Excerpt from
Design Dialogues
Writer, Editor, Photographer: Janet Greenstein Potter

Design Dialogues was a quarterly publication of the Foundation for Architecture. Each edition featured a different topic having an impact on the region. This excerpt was taken from the from Fall 2000 issue, Community by Redesign.

Should We 'Suburbanize' the 'Inner City'?

In 1999, the Board of Revision of Taxes reported that Philadelphia has 55,000 abandoned residential, commercial, and industrial buildings and 31,000 vacant lots (where buildings used to be). In certain neighborhoods, the population has decreased by one-half from the city's mid-20th-century peak. Some analysts suggest a stern remedy for the most decimated communities. First step: Demolish extensive blocks of row houses. Second step: Spread modern, less dense housing over the newly created open space, by constructing twin houses with backyards,, front porches, and off-street parking. "Let's make inner-city neighborhoods more like the suburbs."

But in fact, that description of "suburban" housing—twin houses with modest yards, sociable front porches, and driveways—characterizes existing city neighborhoods, such as Mt. Airy, not the far-flung developments of the Philadelphia region. Out in the suburbs, most people live in single-family houses with multicar garages, privacy-oriented back patios, and an absence of sidewalks. Other suburbanites reside in so-called "townhouse" developments—fronted by parking lots with nary a town in sight.

How did our point of reference get so confused? And what difference do the words make?

Inverted Terminology

Historically the inside of a city was the best part—where the wealthy lived. The noxious enterprises, such as tanning leather, occurred on the outside—in the suburbs. In the town center, housing sizes varies: bigger ones for princes of commerce; smaller ones for tradesmen. During the industrial boom of the 19th and early 20th centuries, huge factories were built on acres of city land. Because massive numbers of workers needed to live within walking distance of their jobs, real estate developers built thousands of row or tenement houses. The image of these densely packed neighborhoods became the predominant American definition of "urban."

During that 100-year time span, wealthy and middle-class industrialists and professionals wanted to get away from crowded living conditions. In Philadelphia, some moved to outlying city neighborhoods, for example, Germantown or Overbrook. Others moved to railroad suburbs north and west of the city. . . . END OF EXCERPT