Customer Reviews

Superbia: 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods

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Superbia! is a strikingly simple book, proposing that neighbors can create
friendlier and healthier neighborhoods by getting to know each other and
working together. The beginning Steps it suggests are easy - things like
having neighborhood potlucks and baby-sitting coops - but the advanced steps
will take some real teamwork. You and your neighbors won't set up a
neighborhood energy system or buy a house for use as a common building until
a high level of trust is established. By the time the advanced steps are
taken on, the neighborhood will be like an extended family, with all its
benefits -- as well as liabilities.

But Chiras and Wann argue that the benefits far outweigh the liabilities.
For example, they don't propose a loss of privacy, but rather an increase in
options and flexibility. What do we do when the car won't start, we go on
vacation and the plants need watering, or we just need someone to talk to?
Call a neighbor.

This book is well-researched, documenting how neighborhoods took the shape
they did, with wide streets, huge lawns, and barricade-like garage doors.
The 50 million suburban homes in the U.S. (and all their associated
infrastructure) are then seen in the book as ingredients for cooking up a
better neighborhood. As the authors suggest, why can't we create common
areas for the kids and a community garden by donating parcels of our
backyards and creating a pathway where alleys used to be? Why can't we
establish a neighborhood recycling system, a carpooling and even car-sharing
system? Why shouldn't part of our yards also become low-maintenance, "edible
landscapes" that provide cherries and grapes rather than just grass
clippings?

As the book compellingly asks, Why can't we work together to save time,
money, and human energy, and in the process, have some fun? In the median
income U.S. household budget, $3,000 a year could be saved if our costs for
food, energy, entertainment, health, and transportation were reduced through
neighborhood efforts that also meet an often- expressed need for a sense of
community, and a sense of place.

What Superbia! is about is basic improvements in the quality of our
lifestyles. Less of an emphasis on buying our lives, and more on just living
our lives. Far from being just a Utopia-like dream, the book's ideas are
already being implemented in neighborhoods across the country, and several
chapters in the book are dedicated to case studies of each Step - where and
how it was implemented. Another series of chapters presents a fictitious
neighborhood that walks the reader through the evolution of the Fox Run
neighborhood, from suburbia to Superbia!

If your neighborhood association needs a spark of energy, get a copy of this
book and form a discussion group around it. At the very least, you'll
emerge with a roster of neighbors and a fresh perspective on what a
neighborhood can be.

Superbia! 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods is a "self-help" book for urban and suburban neighborhoods. The suburbs are often car-dependent, land-hungry, strictly residential neighborhoods that are often isolated from schools, workplaces and civic centers. They often lack convenient links to parks and mass transportation and are typically not developed in ways conducive to meeting people.

But, these challenges provide numerous opportunities for positive change! People can reinvent their neighborhoods based on economic, environmental, and social values. Superbia! provides a checklist of Easy, Bolder, and Boldest Steps that can lead to safer, friendlier, livelier, healthier, more productive, diverse and vibrant neighborhoods. Neighbors can chose the steps they think will create a stronger sense of place and connection to people, nature, and culture.

Easy Steps include sponsoring community dinners, establishing a community newsletter, and creating car and van pools for work commutes. Some neighbors have started book and investment clubs. For example, the Hillcrest Neighborhood Association in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, sponsors a book club where neighbors "get together with fellow book enthusiasts to converse, discuss, and debate current bestsellers and classics," according to the group's website. Superbia! describes how there are hundreds of potential links between people within neighborhoods - links that can reduce time, human energy, and money spent by individuals on tight schedules as well as tight budgets. Easy Steps help people know one another better helping them discover links that lead to Bolder Steps.

Planting a community garden or orchard is a Bolder Step. A composting project can serve the community garden and individual yards. Planting shade trees and windbreaks reduces energy costs, provides wildlife habitat, and increases property values. The Highlands Neighborhood in Littleton, Colorado, took a Bolder Step by tearing down fences. There was already a neighborhood tradition of parties in backyards, but neighbors decided to go a step further and took down their six-foot fences and opened the space to the neighbors creating a better sense of community.

Boldest Steps include creating a community energy system and creating a common house and community-shared office. A Boldest Step was taken by New York's Darrow School when the failure of a conventional wastewater system provided an opportunity to install a Living Machine - a greenhouse-contained biological waste treatment facility that uses natural methods rather than harmful chemicals to recycle human waste. This system is also used as a hands-on laboratory for a variety of classes including science, chemistry, mathematics, and even art.

With a history of how the suburbs came to be, 31 ways to make the suburbs better, examples of people who have created more sustainable neighborhoods, and a Resource Guide, readers can actively transform their suburbia into Superbia!

Authors Chiras and Wann walk their talk. Chiras built and lives in a sustainable, solar home, and Dave Wann helped develop and lives in Harmony Village co-housing. They are also co-directors of the Sustainable Futures Society's Sustainable Suburbs project. Visit www.sustainablecolorado.org to learn more.

Susan Bilo is an energy and resource conservation consultant with Sustainable By Design, LLC.

