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In this debate, we should look to cities in other countries. As I understand it, Paris/ Vancouver/ London/ Tokyo etc have never been subject to the "rule" that

In this debate, we should look to cities in other countries. As I understand it, Paris/ Vancouver/ London/ Tokyo etc have never been subject to the "rule" that young couples move to the suburbs once they are ready to raise families. Nor are they subject to the rule that cities are dangerous and have bad schools. If we can fix schools and crime, like other civilized nations, then there is no reason to believe people will move out of cities once they reach a certain age.

iojdnfjg 10y ago
> In this debate, we should look to cities in other countries. As I understand it, Paris/ Vancouver/ London/ Tokyo etc have never been subject to the "rule" that young couples move to the suburbs once they are ready to raise families. A small family home in Vancouver proper will run you 750k+. The median individual income is $27,600 in Canada. When you do the math you realize 95% of the population simply can't afford to live in big cities unless they rent, which makes it harder to buy a home in the future.
pc86 10y ago
You say "fix schools and crime" like it is known empirically what to do. It is not as simple as pumping money into the districts. France, Canada, England, Japan and other "civilized nations" debate how best to fund schools and fight crime just like the US.
- simonsarris 10y ago
  To add credence to your point, this headline from last week: "Obama administration spent billions to fix failing schools, and it didn’t work" https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/obama-administration-spent-billions-to-fix-failing-schools-and-it-didnt-work/2017/01/19/6d24ac1a-de6d-11e6-ad42-f3375f271c9c_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/obama-adminis...
  - mastax 10y ago
    And here's an alternative solution: re-integration https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/...
    - yareally 10y ago
      Moving students around schools in an attempt to equalize race and poverty levels isn't a new concept and it's been tried before (and possibly still done in some states/cities). They tried forced busing of students to schools across the cities in Ohio back in the 70s and 80s to equalize school demographics. Parents moved in droves to the suburbs and Ohio cities only started recovering in the past 10 years after the program was ended in the 90s. No one wanted their children to go to a school 40 minutes away when there was a perfectly good one within walking distance. If one still thinks this is a viable solution, how is it going to going to avoid the mistakes of previous attempts? Last thing the cities here need is a mass migration back to the suburbs when the cities have just started turning around. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_City_Schools#1977_Desegregation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_City_Schools#1977_Des... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desegregation_busing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desegregation_busing
      - Kalium 10y ago
        > Moving students around schools in an attempt to equalize race and poverty levels isn't a new concept and it's been tried before (and possibly still done in some states/cities). San Francisco assigns students to schools via a lottery. The result looks a lot like this.
      - Helmet 10y ago
        What you fail to mention is that it worked. Seriously, busing students and reintegrating schools worked. This is a good starting point: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/transcript https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/... And the only people that didn't want this were the racist parents of students of upper-middle class schools: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXSU1GvuLPs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXSU1GvuLPs It's actually quite embarrassing to watch.
- legulere 10y ago
  Fighting crime is not that much of a discussion topic in the "other civilized nations", because it is not as big a problem there. The US debate about crime might even be counter-productive as it bars the option to do things that have been shown to work (rehabilitation instead of punishment, reduction of poverty/inequality)
  - pc86 10y ago
    That's simply not true - there are a lot of people talking about rehabilitation over retribution and the role of poverty and inequality in crime. It's not barred by any means.
    - legulere 10y ago
