What a cute suburban garage, it almost looks like a house
Suburbs are isolating. It's so natural to think of the suburbs as the fulfillment of the American Dream, or as the middle-class goal, but that's just familiarity. Getting into a car, driving for 12 minutes each direction onto a collector road then an arterial and back to grab more dish soap is normalized if that's the only way it's ever done. Having a few close friends in nearby houses seems like 'the way things are' until you start investigating alternatives. It's easy for confirmation bias to kick in and say "I know lots of people in my suburb, and they're some of my closest friends; I've had a wonderful time living in my suburb," but what you don't ever have is a point of comparison to something different, because all suburbs are so similar.
In this post, I'm not going to advocate for getting rid of suburbs, or single family homes on big lots, or big wide streets with lots of on-street parking. What I will advocate for is zoning laws that make other types of suburbs possible.
Currently, nearly all suburbs (any by land area, most of all cities) are zoned as single-family homes on big lots. This is Residential zoning (R), at the lowest density (1), making this a R1 zone:
A suburb in Anywhere, USA (I zoomed into a spot on Google Maps with labels turned off, and ended up in West Des Moines)
R1 zones contain homes with no access to any retail, except by car. While parks, churches, schools, and childcare can be built in these single-family residential zones, simply having a corner market within walking distance would save many car trips, but these zones disallow even that small convenience.
A vehicle is a necessity for living in single-family R1 zones. In order to get anywhere that isn't zoned for R1, you need to get into a car, which necessitates that the people you are meeting there are less likely to be neighbors. People love a small town feel where they know their neighbors, but balk at ideas like putting a coffee shop in a suburb. R1 zones lack any third place (work and home are the first two places, the third place is where you can go to socialize), like a coffee shop, bowling alley, salon, makerspace, bookstore, arcade, lodge, social club, or coworking space. These are all destinations accessible by car only, and when you get there, it's usually full of strangers unless you've planned to meet up with friends. Part of the reason that churches are so popular in America is because they function as one of the only third places easily accessible from deep within R1 zones.
Children growing up in this environment are incredibly isolated until they get a car. That's why getting a car can seem like it has life-or-death importance to children in suburbs. Taking away the car is tantamount to trapping them in an environment that lacks any stimulation or fulfillment.
Imagine growing up here as a child with no car.
There are better ways to make suburbs.
Think of this neighborhood in your (large) city: narrow alternating one way streets, with one lane of travel and one lane of on-street parking. Small to medium houses line the street with small front yards that are right up against the sidewalk. Trees cover the sidewalk and part of the street, and there is a corner market where you can buy staples like flour, milk, and eggs. Now that you have that in mind, answer these two questions:
How expensive are the houses?
How old is the neighborhood?
A typical house in Capitol Hill. Bonus point for someone walking their dog.
For me, this description reminded me of Capitol Hill, Washington Park, and Central East Denver. These are old and expensive neighborhoods. Part of the reason they are so expensive is because they are rare - they are in fact illegal to build today in any zoning district. We updated the regulations to mandate things like parking minimums, wider lanes, two way traffic, no mixed-use zoning, setback requirements, minimum lot sizes, and clear zones for the fast-moving cars to roll into when they crash. These regulations make those quaint, human-scale, livable neighborhoods a thing of the past. We can regulate them back. Not only are they more livable—they are far safer than the neighborhoods built with updated road standards.
Wide residential streets with large clear zones, straight roads, lots of on-street parking, and setback houses encourage faster driving, making these roads less safe than complex narrow streets. In fact, these wide residential streets have 4x the number of accidents as narrow streets.
Again, we can fix this problem. Single Family R1 Zoning can be a thing of the past.
A note before moving on: I'm not advocating for eliminating this type of suburb. At least not for everybody. If you can live with it yourself, and can justify subjecting children to the isolation, no one will stop that from happening. Developers can (and will) still create these neighborhoods. Eliminating the zoning simply opens more options, it doesn't shut any down.
Simple Solution #1: Eliminate R1 Zoning or change the R1 zoning district for single-family homes to allow variable lot sizes, duplexes and fourplexes, and small apartment complexes in keeping with neighborhood aesthetic, as well as small commercial corner markets and third places that save car trips to commercial zoned developments.
