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The myth of revealed preference for suburbs
- Isamu 8y ago>If so many people live in suburbs, it must be because that’s what they prefer, right? But the evidence is to the contrary. This article makes its point from the book "Zoned Out" (2005.) Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the argument is that zoning policies make suburban sprawl, not free markets. They argue that if zoning restrictions were lifted and development responded to free market forces, higher density housing would result and more people would prefer that to sprawl. I think that might be true - moderately. You might get a relative increase of higher-density housing. But I think sprawl just represents a long tail of real preferences among the population. It may be relative price, it may be having a yard, it may be the suburban school districts, it can be all kinds of things. And yeah, if people had control, the suburbs wouldn't sprawl forever. It would be just their nice suburban neighborhood and everybody else could be jammed into the city.
- tfehring 8y agoThe article seems to support this argument: >In Boston, about 40 percent of respondents said they preferred denser, more pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, while in Atlanta, just under 30 percent of respondents did so. In the absence of prohibitive zoning laws and other restrictions, the split between urban and exurban properties should converge to align with consumer preferences. Of course, it’s possible that consumer preferences will change if increased urban development results in lower crime, cheaper housing, better schools and transit, etc.
- mc32 8y agoNot sure about Atlanta but Boston suburban lots tend to be about half an acre, the ones outside of the 495, closer to an acre. Inside the 128 they do get smallish though. So given those sizes, I’m not surprised people are okay with “more density”.
- AvocadoPanic 8y agoWe're just outside the 495, our lot is just under 5 acres. There's a acre minimum zoning requirement in some areas, but most lots in our area are larger.
- mcbits 8y agoJudging by Zillow's map, 5+ acre lots are a small minority of the properties in that area. Probably less than 10%, although 10% could feel like "most" compared to places where it's closer to 0%.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- twblalock 8y ago> But I think sprawl just represents a long tail of real preferences among the population. It may be relative price, it may be having a yard, it may be the suburban school districts, it can be all kinds of things. And yeah, if people had control, the suburbs wouldn't sprawl forever. It would be just their nice suburban neighborhood and everybody else could be jammed into the city. That's pretty much it. Everyone who lives in a suburb likes a different subset of suburban features, and that all aggregates together to result in the kinds of suburbs we have. It makes sense to consider zoning law to be a reflection of people's preferences rather than a constraint on them. In many cases zoning laws are the result of established homeowners trying to preserve the suburban features they like.
- YokoZar 8y agoThis logic doesn't square with what we observe in voting patterns. When high rent cities go from majority homeowner to majority renter, the laws start to change to legalize more housing. That doesn't mean renters didn't care for housing when they were a minority, it just means they were efficiently marginalized.
- tomtheelder 8y ago> They argue that if zoning restrictions were lifted and development responded to free market forces, higher density housing would result and more people would prefer that to sprawl. I think this is half true (that zoning regulations have caused a good amount of sprawl) but I think that other posters here are right that the free market may also create sprawl, as it will respond to preferences and cultural biases that may favor sprawl. Really the point of zoning is to prevent that, to guide the market toward development that is in the interest of the common good. Without zoning regulations you tend to get pretty nasty tragedy of the commons effects. Zoning codes shouldn't be overly restrictive, in fact they should be a gentle touch that doesn't interfere with competition very much, but they are often hugely beneficial and guide the market toward a solution that benefits the community at large.
- kraigie 8y agoSome of the free market attempts in the UK ended up with Milton Keynes which is pretty much the American auto style roads come first. While others ended up with city of London which is highly walkable and dense being just over a square mile. Cost of land and transit is probably the deciding factors for the free market. Conversely regulation has given more walkable areas (mixed zones, offices, and small retail on the street with residental) so it's not just a case of the amount of regulation but what they say.
- exelius 8y agoI would hold up Houston as the counterexample. It has zero zoning policies whatsoever and is one of the most sprawled cities in the country, and everyone lives in low-density single family ranch homes with huge floor plans and drives an hour to work each way. Developers still basically just plop large single-family residential developments on random plots of land with few ways to stop them. In the absence of zoning, developers will not build denser properties because they’re riskier.
- ars 8y agoThat's a counterexample to the article, not the person you are replying to, right? In fact that's such a strong counterexample to the article you can basically discount it entirely. > will not build denser properties because they’re riskier. Or because people don't want them. What's riskier about them?