      Also in e.g. Europe if you ask people how to better prevent crime many people probably would say to be tougher on criminals. The difference I guess is that crime is not really an issue often discussed in regards to politics.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  Japan is pretty famous for having almost no crime. I doubt they're debating crime-fighting. Their main problems as a society seem to be workaholism and a lack of children, not crime or school quality. Here in the US, crime has been falling steadily for decades now, and no one's really sure why. One big theory is that the elimination of leaded gasoline had a big effect: our population was suffering from low-level lead poisoning from all the lead in the air and environment. But crime here is of course still much, much worse than Japan. Crime in England is probably significantly worse, with the main difference being that you don't have to worry much about getting shot over there, but you have to worry a lot more about being mugged or knifed.
  - lhopki01 10y ago
    Crime is England is a lot worse than Japan or the US?
    - nkoren 10y ago
      Um, no. It's FAR safer than the US, but not nearly as safe as Japan (but then, what is)? Comparing crime statistics is notoriously difficult due to differences in methodologies and reporting rates, but "homicide" is one statistic that has sufficiently uniform categorisation and reporting rate as to enable a comparison. Doing that, you can see that the US is about 4 times worse than the UK, and 13 times worse than Japan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... Edit: perhaps the grandparent comment meant that crime in England was "a lot worse" than in Japan? If so, then yes that's true.
      - Arizhel 10y ago
        As you said, it's hard to compare because of methodology and such. Yes, the US looks bad when you average everything together, but that ignores that some places are very different from others. Basically, if you stay out of blighted urban districts ("ghettos"), you're far less likely to suffer from violent crime. Many of the homicides here are because of gang violence, something that really only affects gang members and people living around them.
- flukus 10y ago
  One thing other civilized nations seem to do is fund schools/police at the state/nation level rather than the local level. Funding at the local level entrenches inequality.
saosebastiao 10y ago
Even in the US, it isn't the rule. Basically the baby boomers did it and that's it. I guess that could be expected of their unsustainable IGMFY generation, but go one generation in either direction and you'll find plenty of aging people who have stayed in their cities. Suburbanization was a trend that peaked at McMansions and has been returning to normalcy ever since.
- ForRealsies 10y ago
  Exurbs are on the increase though. http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2015/11/03/so-much-for-the-death-of-sprawl-americas-exurbs-are-booming/#765d638c495a http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2015/11/03/so-much-fo...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - astrange 10y ago
    He says "exurb" like it's a McMansion ultra-suburb, but then the words "town center" "walk around" "business" come up, so isn't it actually a small city?
sremani 10y ago
Other OECD countries do not have Gen Y that is as big as US, looking at other countries may not help that much beyond a point. >>>If we can fix schools and crime, like other civilized nations, then there is no reason to believe people will move out of cities once they reach a certain age. If it was an easy prop, it would have been achieved, may be you should see "The Wire Season 4" to get an idea!
- brbrodude 10y ago
  What is hard is getting people to admit they're wrong. It's so very easy to see that there's rotten stuff in US society, but nobody wants to face it, that's it. The data is clear, european social democracies are better socially developed than the US is(and I don't mean it like I think have it all figured out and they're awesome, just that they've been able to do some sensible stuff, shit that should be just common sense not the saint graal for fucks sake), they have absurdly lower crime and misery rates, are better educated, this is a fact. IMHO it's not the matter of being "easy/hard", it's the matter of "political will", if there were will, it would be easy, since there is not, it becomes "impossible".
  - woofyman 10y ago
    Half of the USA will reject anything but free market, pull your self up by your bootstraps, capitalism as "Socialism".
techterrier 10y ago
They very much do in London these days. Unless you are a banker or a lawyer you aren't going to be owning a family size home in London. London has good train links to the surrounding counties so 30 somethings have been fleeing the capital to setting down along the commute routes.
muse900 10y ago
I reside in London, and not even as a youngster but even as a mid 50s you have to live in the suburbs. Housing is so expensive in the city I don't think many people can afford it. 1 bedroom apartment in bad areas where your car insurance will be at the highest cause of thefts etc costs around £250k. Towards central London you are looking at around £750-900k for an 1 bedroom apartment. Also I'd argue that London hasn't fixed crime, or schools, certainly there are less gun crimes but thats it really, everything else is the same.
- tonyedgecombe 10y ago
  Schools in London were getting a lot of attention, I got the impression they had improved significantly in recent years.
