I don’t know. On the one hand, I don’t want to underestimate children’s capacity for self-mystification. I suspect that most children, at least most of those who grow up middle-class, and sheltered from anything too abysmal in the family’s home life, look back at their early years with a certain sense of awe and wonder. Those lookalike houses in Del Boca Vista Estates are not lookalike to the children inside them, who know which house has the best video-game system, which kid has the dad who makes the best forts with the dining room table and some blankets, whose parents go out late and don’t hire a babysitter (all the better for watching verboten TV channels).

On the other hand, there is empirical evidence that suburban life of this kind can lead to bad things: obesity, too much time in the car, fewer friends, less play. And teenagers — forget about it. If they can, they flee to the city. Or at least the curious ones do.

But what I don’t have are good sympathetic non-fiction books about life in suburban sprawl. For every book critical of that way of life — Langdon’s book, Duany et al.’s Suburban Nation, Ray Oldenburg’s The Great Good Place — there seem to be exactly zero books about why it can be pleasurable to grow up in spaces that are, after all, safe, predictable, and quiet, which are all good things.

I want the other side of the story. Ideas, anyone?

It seems like a fair question to me.  There surely is another side to the story and there must be people that like to live on the outer edge of suburbia.  I mean, they choose to live there, right?  One of the commenters – Steve Mouzon – says that yes, there are some who like to live there, but many suburbanites are simply there because they lack options.  He use some rough estimates to make a point, but the point is still interesting to consider:

grew up in suburbia, and could go on for pages about its deficiencies, but that would just be anecdotal, wouldn’t it? If you discount the “sprawl lobby” that is funded by the asphalt companies or the road-builders, then you’re right: you find precious little sympathy for sprawl. ESPECIALLY concerning its lovability. Maybe that’s a clue.
The bottom line is that sprawl proliferated not because it was well-loved, but because it was the only choice of an industrial-grade land development system that actually outlawed everything else. When the New Urbanism began, all of its proposals were either illegal or otherwise impossible, even though its principles were based on the places in each region that people loved the most.

In the end, we’ve built so much sprawl that it now constitutes half of American buildings. Let’s assume for a moment that 1/3 of Americans loved sprawl. That’s dubious, given your noted lack of evidence of sympathy for sprawl. But just being generous, let’s assume that 100 million of 300 million Americans love sprawl. But if half (150 million) live in sprawl, then we have huge oversupply of sprawl. To eat up the oversupply, America would have to grow from 300 million to 450 million so that the 1/3 (150 million) who possibly love sprawl could match the sprawl units. That means we’d need to build 150 million units of New Urbanism and not a single new unit of sprawl to meet the market preferences.

Interesting food for thought.

Really, Oklahoma has a tradition of sustainability? When I look at the list of cities adopting LEED standards I don’t see anything about Oklahoma City or Tulsa?

Well, okay, we aren’t necessarily ahead of the sustainability curve now, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t living more sustainable lives in the past…

OKLAHOMA’S HISTORY OF SUSTAINABILITY

HOUSING

Oklahoma has a long history of sustainable housing types including:

The earth house (commonly referred to as a soddy or dugout) was a popular form of earlier Oklahoma settler housing and is considered to have a “small ecological footprint.”

The grass house (pre-fire alarm no less) also housed many early Okies.

And of course, we can’t forget the teepee which has been housing residents on Oklahoma soil since before the Land Run.



TRANSPORTATION

Speaking of the Land Run, we must remember that it was a Land RUN! If everyone had come in their SUVs then it would have probably been called the Land Race. But the soon to be residents of Oklahoma chose more sustainable transportation options, and traveled to stake their claim by train, on horseback, and even on foot!



ENERGY

Okay, so there have been periods where we may have contributed more than our fair share to America’s oil dependence problems, but we are also the place where “the wind comes sweeping down the plain” and we have been turning that wind into usable energy for a long, long time. In fact, now with the emphasis on clean natural gas and new wind farms we are beginning to embrace the sustainable energy tradition of our past.

THE IDEA: WE NEED A SWEET T-SHIRT!

So here is the idea. I want to make sure everyone knows that Oklahoma has been doing this sustainability thing for years and I have decided the best way to get the word out is with a sweet t-shirt. So to get things started, I am offering $100 for the best original t-shirt design that focuses on sustainable housing in Oklahoma. I would suggest you include one of the following slogans or something similar:

“Oklahoma has been doing sustainable housing for years!”

or

“We’ve been doing sustainable housing for years!”*

*include some reference to Oklahoma


Other Slogans

If you have more ideas on what would make a good slogan, please post them in the comments below.

CONTEST RULES

Obviously, I am no expert at holding t-shirt competitions, but here are the basics:

deadline: all submissions must be received by November 30, 2008.

specs: all designs must adhere to the requirements of the Cafe Press 10×10 template (found here).

submitting: please email design in .jpg or .png format to blair.d.humphreys@gmail.com.

prizes: winner: $100 / runner-up: $40 / note: depending on the number and quality of entrants I may raise the prize amounts and/or award more entrants

selection: winners will be selected at my discretion and please no family members or employees of imagiNATIVEamerica.com

ownership: all entrants must turnover ownership of submitted design(s) and all rights to their use. Granting me the sole right to reproduce, print, sell the design, or use it in any way I deem appropriate.