Metabolic Suburbs, or the Virtue of Low Densities

In the west, cities began to have an environmental impact on more than themselves in the 19th century, with the socially and environmentally devastating effects of full-blown industrialisation and a laissez-faire attitude to urban growth. To a great extent, the conceptual models that planners and urban designers hold in their heads when addressing today’s urban environmental challenges are the same as they were in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. We are still talking mainly in terms of Garden Cities on the one hand, and Compact Cities on the other, and still not talking about suburbs. What would help us conceive of them differently, as environmental producers rather than parasites?