Residential retrofitting: creating a sustainable future for suburbia

In the last several years, the issue of residential retrofitting our existing suburban residential neighborhoods has become relatively prominent. During the past century we have developed a pattern of suburban sprawl that is built upon consumption of natural resources, which has increasingly become less sustainable. Our goal of this paper is to identify policies or programs that could aid in encouraging the retrofitting of suburban residential neighborhoods. For the sake of this report, we will be looking at two sides of retrofitting. The first is the sustainability side. This deals with the insatiable consumption that goes along with our current development policies. There are many facets within the sustainability segment of the argument such as the environmental side. For instance, the emission of greenhouse gases from the auto-centric commuter patterns, pollution created by coal power plants used to provide energy to large tracts of single-family houses, or the large amounts of discarded buildings materials being dumped in landfills from our largely disposable developments. Current development patterns aren't economically sustainable either. Largely dispersed residential development does not take advantage of economies of scale that more dense urban areas can. Providing public services such as fire and police get more and more expensive per capita the more dispersed a jurisdiction becomes. The same goes for infrastructure like water, sewer, and road networks. The other side of the argument for retrofitting is the livability that could be provided. This has the tendency to be a relatively contentious issue. Many times people take offense when they feel they are being told how their neighborhood should look and function. It is not the intention of this paper to dictate what type of neighborhood or housing dwelling people must live in, but to assess where we are at and how we can provide alternatives to our current system. This addresses livability issues such as providing walkable streets, connectivity, and access to alternative modes of transportation. While the structure of our neighborhoods is beginning to receive more attention that it may have in the past, it is hardly a new issue. We have been developing sprawling suburban neighborhoods for over a hundred years, and for nearly as long, there have been opponents to this type of development. From Jane Jacobs seminal work "The Life and Death of Great American Cities" in the 1960's to current works by Anders Duaney and the New Urbanists or more ecological based works by Richard Register, the theoretical side of planning doesn't lack alternatives to the current development patterns. But due to a high-reward, low risk development environment for the creation of typical suburban communities, little has changed. Currently there appears to be more of a push in the entire industry towards a newer more intelligent growth pattern that uses our resources more responsibly. But what do we do with our current suburban developments that currently consume large amounts of resources and account for nearly seventy five percent of residential development in the United States.Master of City and Regional Plannin