The Road to the Future Is Not a Drive-Thru

McMansions overlook a
strip mall parking lot in Franklin, Wisconsin. (Photo: John Michlig
via Flickr)

This morning on the Streetsblog Network, a cry of frustration from
member blog Sprawled
Out in the Milwaukee suburb of Franklin, Wisconsin.

Sprawled Out’s John Michlig
has been looking at some
of the findings from the Brookings Institution’s “The State
of Metropolitan America” report, which we wrote about earlier
in the week. The report, among other things, notes that traditional
suburbs like Franklin are losing young, affluent, educated residents to
cities with good transit and lively downtowns — a phenomenon one of the
report’s authors refers to as “bright flight.”

Michlig, whose blog is
subtitled “The Search for Community in the American Suburb,” writes:

So, the question is: What will suburbs like mine do to meet this
challenge? I can tell you what Franklin, Wisconsin, is currently doing: Nothing.

No initiatives, projects, forums or incentive programs. In fact,
we just pledged a half million dollars to a neighboring community
for a superfluous highway interchange, a move that tells the world that
Franklin is still about a decade behind the curve.…

Compared with the end of 2008, the
average household is now spending an extra $135 a month for fuel.
But, to repeat: My suburb just pledged $500,000 to build a highway interchange
that we don’t need in a neighboring community. And it’s not just
money that will be going to the edge of town and over the border, it
will be development as well. Why build a neighborhood-based
coffee shop when you can toss up an offramp-serving drive-thru java shed
right next to the freeway?

At the same time, Franklin is pouring money into a streetscape design for
a commercial strip that all but ignores transit options like
dedicated bus lanes and Zipcar facilities. Instead, our big-ticket item
on 27th Street is “enhanced
lighting”  — the seventh most popular item mentioned on
preference surveys….

If success and sustainability are a destination, perhaps it’s
time suburbs — mine in particular — realize that the road that brought
them here won’t get them there.

More from around the network: Urban
Out writes about what Cincinnati has that Indianapolis lacks — “the
power of a place.” Twin
City Sidewalks tries to dispel some misconceptions about bike
boulevards. And Broken
Sidewalk wonders if a bike lane on a bridge could significantly
increase ridership in Louisville, Kentucky.