By now you get the point: people like being around other people and the natural progression of our species has been to seek out others of our own kind and settle in similar proximity. The federal government created a system that completely ignored eons of human behavior patterns and traded them for separation
Cities are what allow us to prosper: they are the trade, the economic, social and cultural capitals of the world. The clustering of people is what they have wanted, it helps them to move forward. It grants them the ability to do really amazing things, such as send their kind to the moon or find ways to defeat microscopic viruses. Such things are not possible without settlement.
Settlement also allows us to encounter people each day with different view points and we can share ideas and help to understand each other. Instead we live in gerrymandered legislative districts where people exist in segregated lifestyles. Overall, being separated from each other hasn’t done us any good. No wonder partisan bickering is at an all time high and congressional approval numbers continue to drop.
Even sadder than that is that the suburban idea of doing it all for the kids may have backfired. Many social scientists have questioned if separating the kids from each other on to large lots with their cul-du-sac infested subdivision is healthy. It may in fact it may be causing depression, higher suicide rates, kids acting out (think of how much of a problem bullying has become since the suburbanization of America), and increased dependency. How does it create dependency? Well if your teenager can’t get anywhere on their own, you can try all you want to teach them responsibility and independence by making them do chores or cut the grass for some extra cash. But someone still needs to give them a lift to the mall to spend it because there is literally nothing within walking distance. The last 70 years have also been the safest environment for raising kids in the history of man kind. No wonder the next generation is thinking outside the suburban box.
How the future will be different
Suburban growth has slowed. Urban growth increased by 12% from 2000 – 2010. Kids now view driving as a burden instead of a necessary freedom. Online usenet groups, message boards, and social networks have exploded so that even if we are apart in physical body we can still meet, swap ideas, and collaborate with each other. Even if it is through a data network of machines, it’s there. The market is in the early stages of correcting itself. The new generation questions why the government should heavily subsidize the roads which de-value the surrounding land (nobody wants to live next to a freeway), picking winners and losers in the transportation game while ignoring another form of going from point A to point B with transit systems, which are likely to increase the value of adjacent land.