Rewriting Exurbia

Rewriting Exurbia: New People in Aging Sprawl explores the potential of new immigrant cultures in aging postwar suburbs to reimagine the future direction of these iconic built environments in today’s exurban cities. Recent demographic and spatial change in suburban Asian and Latin American enclaves in the western US illustrate the opportunity to transform this low-density urban texture in ways that are socially equitable and engaging for all its future residents. New family structures and cultural aspirations combined with more complex functional and social needs increasingly inform new spatial practices and have been recently codifed in revised zoning regulations.

Comparing these changes to those of a set of well-known cities through history reassures us that such physical transformation in the shared built environment, while often challenging and even painful, is natural and eventually beneficial. Connecting this projected change to a set of recent urban theories and design experiments offers examples of a new exurbia that can be a socially inclusive world when compared to the archetypal postwar suburb that is becoming culturally stagnant, and often socially and economically exclusive. Recent changes in ethnic suburbs call for a broader definition of urbanity itself. The term “urban” can no longer be limited to environments characterized by physical compactness in center cities but is now a term that is better defined by an increased density of functional complexity and social interaction.