- estefan 10y ago
  > Also I'd argue that London hasn't fixed crime Or pollution. The city is a cesspit. I can't wait to get out.
  - cimi_ 10y ago
    Wow, this is a very categorical view that does not provide any additional data or useful information. As somebody who a few years ago was looking to move to London and was getting depressed reading all sorts of alarmist comments I feel the need to respond. This place is wonderful! Concrete data: * I pay a bit over 1/8 of my salary (_excluding_ stock, I consider that extra) on rent. I live in a nice two bedroom apartment in zone 1 and share a room with my GF; the second bedroom is rented by a friend of ours. * I walk to work; pay nothing for transport unless I want to go visit something. I don't own a car and don't need it. * The culture is awesome. For example, I like music a lot and I constantly find stuff I love that I can see live. I go to at least one concert a month. I don't think there's another city that tops London on music (at least for the genres I like). * The food is awesome, quality is way, _way_ better than anything I've had in the US. Super varied and affordable - there are plenty of street markets selling delicious food for £5-8 / portion during lunchtime in the week. I don't have catered food at work, but I think I would still prefer the street food. * I didn't realise how _green_ the city is. There are a lot of trees, parks and nice places to walk around. * The weather's nice enough that I can run outside a few days a week for the duration of the year. The summer's lovely and there are loads of places to spend time outside. * I don't have kids and am not interested, in the short term at least. * I was lucky enough not to need any medical assistance / GP services so can't comment on that. Please stop with these baseless categorizations. I lived in Slough for almost a year so I understand that there are places less than perfect here but let's try and base the discussion on objective facts.
harryh 10y ago
With a couple of notable exceptions schools and crime aren't really problems in most American cities. NYC, for example, is one of the safest places in the world and has very good schools. People leave when they have families because of the cost of housing.
- santaclaus 10y ago
  Manhattan maybe... East New York, not so much.
ronnier 10y ago
I raised my kids in Tokyo for a year and it was painful (there are upsides too). One of the things I struggled with the most was that living in an apartment building made it very difficult to let my children run free. They'd have to head down 30 floors in an elevator and walk out to a busy street with nothing but concrete around. Living right outside Seattle now my kids open the door and are able to run in around in the neighborhood without us. Not to mention, we had a 750 sqft, 2 bedroom apartment that cost $3,000 a month. It was a quality of life downgrade compared to living in the Seattle suburbs.
- shostack 10y ago
  How is the lack of sun in Seattle?
  - ronnier 10y ago
    I have no issue with it. We get an amazing summer each year, several months of straight sunshine. I like that the weather changes and we have a variety of weather. 30 minutes from my home to snow skiing in the winter. My only issue is that it's never really warm enough to swim, though you can if you don't mind cold water.
    - enraged_camel 10y ago
      If you like open water swimming, invest in a wetsuit. I lived in Seattle for 7 years - a 2mm or 3mm thick wetsuit should make the water quite comfortable.
      - mratzloff 10y ago
        I'd invest in a drysuit instead for Seattle.
      - cylinder 10y ago
        Is the swimming as refreshing and enjoyable in a wetsuit? I've never tried one before.
nickff 10y ago
It is very common for Vancouverites to move to the suburbs when them want to raise children. The public schools are definitely better in many of the suburbs, and the crime is much lower in the wealthy suburbs than near the city's center.
doublevea 10y ago
Vancouver definitely does this. Young couples looking to start families cannot afford to live in the downtown core now, and move to areas like Victoria or Kelowna instead.
drspacemonkey 10y ago
Vancouver isn't a good example. Families are fleeing the city for several reasons, ranging from impossibly high cost of living, the low probability of finding a 2+ bedroom apartment, and the unavailability of childcare. Incidentally, Vancouver also used to be a city where people would flee to the suburbs when starting a family. At least, it was before the suburbs became just as comically unaffordable as the city.
wott 10y ago
The criminality in Paris and surroundings is 2x to 3x the average of the country (including Paris). Also rent in cities like Paris is prohibitive for most families. There is also the problem that in Paris, as in smaller-but-still-large cities, large apartments have been divided into several smaller ones to make more profit for the landlords. So it is even more difficult to just find a large apartment, supposing you could afford it.

