87 replies to this topic

[JBB]

I never understand why it's always assumed that people who want a little density and urban development aren't going to be happy until FW is the Texas version of NYC. I just want a happy medium. Is that so much to ask? The last time I drove through the Bryant Irvin/Hulen area, there was plenty of development on the fringes. And all of that will look like a fallout zone when the strip centers and Super Targets/Wal Marts start popping up along the tollway out by 1187 and 917.

[Fort Worthology]

I never understand why it's always assumed that people who want a little density and urban development aren't going to be happy until FW is the Texas version of NYC. I just want a happy medium. Is that so much to ask? The last time I drove through the Bryant Irvin/Hulen area, there was plenty of development on the fringes. And all of that will look like a fallout zone when the strip centers and Super Targets/Wal Marts start popping up along the tollway out by 1187 and 917.

 

I spent six years writing about this stuff and no matter how many examples I provided of the many alternatives between the extremes of "suburban Fort Worth" and "midtown Manhattan," I still got accused of wanting to do just that.

[FarSouth]

I asse you guys live in the south seventh or downtown areas but as someone who lives almost in Crowley grocery, gas and restaurants will be very welcome.

Density can be good if you want to live in a dense area but for some living in the suburbs is exactly what we want.

[Volare]

Density can be good if you want to live in a dense area but for some living in the suburbs is exactly what we want.

 

That's fine, but that suburb should be called Cleburne or Weatherford or Sprawlville, or whatever you want to call it. But for Fort Worth to annex it and then expect the rest of the city to subsidize the infrastructure that must then be spliced into the system 20-30 miles from the source, well, that's a problem.

[FarSouth]

Subsidize? You act as if we don't pay taxes! And on top of that you act as if the only people worth being a part of Fort Worth have to live in a small portico of the city. To that I say you are misguided and rather judgmental. Part of what makes town great are the different aspects of it.

We have a great down town nice suburban areas we have the stockyards and south 7 we have an arts district and a university. This is what makes us great.

[Volare]

Water, Sewer, etc are all the same cost to the consumer whether you are 2 miles from the source or 30 miles from the source. That's the subsidy I'm talking about. If it was Fort Worth selling the same product to another municipality on the fringes, you can bet that they would fully cover their cost to run that line out to the edge of the prairie. As it is, the portions of the system that have been paid off for decades are subsizing portions of the system that are being grafted on at unsustainable rates. Do you think it a coincindence that water rates have increased 60% in a decade?

 

There are many great things about Fort Worth. The fact that it has been allowed to sprawl across 350 square miles is not one of them, IMHO.

[Dylan]

Guess we'll have to disagree. The way I see it (with today's standards), suburbs are standard density, and urban areas are above normal density.

 

In other words, suburbs have average efficiency in utility infrastructure, and urban areas have above average efficiency in utility infrastructure. People living in suburban areas outnumber the people living in urban areas.

 

Are you sure inflation and shrinking water supply aren't reasons prices have gone up? How much has it gone up in previous decades?

[Volare]

Guess we'll have to disagree. The way I see it (with today's standards), suburbs are standard density, and urban areas are above normal density.

 

...

 

For your consideration regarding the density of the population, I offer the following map:

 

http://demographics....tMap/index.html

 

In this map, every single person in the US is represented by a single dot. Discuss...

[Austin55]

Whoa, the most interesting part of that map is definitely how it's divided by race. You cam clearly make out entire neighborhoods. Zooming in on downtown, you can even see which specific buildings people live in. It's pretty sombering to notice the jail.... I can also see Hunter Plaza being listed as occupied so I guess it's a bit old.

It doesn't do a great job showing density beyond a certain point (the downtown blocks are just solid) but it does a great job of showing how spread out a lot of us are. I'd be interested in see an updated version showing where expansion is happening.
That's an incredible map.

[RenaissanceMan]

It also shows just how badly we need more residential directly in and around downtown.

[Dylan]

 

Guess we'll have to disagree. The way I see it (with today's standards), suburbs are standard density, and urban areas are above normal density.

 

...

 

For your consideration regarding the density of the population, I offer the following map:

 

http://demographics....tMap/index.html

 

In this map, every single person in the US is represented by a single dot. Discuss...

 

 

This reinforces my take on density, as it shows the vast majority of the population living in suburban areas.

 

Guess we'll have to disagree. The way I see it (with today's standards), suburbs are standard density, and urban areas are above normal density.

 

...

 

For your consideration regarding the density of the population, I offer the following map:

 

http://demographics....tMap/index.html

 

In this map, every single person in the US is represented by a single dot. Discuss...

 

 

This reinforces my take on density, as it shows the vast majority of the population living in suburban areas.

 

Cool map, BTW.

[Volare]

Yeah it's a cool map, probably deserving of it's own topic.

[RenaissanceMan]

 

 

Guess we'll have to disagree. The way I see it (with today's standards), suburbs are standard density, and urban areas are above normal density.

 

...

 

For your consideration regarding the density of the population, I offer the following map:

 

http://demographics....tMap/index.html

 

In this map, every single person in the US is represented by a single dot. Discuss...

 

 

This reinforces my take on density, as it shows the vast majority of the population living in suburban areas.

 

Guess we'll have to disagree. The way I see it (with today's standards), suburbs are standard density, and urban areas are above normal density.

