#10 – Social Sustainability and the American Dream: Bigger isn’t Better

Social Sustainability is very complex and abstract concept to think about. I can best describe it has the sustainability of the social system of a group or nation. The most obvious movement to push people into a more sustainable social mindset is that of the environmentalist movements. But there have been pushing for the idea of social sustainability such as the civil rights movement, feminism, abolitionist movement, and prohibition movements. These movements seek to change society to suit a more sustainable approach such as reducing crime by reducing poverty and improving equality in civil rights movement. The definition for social sustainability that should be focus on also is the sustainability of our society. Does how we interact with each other, eat, play, and work sustain society indefinitely? If not, what are the reasons and how do we improve those conditions? These are some of the questions that we should be asking ourselves.

King's American Dream was that racism and prejudice become a thing of the past.

America in particular has been obsessed with the notion that bigger is better. The American dream has been warped from achieving a place where people have peace of mind into the idea that more money means more happiness. This has been in part because of the perception that the more money society makes means the more develop that society becomes (see earlier blogs). The American Dream has been equated with having more rooms in houses, bigger garages to fit bigger cars, owning personal jets, and an increasingly more inefficient shopping list. Suburbia is just one of the many results of an unsustainable social evolution of America. Why improve the living conditions in the city, when instead you can live outside the city in a bigger house and a big yard? Because of this idea, Suburbia was design for cars and not pedestrians, everyone has to drive everywhere, not to mention the water and chemicals used to maintain their lawns.

The American dream has also become defunct has it promotes societal practice of improvement at the detriment of another. Every time someone puts forward concepts to improve the declining middle class majority in America, it is criticized as class warfare. Taking money from the rich and distributing it to the lower classes which is claimed to destroy the American Dream. The current social view of the economy is that a large pie, with each person having a portion of that pie. The current economic system is a game of how big a share of the money can you suck out of the economy. Because the societal goal is to increase the pie every year, the individual goal is to increase the share of that national pie. This means every year someone loses a portion of their pie to satisfy someone else’s American Dream of bigger is better. This practice has push the middle class closer and closer to poverty and more dependent on dirty cheap fuel and cheap pollutant products. You can see the unsustainable practices accelerating in Washington with ideas such as rejection of tax increases on the rich but the cutting of governmental services that mostly benefits middle and lower classes.  Or more directly in industry where Walmart has been criticize by forcing and encourage their underpaid employees to go on government welfare to improve their bottom line instead of using some of their billions of dollars in profits to provide a cheaper health plan.

Walmart's actual logo equates money to happiness

Today an increasingly amount of people are disbelieving the American Dream. It is not surprising that people are being battered by the economy and are losing that piece of mind that they had for so long. If we shifted to a society that values achieving that piece of mind instead of the mantra bigger is better, then better consumption practices will follow, and the  environmental aspects will become important. The American dream hasn’t become out of reach, we have instead forgotten what the American Dream is.

#5 Our Land, Our Values - Social Sustainability

 “You realized that in the era before the automobile, these houses existed in a completely different relationship with the road. The houses honored the road because the road was honoring” (Kuntsler, The Geography of Nowhere, p. 130). The ways we use are land reflects the values of society. I am pretty sure when thing of houses you can imagine the typical generic triangle shape, with a box for garage right next to it or a driveway. What do houses tell us about what we value? Sustainability is not just environmental issue but also a social one. Van Jones in his TED lecture saw that the reason why people have been so wasteful is because of the idea of disposability. That we can use something until it is waste and simply throw it away and move on to better more disposable item. The landfills are proof of our value in disposability. But houses are more personal and tell us what we really value. The modern house is very materialistic. Houses showcase our excess, our three expensive cars, our expensive drapes and holiday decoration. The Department of Transportation in their 2011 Pocket Guide to Transportation found that 57.4% of households own 2 or more cars.  How many times have we heard story of angry neighbors you complain about other people unmaintained lawns? They say that house makes all of us look bad. The modern day house shows us to be selfish, and materialistic.

Suburbia

There is no easy way to change how people live. Changing the way people can be has impossible as changing the tides. But a way to be socially sustainable is to change the way re build neighborhoods. Instead of having houses face streets, how about houses facing other houses. Move the sidewalks away from the streets place them straight in the middle. Build the garages in the backs of the house so they have access to the streets. This solves alley problem Kuntsler mentions his book, The Geography of Nowhere and the simple design puts value on the community rather than the material goods. The lines between houses will be blur because private residence would blend seamlessly with the public sidewalk. It also allows for more of a park setting. Can you imagine walking out your front door right into a public park filled with benches trees? People will be more incentivize to get out and meet people and actually walk for the sake of walking. It would be a great deal better then peaking your window and seeing some raggedy building, or your neighbor’s gas guzzler, or the 100 cars that drive down the street every day. More importantly the neighborhood would be socially more sustainable. People would have interest in the well being of others. Instead of disliking the person you has maintain his lawn, you would want to know more about why he hasn’t cut his lawn. The houses would honor the community because the people were worth honoring.

Imagine stepping out your front door to this everyday.