks are more responsible than previously believed for the nitrogen runoff that fouls the nation's lakes, streams and waterways.

"Nitrogen causes algae blooms, fishery declines and low water quality," says Band, who has been researching nitrogen runoff in the Baltimore suburbs. "We were surprised to find that areas zoned to be low-density to protect watersheds had the highest nitrogen levels."

It's estimated that a person puts out 7 pounds of nitrogen a year in waste, and about half of the nitrogen in a septic tank reaches the water table, says Judy Denver, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.”

The same article also cites those lawns we’re so proud of as yet another source of pollution. “However green, lawns aren't anywhere near as ecologically friendly as undeveloped land, the researchers say. Keeping them lush means lots of water and nitrogen-rich fertilizer, which further damages waterways.

Though a single lawn may not seem that big, grass is now "the largest irrigated crop in the U.S.," Jenkins says; it equals the area planted in corn in the USA.”

I mentioned those knotty pines that are so familiar and inviting on my treks through the old neighborhood. Yet, according to another article, “of all the carbon stored in trees in Maryland, only about two-thirds is in forests; the rest is in trees planted in yards and median strips…”

Now there’s a debate in the science community about the effectiveness of carbon sequestration in trees is for the environment overall. Some studies have shown that this method of combating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and attempting to mitigate global warming then turns around and causes water and nutrient depletion and increased soil salinity and acidity. I tell you, we can’t win for losing in this world.

Unfortunately, it is not like we’re going to stop building suburbs. As a matter of fact, in a growing state such as Florida, the trend has been that more and more families are moving down here from the colder states like my old stomping grounds of New York. In some cases new families are able to buy resold homes but the majority of folks are going to buy newly constructed suburban homes, complete with all the trappings of possible environmental degradation.

On a side note, my liberal pappy keeps saying that he hopes more and more Yankees move to Fl and change the political colors from red to blue. He says this in a very condescending way toward the traditional resents of the Sunshine State.

Getting back to the housing market, it is in fact flourishing though, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance reports that, “Homebuilders, however, sense that the boom is fading. Toll Brothers, which builds luxury homes in expensive suburbs, will build fewer homes in 2006 than it had planned. And existing homes are taking longer to sell. Still, real estate isn't in a crisis. Home prices have crested in parts of the Northeast and West, but values in those areas will deflate only a little and in an orderly fashion. Nationally, house prices will rise at their historical rate, 4% to 6%.”

With all of the great institutions civilized society has brought us, there’s no escaping the fact that it also brings harbingers of our own undoing. Even worse is the juvenile debate between those who believe there’s no such thing as environmental degradation caused by the existence of human civilization and those that believe the way to environmental preservation is for us to tear it all down and go back to hunter/gatherer lifestyles (with lots of marijuana of course). As per usual, the answer is somewhere in the middle. As all of the above scientists have stated and many more will echo, it isn’t that suburban life is inherently bad, it’s that there has to be a better way of going about building it. That’s a good theme for many facets of life.