 

...

 

For your consideration regarding the density of the population, I offer the following map:

 

http://demographics....tMap/index.html

 

In this map, every single person in the US is represented by a single dot. Discuss...

 

 

This reinforces my take on density, as it shows the vast majority of the population living in suburban areas.

 

Cool map, BTW.

 

 

I'd tap the brakes before proclaiming your argument as validated by this data, as it again gets into territory of "are all of these people living in suburban areas (assuming all suburban areas are created equal) because of natural and inevitable forces of the market, community growth and the collective desires of residents or are there other factors (including policies, infrastructure, public investment, various artificial barriers and legacy/historic factors) that could also be leading to the bulk of population, investment and community development finding its way to the suburbs and exurbs?"

 

We talk a lot on here about the distinct differences between pre- and post-WWII community development. Well consider for a moment that approximately 84.6% of all housing currently in existence in Fort Worth and 85.4% of all housing in Texas was built after 1950. And, for that matter, about 35% of all current housing in Fort Worth was built during the 1970s, 80s and 90s, a time that could easily be considered "rock bottom" for America's urban centers, and it is fairly easy to see the impact produced by various policies, infrastructure decisions, social biases/prejudices, and economic/industrial forces at play during that time on where people still live today. Urban growth, for better or for worse, carries momentum from years and sometimes decades past.

[Dylan]

How suburbs came to be more populated than urban areas has nothing to do with me classifying typical suburbia as average density.

 

If we hadn't fled to the suburbs and still lived in the core, then I would consider urban areas average density and suburban areas below average density.

 

The way I view density by today's standards:

 

Urban areas: well above normal density

Pre WWII suburbs: above normal density

Post WWII suburbs: normal density

Semi-rural areas: below normal density

Rural areas: well below normal density

[RenaissanceMan]

How suburbs came to be more populated than urban areas has nothing to do with me classifying typical suburbia as average density.
 
If we hadn't fled to the suburbs and still lived in the core, then I would consider urban areas average density and suburban areas below average density.
 
The way I view density by today's standards:
 
Urban areas: well above normal density
Pre WWII suburbs: above normal density
Post WWII suburbs: normal density
Semi-rural areas: below normal density
Rural areas: well below normal density

It seems I may have either misunderstood your view or blended it with the words of someone else's posts. In either respect, if I mischaracterized your view, then I a apologize. I think, though what does bother me a bit is your use of the word "normal" in reference to suburban density which seems to imply they it is the natural or balanced density.

[Russ Graham]

Here's another map link.  This one has population density of different areas of FW (takes a minute to load on my computer)

 

http://www.city-data...apOSM[fs]=false

 

Average density of Tarrant County  = 1.8 Million / 902 Square Miles = 2000 people / square mile

 

So this is what you might call "Average".  If the entire county were populated at the exact same "average" density, this would represent one end of the spectrum of sprawl.  This would represent basically everybody living in single-family housing on .25 acre lots.  Anybody that wanted to live in something "different" i.e. multifamily, or larger lots, would be S.O.L.

 

As you can see from the map we are not far from this situation.  There are "peaks" of density where some census blocks have some apartment buildings - but they are not clustered around the center of town, they are scattered across town like sugar sprinkles on a glazed cake donut.

 

Also note that the population density of the CBD is practically Nil.

 

So - your description of density as it starts off high in the center of town, and reduces towards the outside edges of town (which most people agree would be a good thing), does not actually apply to the reality of the current situation.  Which is why people that are advocating for denser growth around the center of town are doing so.  It's not because they "hate" the suburbs - it's because the current situation is "all suburbs" and no "urbs"

[John T Roberts]

This topic has been split away from the Chisholm Trail Parkway thread.

[RenaissanceMan]

John, I hate to nit pick, but I have to object to the thread title. I don't think that I would describe much of the discussion as urban vs. suburban, so much as traditional urbanism vs. conventional (sub)urbanism.

[John T Roberts]

I can change the title.

[RenaissanceMan]

[cberen1]

Again, I think the point is that there are some real benefits to increased density, and few if any benefits to increased sprawl.  I don't think anyone here is advocating an abandonment of the suburbs and a relocation of everyone downtown.  You like Crowley? Cool. Stay wherever you like.  I just think a lot of people on the forum would like to see the city, for reasons that benefit all the tax payers, encourage more of the growth in population to be closer to the core.

 

Personally, my biggest issue with a lot of the suburban development from the last 30 years has been the poor quality of design and construction in certain areas.  Cheap is cheap.  The slums of the future will be on the periphery. 

 

But, there is also an environmental and infrastructure cost from tens of thousands of cars gridlocked on undersized arteries burining fossil fuels for hours and hours on end every single day.  There is a cost to providing city services further and further away from the core.  It's a cost that people closer to the core subsidize with taxes that are often higher (not always) and a share of the benefit of all the services and infrastructure that is proportionally lower.  (I think I said all that correctly)

[djold1]

Curious:

 

What percentage of the present residents in the urban or downtown FW area are school aged children (K-12)?

 

Among the married residents, what is the average family size at this time?

 

What percent of the urban residents are single?   

