soccer urbanism

I grew up playing soccer. Fall and spring I would spend my saturday afternoons running around on the grass, logging plenty of miles while trying to do something productive with the soccer ball. Around the same time, I started watching soccer on tv, what little of it was available in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The main attraction then as it is now was the World Cup, the international tournament occurring once every four years. Professional soccer in the United States didn't exist back then. That changed in 1996 when Major League Soccer (MLS) was created.

At the heart of the MLS strategy was the fact that millions of young kids (typically in the suburbs) played soccer. Surely, if they could interest those kids in the professional game then the league would succeed. For years many teams tried (often unsuccessfully) to lure suburbanites and their children to attend professional soccer games.

It turns out that the most successful teams in MLS that draw the most consistently large crowds are those located in urban areas. Steve Davis of Soccernet.com recently wrote an article extolling the virtues of soccer urbanism. I'll admit that I am not an unbiased observer when it comes to soccer urbanism. I grew up in the DC area and to this day one of the great pleasures in my life is taking the Washington Metro to a DC United soccer game.

It probably helps that most of the people who follow professional soccer in the United States also are knowledgeable about European soccer and tend to idealize the generalized European ability of being able to walk, take the bus, or train to a local match. A lot of these people end up living in and enjoy frequenting urban areas. There is also the shear ability of mass transit to carry a large number of people to one specific area. When the New Wembley Stadium opened in London last year the 3 Tube and 2 National Rail lines that serve it could carry 100 trains an hour and transport over 70,000 passengers an hour to the stadium.

The decline and death of cities has been written about extensively for the past two or three decades. But cities are still here and urban vitality still possesses a lot of power and influence. Soccer urbanity may only be a small part of urban livability for this unabashed supporter of cities it is important indeed.