6 ms·

This is my feeling as well. The marginal cost of expensive infrastructure such as sewer, water, transportation, etc. is intrinsically higher the further out you

This is my feeling as well. The marginal cost of expensive infrastructure such as sewer, water, transportation, etc. is intrinsically higher the further out you go. When you were building on greenfields during suburban expansion, you overlooked that because relatively affluent people were getting a bargain on the land and thus the development costs looked more reasonable. Now the deferred maintenance on those bits of infrastructure is catching up and they want the central cities—the places where the marginal cost of infrastructure is low—to subsidize repairs to the infrastructure that allows for low density sprawl. To be fair, the article is talking about relatively close-in suburbs. Things will look worse when the even more farflung exurbs start having a lot of deferred maintenance catch up to them.

ghaff 9y ago
In many areas, far flung "exurbs" long predate many of the closer-in suburbs. The town I'm in was founded in 1653 or something like that. So this narrative that infrastructure for living outside of cities only exists because of subsidized greenfield development. Yes, many people in those outlying towns commute to work elsewhere but many of those jobs aren't actually in the major nearby cities. They're in other suburbs.
- astura 9y ago
  Then it would more properly be classified as a small town rather than an exurb.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    "Small towns" constitute the vast majority of people living in more spread-out communities outside of New England cities. Some are more built up than others but most of them date to some degree or other to well before highways. FWIW ESRI classifies where I live an an exurb. New England is an older part of the US and patterns are obviously different with newer cities.
    - phil21 9y ago
      New England really isn't interesting to discuss for the most part when discussing US suburbs. New England is as close to "europe" style development as we get. The flyover states are really where this conversation needs to be focused on, as these are the communities that will first be hit hard. Small towns that eventually got absorbed into a giant metroplex are not the usual in the country. I think most folks see them as entirely different when it comes to sustainability models/etc.
      - ghaff 9y ago
        That's somewhat fair although I'll point out that migration out of the urban cores in Boston/Cambridge was the norm until not that many years ago. So the dynamics weren't all that different. And there were basically no significant tech jobs left in the core urban area until about 20 years ago.

ghaff 9y ago

In many areas, far flung "exurbs" long predate many of the closer-in suburbs. The town I'm in was founded in 1653 or something like that. So this narrative that infrastructure for living outside of cities only exists because of subsidized greenfield development. Yes, many people in those outlying towns commute to work elsewhere but many of those jobs aren't actually in the major nearby cities. They're in other suburbs.

astura 9y ago
Then it would more properly be classified as a small town rather than an exurb.
- ghaff 9y ago
  "Small towns" constitute the vast majority of people living in more spread-out communities outside of New England cities. Some are more built up than others but most of them date to some degree or other to well before highways. FWIW ESRI classifies where I live an an exurb. New England is an older part of the US and patterns are obviously different with newer cities.
  - phil21 9y ago
    New England really isn't interesting to discuss for the most part when discussing US suburbs. New England is as close to "europe" style development as we get. The flyover states are really where this conversation needs to be focused on, as these are the communities that will first be hit hard. Small towns that eventually got absorbed into a giant metroplex are not the usual in the country. I think most folks see them as entirely different when it comes to sustainability models/etc.
    - ghaff 9y ago
      That's somewhat fair although I'll point out that migration out of the urban cores in Boston/Cambridge was the norm until not that many years ago. So the dynamics weren't all that different. And there were basically no significant tech jobs left in the core urban area until about 20 years ago.