[Austin55]

djold, you  could probably find some answers here,  http://www.dfwi.org/research

[gdvanc]

I'm telling you, it seems the last time I made it over here to the forum there was concern about Fort Worth's position on the Largest Cities in the USA list and today I see gnashing of teeth over the annexation policies that put it there. Fort Worth's population is what it is because it's situated in an MSA of 6 million people and it has stretched it's fence around a bit over 750,000 of them. I'd bet a Martin House Rubberneck Red that if Fort Worth didn't push its municipal boundaries past the loop, its population would be somewhere between that of Arlington and Tulsa. Try convincing people you're just as important around here as Dallas from that rung on the ladder.

 

If it costs so much more to service the outlying areas, what's the goal of the annexation strategy? I'd always assumed it was a kind of hedge: "Sprawl happens; let's make sure we get a cut of the tax receipts." Has anyone pencil-whipped this? For, say, the Alliance area - did someone do an NPV on current and future tax revenues for the area (property, sales, hotel, whatever) less current and ongoing expenditures in expanding infrastructure and city services way up there? There's so much confidence on both sides, surely someone did that.

 

Mention has been made of the extra cost of expanding city services outside the core. I'd like to point out that some of those services aren't consolidated in the core. Water certainly isn't; Fort Worth gets water from Lake Worth, Eagle Mountain, Benbrook, Bridgeport, Cedar Creek and Richland-Chambers. Only two of those are inside the loop. Two are way, way outside the loop. Of course, the Holly water treatment plant is pretty much in the core, but Rolling Hills and Eagle Mountain aren't. I'm not sure where the new Westside WTP is - but the point is water supply isn't centralized. Perhaps if you packed all of Fort Worth's residents into a handful of zip codes it would be a bit more so. Then, of course, for the sake of efficiency and reduced infrastructure you could also move all the wastewater treatment plants closer to downtown as well. I know some people in north Arlington would probably appreciate that.

 

Let's not pretend that density doesn't come with its own infrastructure challenges and costs. This comes from someone who lives in Arlington - a city significantly more dense than Fort Worth. Snark. Shows how misleading statistics can be.

 

Feel free to beat me up. I can take it. It's been a long couple of weeks and I'm feeling contrarian.

 

FWIW, I think denser development should be encouraged and sprawl not so eagerly subsidized.

[renamerusk]

 

If it costs so much more to service the outlying areas, what's the goal of the annexation strategy? I'd always assumed it was a kind of hedge: "Sprawl happens; let's make sure we get a cut of the tax receipts."

 

Mention has been made of the extra cost of expanding city services outside the core. I'd like to point out that some of those services aren't consolidated in the core. Water certainly isn't; Fort Worth gets water from Lake Worth, Eagle Mountain, Benbrook, Bridgeport, Cedar Creek and Richland-Chambers. Only two of those are inside the loop. Two are way, way outside the loop. Of course, the Holly water treatment plant is pretty much in the core, but Rolling Hills and Eagle Mountain aren't. I'm not sure where the new Westside WTP is - but the point is water supply isn't centralized. Perhaps if you packed all of Fort Worth's residents into a handful of zip codes it would be a bit more so. Then, of course, for the sake of efficiency and reduced infrastructure you could also move all the wastewater treatment plants closer to downtown as well. I know some people

 

FWIW, I think denser development should be encouraged and sprawl not so eagerly subsidized.

 

With homesteading and depreciation v. rising costs for ever new infrastructure and infrastructure maintenance, I don't really believe that the exchange is equal.  The policy of sprawl is inefficient, can not be sustained in the future and at some point, land is exhaustible.  Instead, improving existing infrastructure makes more sense than creating new infrastructure to be maintained.

 

The centralization of water/waste water scenario is bit of a stretch.  Water supplies are shared through out the region. Dallas and Fort Worth share these assets.  What choice do you have to place a large body of storage water?

 

Finally, I will not be beating you up because in the end you did come around to the sensible conclusion that going forward density should be encourage and that the subsidy for sprawl should end.

[Austin55]

ST article today going a bit more in depth about this issue. Figured ya'll could grab some more discussion out of it.

 

http://www.star-tele...ial-burden.html

[RenaissanceMan]

ST article today going a bit more in depth about this issue. Figured ya'll could grab some more discussion out of it.
 
http://www.star-tele...ial-burden.html

I was just about to post this article. The whole bit about the role of economic development incentives in this article is a red herring - though it makes for a good storyline especially for a national writer at Bloomberg. I also cringed of course at the reference to "the Dallas area," but that's a whole other fight. What seemed to get lost in all that was covered in this article is that it isn't just a matter of how fast you are growing but the ways you are growing which of course gets back to this topic - especially when the city focused on is Frisco.

Yes it can be a challenge to keep up with growth, but over the long term, growth in population should generally correspond growth in GDP or GMP, property values and sales which should translate into higher tax receipts and the ability to fund public projects/services. Unfortunately, conventional/sprawl development patterns and, especially, bedroom communities lined with retail in an auto-dependent format stretches resources and increases demand for services and infrastructure meant to support cars and alleviate traffic (which as already discussed is a fool's errand). So the bigger question is are Texas cities fully benefitting from the growth that they are experiencing and if not are there things that they are doing that is contributing to that? This is a time of growth and prosperity for Texas cities - the built environment should be a reflection of that but isn't.

