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Decentralization of bigger cities is one of the key things where govern should take action in the foreseeable future. I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which r

Decentralization of bigger cities is one of the key things where govern should take action in the foreseeable future. I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which receives 2 million workers every day. Govern should pass laws to incentivize companies to move out of the city, banks to give credits on underdeveloped areas, and heavily invest of public transportation to those areas. We are reaching a level bigger cities are not capable to scale any longer.

ocschwar 9y ago
Visit Atlanta, Georgia, or Charlotte, North Carolina, or Phoenix, Arizona before wishing that on your own city. We made that particular mistake already. You don't need to repeat it.
- frandroid 9y ago
  Can you expand on this? Are large businesses spread across the land in these areas?
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    There's little in the way of geographic constraints and they sprawl all over the place.
  - ocschwar 9y ago
    Yes. There are business parks along the highways all over the suburbs, and so everyone has a hellish suburb-to-suburb commute.
    - brewdad 9y ago
      And transit can't really pick up the slack since there is no core target that large numbers of people want to reach. Successful transit can take a dispersed residential population to a central core or a centralized population to dispersed employment zones but not both.
      - ocschwar 9y ago
        Which leads to the lovely phenomenon called a lunchtime rush hour, which really belongs around the 4th circle of Hell.
  - jzymbaluk 9y ago
    In addition to what others have said, it's common that the suburbs of sprawling American cities are unwalkable, and completely impossible to live in without access to a car. I grew up in a Suburb in Colorado where the only buildings for miles were other houses. It was impossible to walk to the grocery store or any other amenity. It's extremely isolating, and a hostile and depressing living experience in my experience
    - astura 9y ago
      Yes. In a previous life I lived in an area that's mostly a spread out suburb. I got so depressed that I couldn't walk anywhere, I mean, absolutely nowhere. I felt pretty housebound during the summer and yet I felt at the same time there wasn't really any place to go. Jumping in the car every time I needed to leave the house was just not relaxing! Now I live in a small town and boy do I love it! Since it's a small town there's not really any huge roads and very little traffic. The streets beyond the major thru fares are quiet and the neighbors are friendly. If I'm bored and feeling restless I can walk to the park (half mile, maybe), the local watering hole (2 blocks), the coffee shop (1 block), or even the convenience store (about a quarter mile). I mean, just getting up and taking a short walk to the convenience store seems to be really beneficial to my mental health for some reason, yet driving there does the opposite.
- jogjayr 9y ago
  I think you can have a bit of column A, a bit of column B. My home city is Mumbai (technically, the suburban city of Thane, north of Mumbai) one of the most dense large cities in the world. Public transportation in Mumbai, in terms of frequency, capacity, reliability, and cost is already better than any American city (I'm counting NYC in that). It could definitely be better; for instance the city is served by standard gauge trains but the metro railway (whatever gauge a subway is) that goes underground is still under construction. Despite all that, and despite the fact that the tallest building in the city is a mere 88 stories[1] the infrastructure is straining under the pressure every day. All the good jobs (government, tech, banking) are concentrated in just one or two parts of the city (South Mumbai and the Andheri-Bandra-Dadar triangle, maybe Powai; my geography might be a bit outdated because I haven't lived there for 8 years). And real estate in those places is astronomically expensive[2] (here's a non-luxury 3-bed apartment for USD 1.3m in South Mumbai). That means everyone whose isn't living with parents who bought decades ago in those places has 3-hour round trip commutes every day (I was one of those people). Building taller wouldn't densify the city because rich people will likely buy that new housing and they have smaller families on average. Improving public transportation won't change laws of distance and traffic - like I said it's already quite good. It would be better for people in North Mumbai if there were more jobs closer to them so they wouldn't have to commute so far every day. Suburban, car-driven, sprawl is not ideal for city growth, but neither is the concentration of jobs in one place. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Mumbai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_M... 2. https://www.99acres.com/3-bhk-bedroom-apartment-flat-for-sale-in-breach-candy-south-mumbai-2200-sq-ft-spid-E34355247?pos=SEARCH https://www.99acres.com/3-bhk-bedroom-apartment-flat-for-sal...
erispoe 9y ago
It is much, much more efficient to invest in public transit to serve existing job centers.
- rhombocombus 9y ago
  And that type of investment creates higher QOL for the residents who live there, I don't think anyone would argue that as the case for sprawly suburbs.
  - azemetre 9y ago
    You can easily develop trains and create a series of nodes linking the outer suburb region to denser urban cities. This has been done around the world for nearly a century, it's literally a solved problem but there is a distinct set of politicians in the US that don't want to spend any money for the public goods and would rather give the money out as corporate welfare.

