It's a warm day in one of America's suburbs. John takes advantage of the nice weather to mow his lawn and install a trampoline for his three kids. In the middle of his Sunday activity, he takes a quick minute to contemplate what he's achieved. A nice pool and a beautiful home with a twocar driveway. After years of hard work, Jon is finally proud of his million-dollar home. But what he fails to realize, all of this might be a scam. What if the image of the house in the suburbs is not that impressive? What if we were conditioned to think becoming John was the goal? When in reality, it all comes down to propaganda. The home they've always dreamed of. The happiest investment they have ever made. We modeled the entire thing to show you exactly that. This is the dark reality of American suburbs. [Music] Americans have been obsessed with obtaining their slice of the suburban pie. But as we're finding out, this lifestyle has become unsustainable. And the consequences of this failed suburban experiment have become uncontrollable. But before we break down how things went south, we need to understand how it all started. Before the 1950s, American cities were self-sufficient ecosystems. People lived and worked within walking distance, creating vibrant communities where everything was within reach. But the postworld war boom changed everything. A wave of prosperity swept across the nation, propelling millions of white middle-class families towards a new dream. That dream is the sprawling single family homes in the suburbs. History has shown that the concept of the city block has withtood the test of time, changing relatively little in its fundamental design since the Roman Empire. Suburbs, however, were a completely new concept. Although suburbs existed prior to World War II, the shift toward a suburb focused society was a historical first, sending a clear message that the future was now, and the future was suburbs. Suburban life became the ultimate reward for America's post-war prosperity. The country was coming out of the Great Depression and riding a wave of a war victory. Spacious yards, white picket fences, big cars. The overall lifestyle design was shifting more towards luxury rather than necessity. Even if it meant a daily commute to the city hubs that remained the economic heart of the nation. At this point, suburban life became the poster child for the American dream. plastered across ads and media as the ultimate goal. The message was clear. If you didn't have the house, the car, the family, and the suburban lifestyle, you weren't working hard enough. Cities are built on the foundation of trade and physical wealth where people lived, worked, and traded within a close-knit community. Rural areas, while lacking the commerce of cities, found their own form of sustainability through agriculture, livestock, and local industries. Suburbs, however, emerged seeking to blend the best of both worlds. They wanted to offer the space and freedom of rural life, but with the modern conveniences of the city. The concept was thoughtful, but the challenge lays in the cost of achieving this seemingly perfect balance. Suburban sprawl with its vast expanses of single family homes comes at a steep price. The sheer size of these communities requires a massive investment in infrastructure. From roads and pipelines to electricity grids, often quadrupling the cost of servicing the same number of people in a city. This financial burden extends beyond initial construction. As infrastructure needs regular and costly maintenance every 15 to 25 years, the huge bill to maintain these sprawling suburban landscapes across the country reaches a trillion dollars annually. But who foots the bill for suburbia? While many may assume that homeowners bear the burden through taxes, it is actually the federal government that covers the cost by providing subsidies to cities. Unfortunately, these federal subsidies do not extend to the maintenance of this infrastructure. As a result, once the new suburban neighborhoods require updates to their pipelines or electrical grids, cities are left to fend for themselves. Local governments eager to retain these federal funds often prioritize the creation of new suburban areas over maintaining older ones. This leads to the suburban decay we see today. Communities that have reached the end of their 15 to 25 year life cycle are left behind. This neglect is a significant factor contributing to the crumbling state of American suburbs. Roads with tons of potholes, pavement with faded paint markings, buildings left abandoned for years, unchecked weeds, the signs of abandoned suburbs are all around. But if suburbia is funded by the Fed, what about all of those tax dollars collected from homeowners? Residents pay so much in taxes to live in suburbia. Surely that amount of money should cover maintenance costs, right? No, not even close. Like I said, the problem with suburbia is the low density compared to the investment it takes to maintain. If people in the suburbs were to cover the cost of their infrastructure themselves, they would be paying possibly double or triple what they're paying now in property taxes. If suburbia was a company, it would have gone bankrupt decades ago. I wish I could end the video here, but unfortunately, suburbs have a lot more problems than just maintenance. Small businesses had no choice but to shut down facing the invasion of big brands. In well-designed cities, blocks are covered with dozens of small mom and pop shops lining a walkable area. If one or two stores go out of business, the revenue flow of the area wouldn't get hurt. And it's only a matter of time before another store, gym, office, or residence will take over the space. But that's not the case with suburbia. First, you can't really open a shop because of the zoning laws. But even if you do, you'd get crushed by big companies nearby. I mean, the whole financial model of the suburbs is broken. But it's not just about money. Things are way worse in other areas as well. I like cars. Rather, I like the idea of cars. I remember being excited to get my first car back in 2010. It wasn't fancy by any means, but it got me from point A to point B. In American suburbia, a car is a necessity and is treated with as much care and consideration as a person, if not more. It is impossible to get anywhere without one. The distances between homes and businesses are too vast to travel on foot. You can't drive by suburbia without seeing scenes like [Music] these. Not to mention the massive parking lots and multi-story structures meant to house cars. At many businesses, the property designated for parking is often double the size of the business itself. Vast asphalt dumps that are both ugly and half empty most of the time. And if you want to take public transportation, good luck with that. Whatever time is required by car, add to it another 30 minutes to an hour. The pretty clean, colorful suburbs may not be that great after all. But we haven't even gone through the real major problem with suburbs. The nuclear family was more than just a family structure. It was the cornerstone of the American dream. Despite diverse family arrangements, the idea of the perfect nuclear family, complete with a single family home, was relentlessly promoted through advertising, media, and even political rhetoric. Let me show you what's being accomplished. It is now possible to have the individual styling every family wants in its home. The suburban experiment led to the creation of R2 zoning, a restrictive model that permits only single family homes. That's why suburbs have a cheap copypaste urban design. Why did suburbs rely heavily on this R2 zoning? Racism, plain and simple. At the end of the segregation era, the racism that spawned it didn't disappear. It evolved. At the time, racist people couldn't keep black Americans out of their neighborhoods legally by the color of their skin. they would keep their neighborhoods white through classism and money. The American dream was unobtainable for the vast majority of black Americans. Although today's American society has come a long way from the '50s beliefs, for some reason, these zoning laws are still standing. With all of these problems, there's also the question of security. In other parts of the world, like Europe or the Middle East, suburban homes are built differently. Houses are built with stronger material, high fences, gates all over the place, and most importantly, homes and businesses are relatively still close to each other, making the whole urban fabric homogeneous. Nothing too far or too close. American suburbia is just weird compared to that. You cross the street, jump over a useless white fence, hit a light wooden door, and you're in someone's living room. Americans are one door away from the street, which is obviously a problem for houses with such steep prices. Will we ever see other more functioning suburban designs, or will things just stay the way they are? Only time will tell.