Why architectural design and research are not more relevant in the real world?

Architecture, to be successful, has to be influential and relevant. It cannot thrive by itself, apart from the world. Resources are limited. Costs and benefits are not borne only by the client. The growing suburbia, based on standardised vulgarisation of styles of the past has become to be the most successful contemporary residential typology. Suburbia is not only prevalent, in its most vile form, in North America and, in a more amiable form, in Europe, but it’s threatening to attract the aspirational middle class in the overpopulated, thriving emerging economies. The ongoing transfer of the office park, shopping mall and detached suburban house model is leading to construction of horrendously unliveable mega-non-cities like Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur. I believe architects should influence decision-makers on the search of alternatives to make cities walkable, cyclable, connected, and efficient. These alternatives must lie beyond the mixture of naïveté and kitsch of the so-called New Urbanism