These changes helps make these areas more walkable and less car dependent, as well as more serviceable by public transit. Duplexes, apartments, and smaller lots increase density, giving the corner markets and third places a greater customer base and public transit more justification—more density means fewer transit stops service more people.
Simple Solution #2: Change standards to increase safety by narrowing roads, reducing on-street parking and setbacks, reduce lot sizes, and make the area more difficult to navigate by car to promote slower, safer neighborhood speeds.
These changes functionally bring back the old style of neighborhood that demands such a premium nowadays. These neighborhoods experience far fewer vehicle accidents, despite being built before the new standards surrendered space to fast moving cars, presumably to keep things safer (it's actually due to an adherence to a measurement of traffic flow called "level of service" which makes things less safe in order to keep cars moving, but that's perhaps a story for another time).
Mise en place (me's on plas) means setting things in their place. It's a technique I've started to use in the kitchen, but I've found it's applicable well beyond the kitchen.
If you watch a cooking show from Everyday Cooking with Jaques Pepin and The Rachel Ray Show to theTastyYouTube channel, you'll see little glass and ceramic bowls full of chopped veggies and spices. This isn't just a convenience for TV cooking; if you eat at a restaurant with an open kitchen you'll see these little bowls with single ingredients. It may seem neurotic to prep all the ingredients in neat little aliquots before turning on a burner, but it avoids several cooking pitfalls: the accidental four course meal, the scramble to chop garlic while onions burn, and the dreaded salt-for-sugar substitution.
Preparing for a meal using mise en place streamlines the actual cooking process and makes the part that matters - usually the application of heat - less prone to error. In my kitchen, I've occasionally served a side dish fully 20 minutes before the main while waiting for 4 quarts of water to boil. I've burned onions only to add garlic that itself only gets warm, never breaking down into those garlicky flavor compounds. Worst of all, I've entered the Total Meal Failure (TMF) spiral. While waiting for risotto to cook and thicken, I've paused to cut asparagus. For those of you who haven't made a risotto, while not stirring, the bottom will be burning onto the blazing hot base of the pan. The burnt flavor then infects the whole dish. That risotto had to be tossed. If the asparagus had been cut beforehand, the risotto could have been saved.
Setting out the ingredients beforehand is a way to minimize decisions and hurries in the heat of the moment. A recipe I made today said "Add scallions, nutmeg, sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 3/4 teaspoon pepper, and minced sage; cook, stirring occasionally, until scallions are softened, about 3 minutes." Since I had done my mise en place, that instruction meant tipping a little glass bowl into the pan and stirring for a few minutes until I needed to add broth. If I hadn't prepared my bowl beforehand, I'd have 3 minutes to go outside to collect sage, chop a shallot, and fiddle with measuring spoons to get my salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sugar measured. I have to say it - that's a recipe for disaster.
Most people do some form of mise en place during common kitchen tasks. When making a sandwich, the assembly is usually done after all the toppings are collected from drawers, countertops and fridge shelves. When making a stir fry, which cooks quickly, all the ingredients are often at hand. Most kitchens have staples easily accessible - salt, pepper, maybe oils, bacon fat, or butter. All kitchens I've seen have easily accessible utensils like spatulas and wooden spoons. Moving outside the kitchen, many nearly-universal tasks are recognizable as mise en place: organizing Legos before a build, packing for vacation by setting things on the bed, laying out clothes the night before an interview. Each of these is a way of off-loading decision-making from stressful or hurried times to when things are relatively calm. You certainly can pick out your clothes in the morning before a 9am job interview, but you'll be splitting your attention between remembering that list of three things you innovated on the job in 2015 and making sure your socks match. It's easier to make some decisions the night before, during the relative calm.
Everyone at some point has come down with "One Damn Thing After Another-itis." This happens most commonly for me while leaving the house in the morning.
"Why are the keys not on the hook? I didn't realize we were out of oatmeal... I have a lot to carry, I should chuck it in a bag. Where is the bag? I can't leave the door open or the cat will get out... I'm going to miss the bus."