iojdnfjg 10y ago

> In this debate, we should look to cities in other countries. As I understand it, Paris/ Vancouver/ London/ Tokyo etc have never been subject to the "rule" that young couples move to the suburbs once they are ready to raise families. A small family home in Vancouver proper will run you 750k+. The median individual income is $27,600 in Canada. When you do the math you realize 95% of the population simply can't afford to live in big cities unless they rent, which makes it harder to buy a home in the future.

pc86 10y ago

You say "fix schools and crime" like it is known empirically what to do. It is not as simple as pumping money into the districts. France, Canada, England, Japan and other "civilized nations" debate how best to fund schools and fight crime just like the US.

simonsarris 10y ago
To add credence to your point, this headline from last week: "Obama administration spent billions to fix failing schools, and it didn’t work" https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/obama-administration-spent-billions-to-fix-failing-schools-and-it-didnt-work/2017/01/19/6d24ac1a-de6d-11e6-ad42-f3375f271c9c_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/obama-adminis...
- mastax 10y ago
  And here's an alternative solution: re-integration https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/...
  - yareally 10y ago
    Moving students around schools in an attempt to equalize race and poverty levels isn't a new concept and it's been tried before (and possibly still done in some states/cities). They tried forced busing of students to schools across the cities in Ohio back in the 70s and 80s to equalize school demographics. Parents moved in droves to the suburbs and Ohio cities only started recovering in the past 10 years after the program was ended in the 90s. No one wanted their children to go to a school 40 minutes away when there was a perfectly good one within walking distance. If one still thinks this is a viable solution, how is it going to going to avoid the mistakes of previous attempts? Last thing the cities here need is a mass migration back to the suburbs when the cities have just started turning around. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_City_Schools#1977_Desegregation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_City_Schools#1977_Des... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desegregation_busing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desegregation_busing
    - Kalium 10y ago
      > Moving students around schools in an attempt to equalize race and poverty levels isn't a new concept and it's been tried before (and possibly still done in some states/cities). San Francisco assigns students to schools via a lottery. The result looks a lot like this.
    - Helmet 10y ago
      What you fail to mention is that it worked. Seriously, busing students and reintegrating schools worked. This is a good starting point: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/transcript https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/... And the only people that didn't want this were the racist parents of students of upper-middle class schools: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXSU1GvuLPs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXSU1GvuLPs It's actually quite embarrassing to watch.
legulere 10y ago
Fighting crime is not that much of a discussion topic in the "other civilized nations", because it is not as big a problem there. The US debate about crime might even be counter-productive as it bars the option to do things that have been shown to work (rehabilitation instead of punishment, reduction of poverty/inequality)
- pc86 10y ago
  That's simply not true - there are a lot of people talking about rehabilitation over retribution and the role of poverty and inequality in crime. It's not barred by any means.
  - legulere 10y ago
    Also in e.g. Europe if you ask people how to better prevent crime many people probably would say to be tougher on criminals. The difference I guess is that crime is not really an issue often discussed in regards to politics.
Arizhel 10y ago
Japan is pretty famous for having almost no crime. I doubt they're debating crime-fighting. Their main problems as a society seem to be workaholism and a lack of children, not crime or school quality. Here in the US, crime has been falling steadily for decades now, and no one's really sure why. One big theory is that the elimination of leaded gasoline had a big effect: our population was suffering from low-level lead poisoning from all the lead in the air and environment. But crime here is of course still much, much worse than Japan. Crime in England is probably significantly worse, with the main difference being that you don't have to worry much about getting shot over there, but you have to worry a lot more about being mugged or knifed.
- lhopki01 10y ago
  Crime is England is a lot worse than Japan or the US?
  - nkoren 10y ago
    Um, no. It's FAR safer than the US, but not nearly as safe as Japan (but then, what is)? Comparing crime statistics is notoriously difficult due to differences in methodologies and reporting rates, but "homicide" is one statistic that has sufficiently uniform categorisation and reporting rate as to enable a comparison. Doing that, you can see that the US is about 4 times worse than the UK, and 13 times worse than Japan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... Edit: perhaps the grandparent comment meant that crime in England was "a lot worse" than in Japan? If so, then yes that's true.
    - Arizhel 10y ago
      As you said, it's hard to compare because of methodology and such. Yes, the US looks bad when you average everything together, but that ignores that some places are very different from others. Basically, if you stay out of blighted urban districts ("ghettos"), you're far less likely to suffer from violent crime. Many of the homicides here are because of gang violence, something that really only affects gang members and people living around them.
flukus 10y ago
One thing other civilized nations seem to do is fund schools/police at the state/nation level rather than the local level. Funding at the local level entrenches inequality.