Edit: a quick side note on a separate but related issue. The way school finance is done and resources allocated in Texas can also have big impact on a given community's ability to keep up with growth. But there again, you really can't separate this issue from a broader discussion about the growth patterns that are supported/encouraged (especially in the case of the bedroom communities) and various development practices that had become commonplace in recent decades, such as a developer giving away land to a school district for free so that they would build their newest school next to the houses that developer was building or had plans to build.

[gdvanc]

renamerusk, I agree that the centralization of water/waste water is a stretch - but water/waste water was the only specific example given by those who pointed to the expansion of city services far from the core as a subsidy paid for by those in the core to those in the sprawling hinterlands. My point is that these services, at least, are not concentrated in the core. It is distributed. It is misguided to suggest that adding development on the fringes requires running new sets of pipes from City Hall.

 

If we were designing a brand new city to support 750,000 people today, the argument for the efficiency of dense infrastructure would perhaps be stronger. (And we might not pick a bluff overlooking the confluence of two minor tributaries to site it.) But when we're talking about adding development to an already sprawling city of 750,000, the math is different. Anywhere you plop the next 100,000 people is going to create infrastructure issues.

 

I'm not saying this to just be cantankerous. I'm saying it because I think it's important to do a reasoned and rigorous cost/benefit analysis of any potential annexation because when all is said and done, here is the truth of it all: no matter how much many of us would like to see better, denser and smarter development in the core, for the foreseeable future the sprawl will continue. The inbound waves of U-Hauls will continue to crash upon our shore. Antares and KB and Pulte will continue to vomit their product all over God's green earth. There are no physical or policy impediments to slow it. There is not enough time for you to educate them about the sensibility of new urbanism. There is not enough room in Fort Worth South to hold them all.

 

So, given that, what is Fort Worth to do? Some apparently think annexation never brings in more in new tax revenue than it costs in expanded infrastructure. I'm skeptical of that claim, but either way how hard can the math be? If nothing else, we should have previous annexations to study. (TIFs may muddy the measure of the benefit to Fort Worth as a whole, but may make the net easier to find.) Based on what we learn, we should be able to make reasonable estimations for new annexations. If none are found to have ever been cost-effective, then it should be a lot easier to convince the city to tap the brakes on that strategy. If we find certain types of annexations in certain circumstances and locations have a higher success rate in terms of generating new taxes over the cost of adding infrastructure and services, then maybe we can use that to make smarter decisions.

 

If you believe that, just as a matter of principle, Fort Worth should never annex regardless of its potential to bring in more in new tax revenue than it costs in new infrastructure, that's another matter.

 

I've droned on long enough, but I would like to finish with one question. Presumably some number of people moving to the area will be coming from a more urban environment and would be more open than the average American to living in such a neighborhood. What steps should Fort Worth take to identify and make itself attractive to those people?  Because for those who want to build more of that type of neighborhood, that's your target market. That's the low-hanging fruit you want to grab. It's just not reasonable to hope to convert a significant number of those whose expectations and preferences drive them to life in suburban neighborhoods.

[RenaissanceMan]

OK, so what I am about to get into is some fairly sensitive territory, so i am going to do my best to tread lightly. If I in any way cause offense to anyone reading this, then please accept my apologies in advance. I promise that this is all germane to the conversation at hand and I am not trying to lead things off topic (moderators feel free to keep a keen eye on this one, just in case - likewise if you just don't feel like this is something we need to get into, feel free to delete the post).

 

It's also long... so, sorry for that.

 

With that little disclaimer out of the way (I don't think I have to worry too much about being able to have a mature conversation and maintain civility with this group), there is one aspect of the traditional urbanism vs. conventional (sub)urbanism issue that I have found interesting on a number of levels, which is the impact of changes in urban design on churches within a community - both in terms of the physical (i.e. the architecture of churches and their location/distribution throughout a community) and the programmatic (i.e. what's goin on inside).

 

Now I'm not interested in getting off into questions about religion in general nor changes in views on religious establishments, etc., but I have found it interesting to watch the ways in which churches have been susceptible to much of the same issues that have affected residential, office, retail, etc., as well as other civic land uses.

 

In traditional urbanism, you can get a pretty good idea of what to expect in terms of a community's various churches. You would typically have (and in older neighborhoods today you still do have) small neighborhood churches that predominantly serve residents of that particular neighborhood, with many or most of its members within several blocks distance. It would not be inconceivable for people to be able to walk to church (even if they had the option of and exercised the preference of driving) - in other words, driving to church (at least for these smaller neighborhood churches) would not be considered a de facto mandatory proposition, and even when driving, it would be unusual to live more than a 10 min. drive from your church. Attendees of these small neighborhood churches were/are very often neighbors to one degree or another in addition to sharing a community of faith. It is reasonable to consider how these neighborhood churches served to solidify the culture and character of a neighborhood (to one degree or another) and, importantly, how the neighborhood served to solidify the culture and character of that church - it could be expected that this could even be reflected in that church's services, sermons, outreach, etc. and the likelihood that a person could be an active member of that church through different stages of their lives (given the ability for traditional urban neighborhoods to allow people to "age in place"). So, for better or worse (depending on your viewpoint), a neighborhood's church or churches would be instrumental in shaping the neighborhood (whether that gets into issues of creating a monoculture within that neighborhood along lines of faith is appropriate for a separate discussion). In many cases, these churches can serve to socially or even visually define the neighborhood itself.

