Given these realities, it seems more practical not to work against such aspirations (of greening suburbia) but instead to evolve intelligent policies that would reconcile them with our long-term environmental needs. Suburbanites like their suburbs but would also like to find a way to make them greener as well as more economically and socially viable. Right now neither party has developed such an agenda, and so the suburbs, now clearly leaning right, remain up to grabs. To win suburbanites over, politicians first have to respect the basic preferences while offering a realistic program for improvement. This remains a key to building a sustainable electoral majority, not just for the next election, but for the decades to come.

So what is your opinion?  Are we not working enough to retrofit and green suburban communities?  How we might work with the suburban landscape to make it greener?  Suggestions?

The US Army did some studies a while back showing fewer lost training days for recruits sleeping in better climate-controlled spaces. I know there’s also been studies concluding the student productivity improves in green buildings.

Perhaps, in the not so distant future, the body of knowledge for green buildings will be such that to design/build a non-green building would be like stuffing a building full of asbestos and lead-based paint today.