The Urburbs is a descriptive term given to older neighborhoods within the typical American town or city.  In most instances, these neighborhoods are the earliest suburbs; the tracts that were developed to house the more affluent families of America’s white middle-class society shortly after World War II.  The urburbs lie in rings around the outside of the central core of the “downtowns” and are not to be confused with historic urban housing, where the new suburban residents of the late 40’s and 50’s once lived, or with apartments for singles and newly married, or houses originally developed for the gentry.

The urburbs were distinctly the earliest prototypes for today’s suburban neighborhoods.  They were, however, much smaller in scale, in terms of both land area and the number of houses developed, than one finds with current suburban developments.  The early subdivisions maintained the traditional urban grid of the town or city and they incorporated larger lots – most with alleys behind the properties; there was a greater variety of housing types constructed within the project and in many instances more than one developer built houses within the subdivision.  

The twenty-first century brings with it new challenges for all American cities.  Do we continue to promote and support the suburbs with all of their inherent problems, i.e., increased infrastructure and its long-range costs relative to operations and maintenance, sprawl, traffic congestion, associated gridlock and air pollution, the drain on other natural resources, and the added hours taken away from home and family - traveling from home and work or from one suburb to the other for goods and services.  

The Las Vegas case study focuses primarily on one of the urburbs – a one-mile urban neighborhood surrounding the intersection of Sahara Avenue and Maryland Parkway.  The principal reasons for basing the case study on this neighborhood is, first, the area of the neighborhood situated north of Sahara Avenue lies within the jurisdiction of the City of Las Vegas and the area to the south of Sahara Avenue lies within the jurisdiction of Clark County, which requires that the two jurisdictional entities work together for synergy in addressing the blight and urban decay that exists within both jurisdictions.  Addressing problems on one side of the boulevard, and not the other, is not a solution to the neighborhood’s issues.  Second, the case study neighborhood is directly served by both north/south and east/west major CAT transit routes; the east/west route will connect to the first phase of the new monorail system at the Sahara Hotel when the first phase of the monorail is complete. 

Last, the early valley suburb to the north of Sahara Avenue, once was one of Las Vegas’s more prestigious neighborhoods; the area south of Sahara, which was developed later in the 60’s and 70’s, housed the valley’s upper middle class - to the east of Maryland Parkway, and its upper crust lived – and still lives - in the prestigious Las Vegas Country Club, west of Maryland Parkway.  Today, the demographics of the neighborhood vary greatly.  Some of the area’s original homeowners are still residents there but most of the properties have turned over three and four times; absentee landlords own many of the properties.  Outside of the Las Vegas Country Club, housing in the neighborhood has deteriorated significantly and there are a large number of blighted properties.  Segments of the neighborhood are considered less than safe after dark.

A number of planning and redevelopment options, along with urban housing options are explored in the case study to strengthen the urburban neighborhood - making it a more viable and vibrant place to live in metropolitan Las Vegas, while achieving the purpose and goals defined above.  What is addressed in the case study, in almost every instance, can be transferred laterally to the other local urburbs in metropolitan Las Vegas and to other older neighborhoods all across this nation.

Salvaging the origins of sprawl and redeveloping the urburbs are contemporary problems facing every American community.  If it’s not a problem today in your community, it will be tomorrow.  As Americans, if we are not a part of the solution, we are a part of the problem.