 

Apart from neighborhood churches and the functions they would/do serve in traditional urban and suburban neighborhoods, downtown churches could be looked at as serving a somewhat different function altogether, but one that is still very similar in certain respects to smaller neighborhood churches. Typically, downtown churches have played the same role as the neighborhood church but on the scale of an entire city, and while their members might live many miles away, they would still mostly live in the city proper and the architecture of the church would also be of a level of prominence that you would expect for a church that essentially represents the whole of that particular faith or denomination within a given city of a given size. Where the programming of a neighborhood church might be generally oriented toward its neighborhood, the programming of the downtown church would be generally oriented to the whole of the city, and as such, it would/does typically take on certain aspects of that city's character, concerns, ambitions, etc. This all goes to shape that particular church's sense of community and the relationship between members.

 

In contrast are the churches that you typically find in auto-oriented suburban sprawl / the exurbs. Since the typical exurban neighborhood just doesn't have the population, the density or the diversity of age, churches are less likely to be able to survive by focusing on one particular neighborhood and will instead draw from a much greater distance relative to their size and location within the city or metro. In some cases, churches in these areas have (by the direction of their architects, their church leadership or just recent convention I don't know) tended to use many of the same tactics as big-box retailers (and here I am generally talking in terms of architecture, site planning, etc.). They are far more likely to be located not within the middle of a residential area, but alongside a freeway with very large, very easily seen signage. In a surprising large number of cases, they will actually occupy a former Walmart, K-Mart, etc. and even when they are not, if one were to squint, the two could easily be mistaken for one another. Now there are certainly discussions that could be had about how much a church should be spending its resources on the building and its architecture versus what is going on on the inside and in efforts to support the church's mission, but I think it is safe to say that, architecturally speaking, these are usually not aesthetically endearing places. Add to that the fact that they are almost always surrounded by the same sea of parking that you'd expect of a big box retailer and that they are almost never within a stone's throw of any other building, thereby breaking up the urban fabric (as is typical of auto-oriented properties). All of this contributes to the general inability of these churches being able to produce any genuine sense of place on the outside of their walls in the ways that you find of older churches in older neighborhoods.

 

All of this can also be said to have an impact on what goes on on the inside of the church as well. Since members are much less likely to live in the same neighborhood (strictly defined), those neighborhood bonds are far less visible and members tend not to relate to one another on those terms. They may be more likely to relate to one another as inhabitants of the broader suburban nether lands and (as conventional suburban/exurban sprawl is designed with working age adults with children in the household in mind), the programs of that church may be more likely to cater to that particular group. And, since they are drawing people from a much wider geographic area without as much of a cohesive sense of identity that is linked to a particular city or neighborhood, the church is more likely to be "nondenominational" so as to cater to a wider variety of interests (the big box stores of faith, if you will - and I don't mean that disparagingly, it's only an attempt to be descriptive). Also, since the orientation of that particular church (separate and apart from its focus on the faith itself, of course) is not particularly pointed at any one neighborhood or even city, the church's services, sermons, etc. might be considered to be more likely to focus on the individual or on national issues (sometimes, even, issues that are heavily saturated in politics - though there are plenty of examples of this in more traditional neighborhood churches as well, so I might be taking too big a leap with that one). And as residents of conventional suburbs/exurbs are more likely to move in and out of a particular neighborhood as they age (or their children go off to college) or as they continuously try to "trade up" in their housing, church membership is more likely to be transient and less likely to stretch across multiple generations of a family. This also has implications for the character of that church and its congregation.

 

I don't mean to present any of this as a slam on or endorsement of any one particular way of supporting the faiths of people in a community. This is just an issue that caught my eye some time ago and I have been interested in watching it over time. Moreover, I find it to be an interesting example of how urban design can impact a community in sometimes unexpected ways. I've mostly been talking about all of this in terms of one individual church, but if you consider all of this in terms of collective groups of individual churches or churches nationwide, it is easy to see how all of these trends in urban design can mix and commingle with civic and social institutions and contribute to broader social changes and trends.

 

OK, that's it. Sorry for the dissertation. I'll try to keep it shorter next time.

[mmmdan]

I would also like to add the issues with our very own Christ Chapel.  Due to it's popularity, it keeps drawing a larger and larger crowd, and it is turning/has turned into a suburban church in an urban neighborhood.  Nothing says community like buying up and tearing down the neighborhood so you can add parking.

 

I would also say there is a similar issue with schools.  New schools are rarely in the neighborhood they serve, especially high schools.  This leads to having to bus every student to the school and I would imagine a lack of community involvement unless your child happens to be attending the school at that time.

 

There is a nice discussion about the school phenomenon on the strongtowns blog.  http://www.strongtow...ml#.U5rv-0tCxBY

[cberen1]

Along these lines, I don't think modern churches make good urban neighborhood partners.  It's not just Christ Chapel or Fellowship Church.  It's also FUMC and First Presbyterian downtown.  Both float in the middle of a sea of asphault.  I'd love for those two churches to put up parking garages and sell their vacant land for development.

 

I had observed the same thing about neighborhood churches vs. suburban churches, but I saw the relationship in reverse.  I assumed that the bible churches did well, in part, because they filled a void in the suburbs for people who found themselves wanting a sense of community that their spread-out and partitioned neighborhoods with their increasingly indoors-oriented, iPhone oogling families aren't getting elsewhere.

