New Urbanism and Natural Law
January 3, 2008
Over at Mirror of Justice – my own blogging “home base” — there is an interesting conversation going on about new urbanism, sprawl, Catholic Social Thought, and natural law. Check out, in particular, this post by Greg Sisk, and then scroll down for the rest of the conversation.
I’d welcome thoughts and comments from Vox Nova readers, particularly with respect to Prof. Sisk’s explanation of his disagreement with Prof. Philip Bess (who contends, among other things, that it is a proposition of the natural law that humans should build and live in walkable, mixed-use settlements).
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Dr. Deneen hits on some of these issues, particularly Prof. Sisk’s first objection, in a post on the movie “It’s and a Wonderful Life” and in a follow up.
For what it’s worth, according to Allan Carlson’s book Third Ways G.K. Chesterton was a fan of the suburbs and of the automobile, saying that after the tyranny of the railroads, “the free and solitary traveler is returning before our eyes . . . having recovered to some extent the freedom of the King’s highway in the manner of Merry England,” and that “if possessing a Ford car means rejoicing in a field of corn or clover, in a fresh lanscape an a free atmosphere, it may be the beginning of many things. . . It may be, for instance, . . . the beginning of the cottage.”
I read Bess’s “Till We Have Built Jerusalem” and found it compelling (if somewhat redundant since many of the articles make the same basic argument). As a long-time fan of “Geography of Nowhere” kinds of arguments, I personally agree that walkable, mixed-use, SES-mixed communities are far preferable to the alternative of suburban sprawl. I have the good fortune to live in such a 1920s-built neighborhood myself and love it very much. I’d even go so far as to agree that such patterns of urban design tend to be more consistent with authentic human flourishing, the common good of life in community, and so on. I did, however, find the elevation of such things to an abstract natural law principle binding on all people of sound reason at all times and places a stretch. If only because human life provides plenty of examples of unhappy people and dysfunctional communities in traditional urban designed settings, while lots of people live happy, fulfilling, and community-centered lives outside such settings (in suburbs, on farms, etc.). So I am not sure where that leaves me with Bess—agreement in general, in where I want to live and raise my kids certainly, and even in the direction I would like to see development and zoning policies move nationwide; but I am not sure his argument can sustain the weight of Aristotle, Thomas, and the entire natural law tradition placed at its center.
Incidentally, for a Protestant version of the same new urbanist argument, see Eric Jacobsen’s “Sidewalks in the Kingdom” from Brazos Press.
Initially, yes, I would say that “suburban” planning is a violation of natural law, that is, it is clearly contrary to the pursuit and attainment of the basic human goods. In other words, suburbs as typically constructed, and perhaps more importantly, in light of the ends and principles from which they are accordingly built, undermine and subvert authentic human goods and impede the acquisition of those goods.
That being said, it is not always easy to define what suburbia is. (I myself made two attempts: here and here.)
Furthermore, the collusion of urban development (even new urbanist development) and the insidious motives of developers that owe more to unfortunate aspects of capitalism worries me. New urbanism then ends up serving as a means for the affluent to maintain a kind of life and community opposed to solidarity, and ends up being (despite the better intentions of some new-urbanists) anti-family.
Rather, in my experience it is OLD urbanism (older neigborhoods built on an urbanist model that are now blue-collar affordable) that affords the best opportunity, or rather, is compatible with the pursuit of the common good (although there are often serious difficulties here, in terms of bad or dangerous neighborhoods, schools, etc., that usually follow the influx of lower-class into old urban neighborhoods); or instead small agrarian towns and communities (like the Amish or the Catholic commune). Actually as far as I can tell it seems you need both. I am not sure on the details of this relation however.
Now, I would say that “living” in a suburb is usually NOT a sin, although it could be if intentionally chosen for the reasons which the developers and planners built it–but usually families choose to live in suburbia seeking authentic human goods, and are deceived into thinking the suburb is the place that will support that acquisition. Or lastly, they simply have little other choice, practically speaking (economically). I would guess the latter class is the far minority.
Fundamentally, however, I think we would need a precise definition of suburbia (a better one than we do now, anyways) in order to clearly delineate it as against natural law.