saosebastiao 10y ago

Even in the US, it isn't the rule. Basically the baby boomers did it and that's it. I guess that could be expected of their unsustainable IGMFY generation, but go one generation in either direction and you'll find plenty of aging people who have stayed in their cities. Suburbanization was a trend that peaked at McMansions and has been returning to normalcy ever since.

ForRealsies 10y ago
Exurbs are on the increase though. http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2015/11/03/so-much-for-the-death-of-sprawl-americas-exurbs-are-booming/#765d638c495a http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2015/11/03/so-much-fo...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- astrange 10y ago
  He says "exurb" like it's a McMansion ultra-suburb, but then the words "town center" "walk around" "business" come up, so isn't it actually a small city?

sremani 10y ago

Other OECD countries do not have Gen Y that is as big as US, looking at other countries may not help that much beyond a point. >>>If we can fix schools and crime, like other civilized nations, then there is no reason to believe people will move out of cities once they reach a certain age. If it was an easy prop, it would have been achieved, may be you should see "The Wire Season 4" to get an idea!

brbrodude 10y ago
What is hard is getting people to admit they're wrong. It's so very easy to see that there's rotten stuff in US society, but nobody wants to face it, that's it. The data is clear, european social democracies are better socially developed than the US is(and I don't mean it like I think have it all figured out and they're awesome, just that they've been able to do some sensible stuff, shit that should be just common sense not the saint graal for fucks sake), they have absurdly lower crime and misery rates, are better educated, this is a fact. IMHO it's not the matter of being "easy/hard", it's the matter of "political will", if there were will, it would be easy, since there is not, it becomes "impossible".
- woofyman 10y ago
  Half of the USA will reject anything but free market, pull your self up by your bootstraps, capitalism as "Socialism".

techterrier 10y ago

They very much do in London these days. Unless you are a banker or a lawyer you aren't going to be owning a family size home in London. London has good train links to the surrounding counties so 30 somethings have been fleeing the capital to setting down along the commute routes.

muse900 10y ago

I reside in London, and not even as a youngster but even as a mid 50s you have to live in the suburbs. Housing is so expensive in the city I don't think many people can afford it. 1 bedroom apartment in bad areas where your car insurance will be at the highest cause of thefts etc costs around £250k. Towards central London you are looking at around £750-900k for an 1 bedroom apartment. Also I'd argue that London hasn't fixed crime, or schools, certainly there are less gun crimes but thats it really, everything else is the same.

