A Case for Demonstration Projects.

Demonstrations on how to make these sustainable modifications in an affordable, plausible and inspiring way are unfortunately not widely available. Beyond basic eco-retrofitting, where are the new models of suburban dwelling that are built with pollution, water shortage, waste equals food, solar energy, large middle class populations, radical homemaking (men and women who have chosen to make family, community, social justice and the health of the planet the governing principles of their lives), globalization, affordability and live/work/play in mind? Again we lack the tactile demonstrations. There are no newly conceived prototypes in our neighborhoods that we can experience; that we can touch, feel and breathe in how a new model of suburban life might be like.

Nasser claims in USA Today (2008) that, “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”. Perhaps suburban neighborhoods could use that global influence and export American designs that take into account the constrictions and realities of the 21^st Century world? Much-needed local demonstrations could be models for communities around the globe, having an impact on global warming at both the local and global scale.

Solutions in Suburbia

Anne R. Beer, Environmental Planner and Professor Emeritus of University of Sheffield, explains in her discussion paper prepared for the European Network on Urban Density and Green Structure (1998) that:

A city's suburban area (here defined as low to middle density housing with gardens) contains a considerable proportion of land, which is not built over or sealed in any way (mainly within private gardens). This land area can, through the straightforward design and application of locally appropriate regenerative design solutions at the level of the individual property, be used to:

· enhance biodiversity

· process, through composting, biodegradable waste

· hold and collect water from roofs and sealed surfaces to be used for gardens and car-washes

· reduce heat loss by increased use of climbing plants which create a "pocket of still air" next to house walls

When communities work together more elaborate regenerative design solutions can be developed at a neighborhood level, which can also be developed to maximize the potential of the open surface areas within suburban development. For example, to:

· locate tree-belts to reduce the speed of the wind as it hits the house and, therefore, reduce energy consumption

· manage local surface water flows to reduce the local effects of "flash flooding" from the sealed surfaces and roofs

· create biodiversity "corridors" through housing areas linking a city's more naturalistic open spaces

As opposed to city dwellers, (who are less likely to own their own buildings and who share smaller plots of land with other tenets) suburban homeowners have a unique opportunity to rethink their private property. Solutions to finding clean energy sources, eating locally sourced food, pollution, being resource efficient and handling waste may actually be found in one’s own back and/or front yard. Even the mass amounts of traffic and exhaust pollution caused from millions of people driving to work every day could be cut down within a restaged suburbia.

In Eva Struble’s essay, Global Suburbia Meditations on the World of the ‘Burb (2008) written for an Abington Art Center exhibition she ads that:

As computer/telecom technologies make working from home increasingly feasible, transportation costs soar, and environmental concerns such as air pollution and global warming gain currency, more people than ever will not only live in the suburbs, but will opt to work (and play) locally as well.

Home offices, edible gardens, composts, chickens, grey water systems, solar panels, green roofs and weatherizing are all reasonable modifications that can make the suburban home and lifestyle model significantly more self sufficient and sustainable. These straightforward, common-sense approaches to some simple tasks will improve the way we use water, deal with waste and reduce energy consumption, while at the same time enhance biodiversity (Beer 1998).