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 Park Cemetery 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 or biking 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-minute commute 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 American teenagers. 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.