Urban sprawl? The compact city and suburbia are two facets of the same reality
To consider the compact city as an alternative to suburbia is to underestimate contemporary processes of urbanization. The compact city and suburbia are two sides of the same coin. To illustrate this argument, we first consider the example of geographic scale. Depending on the scale one adopts for the analysis, Geneva can be considered to be either an exemplary compact city or truly representative of suburban sprawl. Our second point identifies the “economics of scarcity” as a factor contributing both to gentrification in inner cities and to the never-ending expansion of suburbia. Third, while the idea of making suburbia more sustainable and implementing urban agriculture may sound attractive, we suggest that these approaches should be used very carefully. Otherwise, they may well reproduce the very centrifugal mechanisms they are trying to counteract and so hinder the search for more innovative approaches.