- graeme 8y agoI commented just before you, so you probably didn't see it. But Houston mandates parking minumum, setbacks of houses, very wide roads, and long blocks. Those are all pro-sprawl. My dense, walkable neighbourhood in Montreal would be illegal in Houston. https://marketurbanism.com/2016/09/19/how-houston-regulates-land-use/ https://marketurbanism.com/2016/09/19/how-houston-regulates-...
- ausvisaissues 8y agoIt is also culture that plays a big part. I've lived in very high density housing in Japan (20 floor manshion type apartment) and medium density in US (2 level apartment). Higher density in Japan is much more pleasant due to the culture of being considerate of others. If I have to live in the US, I will choose suburbia for that reason.
- jakecopp 8y agoHow more considerate? Noise wise?
- Camillo 8y agoNot same person, but yes.
- ausvisaissues 8y agoWith noise, with garbage sorting, etc... Japanese people tend to follow all rules, written and unwritten. I guess Americans follow only rules that can be enforced (cf. Uber, Airbnb, etc...) Probably from a culture of rebellion against Britain colonial government... In some cases it is good and in some bad. In Japan there is also no tolerance for the 1% that ruins public spaces for everyone (compare Tokyo subways against San Francisco subways). This allows true public spaces that can be shared by everyone.
- IWeldMelons 8y agoI live in Central Asia, which is poor and people there are not very considerate or tend to follow the rules, yet cities are clean and relatively nice, especially the big ones. The reason why the cities are okay, because the people and especiallt governments know how to live urban life, how to plan properly etc.
- tokyodude 8y agoI live in Tokyo and well, I'm not so sure. Maybe you just got lucky or I got unlucky. I've lived in places where they neighboring couple would scream and throw things at 3-4am for 30 minutes every couple of weeks. Lived in a place across the kanda river from the Chou line where the trains were so loud I couldn't hear the TV when they went by. My current place is nice enough but I feel I have to tiptoe all the time which I hate. I want to not have to think about it rather then always have to think about it. Those are not unique to Japan though. My SF apartment had the thinest floors ever and I got all kinds of complaints even though I'm way more aware of the noise I make than most, even going so far as to always watch TV with wireless headphones. Conversely I've lived in apartments designed for noise in Los Angeles where the landlord told me it was okay to run the washing machine 24/7 because the neighbors wouldn't be able to hear it next door as the walls were concrete and doubled with a space between to absorb the sound. I know some of the newer 20-30 floor apartment buildings in Japan are built similarly but I don't currently make enough to live in a place like that, probably $3k-$4k a month for a 2LDK
- LeifCarrotson 8y ago> represents a long tail of real preferences among the population The other problem with this long tail is that (like other long tails of, say, bandwidth or storage utilization) it has a disproportionate effect on the whole. If 60% of, say, 100k people in a metropolitan area prefer to live in urban, high-density housing at 20,000 people per square mile, and 20% prefer to live in low-density suburbs at 4,000 people per square mile, you have 3 square miles of urban housing and 10 square miles of suburbs. And the small number of rural folks on the outskirts who are living the American dream of having their own 40 acres (160 houses per square mile) have an even larger effect on average land usage.
- benjaminmarks 8y agoFor those interested in the topic, I'd also highly recommend Richard Rothstein's "The Color of Law." Rothstein discusses there how explicitly racist zoning policies contributed to the segregation of suburbs. I found it to be a fascinating read.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoIn the Boston area the less dense neighborhoods are scarce so only the rich can afford them. In Atlanta the denser neighborhoods are scarce so they cost more so the rich go there. Of course if you ask people what their preference is a huge chunk of them will describe the features of whatever more upscale place that the place they currently live is compared to.
- Steltek 8y agoIn Boston, everything is expensive so only the rich can afford them. Boston resident preferences might be explained by culture more than looking up through the glass ceiling of home prices. I think we might also be reaching a tipping point where school districts may not even hold people back. If you can afford a house anywhere, you probably also can afford to send your kids to private school.
- twblalock 8y agoYou would expect that to be the case in the Bay Area, but even now people will spend several hundred thousand dollars more for a home in a good school district, even though that money could have been used to pay for private school.