 

Or maybe you're saying exactly the same thing.  People are social and need a community.  If you live in a neighborhood that's spread out and impersonal, you'll look for a community somewhere else, and these churches provide exactly that.

 

For centuries neighborhoods were divided along ethnic lines, and inherently then, religious lines.  The burbs are basically not this way, although there are clearly still racial concentrations in certain areas.  So I wonder to what extent the blurring of religious and ethnic lines in the burbs drives the disappearance of neighborhood churches.  If I found an entirely German Catholic subdivision in Keller, would it have its own Catholic church?  Would I want to live there?

 

I'm just rambling now.  Sorry.

[Volare]

There's some good thoughts here RenMan, even if off topic. May I contact you directly to discuss further?

[RenaissanceMan]

There's some good thoughts here RenMan, even if off topic. May I contact you directly to discuss further?

Sure, just pm me

[RenaissanceMan]

Along these lines, I don't think modern churches make good urban neighborhood partners.  It's not just Christ Chapel or Fellowship Church.  It's also FUMC and First Presbyterian downtown.  Both float in the middle of a sea of asphault.  I'd love for those two churches to put up parking garages and sell their vacant land for development.
 
I had observed the same thing about neighborhood churches vs. suburban churches, but I saw the relationship in reverse.  I assumed that the bible churches did well, in part, because they filled a void in the suburbs for people who found themselves wanting a sense of community that their spread-out and partitioned neighborhoods with their increasingly indoors-oriented, iPhone oogling families aren't getting elsewhere.
 
Or maybe you're saying exactly the same thing.  People are social and need a community.  If you live in a neighborhood that's spread out and impersonal, you'll look for a community somewhere else, and these churches provide exactly that.

Interesting read on the situation. I hadn't thought about it in quite those terms.

[RenaissanceMan]

There was a timely poll released by Pew earlier this week that, among many other things, gets into the degree to which different development patterns are divided along political ideologies:

http://www.people-pr...arization-3-01/

[RD Milhollin]

There are distinct parking patterns for churches and other religious organizations, although they may vary depending on the denomination (synagogues and Seventh Day Adventist churches vs Catholic and more traditional Protestant churches for instance). Likewise, there are distinct parking patterns for other types of businesses, such as grocery stores, law offices, even bars. Thus, parking lots for bars are mostly empty during the daytime, and law offices' lots are empty at night. Churches may have acres of parking but they are usually only occupied on the days and nights when they are having scheduled functions. This is very wasteful. There needs to be found a means of allowing and encouraging businesses/institutions with different parking usage patterns to be able to share the same parking areas for mutual cost benefit, and for often less obvious greater good issues like increasing desirable urban density, reducing rainwater runoff, mitigating vehicle fluids runoff pollution, reducing the urban heat island effect, etc. The usual land use and zoning restrictions in most cities in this region discourage different uses sharing parking in a planned and legally structured manner; each use is required to provide parking for the maximum number of vehicles that might use that facility on their busiest day. Allowing and encouraging (through zoning restrictions, tax benefits, etc.) different parking use businesses and other institutions to work together to develop and maintain parking facilities in common would help to address the parking issue raised above.

 

Along these lines, I don't think modern churches make good urban neighborhood partners.  It's not just Christ Chapel or Fellowship Church.  It's also FUMC and First Presbyterian downtown.  Both float in the middle of a sea of asphault.  I'd love for those two churches to put up parking garages and sell their vacant land for development.

[RenaissanceMan]

So one of the things that struck me about the Pew Poll I linked above was the chart on where people would prefer to live: in a city, a suburb, a small town or a rural area. The point of the chart is to show how this differs by political ideology (and it does), but what is interesting to me is that down the line regardless of what group you look at, the number saying they want to live in a suburb stays in a fairly narrow range of about 20% (the least popular choice for the total survey population). Now, about what percentage of what is actually being built falls into that category? I think it's obviously well above 20%. A more popular choice (on the whole) was to live in a small town and I have seen many surveys over the years that have said basically the same thing - that there is a large segment of the population that wants to live in a small town.

Now here's my question: where are small towns being built today? The answer is that they aren't. The art of building a town is something that has been lost over the past several generations (basically since WWII). In their place, we have built only suburbs. Sure many of these suburbs are separate municipalities, but that doesn't make them "towns." It has only been relatively recently that suburban and exurban municipalities have started adding "town centers," trying to bring a little bit of what has obviously been missing. But nevertheless while we have been building suburbs on an industrial scale, we have forgotten how to build a town or just what even a small town is and looks like. There is obviously a market for it, but I suppose it's just too easy (or too familiar) to build suburbs where a town would once have gone.

[hannerhan]

I would also like to add the issues with our very own Christ Chapel.  Due to it's popularity, it keeps drawing a larger and larger crowd, and it is turning/has turned into a suburban church in an urban neighborhood.  Nothing says community like buying up and tearing down the neighborhood so you can add parking.