To inject life, fun and spontanaeity into North American suburbs will not be easy. Many neighbourhoods were built after WW II, when land and resources such as electricity and gasoline were plentiful and cheap; developers, government and the public were not very conscious of there being limits to, or issues with, creating vast car-centric suburbs. Now, many of us live in an energy-inefficient home on a long, straight street that forms one line in a grid that is populated by far more motor vehicles than pedestrians. Here, we easily grow fat and sedentary, often not knowing who lives one or two doors away.
In Superbia!, the authors prescribe 31 steps to transform neighborhoods into places where there is a true sense of community, and where hard resources (e.g. cars, washing machines) can ultimately be shared by groups of families, and consumable resources (electricity, gasoline) are used in more environmentally responsible ways.
The encouraging news is that neighborhoods in the USA, Europe and elsewhere have implemented these 31 steps. It often took a lot of persuasion of local politicians and bureaucrats to, for example, tear up existing streets to make them narrower, for the purpose of calming traffic. While the authors, to their credit, indicate that some of the 31 steps are plainly challenging to implement, and ential people changing their mental models, the authors at times neglect to address the role and response of some key stakeholders as neighborhoods transform themselves. For example, as I read the steps about removing fences between people's yards, and subsequent encouragement of kids in the neighborhood to congregate in certain areas of this newly-created 'open' space, I visualized the trepidation that the insurance companies covering these homes might have; what happens when you encourage everyone onto your property, and then someone gets hurt? In general terms, I felt that the book could at times have been more rigorous in tipping off the reader as to what to expect from other stakeholders relevant to the transformation process.
I support what the authors propose. The main message I got from the book is: don't wait for politicians or developers to be the ones to build or retrofit neighborhoods that are environmentally sustainable, and offer building structures and juxtapositions to foster social cohesiveness; rather, strike out on your own, with the modest first step being to organize a potluck supper for your immediate neighbors. From there, transformation events can evolve; the authors have demonstrated, through numerous anecdotes, that this process can indeed work.

"Researchers have demonstrated that a feeling of community reduces suburban depression."

The first pictures I observed upon opening this book were of a lovely neighborhood in much need of comfort and the beautiful results after the streets had been lined with trees. Sidewalks had also been created and pathways up to each front porch created a very inviting environment. The trees shaded the walkways and people enjoyed riding their bikes down the streets. The contrast was eye opening and the results very comforting. You can imagine the people living in this area finally feeling like they were home.

The contents include:

The Changing Face of Suburbia
Reinventing Our Neighborhoods for Health, Profit, and Community
Imagining a Sustainable Neighborhood
How to Remodel a Neighborhood
Germination: First Steps
Leafing Out: Bolder Ideas
Your Neighborhood Blossoms: Boldest Steps
Suburban Revitalization I: Can This Dream Become a Reality?
Suburban Revitalization II: Making Bold Dreams Come True
Taking Care in the Neighborhood

This book helps to emphasize the isolation of the typical suburban house and shows how the community design seems to emphasize private space instead of community. This promotes a lack of connection. Could the way we live promote depression and a lack of friendships? Could the way we build communities lessen domestic violence, encourage community interaction and promote a general feeling of well-being?

Like Feng Shui, this book gives ideas for building or restoring neighborhoods to promote happiness and to reduce stress. While some say we are not a product of our environment, it only takes a little research to find out that where there is more hope and a greater sense of community, humans seem to thrive.

"...research reveals that in a closely knit community, levels of serotonin (a natural anti-depressant) are higher, so the neighborhood is collectively more optimistic and energetic." ~pg. 26

The transformations in communities is revealed in pictures that explore the role of nature in our comfort level. Would you rather live behind high brick walls or enjoy a more peaceful and serene landscape of short fences and flowered walkways? In one section, an alleyway between living spaces is transformed into a little piece of heaven.

Some of the features include:

Ten Basic Design Principles for Remodeling Neighborhoods
How to Sponsor Community Dinners
Neighborhood Clubs
Organic Gardens
Replacing asphalt with porous pavers - to reduce heat absorption

As a child, I remember two types of homes. One with a backyard, tightly fenced in, and another with wide-open spaces and easy access to walking through community spaces. I can tell you, I preferred the latter.

This book is filled with wisdom and great advice for city planners and I've seen the idea of producing an edible landscape work efficiently in some areas. As a child we used to pick fruit off trees on the walk home from school. It is a dream that can come true and this book has many ideas that once implemented will improve the lives of everyone in the community. By reading this book, you may also decide to move to a location that values these ideas.

~The Rebecca Review
Currently living in an area without fences and lovely tree-lined walkways

I must admit I'm a bit new to the sustainability field, so I'm not sure how new and innovative the ideas in this book are. But I really enjoyed reading this book.

I appreciated how this book focused on changing existing suburbs rather than just joining the new urbanist movement in creating NEW living spaces. While obviously there are some things that can't be fixed in suburbs without new construction or at least some demolition/replanting I find it refreshing that some people still try to work with what we have rather than starting from scratch.

The authors also point out a fairly (I'm guessing here, since I've never tried to implement these steps) realistic timeline on how things would proceed. This is a good point for those of use who are impatient; change takes time, but even small steps make a big change.

Overall I found this book both informative and inspiring. I often find with books like this, inspiration is harder to come by, and this book makes me want to start knocking on all the doors in my neighborhood and planning a party!

Although I haven't purchased this book, I have read a copy that I borrowed from a library.

This is a very practical book. It is nice to know that there is a way in which suburbanites can become less car-dependent, and that you don't have to live in a city's downtown core to become less car-dependent! I also like the idea of suburbs becoming more like traditional towns surrounding each big city. If suburbs were like traditional towns, they would be much more pleasant and more interesting places to live in.