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Actually, we are seeing a return towards urbanisation globally, which is a positive trends, since it's a vital component for curbing global warming. Residents o
by JDDunn9 10y ago
Actually, we are seeing a return towards urbanisation globally, which is a positive trends, since it's a vital component for curbing global warming. Residents of NYC use 1/3 as much electricity as their suburban counterparts, use a tiny fraction of the carbon emissions on transportation, and produce less garbage. All without convincing New Yorkers to recycle or drive electric cars. Environmental responsibility is baked into the city's design.
- closeparen 10y agoResidents of NYC pay $3000/mo for 1-bedroom apartments, while their suburban counterparts pay $1000/mo for 3-bedroom houses. You could buy quite a few solar panels and lease several electric cars for less than it would take to move to NYC.
- JDDunn9 10y agoHousing prices are often a related to geography. Manhatten is an island, SF and Boston are peninsulas. You could have a high density city that didn't have a high cost of living.
- jstanley 10y agoCould you, though? Manhattan, San Francisco, and Boston aren't where they are because of random chance.
- cauterized 10y agoThey all have world-class natural harbors. That was far more important for transportation purposes even 60 years ago (and certainly when these cities were established) than it is today. Population centers formed around places where large quantities of goods and people could be shipped from. And that meant harbors. Good harbors used to create economic powerhouses and centers of immigration, which in turn created large dense cities. The sort of large dense cities that people naturally chose to build when unregulated but that modern policies prohibit (or at least pose obstacles to) in places that are not yet that dense. Similarly, NY and Boston are situated on and partly limited by major rivers, which provided access to the interior in a time when travel by boat was much faster than over land. You'll find the same is the case for almost every major non-coastal city in the US and worldwide. That was less of an issue for SF, which grew in the railroad era. There are of course many obstacles to attracting people to a NEW city. But specific types of geography that happen to typically be limited by water are no longer crucial to making a city dense. Access to ocean shipping is helpful, but it's now viable to import and export over land to and from a harbor town. Edited to add: Boston isn't really a peninsula. The reason these cities are dense is largely about developing prior to the car. LA could be nearly as dense as Boston if it weren't so car-dependent. If it had become a major population center prior to the advent of the car it would have had to be by necessity. People built dense because of limits on how far one could realistically travel on foot or by equine-powered means. That limited the size of a city far more effectively in Boston than geography did (this is also reflected to a degree in LA's older downtown). New York was able to grow beyond downtown and midtown Manhattan largely because of rapid transit (elevated rail later displaced in favor of subways) but even that has limits that kept the city dense. (One of those limits of course being that it was less likely to get built in areas that weren't yet at least somewhat dense.) Think how long it would take to ride from an outer LA suburb to its downtown in a mule cart. That density-enforcing function doesn't apply to the same degree when you have an automobile. BUT there are limits on how long people are willing to travel to get places, be it by foot or by car. Even in LA, we're reaching the limits of car-enabled sprawl.
- Mz 10y agoLA was built before the cult of the car. It sprawled when trolleys were the norm there. The reason: It's a desert. It made no economic sense to develop it in little bits. They had to develop large tracts at a time to defray infrastructure costs related to importing water.
- msl 10y ago> You could buy quite a few solar panels and lease several electric cars for less than it would take to move to NYC. Neither of which is nearly as good for the environment as simply using less energy. Solar panels and electric vehicles take a lot of energy to make, and are not guarenteed to become carbon neutral during their usable life.
- closeparen 10y agoIf we are going to impose a $24k/person/year tax to help the environment, is New York-style living the optimal allocation? You could be very picky about sourcing food, and put the farmers using cheap but unsustainable methods out of business. Pay the premium for American-made products under American factory emissions regulations, to shut down some cargo ships and Chinese smokestacks. Every 5th American could be a $96k/yr researcher working on environmental problems, etc. We could all telecommute, and have our pay docked by $24k/year to compensate for the lost productivity.
- CalRobert 10y agoIf my kid gets run over by a car while cycling to school I don't really car whether the car was electric or not.
- Decade 10y agoThe high prices are an artifact of misguided past policies, defended by NIMBYs, to encourage suburban sprawl. Some increase in per-square-foot prices are natural and expected, just due to right-sizing the environmental costs and benefits, but the very high prices are insane and fixable. http://www.sfyimby.org http://www.sfyimby.org
- optimuspaul 10y agoOr you could move to a city with more reasonable housing costs, like Minneapolis where 2br apartments <$2k/mo.
- maxsilver 10y ago> more reasonable housing costs Your "reasonable" housing costs are still double the price for half the space. A lot of Americans just don't have an extra $1,000/month sitting around to throw towards rent. Even if they ditch their car, they'd still be $800/month short.
- optimuspaul 10y agoYou can definitely get a place in Minne for $1k. I was just quoting median numbers. $2k for a 2br is in some of the more posh areas. But my point was more reasonable that NYC. Much more space for much let money. And the suburbs here would be even cheaper than the $1k.
- mason240 10y agoOr you can live with better standard of living in the Twin Cities suburbs with a house and a yard, as I do, for less cost than living in small box in Minneapolis.
- InitialLastName 10y agoAs a data point, I pay $2310/mo (total, not individual) for a 3-bedroom apartment in a safe, vibrant, reasonably commutable part of Manhattan. The NYC residents you're talking about are making poor decisions with their money.
- closeparen 10y agoIs it under rent control? (Otherwise I have totally misread the NYC housing market, thank you).
- InitialLastName 10y agoRent stabilized (they can't change it more than some % per year), but in my experience not far off the market. To be sure, there are $3000 1-bedroom apartments around as well.
- nitrogen 10y agoDoes that include the electricity used by the restaurants they eat at instead of cooking at home?
- lhopki01 10y agoYou do realise that lots of people all eating out at a restaurant is much more efficient than all those people cooking and eating at home right?
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoDepends on the restaurant. McDonalds', sure. Michelin 3-star, probably not. I don't cook like that.
- lhopki01 10y agoSo on aggregate you're saying that it'll use less energy? Or are you say on average people go to Michelin 3-star in cities?
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoProbably on aggregate it'll use less, fair. My old Dad was in the Korean War. The soldiers said then that probably everybody would eat in 'mess halls' in the future, because it made so much sense. Of course these were farm kids seeing such things for the first time.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]