 

 

 

I think Christ Chapel gets a bad rap.  Remember that they actually built a parking garage...name one other church that has done that.  If you go into the Dallas neighborhoods around the Park Cities on a Sunday morning you'll see people parked on every street within 5 blocks of the big churches, and the neighbors hate it but can't do anything.  Instead, Christ Chapel cones off the streets to appease the homeowners nearby (keeping its members from parking in front of homes), builds a parking garage, and buys up houses that are directly across the street to build new parking (buying them from willing sellers), and spends a ton of extra money to put in grass parking instead of asphalt, and everyone bags on them for it.  I don't get it.

[Fort Worthology]

 

I would also like to add the issues with our very own Christ Chapel.  Due to it's popularity, it keeps drawing a larger and larger crowd, and it is turning/has turned into a suburban church in an urban neighborhood.  Nothing says community like buying up and tearing down the neighborhood so you can add parking.

 

 

 

I think Christ Chapel gets a bad rap.  Remember that they actually built a parking garage...name one other church that has done that.  If you go into the Dallas neighborhoods around the Park Cities on a Sunday morning you'll see people parked on every street within 5 blocks of the big churches, and the neighbors hate it but can't do anything.  Instead, Christ Chapel cones off the streets to appease the homeowners nearby (keeping its members from parking in front of homes), builds a parking garage, and buys up houses that are directly across the street to build new parking (buying them from willing sellers), and spends a ton of extra money to put in grass parking instead of asphalt, and everyone bags on them for it.  I don't get it.

 

 

Grass parking or not, slowly eating away at the built environment for more parking isn't exactly healthy for the neighborhood.

[Fort Worthology]

There is obviously a market for it, but I suppose it's just too easy (or too familiar) to build suburbs where a town would once have gone.

 

Or, of course, illegal to build towns, thanks to modern suburban zoning, setback, and parking standards.

[gdvanc]

Regarding the impact of the growth and nature of suburbs as an influence on the changes in the characteristics of some churches (and I assume you're speaking of what some call "mega-churches"), I agree in part with what you say, RenaissanceMan. Suburban development is associated with the rise of mega-churches, but I see it as more the case that they are both driven or enabled by the same things: relatively cheap land and increased personal mobility. I also think there are practical and broader cultural influences as well.

 

I absolutely agree that there is a relationship between the growth of these types of churches and the growth of the suburban form. This isn't surprising; most things are built to accommodate the people who will use it. The millions of people living in the suburbs here have cars, and driving to their destinations is simply assumed. The larger the venue in a sprawling metropolis, the larger the sea of parking will be that engulfs it - be it a church, a school, a stadium, a shopping center, an amusement park or what have you. And, yes, if you're drawing from a large area then highway access is desirable. That's the car-oriented mindset and it's natural that this will more often than not be reflected in the built environment. "Build big and provide plenty of parking" is just the way things are done and honestly are often taken as a sign of success.

 

At a high level, you might say the existence of these larger churches is just a parallel to the growth in size of other institutions - particularly, for example, schools. One reason they exist because the growth in personal mobility makes them possible. Things grow until they are constrained or die. Increased mobility has lessened one constraint to size. People can and will travel farther to a church that they think offers something they value more than churches more nearby. Here it's not a matter of the influence of suburban form but it is related in that they are enabled by the same technology.

 

There can also be benefits to size that are associated with opportunities for social groups or ministries targeted toward those who have needs or areas of interest that aren't common enough to make those practical in a smaller church. This is similar to the ability to have a class in, say, Latin in a larger school where there wouldn't be enough students interested at a smaller school to make a class feasible. As these are established, it makes the church more attractive to those who wish to take advantage of them and this puts fannies in pews.

 

I can't say how any of this has impacted what goes on inside the church, but I'm sure what goes on inside them has contributed to their growth. I've had friends who attended a couple of these large churches and when they describe the services they use words like "fun" and "exciting". I've heard or read about the large video screens and electric guitars. One talked about how cool the preacher was: He rode his Harley "on stage" and often wore his leathers as he preached. So I'll suggest that for *some* of these they reach people who never connected with traditional services. This is something we see everywhere in the broader culture that is not strictly a suburban phenomenon: we want to be entertained - with our news, with our education and with our church service. While many traditional churches struggle with the tension between those who insist on traditional services and hymns and those who push for more a more contemporary approach, some of the larger mega-churches go far beyond what you'll likely ever see at the smaller local church - and that seems to draw a crowd.

 

My impression, too, is that they tend to be non-denominational but I don't believe that is "so as to cater to a wider variety of interests"; that makes it sound like denomination choice is a marketing decision. I think non-denominational churches, though, are attractive to many for a number of reasons. I also wonder if not belonging to a denomination (and being, perhaps, in some way more strongly tied to the pastor and church leadership) influences how large they will grow before they open another campus. And how many times that would happen before they become a new denomination.  I also think that if you belong to a particular denomination, you are less likely to consistently drive past very many churches of that denomination to attend one you like better. And it is somewhat less likely that there will be so much difference in one within a denomination to make the additional drive worthwhile.

 

 

 

In terms of the "big-box" look of some newer churches, I think this, too, is simply a reflection of what people have come to expect. I suspect that cost often is a factor, but I also think that the post-modern utilitarian boxes we've grown up with have robbed many of us of any sort of expectation of anything grander.

