Two Sundays ago, I caught about 5 minutes of the ABC show, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition – a show I do not typically watch unless I happen to be at my parent’s house – and I was quite impressed by what I saw. The “deserving family” being helped in this episode was the Martinez family of Albuquerque, New Mexico. This family lives (voluntarily) in a very poor, crime-ridden neighborhood, and they have taken it upon themselves to work toward cleaning it up, primarily by buying up houses and converting them to duplexes to provide decent housing for the poor, all at the expense of their own comfortable living space and feeling of security.

I would have liked to see the whole episode to know exactly what all steps the family has taken as well as the goals they have for improving the neighborhood; but even from just the little bit I saw, the family’s attitude and actions certainly seem incredibly commendable. Their lifestyle, in fact, seems to demonstrate the exact opposite of the myopic individualism I wrote of in the last post. Indeed, how they have chosen to live really is the opposite of how most American families aim to live and certainly of how most families are expected to want to live.

And I think this relates directly to my last post considering that “car culture” and coinciding suburban sprawl have staggeringly decentralized and spread out the urban landscape, providing wide opportunity and incentive for many people to disconnect and, without having to live a rural, country life, simply take themselves far away from the problems the Martinez family is so selflessly trying to abate. Amidst abundant choice and easy movement in cars, typical families are both naturally driven (no pun intended) and encouraged by society, to find already very safe, quiet, and perhaps even homogeneous, suburban neighborhoods seemingly detached from any greater city or community needs or concerns. And unfortunately, this behavior is more or less praised and seen as a symbol of success. Even government has dramatically encouraged such behavior by subsidizing and rewarding it in various ways over time.

I am not necessarily speaking against subsidies, per se, however. I, myself, live in great subsidized housing in downtown Birmingham that would not be an option otherwise. Still, perhaps in some respects it would have been better had the government not interfered at all in transportation and planning; but, as things have turned out, it seems government subsidies and incentives made quite the difference in some cases. And the kicker is, such incentives often came within policies showing preferential treatment for decentralization, urban flight, and personal automobile commuting to the chagrin of central urban landscapes and reliable public transportation. For example, we would not have the giant Interstate Highway System we have today – which has exploded sprawl and long-distance commuting – without massive federal and some state funding, yet such funding and support was not given to foster equally extensive passenger rail systems and generally not given to urban transit alternatives to the automobile, which were traditionally treated as solely private operations.

The point is, it seems, depending upon government policies and upon individual attitudes and choices, we definitely could have had other possible outcomes for national transportation and urban / suburban development. Of course, though government policies can, in part, provide the means in this area, it is often difficult to determine whether those policies themselves make the difference in behavior and social trends or merely reflect and facilitate the attitudes and desires of the time. One thing is certain though: the Martinez family shows us that regardless of what is typical or where the greatest interest lies, dominant social trends and their favorable policies can at least be somewhat ignored and countered by individuals choosing a certain lifestyle because they clearly believe it is the right thing to do, and not because it can give them the most comfortable material life. And for that untypical and difficult behavior, they really do deserve to be commended and supported.