ocschwar 9y ago

Visit Atlanta, Georgia, or Charlotte, North Carolina, or Phoenix, Arizona before wishing that on your own city. We made that particular mistake already. You don't need to repeat it.

frandroid 9y ago
Can you expand on this? Are large businesses spread across the land in these areas?
- maxerickson 9y ago
  There's little in the way of geographic constraints and they sprawl all over the place.
- ocschwar 9y ago
  Yes. There are business parks along the highways all over the suburbs, and so everyone has a hellish suburb-to-suburb commute.
  - brewdad 9y ago
    And transit can't really pick up the slack since there is no core target that large numbers of people want to reach. Successful transit can take a dispersed residential population to a central core or a centralized population to dispersed employment zones but not both.
    - ocschwar 9y ago
      Which leads to the lovely phenomenon called a lunchtime rush hour, which really belongs around the 4th circle of Hell.
- jzymbaluk 9y ago
  In addition to what others have said, it's common that the suburbs of sprawling American cities are unwalkable, and completely impossible to live in without access to a car. I grew up in a Suburb in Colorado where the only buildings for miles were other houses. It was impossible to walk to the grocery store or any other amenity. It's extremely isolating, and a hostile and depressing living experience in my experience
  - astura 9y ago
    Yes. In a previous life I lived in an area that's mostly a spread out suburb. I got so depressed that I couldn't walk anywhere, I mean, absolutely nowhere. I felt pretty housebound during the summer and yet I felt at the same time there wasn't really any place to go. Jumping in the car every time I needed to leave the house was just not relaxing! Now I live in a small town and boy do I love it! Since it's a small town there's not really any huge roads and very little traffic. The streets beyond the major thru fares are quiet and the neighbors are friendly. If I'm bored and feeling restless I can walk to the park (half mile, maybe), the local watering hole (2 blocks), the coffee shop (1 block), or even the convenience store (about a quarter mile). I mean, just getting up and taking a short walk to the convenience store seems to be really beneficial to my mental health for some reason, yet driving there does the opposite.
jogjayr 9y ago
I think you can have a bit of column A, a bit of column B. My home city is Mumbai (technically, the suburban city of Thane, north of Mumbai) one of the most dense large cities in the world. Public transportation in Mumbai, in terms of frequency, capacity, reliability, and cost is already better than any American city (I'm counting NYC in that). It could definitely be better; for instance the city is served by standard gauge trains but the metro railway (whatever gauge a subway is) that goes underground is still under construction. Despite all that, and despite the fact that the tallest building in the city is a mere 88 stories[1] the infrastructure is straining under the pressure every day. All the good jobs (government, tech, banking) are concentrated in just one or two parts of the city (South Mumbai and the Andheri-Bandra-Dadar triangle, maybe Powai; my geography might be a bit outdated because I haven't lived there for 8 years). And real estate in those places is astronomically expensive[2] (here's a non-luxury 3-bed apartment for USD 1.3m in South Mumbai). That means everyone whose isn't living with parents who bought decades ago in those places has 3-hour round trip commutes every day (I was one of those people). Building taller wouldn't densify the city because rich people will likely buy that new housing and they have smaller families on average. Improving public transportation won't change laws of distance and traffic - like I said it's already quite good. It would be better for people in North Mumbai if there were more jobs closer to them so they wouldn't have to commute so far every day. Suburban, car-driven, sprawl is not ideal for city growth, but neither is the concentration of jobs in one place. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Mumbai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_M... 2. https://www.99acres.com/3-bhk-bedroom-apartment-flat-for-sale-in-breach-candy-south-mumbai-2200-sq-ft-spid-E34355247?pos=SEARCH https://www.99acres.com/3-bhk-bedroom-apartment-flat-for-sal...

erispoe 9y ago

It is much, much more efficient to invest in public transit to serve existing job centers.

rhombocombus 9y ago
And that type of investment creates higher QOL for the residents who live there, I don't think anyone would argue that as the case for sprawly suburbs.
- azemetre 9y ago
  You can easily develop trains and create a series of nodes linking the outer suburb region to denser urban cities. This has been done around the world for nearly a century, it's literally a solved problem but there is a distinct set of politicians in the US that don't want to spend any money for the public goods and would rather give the money out as corporate welfare.