Developments, suburban

Tuerk, K. J. S., and Aelion, C. M. (2005). Microbial nitrogen removal in a developing suburban estuary along the South Carolina coast. Estuaries 28, 364—372. 

The streetcar suburbs of the following decades offered more land, at lower prices, to a new class of homeowner. This growth was not, however, a simple, inevitable, or natural extension of growing affluence. Rather, as Kenneth Jack-son notes in his comprehensive history of the suburbs, Crahgrass Frontier, it required the emergence of a class of suburban developers and real estate specialists who lobbied municipalities for services, directed the extension of transportation, and drew the new spacious property lines for construction. The central incentive of these entrepreneurs, needless to say, was to convert as much land... 

But the uneven availability of such suburban developments, along with their exclusive character (often determined by class or race) determines who... 

Deposited by countless private citizens, moreover, lawn care toxins have also proven far more difficult to measure and far more resistant to traditional techniques of pollution control. The political momentum for water quality regulation lags far behind this changing land-use reality. The shift in the last few years to decentralized decision-making that allowed for the implementation of the Clean Water Act, for example, has not come to terms with this change. In this case, the Clean Water Act mandates the creation of total maximum daily load (TMDL) criteria, standards for cleaning up nonpoint sources such as farms, suburban developments, and other nonindustrial sites. These standards are drawn up by water quality management committees. 

So even while lot size is decreasing, and despite increases in house sizes, there is more lawn for each new house constructed. This apparent contradiction is reconciled when the nature of new house construction is considered. Only 17% of homes built in 1970 had two or more floors. This continuation of ranch style construction, leftover from the housing boom of the 1950s and 1960s, meant that single-story homes continued to dominate. By 1996 on the other hand, newly constructed two-story homes comprised half the market. This shift in construction style to pop-top suburban structures means more lawns, of greater size, even in a period of more densely concentrated suburban development. 

While the results in Fig. 16.16 were developed for the Los Angeles area, the same general features have been found in a number of other studies as well (e.g., see National Research Council, 1991 and Tesche and McNally, 1991). The approach and issues are thus qualitatively applicable to urban/suburban areas worldwide where pollutants are transported downwind to less densely populated areas and the VOC/NOx ratio changes as the air mass is transported. 

My fascination with the fourth dimension was later stimulated by Steven Spielberg s 1982 movie Poltergeist in which a family living in a suburban development is faced with menacing phenomena a child who disappears, furniture that moves by itself, and weird powers gusting through the house and frightening everyone. 

Whar prevents an urban or suburban community from developing an advanced integrated pond... 

In Asian developing countries, the presence of large open dumping sites of municipal wastes in the suburban areas of major cities is the prime... 

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