- ebikelaw 8y agoMy kids’ private school bills are about triple my mortgage so I think you’d better check your math.
- notahacker 8y agoYou can sell the house after the kids have been educated. You can't sell their education on second hand
- nradov 8y agoNeighborhoods with good school districts also tend to have lower crime rates so that probably accounts for much of the difference.
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- cozzyd 8y agoI wonder if preferences are correlated or anticorrelated with how one grew up (maybe people who grew up in suburbs might think it's too boring, but people who grew up in the city might think it's too loud).
- mrep 8y agoI grew up in the suburbs, now live in downtown seattle, and my girlfriend and I 100% plan to move to the suburbs once we get married/start having kids for the reasons Turing_machine stated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17379068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17379068
- liveoneggs 8y agothis article is a little strange since Atlanta has something like a 20 year supply of condos in midtown/surrounding for very affordable prices. Single family in-town homes, however, are scarce.
- majormajor 8y agoYeah, this article doesn't really seem in sync with the realities of where the construction is in Atlanta. The reality seems to be more one of the market chasing changing preferences - as desire for denser areas increases relatively, a lot of inside-the-perimeter denser construction has followed.
- smileysteve 8y agoThe basis for the 14? New apartment buildings in Atlanta is that we are drastically understocked, also why rents are climbing to $2k for a luxury 1br. Most evidenced by new luxury apartments at West end station with surprising rents for a studio (targeting pilots) Most single family homes seem unattainable (going over ask price, quickly) in the North of the city, but South and West are still cheap and attainable.
- liveoneggs 8y agobuying a condo seems to be cheaper than renting the same amount of space (per-month, anyway).
- djrogers 8y agoYet another article claiming that I, every member of my family, and all of my friends don’t actually want to live in our horrible susburbs. It’s not possible that we actually love it here, that we like the clean air, wide open spaces, huge yards, non-crowded downtown, small family friendly parades, and our rodeo. Nope, we’re all just lying to ourselves and really want to love in a cramped arcology.
- zellyn 8y agoIt's weird. He actually called out your name in the article. I don't think the article makes the claim you're defending against. It was all about averages.
- PopsiclePete 8y ago...did you and I read the same article....? Read it again. It's quite interesting.
- dreish 8y agoThat's decidedly not what the article claims. It claims that there are people who live in the suburbs but would prefer not to, and provides evidence to support that claim. The same evidence acknowledges the existence of people who are happy living in suburbs.
- jonathlee 8y agoI believe the article has failed to realize that "self-reporting" evidence is weaker than actions, not stronger. If you listen to the Freakonomics podcast for any length of time, you would realize that the weakest, most likely to not really be true, form of evidence is self-reporting. When self-reporting/answering surveys, people commonly give the answer they are "expected" to give. The actions then reveal their real preferences, which can differ substantially. With a topic as sensitive as urban density, where city planners have been bombarding us with the "right-answer" of high-density living for decades, I would expect people to over-report preferring high-density living, especially on a survey conducted by someone trying to prove their case that people prefer high-density housing.
- DannyBee 8y ago"The myth of drawing conclusions from one isolated data source that happens to support your own ideology"
- ars 8y agoI suspect that the people wanting "an urban zone", want one without all the drawbacks. Once you include the drawbacks that can not be removed, you will find they are living exactly where they want to live. The kind of analysis in this report is one of those "lying with statistics" things, because I don't think it's measuring what the authors think it's measuring.
- imaoreo 8y agocare to explain what those drawbacks are?
- Turing_Machine 8y agoLet's see: Drunks/junkies/mentally ill people shitting, pissing, and vomiting everywhere, while verbally (and sometimes physically) abusing the passers-by. Noise. Breathing the stench of exhaust fumes, week-old garbage, and someone else's idea of cooking. Having no place for your children to sit on the grass without worrying about them finding someone's discarded needle or excrement. Having no space for gardens, hobbies, or gatherings of family and/or friends. Bad schools with apathetic parents. The inability to leave personal property unattended for even a moment. The need to have extensive home security (bars on windows, etc...) The much higher likelihood that you or one of your loved ones will be mugged, raped, or killed. Those are just a few that come to mind.
