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So if the evil sprawlsters are subsidizing the older roads...so what? The evil sprawlsters can afford it. I think you (and probably the author) have got this e

So if the evil sprawlsters are subsidizing the older roads...so what? The evil sprawlsters can afford it. I think you (and probably the author) have got this exactly backwards. Sprawl creates blight when the rate of building outpaces the needs of population growth. The evil sprawlsters are creating new costs, but they aren't subsidizing old roads. The sprawl usually happens outside of long-ago drawn city borders, anyway. If you have 5 families living in 5 houses in the urban core and you build 5 new houses for them to live in out in the suburbs, then population needs to double for there to be full occupancy. As a case study, take a look at my home town of St. Louis. Much has been made about the city's population loss. But that's just in the urban core; the region's population has actually grown slightly over the last 40 years. It just hasn't grown fast enough to fill up all the new houses we've built out across the river. The sprawlsters aren't subsidizing the old roads. They have completely abandoned them and are leaving them to nature.

jws 11y ago
St. Louis City also has a problem with its beloved "earnings tax". At one point as our office space lease renewal was approaching I plotted all of our 100+ employees at the time on a map, almost all software engineers, about 2/3 of them lived west of the city and 1/3 lived east, and only a single one lived in the city, and he was in a temporary apartment immediately post divorce, didn't get the house. To me that says 99+% of professionals don't want to live in the city. Our first office plan had been to put one in the city, but the earnings tax on our side and the employee's side was a deal breaker for a business with payroll as its predominant expense. So instead we got an office on each side of the river and teleported across the city as needed with the interstate highway system.
- r00fus 11y ago
  First time I've ever heard the highways fawned over as "teleporting"...
  - jws 11y ago
    Depends where you live and when you drive. Stay out of the evening rush hour in certain areas of town and you can count on 65mph to your destination. If you are popping across the river in the middle of the day there is no problem. Some people do have jobs that turn them out a 4-5pm in unfortunate locations. When I worked in one of those locations I shifted my schedule a bit so I worked until 6pm instead. Waiting 60 minutes turned a 45 minute commute into a 15 minute commute.
  - khuey 11y ago
    Some American cities have seen significant population declines since their infrastructure was built and thus have surplus transportation/housing/etc capacity.
- throwawaybookst 11y ago
  The fact that burbs are the most desirable places to live in STL is pretty much the reason I'll never move back. It's an incredibly depressing metro area.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    There's a lot of city-living worship here. But (as would certainly be the case with myself) it's mostly for a very tiny number of mostly coastal cities.
  - dionidium 11y ago
    The fact that burbs are the most desirable places to live in STL Says who? I'd rather live on this street than anywhere in the County: http://limitlessplanetstl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Lafayette-Square-Banner.jpg http://limitlessplanetstl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Laf... More: https://www.google.com/search?q=lafayette+square&espv=2&biw=1424&bih=758&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiBt-6U6sXMAhUDND4KHeiuC5UQ_AUICCgD&dpr=1#tbm=isch&q=lafayette+square+st+louis https://www.google.com/search?q=lafayette+square&espv=2&biw=...
- dionidium 11y ago
  You need to think bigger than the earnings tax (or any any particular difference between the City and the County). That's too narrow a lens through which to see what's really going on. St. Louis as a region has a problem with the sort of divisions that allowed you to avoid the earnings tax by locating outside of city limits that were myopically drawn in 1876. --- (But, if I must comment on the earnings tax -- and I really can't help myself -- I'll simply say that a 1% tax is not enough to dissuade a professional earning a professional's income from living where they truly want to live or working where they truly want to work. To the extent that a 1% tax actually is a deal-breaker, it's a symptom of a much larger disease.)

jws 11y ago

St. Louis City also has a problem with its beloved "earnings tax". At one point as our office space lease renewal was approaching I plotted all of our 100+ employees at the time on a map, almost all software engineers, about 2/3 of them lived west of the city and 1/3 lived east, and only a single one lived in the city, and he was in a temporary apartment immediately post divorce, didn't get the house. To me that says 99+% of professionals don't want to live in the city. Our first office plan had been to put one in the city, but the earnings tax on our side and the employee's side was a deal breaker for a business with payroll as its predominant expense. So instead we got an office on each side of the river and teleported across the city as needed with the interstate highway system.

r00fus 11y ago
First time I've ever heard the highways fawned over as "teleporting"...
- jws 11y ago
  Depends where you live and when you drive. Stay out of the evening rush hour in certain areas of town and you can count on 65mph to your destination. If you are popping across the river in the middle of the day there is no problem. Some people do have jobs that turn them out a 4-5pm in unfortunate locations. When I worked in one of those locations I shifted my schedule a bit so I worked until 6pm instead. Waiting 60 minutes turned a 45 minute commute into a 15 minute commute.
- khuey 11y ago
  Some American cities have seen significant population declines since their infrastructure was built and thus have surplus transportation/housing/etc capacity.
throwawaybookst 11y ago
The fact that burbs are the most desirable places to live in STL is pretty much the reason I'll never move back. It's an incredibly depressing metro area.
- ghaff 11y ago
  There's a lot of city-living worship here. But (as would certainly be the case with myself) it's mostly for a very tiny number of mostly coastal cities.
- dionidium 11y ago
  The fact that burbs are the most desirable places to live in STL Says who? I'd rather live on this street than anywhere in the County: http://limitlessplanetstl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Lafayette-Square-Banner.jpg http://limitlessplanetstl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Laf... More: https://www.google.com/search?q=lafayette+square&espv=2&biw=1424&bih=758&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiBt-6U6sXMAhUDND4KHeiuC5UQ_AUICCgD&dpr=1#tbm=isch&q=lafayette+square+st+louis https://www.google.com/search?q=lafayette+square&espv=2&biw=...
dionidium 11y ago
You need to think bigger than the earnings tax (or any any particular difference between the City and the County). That's too narrow a lens through which to see what's really going on. St. Louis as a region has a problem with the sort of divisions that allowed you to avoid the earnings tax by locating outside of city limits that were myopically drawn in 1876. --- (But, if I must comment on the earnings tax -- and I really can't help myself -- I'll simply say that a 1% tax is not enough to dissuade a professional earning a professional's income from living where they truly want to live or working where they truly want to work. To the extent that a 1% tax actually is a deal-breaker, it's a symptom of a much larger disease.)