One. Damn. Thing. After. Another. In cooking, this may manifest in a ruined dish, but a morning crowded with rushed decisions can ruin a day. Hurried packing can lead to a ruined vacation. Everything in its place; mise en place. If your morning is going to be rushed, off-load as many decisions as you can to the night before. What's for breakfast? What are you wearing? What do you need to bring? These decisions don't need to be remembered in the moment. You can lay things together so you just need to bring everything in that pile you made last night, or my favorite, making a checklist the night before? Is everything on the checklist checked? Leave. You've got everything.
To broaden this idea one final step, the core idea behind mise en place is helpful beyond moving physical objects on your countertop or in your house. Each of the following three examples is a bit of a stretch, but I believe the sentiment still applies.
1) I try to live by the Kant-ian categorical imperative to never lie. It's an ideal, and I fall short occasionally, but it keeps my life so much easier to manage in the long run. Everything is in its place. If I'm asked something, I answer honestly, and because I have done this for many years now, I only ever have to compare my answer with reality, never some version of it. If I tell a friend that I love their acting, but acknowledge to a third party that I think they're no good, I've filled a can labeled "salt" with sugar and stuck it in the pantry of my life. I now need to remember that that can contains sugar, not salt. When I'm asked later on if I like my friends acting, I need to figure out what to say. I need to figure out which reality to represent - the one in which I like their acting, and the one in which it's rubbish. Which can of salt do I grab? Lying creates a cluttered cupboard, and keeping things in their place means I always grab the right thing - everything labeled "salt" is filled with salt because I'm only ever comparing what I say against reality.1
2) Browsing around on Netflix or Amazon Prime can occasionally lead to discovering a good show, though I've often found that recommendations from friends are far likelier to resonate. Making a decision in the moment while browsing means you're likely to be swayed one way or the other by factors like the autoplaying trailer or show thumbnail, which can be misleading and end up wasting your time and attention. Applying mise en place, you can have shows lined up, ready to watch when you find yourself searching for a show. If a friend recommends a show or movie off a steaming site, you can add it to the service's watchlist. When you want a new show, that list will guarantee two things: you've heard enough about the show to warrant checking it out, and you'll have someone to talk to about it.
3) Most people prep for meetings unless they're hyper-qualified and ludicrously competent at their jobs. You have some questions to ask and some things to offer. This prep work makes the meeting less stressful, and allows you to think on your feet, knowing some of the bases are covered. I've prepped for conversations like meetings. I noticed a while ago that conversations catching up with old friends have often had a certain characteristic. When asked "what's new?" I often mention recent things that are relatively mundane in the scheme of the time they're asking about, but since they're recent, they are on my mind.
"What have you been up to?" "Been baking bread. It's nice because I can eat it before heading off to a grad school class and it fills me up before I can cook a good dinner." "Wait, you're in grad school?!"
Before catching up, I put a few 'ingredients' in bowls, knowing we'll get to those topics. Important things going on in my life I want to share, and important things in theirs I want to know about. Knowing I'll have these bases covered means I can listen and engage with what they're saying rather than planning on how to talk about x, y, or z. Mise en place; having a few ingredient bowls ready to go, to flavor the conversation.
This last example illustrates one last thing about mise en place. It's helpful to reduce decision making to the relative 'calm before the storm' of a stressful or hurried task, but its best application to reduce decision making and increase engagement when a task is meaningful. Cheers, - Scott
1: Always telling the truth comes with some hard conversations. I once received a gift I knew I wasn't going to use, and after two years finally fessed up and said that I didn't need it. It turns out that the gift itself was a regift, so I sent it along on its journey to a spot where it gets used at least once a week. The hard conversation can be difficult, but it often leads to more genuine interactions, and occasionally a better outcome than the alternative. Another 'white lie2' that is easy to fall into is the 'everlasting compliment.' Always saying exclusively positive things when asked for feedback may lead to short term happiness, but I find that giving honest feedback, even when negative, has one huge advantage - when the feedback is positive, they are certain you mean it. That authenticity goes a long way. 2: I ask people all the time to come up with scenarios in which 'white lies' are either harmless or lead to a better outcome than telling the truth, and I haven't yet found one where a lie is truly the better alternative. Fight me.
