Alaska Village, Like Northwest Indiana Cities, Shows Signs of Sprawl

Published July 30, 2001, The Post-Tribune

Three miniature golden onion domes crown the small green and white Russian Orthodox Church in Ninilchik, a town of 456 people on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula.

Settled by Russians in the early 1800s long before the czar sold Alaska, Ninilchik is a century older than Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage. Against a breathtaking backdrop of twin volcanoes and the Pacific Ocean, Ninilchik’s population subsisted by fishing, clamming, and hunting.

Although Ninilchik is too small for most passers-by to bother stopping, tourists are welcome. Cars are not. Modest but stern “foot traffic only” signs ring the original village, which was designed on a walkable, human scale.

A town whose post office is as big as a garden shed would hardly be expected to show signs of urban sprawl like the sprawl seen in Northwest Indiana.

Much like some cities in Northwest Indiana, new development in Ninilchik is sprawling up and down the highway that runs near town. Away from the old village center along the Sterling Highway are buildings like the library, a gift store, a social club, and the little post office—all surrounded by large seas of gravel. (Little is paved in Alaska.)

Meanwhile, the gift store in the old village center stands derelict.

Tiny Ninilchik, like cities in Northwest Indiana, has forgotten the principles of urban design that made its original village so durable and livable.

Residents of Ninilchik, who used to have everything within walking distance, now need a car and have to cross a highway to get to many important destinations. Here in Northwest Indiana, highways like US 30 are centers of commerce, places inaccessible except by private automobile.

Notably, suburbanites’ automobile addiction could adversely affect another area of Alaska, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Politicians willing to destroy the ANWR seeking potential oil are not necessarily anti-environmental; they are satisfing suburbanites’ desire for cheap gasoline so we can idle about town.

Indeed, the suburban lifestyle and its addiction to the private auto are expensive: cars, gasoline, etc. consume 27% of median family income after tax, calculates writer Philip Langdon.

Other elements of modern suburban design are car-centric and not human-centric. Garages, increasingly built for three and even four cars, dominate homes’ façades rather than windows and porches. Yards and flower gardens have given way to driveways for the cars. Big box retailers sit behind massive sheets of asphalt that boils at this time of year. (At least Ninilchik’s gravel stays relatively cool in summer.)

Ironically, the birds and trees—-qualities that make a city livable-—sought by suburbanites fleeing the cities are eliminated as more suburbanites seek the same. Often, however, we consciously chose outwardly to destroy nature. Families often pay handsomely for an unimproved wooded lot and preface the making of “improvements” by chopping almost every tree rainforest style.

In 1998, a Valparaiso fast food franchisee—with City Hall’s approval—leveled a stand of evergreens obstructing motorists’ view of the restaurant. “We exchanged trees for dilly bars,” one person declared. Actually, we exchanged our natural environment for an automobile-centric lifestyle.

Neighborhoods bucking the trend in suburban design and returning to a village focus are seeing rapid improvement in livability and quality of life. Valparaiso’s Hilltop neighborhood now features a tasty restaurant, Maria Elena’s, and a neighborhood food store. Zoning should encourage mixed uses in one structure or area: neighborhood stores and small cafes can and should exist in residential areas.

Hilltop, like the Ninilchik village, is laid out on a grid. Quintessential suburban sprawl symptoms like gated subdivisions, serpentine roads, and cul-de-sacs are often just status symbols in a Troglodytical game of cliquey one-upmanship some residents of suburban neighborhoods play against each another; these features do dubious benefit to the quality of life in the neighborhood and city.

Further, Ninilchik´s village is densely populated. (Yes, this statement shows how small Ninilchik is.) For Northwest Indiana, public transportation—-if it ever is built—-will be cost-effective only in dense areas.

Finally, walkable cities like Ninilchik´s village have build-to lines rather than set-back lines that encourage the laying of giant car-enabling asphalt sheets in front.

Northwest Indiana’s downtowns, like Ninilchick’s old village center, used to be centers of town activity. While downtowns will never fully reclaim their roles, old livable downtowns offer valuable lessons in building vibrant new neighborhoods and commercial areas.

Reader-Columnist Adrian Jones of Valparaiso graduated this spring from the University of Pennsylvania. He starts a consulting job in Chicago in August.