EP 431 Do the Suburbs Need Retrofitting?

 More Americans live in suburban settings than any other. Suburbs are not a monolith.  Depending on factors like proximity to an urban center, they take on various forms. Sprawl is often noted as one of the worst aspects of suburban growth. As we continue to build more highways to satisfy the desire for many to get away from the urban core, we find issues of sustainability, walkability and receptivity to the needs of lower income families and the elderly of growing concern. Other changes are now impinging on these spaces often defined by shopping centers, garden apartment complexes and highway strip corridors, as well as the often venerated single family home. Many are being re-envisioned just as demographic shifts occur as a result of the pandemic.  To help us understand the impact of these shifts we turn to June Williamson of the City College of New York.  Her latest book, along with Ellen Dunham-Jones, is titled ‘Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia:  Urban Design Strategies for Urgent Challenges’.  She often many strategies for change and will provoke your thinking about the built environments in which most of us live.  

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