 

 

 

Finally (for now), I'm not convinced that the rise of these large churches is the whole story. It is true that the sharp increase of internal migration in the U.S. after WWII (with its associated reduction of the day-to-day influence of extended families and a reduction in continuity within communities) has had a significant impact on the continuity of some of these churches (and a host of other things that would make for a nice discussion). But closely-knit neighborhood churches are still there. Some are more diverse than they once were. Some have faded and have been replaced by a denominations that match the changed makeup of their surrounding communities. Some have prospered with the inflow of population. To whatever degree suburban development patterns have influenced the growth of large sprawling churches, I don't think it is representative of the larger faith community in suburbs or elsewhere.

[gdvanc]

So one of the things that struck me about the Pew Poll I linked above was the chart on where people would prefer to live: in a city, a suburb, a small town or a rural area. The point of the chart is to show how this differs by political ideology (and it does), but what is interesting to me is that down the line regardless of what group you look at, the number saying they want to live in a suburb stays in a fairly narrow range of about 20% (the least popular choice for the total survey population). Now, about what percentage of what is actually being built falls into that category? I think it's obviously well above 20%. A more popular choice (on the whole) was to live in a small town and I have seen many surveys over the years that have said basically the same thing - that there is a large segment of the population that wants to live in a small town.

 

Another interesting thing about the responses to this question is that about 5 years ago another Pew poll found that people in suburbs were overall happier with their community than people in cities, small towns or rural areas. Their write-up on that pointed out findings similar to the one in your link - that a smaller number listed suburbs as their ideal place to live. Ironic. Grass-is-always-greener effect? Romanticized notion of life somewhere else? Hard to tell. One stat they list in a sidebar jumps out at me as being possibly contributory. 

 

Suburban living for some might simply be a compromise based on a number of factors where for now they are happy enough yet hope to end up somewhere else in the future. In fact, that's probably pretty much the truth in my case.

[Fort Worthology]

 

 

Suburban living for some might simply be a compromise based on a number of factors where for now they are happy enough yet hope to end up somewhere else in the future. In fact, that's probably pretty much the truth in my case.

 

 

And a lack of options in the vast majority of the country (and not entirely brought about through the free market, as the "people CHOOSE suburbs" line of thinking usually goes, as it's basically impossible to build anything else in most of the country due to zoning/regulations, and the fact that we put so much money into the Interstate system also goes a long way toward forcing new development into one particular form).

[Doohickie]

I don't get it.

Simple. They're a suburban megachurch in an established city neighborhood. There's not tons of land around them, so they have to incur on neighboring lots, a lot at a time. For people who live there, it's very frustrating. (I have friends that live pretty close to the church, and that's their sentiment.)

[Doohickie]

My impression, too, is that they tend to be non-denominational but I don't believe that is "so as to cater to a wider variety of interests"; that makes it sound like denomination choice is a marketing decision.

In Texas, every "non-denominational" church I've ever been in is, in reality, a Baptist church that chooses not to align with one of the Baptist conventions. They are usually led by a charismatic pastor who simply wants to be free to do his own thing, unencumbered by church hierarchy.

[Russ Graham]

 

I don't get it.

Simple. They're a suburban megachurch in an established city neighborhood. There's not tons of land around them, so they have to incur on neighboring lots, a lot at a time. For people who live there, it's very frustrating. (I have friends that live pretty close to the church, and that's their sentiment.)

 

Just to echo what Doohickie is saying.  Nobody wants to be on a little lot next to such a huge development; you want to be surrounded by structures that are in scale to your house.  So when the "next house" next to the church goes up for sale, they find it's really hard to find a buyer other than the church.  So the church buys that lot, and the parking lot expands a little bit more.  Now the house next to that is "the next house" and it repeats all over again. 

 

Now this is exactly what zoning laws are supposed to prevent from happening.  If the lot next to your new house is zoned for football stadiums, pet kennels, flea markets, and mega-churches, then you've got nothing to complain about when one of those things moves in next to you.  But you would think residential zoning would tend to stay that way.  The issue is "churches" are one of those things nobody is ever supposed to complain about.  And yet, nicely-dressed as the parishioners may be, the scale of development makes this an incompatible use of land.  The easy way to understand is to ask yourself "would you buy a house next to a megachurch if you had a choice". 

[Volare]

A discussion probably worth it's own topic.

[cberen1]

A discussion probably worth it's own topic.

 

Agreed. 

 

Or maybe abaondoned all together.  I tried to shy away from the theological aspect to the rise of the "mega-church", but it came up anyway.  Then again, we talk about politics plenty, so maybe religion is ok too.

 

Back on topic:

 

Are churches free from zoning restrictions?  What happens to restrictions on construction of unsavory businesses near churches when a church moves into an established bar area?  I'm thinking of Fellowship Church near Montgomery Plaza.

[Russ Graham]

A discussion probably worth it's own topic.

 

 

Or maybe abaondoned all together.  I tried to shy away from the theological aspect to the rise of the "mega-church", but it came up anyway.  Then again, we talk about politics plenty, so maybe religion is ok too.

 

At no point did I mention religion - my whole post was about relative size of buildings and the compatibility of land uses.  Both of which are on-topic. 

[cberen1]

At no point did I mention religion - my whole post was about relative size of buildings and the compatibility of land uses.  Both of which are on-topic. 

 

 

Not pointed at anyone in particular.  Not even a criticism.  And, no, I didn't say that you mentioned religion in your post.  You have my full endorsement for being on topic.  Rest at ease my friend.