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MSU architecture researchers explore suburban development |
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Saturday, 31 January 2009 |
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Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of stories examining sustainability issues in Starkville, Oktibbeha County and Mississippi.
By KELLY DANIELS
Starkville Daily News
Researchers at Mississippi State University are looking at ways to address the state’s residential development as it relates to sustainability.
The U.S. Department of Energy handed over $370,000 to research projects in the state to explore self-help housing that is also affordable and energy efficient.
The MSU School of Architecture’s Carl Small Town Center received a portion of this grant so that staff could research suburban development and raise awareness of its consequences.
“The research money is to document this trend and raise dialog within the state on whether or not the rest of the state wants to go into suburbanization,” said Cari J. Varner, assistant director of the Carl Center, whose research shows that suburban expansion is not a sustainable form of development.
Her dialogue includes discussions in Y’all Magazine and Mississippi Magazine, advertising the cause on billboards and setting up a booth at the upcoming Mississippi Home Show.
Though most states have long endured suburban development, Mississippi is still fairly new to the game.
“There’s been this new trend in the last 15 years where people are moving out of downtown traditional neighborhood and out into what we call the suburbs,” said Varner, whose hometown, located outside New York City, lost its downtown before she was born due to suburban sprawl.
Suburbia, which became popular in the United States after World War II, decreases activity in downtown areas as it often brings in strip malls and department stores.
It also physically eats up land used for farming and animal habitats.
Not only does spreading out a city’s living area affect the environment, but it also affects the city’s economy.
“Small businesses often can’t survive in that landscape,” Varner said. Additionally, the city must increase its capacity to provide electric, water and sewer services, as it continues to annex more suburban areas.
“There are issues with rainwater and sewer runoff,” she said.
Traffic also becomes an issue, as a small town, such as Starkville, bears congestion due to mandatory automobile possession and the dependence of one or several suburbs on collector roads in order to travel anywhere from the home.
Traditional cities functioning before World War II, however, used a simple grid pattern, and, thus, were less congested. They were also more compatible to pedestrians, who lived closer to the town center and could walk from place to place more safely.
“We don’t live in a dense area,” said Michael Zebrowski, MSU assistant professor of architecture, who partners with Varner on the project.
“But you go on to Highway 12 and there’s traffic at 5 p.m., because everybody is moving out.”
Cultural identity
Since suburbia gained a foothold in the country, the idea of the home as lasting only 20 years instead of 100 has also been a consequence.
Designs of pattern homes, which are found all over the country, have replaced design that is relevant to a city or a region’s cultural identity.
Part of the Carl Center’s research project was to give architecture students a pattern book home designed by national architects, which are available at Lowe’s, and redesign a home that responds in their own way to suburbia.
Zebrowski says that national production of homes is not concerned with the southern climate or Southern living.
“That traditional local building fabric type is lost,” he said. “It’s all about the national production way of making things.”
Starkville’s inner ring, which includes neighborhood on Greensboro Street, is full of historic homes that were designed as a response to the Southern climate.
They feature large porches with overhangs for sun protection, cross ventilation and sidewalks, leading neighbors from the street to the front door.
“You go out to South Montgomery (Street) and all those traditional features are lost,” Zebrowski said. “You lose that identity in a way.”
Pointing to pictures of houses on this street, he said that they were built on a slab.
“There’s no front porch,” he said.
“There’s no sidewalk, because it’s all about the car. The only way to get in and out of the house has to do with the car, and this is not southern.”
The style of these homes derives from a what Zebrowski calls a “mish-mosh” of styles from different places, indicating a lack of understanding of place.
Zebrowski has also noticed cheap materials in building these type of homes, such as vinyl siding over wood siding.
“Vinyl is cheap and long lasting, but it has a negative affect on the environment and it does not have the same authenticity,” he said.
Because Mississippi is still in the early stages of suburban development compared to most other states, Varner and Zebrowski are simply raising awareness about its effects on society as a whole.
Varner could not determine exactly what sort of development would benefit Starkville, because different places have different needs.
“All we’re trying to do is get a discussion going,” Varner said. “We don’t have any solutions.”
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 01 February 2009 )
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