tonyedgecombe 10y ago
Schools in London were getting a lot of attention, I got the impression they had improved significantly in recent years.
estefan 10y ago
> Also I'd argue that London hasn't fixed crime Or pollution. The city is a cesspit. I can't wait to get out.
- cimi_ 10y ago
  Wow, this is a very categorical view that does not provide any additional data or useful information. As somebody who a few years ago was looking to move to London and was getting depressed reading all sorts of alarmist comments I feel the need to respond. This place is wonderful! Concrete data: * I pay a bit over 1/8 of my salary (_excluding_ stock, I consider that extra) on rent. I live in a nice two bedroom apartment in zone 1 and share a room with my GF; the second bedroom is rented by a friend of ours. * I walk to work; pay nothing for transport unless I want to go visit something. I don't own a car and don't need it. * The culture is awesome. For example, I like music a lot and I constantly find stuff I love that I can see live. I go to at least one concert a month. I don't think there's another city that tops London on music (at least for the genres I like). * The food is awesome, quality is way, _way_ better than anything I've had in the US. Super varied and affordable - there are plenty of street markets selling delicious food for £5-8 / portion during lunchtime in the week. I don't have catered food at work, but I think I would still prefer the street food. * I didn't realise how _green_ the city is. There are a lot of trees, parks and nice places to walk around. * The weather's nice enough that I can run outside a few days a week for the duration of the year. The summer's lovely and there are loads of places to spend time outside. * I don't have kids and am not interested, in the short term at least. * I was lucky enough not to need any medical assistance / GP services so can't comment on that. Please stop with these baseless categorizations. I lived in Slough for almost a year so I understand that there are places less than perfect here but let's try and base the discussion on objective facts.

harryh 10y ago

With a couple of notable exceptions schools and crime aren't really problems in most American cities. NYC, for example, is one of the safest places in the world and has very good schools. People leave when they have families because of the cost of housing.

santaclaus 10y ago
Manhattan maybe... East New York, not so much.

ronnier 10y ago

I raised my kids in Tokyo for a year and it was painful (there are upsides too). One of the things I struggled with the most was that living in an apartment building made it very difficult to let my children run free. They'd have to head down 30 floors in an elevator and walk out to a busy street with nothing but concrete around. Living right outside Seattle now my kids open the door and are able to run in around in the neighborhood without us. Not to mention, we had a 750 sqft, 2 bedroom apartment that cost $3,000 a month. It was a quality of life downgrade compared to living in the Seattle suburbs.

shostack 10y ago
How is the lack of sun in Seattle?
- ronnier 10y ago
  I have no issue with it. We get an amazing summer each year, several months of straight sunshine. I like that the weather changes and we have a variety of weather. 30 minutes from my home to snow skiing in the winter. My only issue is that it's never really warm enough to swim, though you can if you don't mind cold water.
  - enraged_camel 10y ago
    If you like open water swimming, invest in a wetsuit. I lived in Seattle for 7 years - a 2mm or 3mm thick wetsuit should make the water quite comfortable.
    - mratzloff 10y ago
      I'd invest in a drysuit instead for Seattle.
    - cylinder 10y ago
      Is the swimming as refreshing and enjoyable in a wetsuit? I've never tried one before.

nickff 10y ago

It is very common for Vancouverites to move to the suburbs when them want to raise children. The public schools are definitely better in many of the suburbs, and the crime is much lower in the wealthy suburbs than near the city's center.

doublevea 10y ago

Vancouver definitely does this. Young couples looking to start families cannot afford to live in the downtown core now, and move to areas like Victoria or Kelowna instead.

drspacemonkey 10y ago

Vancouver isn't a good example. Families are fleeing the city for several reasons, ranging from impossibly high cost of living, the low probability of finding a 2+ bedroom apartment, and the unavailability of childcare. Incidentally, Vancouver also used to be a city where people would flee to the suburbs when starting a family. At least, it was before the suburbs became just as comically unaffordable as the city.

wott 10y ago

The criminality in Paris and surroundings is 2x to 3x the average of the country (including Paris). Also rent in cities like Paris is prohibitive for most families. There is also the problem that in Paris, as in smaller-but-still-large cities, large apartments have been divided into several smaller ones to make more profit for the landlords. So it is even more difficult to just find a large apartment, supposing you could afford it.