Urban Prophet: Chris Leinberger

I introduced Chris Leinberger to Albuquerque in 1988. He was living in Santa Fe, a refugee from LA. He was an eloquent, literate and, as it proved, handsome developer/consultant who I found in The Atlantic. Leinberger later played a key role in the New Urbanist developments in downtown Albuquerque. He has gone on to greater things as a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Leinberger is back in The Atlantic, speculating in the March 2008 issue about the future of suburbs. His annoying article, "The Next Slum," isn't presented as speculation, but it is rife with operative verbs including "suggests," "likely," and "maybe." Not exactly definitive. He starts with a grand assertion but then cops out at the end. The assertion: "A structural change is underway in the housing market—a major shift in the way many Americans want to live and work. It has shaped the current downturn, steering some of the worst problems away from the cities and toward the suburban fringes." (I love the unsubstantiated use of "many." Well, how many, I want to know.)

This shift is to the joys of "walkable urban places," which seems to mean "living within walking distance of walkable (mixed use) retail districts." This shift, Leinberger claims, will turn the "McMansions" of the 'burbs into apartments and ultimately slums. I think McMansion means: A large house that the user of the word considers unjustifiably large, cheaply built, looks like all houses in the given neighborhood and is built in a style disliked by the person calling it a McMansion. There is much sneering condescension in the use of the term. 

Here's the cop-out at the end: Leiberger says he "doubt(s) the swing toward urban living will ever proceed as far as the swing to the suburbs did... But there will almost certainly be more of a balance between walkable and drivable communities..." Hardly a "major shift" after all.