What Happened to Our Village Green?
September 15, 2007
By C.E. HUNT
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Too many Houston children grow up without a sense of history or nature to teach them good citizenship. Some questions just stay on my mind. Questions like: What happened to sidewalks, tree-lined streets and parks within easy walking distance of places where people live? What happened to monuments that commemorate our history and pass on to future generations knowledge of important events and people that have shaped our history? And why did nature, history and aesthetics become unaffordable while we merrily went about spending billions to build roads all across our land? In the Houston area we have $600 million to pay for a single freeway interchange; yet many of our children have no nearby outdoor recreational opportunities, no libraries and no monuments to educate and inspire them.
Too many children in Houston - and all across this country - grow up in a stressful environment that is largely defined by freeway interchanges, desolate parking lots that span miles, rows of unsightly strip malls and dozens of chain restaurants that have absolutely no connection either architecturally or culturally to the local history. We can do better.
A tale of two Houston children may help to illustrate my concern. The first is me. Thirty years ago, I was a 12-year old growing up in a house built in the 1920s in the Forest Park addition near Forest ParkCemetery and Mason Park. My neighborhood wasn't perfect, but I enjoyed many advantages my suburban counterparts did not. For one thing I was mobile, even without access to a car. Forest Park was built before the automobile became the dominant design consideration for neighborhoods, and my buddies and I could hop on a bus and be in downtown in a few minutes.
I had about a three-block walk to my school, Briscoe Elementary, and a two-block walk to my wonderful slice of open land and woods - Mason Park. My friends and I spent many hours playing "Army" in the woods along the creek that ran through the park. There were no "pedestrian dams" (freeways) between me and my school or my park. I was surrounded by old architecture. There were, in fact, very few new structures. My beautiful red brick elementary school building was built in 1928 and still operates as Briscoe Elementary. In short, my neighborhood had a sense of place. It had a history.
There was commercial activity scattered throughout the neighborhood. An old-fashioned lumber yard and hardware store sat in the middle. No need for a Home Depot and its 100-acre parking lot, I just walked down the street. If I wanted candy, I walked up to the Orbit convenience store. Because of its historic flavor, the small-scale commercial activity and the walkability, my old neighborhood felt like a community. I filled my hours playing with kids down the street or at the park, riding my bike around the neighborhood, playing baseball and just hanging out with the family. I had so much to do within walking orbiking distance of my house that it has never occurred to me that I'd like a TV in my room. I could even walk to a pet store called Guppy's Harbor!
Contrast my experience with that of Dave, a 12-year old boy living in one of the newer subdivisions west of Houston in 2007. Dave lives five miles from a regional park that he gets to visit about once a month. He can't walk to it. It is too far and besides, two freeways provide an uncrossable barrier.Dave is totally reliant on his parents to take him to the park as well as to school, the library, soccer practice and church. If his parents are too tired to take him anywhere after their one-way, 50-minutecommute home from work, he must entertain himself at home. He normally retreats to his room to watch TV, listen to music or play video games. On weekends Dave often rides with his mom to the mall or cuts the grass.
History and nature are absent from Dave's neighborhood. He has no clue that his house stands in the middle of what was once a large ranch dating back to 1890 (the ranch headquarters and some associated buildings were bulldozed a few years ago). Dozens of huge live oaks were removed when the subdivision was developed, and there are no mature trees anywhere around Dave's house. The once beautiful creek is now a concrete-lined ditch. Dave's house, cul-de-sac and nearby freeway just are. He has no idea how or when they got there. No wonder Dave is often bored and feels a vague alienation. He can't wait to get his drivers license. For now, he uses the TV and Internet as surrogates for mobility.
The tale of my childhood 30 years ago in a more historic part of Houston and that of Dave in suburban Houston today make a telling point. Dave's experience is shared by millions of other Americanteenagers. It is one that I believe holds potential danger for the future of this nation. If Dave is not making the connections to his community that he needs to fully blossom as a citizen, he may not feel that community is worth investing in as a citizen.
When we choose to invest in 10-lane roadways, cloverleaf interchanges and mega-malls instead of sidewalks, parks, neighborhood schools and libraries, we deplete our public realm. When we replace quiet, tree-lined streets, sidewalks and modest houses with useful front porches with the current model of suburban development of McMansions with no sidewalks, no functional front porches and no neighborhood parks, it is like building a house without a living room. We are, in effect, building a house of only bedrooms. We are failing to build the one room where family, or community, is built. We co-exist, sometimes peaceably, but we do not become a community, much less a nation.
We need to change our priorities. We need to put our children and our quality of life before our cars. We need to regard protecting the integrity of our landscape not as a luxury but as an essential. We must grow landscapes and communities that are worth caring about. It is not too late. We can build better landscapes. The models are available throughout the nation. Just look at almost any pre-World War II neighborhood - such as the imperfect example of my old neighborhood of Forest Park. Maybe what we lack is the will. We need to ask ourselves: Are our children worth it? Are Houston – and in a larger sense our nation - worth it?
If we want a landscape that promotes healthy children and communities we need to change the way we see our landscapes. We must stop seeing our landscapes merely as potential Wal-mart sites or a great place for a subdivision and start seeing our landscapes as a part of us -a part of who we are. And we must change the way we are designing our city and our neighborhoods. We have to stop building communities and neighborhoods without living rooms. Dave and his friends are counting on us.
Hunt, a Houston native, is active in conserving the natural and historic heritage of Texas.