- squirrelicus 8y ago+1 My favorite part of the suburbs is that my kids are physically incapable of walking or biking to an urban area. When they have grown to acquire the sense to look out for themselves, then they coincidentally will have the freedom (e.g. drivers license) to go to an urban place. Until then, I love that I can let them just go outside without supervision and dick around. American urbanity is just not for families.
- jacobolus 8y agoI grew up in a suburb and I am sure glad my kid will be growing up in the city with access to transit and a wide range of amenities within walking distance, and streets/neighborhoods actually designed for walking around. American suburbs are awful for anyone under the age of 16 or anyone without a car. Kids can't do anything without being babied around by a parent.
- cheeseomlit 8y agoWhat a load, I've never been to a city that wasn't a disgusting concrete nightmare. God forbid you want to raise kids, say goodbye to playing outside. I'll take my cozy yard and breathable air, thanks
- JamilD 8y agoI get way more time in parks and nature in San Francisco than I did when living in suburban North San Jose or Sunnyvale. The suburbs were asphalt nightmares with few trees and no parks within walking distance. In SF I can easily get lost in green space and fresh ocean air.
- smileysteve 8y agoAtlanta is the most tree'ed city. If you walk 4 blocks from the highway you might think you're in a forest with birds being the loudest things around
- ktosobcy 8y agoHave you been to any non-US city? You should try it...
- kraigie 8y agoI have, they are awesome. I've never been to a US city though. The idea of the inner city being the poor area or bad area is bizzare and culture shock. That's usually where all the good apartments are.
- twblalock 8y agoMillions of children grow up in cities (in apartments, no less!) and they turn out just fine.
- Turing_Machine 8y agoAnd millions of them don't. Educational outcomes, crime (both as victim and perpetrator), and mental health are all worse for those who grew up in cities, and not just slightly worse. Much worse.
- rhapsodic 8y agoFor entertainment, I like cities better than suburbs. Hands down. At home, I like parking in a driveway better than parking on the street. At home, I like parking in a garage better than parking in a driveway or alley. At home, I like parking in an attached garage better than parking in a detached one. I like living in my own house better than an apartment. I like living in a free-standing house better than a duplex or row house. I like a large yard where my young kids can play with their friends and I can keep an eye on them out the window. I want to be able to make some noise without disturbing my neighbors, and vice-versa. I don't like living cheek-by-jowl with my neighbors. I like living in a neighborhood that has virtually no violent crime or burglaries. I don't want to have to run a gauntlet of panhandlers when I go for a walk around the neighborhood. I prefer to live in a house built since 1978, so I don't have to deal with lead paint, asbestos, knob & tube wiring, wood lath walls, lead (water) service lines, buckling foundations, damp moldy basements, rotting, leaking box gutters, or cheap, chalky aluminum siding that was installed in 1968 over Insulbrick that was installed in 1938. Unfortunately, those houses tend to be relatively rare and exorbitantly expensive in my local city. I don't know why so many city dwellers seem to obsess over the fact that there are many people who simply prefer living in the suburbs. But there are.
- pikma 8y agoIt is because the suburban lifestyle has some hidden costs, and in the US those costs tend to be paid equally by everyone. For example, air pollution (both local and greenhouse gases), and road maintenance costs.
- xkcd-sucks 8y agoOn the other hand, with sufficiently low density, things like stormwater/flooding, drinking water, fire control, and pest control work themselves out naturally without complicated infrastructure to manage them
- TheCoelacanth 8y agoOnly at densities much lower than a typical suburb.
