Infill

I have long admired a really beautiful low slung brick ranch a couple of blocks from me. It had a look Frank Lloyd Wright would have respected; every time I saw it I was reminded of Falling Waters, even though the setting was decidedly suburban. It was the sort of home that Mission or Arts and Crafts furniture would have fit perfectly. The grounds were gorgeous too, in an understated way, with big oaks and tulip poplar and nice plantings of azalea and rhododendron, gracefully complimenting the understated grace of the home. Even on a hot day -- and the Washington D.C. area gets stiflingly hot and sultry during the summer -- the house looked delightfully cool.

But not last night. When I walked by, a big backhoe was ripping it to rubble. A million dollar house, gone in 15 minutes. Three McMansions are destined for the lot, and each will probably sell for about 1.2 million; quite a tidy profit for somebody.

My town is plagued by infill. Attractive, sensibly sized brick homes, fifty and sixty years old, nestled in nicely landscaped lots are being bulldozed so outsized, ugly, towering McMansions can be built in their stead -- often two replacing each house demolished. The new houses look cheap, and they are ... albeit not in price. They're huge; 3,500 or 4,000 square feet, with 10 foot ceilings, and foundations so tall they put the first floor level with the neighbors' upstairs bedrooms. The fine old trees that adorned the lot before are replaced by a couple of scrawny little saplings, the spacious yards replaced by tiny lawns that no child will ever play on, that will never host a game of catch or croquet.

As infill proceeds, the aesthetic harmony of older neighborhoods is being ripped asunder. These behemoths tower over their neighbors; their nondescript, tasteless barren designs clash with the understated elegance of the older homes and plantings. What once seemed an organic whole becomes alien and jagged.

American families are getting smaller, but our houses are getting bigger. Apparently, what a prosperous European needs -- what our parents needed -- is dwarfed by this new definition of American necessity. For thousands of years, humans made multiple uses of their home's rooms (often, room, in the singular), but we seem to have moved on to single-use rooms, each larger than the one next to it, each to be heated and airconditioned, using far more energy, far more non-renewal energy resources, than any modern family in a modern house could possibly justify.

This isn't a screed against modernity. The older homes have their weaknesses -- to modern eyes, they have cramped kitchens and baths, tiny closets, poor insulation. I admit that. This isn't even a complaint against growing housing density. As our population grows, greater density IS preferable to greater sprawl. But something intangible but vital is being lost with the advance of infill; our communities are losing their character, their harmony, their sense of belonging and rootedness, their balance. We're a transient people who yearn for connection to something more permanent than ourselves, and bulldozer by bulldozer, we're losing that. We're becoming strangers in our own cities.

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 20 July 2007