The City Reader - Suburban Sprawl

Like Kevin, I grew up in the heart of sprawl. As a young child, my family did a lot of moving and as a result, I grew up in four different neighborhoods. The uniting factors in these neighborhoods are their sprawl-like qualities. Until I was six years old we lived in a neighborhood half an hour outside of Atlanta. The large amount of traffic was the only evidence that the area was anywhere near a giant city. The houses all looked the same and were even arranged similarly. There was one main street and off of it were neighborhoods arranged with three or four cul-de-sacs apiece. There was a park up the main road that most people would drive to and everyone had about the same size yard and house. Then we moved to Signal Mountain, TN a small town on top of a mountain outside of Chattanooga. There was only one traffic light in the whole town when we moved there but we brought the sprawl with us. Two years later when we left it was becoming more and more commercialized. Then we lived in Hockessin, DE which is a small town in the north most part of Delaware (I could walk to Pennsylvania from our house). Our house had a giant backyard with a swing set and everything. All the houses were identical there just like they had been my whole life. The last four years I have lived in Richmond, VA in the most sprawl-like of all my neighborhoods. About ten years before we moved there it was a farm land. Even in the four years that we lived there I saw the farm land get pushed back further and further from Richmond. This very moment multiple construction projects are going on within a five mile radius of my house. Seven years ago a new high school was built; five years ago a new middle school; two years ago it was a new elementary school; and currently construction for a new high school is underway again. Strip malls have taken off like rockets and there are six Starbucks between my house and my high school. Land is being overrun by sidewalks, streets, buildings, and parking lots. I don’t like sprawl, I grew up in it I’ve lived it and now I want something new. To me the idea of a traditional neighborhood is very appealing.

Sarah Jackson