- VLM 8y agoThere are several severe issues with the study. The first is confusing want with what you're culturally conditioned to say based on style of question. We don't know how the questions were led or if they attempted to be neutral, they made a huge logical leap from asking people what they want to declaring thats what they actually want, real world doesn't work that way. We know from prior propaganda issues that people can be led to claim almost anything, when questioned correctly to lead to it. Its a universal part of human existence that what people are socialized to say to get along, generally has nothing to do with what they'll actually want (or do) in private or semi-private, which also generally has nothing to do with whats best for them (and good luck finding a fair and unbiased judge of whats best for them, LOL). The study actually abstracts to "I know from intensive propaganda my whole life that a good person would say they want X, therefore I'll say I want X, but I actually want and will execute plan Y". What could be more pithy than "do as I say not as I do?" The study doesn't even scratch the surface of "what should they do" which is a totally orthogonal third dimension. The study is willfully and intentionally ignoring a major component of human psychology to push a propaganda point; this really does not look good at all. To help non USA people, there's a large aspect of group affinity and identification going on. Essentially a non-metaphysical religion, complete with proselytizers and those who define whats holy and who is or is not. So for the "new urbanists" for over half a century, fervent belief in returning to the cities after white flight from the 60s race riots is the definition of what a good person is, in a simplistic 1 to 1 mapping. Trying to argue rational logic merely strengthens their beliefs, like trying to reason about fossil records with a creationist Christian. If your worldview is defining being a good person as holding a set of beliefs X, Y, Z, regardless if those are good or terrible ideas, then someone trying the atheistic rational argument against those beliefs "just think about it", well, a good person would NOT think about it, they would believe, wouldn't they? That type of argument will just strengthen the belief set; look here is a bad person who is defined as bad by not having matching beliefs, being bad by making sacrilegious statements, why look how great my beliefs must be? People who don't understand this try to interact with urbanists on a rational level which certainly doesn't work. No Christian ever lost their faith by a pagan nostalgia along the lines of "My childhood as a pagan was not so bad, I don't understand the hate". Likewise its a waste of time to tell an urbanist that suburbs are not that bad why all the propaganda. You'd have better luck trying to convert a Christian Fundamentalist by telling them that Satan guy gets a lot of bad press but he's not all bad all. Trying to talk a urbanist out of the city is literally on a psychological level like trying to talk a devoted missionary out of going on a mission. It is the same thought process. Please don't waste everyone's time trying to convert them, merely wish them well on their pilgrimage and hope they survive, etc. Everyone on both sides should understand and accept the group affinity issue. There is absolutely no moral, ethical, medical, technological, or rational argument that black tennis shoes are worse or better than white tennis shoes. None the less, the cool kids have proclaimed one or the other is cool this year and the only choice you have in the issue, the only reason for discussing it anywhere including here on HN, is to declare your group affinity with the cool kids for todays fad, or try to be that cool apostate rebelling against "the man", or just be confused about the social dynamics of the whole thing and make the huge mistake of thinking the discussion is actually about sneakers or ethics or anything other than declaring your allegiance or opposition or cluelessness. Are tattoos rebellious or conformist today? Well, fundamentally they're neither, they're art ink on skin. If the argument is about enforcement of conformity, such as devout belief in new urbanism, don't get in weird side arguments about tattoo ink toxicity or stretch marks, thats totally not the point of the discussion. This incredibly boring topic boils down to are you an new urbanist conformist or a rebellious suburbanite, and the only thing that matters is the conformity or rebellion. Forest for the trees and all that. If you can't tell I think "new urbanist" stories are pointless and should probably be globally banned on HN, they're just trash, fibrous filler, the low formaldehyde particle board of furniture, as a discussion topic, but others disagree, sometimes with strong arguments that I admit may be strong but none the less disagree with. So the article is this weeks two minutes hate on the burbs, oh well, whatevs.
- tomatotomato37 8y agoI'm not sure what this article is trying to prove. They say that local ordinances should follow the demands of the citizens, but then use a case where the auto-oriented fans have a majority over the pedestrian-friendly fans, which in the fun world of two-choice democracy means their demands are overridden.
- neilwilson 8y agoInteresting to note that there is only two choices - city or commuter suburb with cars. The third choice is villages and towns where people live with their own front door onto the street and still walk to work. Move the work where the people are. Decentralise
- rdl 8y agoSomething like downtown Palo Alto would be my choice; you could probably do a lot in Palo Alto without a car, although you'd still want to have one available. The problem with Palo Alto is just that it costs 10x too much.
- kraigie 8y agoOr commute via rail. Google metroland bit dated. However railroad to the front door isn't a bad idea.
- JJMcJ 8y agoRead Kunstler's book "The Geography Of Nowhere" - our suburban system is not an accident
- screye 8y agoThe Boston suburbs are what my ideal neighbourhood looks like. Extremely close to the city and well connected through transit. Safe, with great schools and communities. All this while downtown is never more than 30 minutes by transit and the neighbourhood is still extremely walkable. Parking is still an issue, and the NE weather can be terrible at times. But that apart, I really like those areas.