8 ms·

The ship sailed on low-density suburbs 60 years ago. We're past the point of return on those. Outside of San Francisco, Manhattan, and downtown Chicago, most

The ship sailed on low-density suburbs 60 years ago. We're past the point of return on those. Outside of San Francisco, Manhattan, and downtown Chicago, most people live in the 'burbs and that's not changing. We will be living with this housing stock for decades--if not centuries--to come. It's best to engineer around that reality, not to daydream of an Amsterdam-like utopia that will never happen for 99% of this country.

village-idiot 8y ago
You are far too certain. 70 years ago a prognosticator wouldn't be considered insane to say "the ship sailed on cities 50 years ago, Americans live in downtown and that's not changing". These things do change, often quite quickly. Personally, I think the Boomers are in for a big shock when they try to sell their homes for a "fair" price, and discover that Millennials neither want nor can afford large suburban homes. Once that happens the market (and politics probably) are going to do some really freaky things.
- brightball 8y ago
  > Millennials neither want nor can afford large suburban homes I see this often. Very few people want large homes when they are either single or don't have kids. As soon as you do have kids and they start to grow to an age where they want to play outside, having space to run, play sports, be away from traffic, have their own room, etc gets a lot higher on your priority list. You can also get a suburban home without it being "large" and still get a lot of space to go with it. People used to get "starter homes" and then periodically trade up if/when their incomes increased or they had some equity in the home. It seems like the biggest barrier to this today is that people want to go straight to the HGTV home. I can't tell you how many people I've known who, straight out of school, overextend to the most expensive house they can afford. If you want more house, for your money...that usually means buying farther away from density.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    You act like Millenials don't already have children, when the oldest members of that cohort are 37.
    - brightball 8y ago
      That's because it's a known trend: https://www.forbes.com/sites/josephcoughlin/2018/06/11/millennials-arent-having-kids-heres-why-thats-a-problem-for-baby-boomer-real-estate-retirement/#14aafc7a2058 https://www.forbes.com/sites/josephcoughlin/2018/06/11/mille... https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/singletons/201804/should-we-worry-about-millennials-not-having-babies https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/singletons/201804/sh... https://www.parents.com/parents-magazine/parents-perspective/millennials-arent-planning-on-having-children-should-we-worry/ https://www.parents.com/parents-magazine/parents-perspective... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/upshot/americans-are-having-fewer-babies-they-told-us-why.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/upshot/americans-are-havi...
      - village-idiot 8y ago
        Yeah, so that reinforces my point. Millenials aren't going to buy up those suburban homes.
        brightball 8y ago
        Because they aren't having kids... Not because there's a problem with the homes or the locations. It's because somehow, an entire generation has grown up with the idea that the one biologically necessary act to further the survival of the species...is not a good idea. Maybe it's marketing, maybe it's the message, maybe it's the intensity of school causing people to believe that workaholism is necessary, maybe it's pride that working for somebody else is more important to people than raising a family and maybe it's student loan debt making the idea of the costs of raising kids difficult to bear, maybe it's culture that has changed the relationships between potential parents enough to make them incompatible. Whatever it is, something serious has happened to cause that many people to go against biology.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Spooky23 8y ago
  I get what you’re saying but just from a legal and complexity point of view, you’re unlikely to find radical change in suburbia. It’s just like the issues with rail — because you have so many landowners, the capital costs of transforming a single family block or subdivision to higher density is really expensive or requires eminent domain, which would be politically difficult. You can have scenarios (especially now that it’s ok to walk away from mortgages) where prices drop. Single family isn’t going away.
- darpa_escapee 8y ago
  > Personally, I think the Boomers are in for a big shock when they try to sell their homes for a "fair" price, and discover that Millennials neither want nor can afford large suburban homes There are plenty of foreigner investors who'd be happy to buy their property.
- sxv 8y ago
  > Millennials neither want nor can afford large suburban homes Due to the economics of supply and demand, if the former clause is true then the latter clause cannot also be true.
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    There's a lag in between those things where both clauses can definitely be true.
enobrev 8y ago
Are you saying Brooklyn, The Bronx, and the neighborhoods outside of downtown Chicago are suburbs? If so, we may have vastly different ideas about the definition of a city. Also, Seattle, Philly, Boston, Miami, and lots of other smaller cities are very much unlike living in the suburbs.
- marssaxman 8y ago
  I know nothing about the latter three cities, but most of Seattle is made up of low-density, residential-only neighborhoods, very suburban-feeling to my sensibilities - and I'm talking about the city proper, too, not including all the even-more-suburban areas surrounding.
  - enobrev 8y ago
    I grew up in Chicago. I've lived in Brooklyn, LA, Seattle, and now I'm back in Chicago. As far as I'm concerned, there's a ton more "city" in those neighborhoods than those high-rises. Density is only one variable in an incredibly large equasion. Seattle has a good deal of its own as well. Even in neighborhoods as nice as Queen Anne. That said, I wish most other cities had it as good as Seattle. And I wish Seattle was far more diverse than it is.
TheTrotters 8y ago
That's a false choice. Do the right thing on the margin! Allow lots of new high-density construction. Tax cars entering city centres. Extend metro lines and allow plenty of high-density construction around each station. Sure, you won't turn Tampa into Rotterdam overnight but those changes are important and they do add up. 50 years of these policies would give us much better, even if not perfect, cities.
- adrianN 8y ago
  They didn't turn Rotterdam into Rotterdam over night either. It took several decades of infrastructure work for the city to become bikeable.
ant6n 8y ago
> We will be living with this housing stock for decades--if not centuries--to come. I had the impression suburban homes tend not to be well-built. They may last a few decades, but that's about it.

village-idiot 8y ago

You are far too certain. 70 years ago a prognosticator wouldn't be considered insane to say "the ship sailed on cities 50 years ago, Americans live in downtown and that's not changing". These things do change, often quite quickly. Personally, I think the Boomers are in for a big shock when they try to sell their homes for a "fair" price, and discover that Millennials neither want nor can afford large suburban homes. Once that happens the market (and politics probably) are going to do some really freaky things.

brightball 8y ago
> Millennials neither want nor can afford large suburban homes I see this often. Very few people want large homes when they are either single or don't have kids. As soon as you do have kids and they start to grow to an age where they want to play outside, having space to run, play sports, be away from traffic, have their own room, etc gets a lot higher on your priority list. You can also get a suburban home without it being "large" and still get a lot of space to go with it. People used to get "starter homes" and then periodically trade up if/when their incomes increased or they had some equity in the home. It seems like the biggest barrier to this today is that people want to go straight to the HGTV home. I can't tell you how many people I've known who, straight out of school, overextend to the most expensive house they can afford. If you want more house, for your money...that usually means buying farther away from density.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  You act like Millenials don't already have children, when the oldest members of that cohort are 37.
  - brightball 8y ago
    That's because it's a known trend: https://www.forbes.com/sites/josephcoughlin/2018/06/11/millennials-arent-having-kids-heres-why-thats-a-problem-for-baby-boomer-real-estate-retirement/#14aafc7a2058 https://www.forbes.com/sites/josephcoughlin/2018/06/11/mille... https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/singletons/201804/should-we-worry-about-millennials-not-having-babies https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/singletons/201804/sh... https://www.parents.com/parents-magazine/parents-perspective/millennials-arent-planning-on-having-children-should-we-worry/ https://www.parents.com/parents-magazine/parents-perspective... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/upshot/americans-are-having-fewer-babies-they-told-us-why.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/upshot/americans-are-havi...
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      Yeah, so that reinforces my point. Millenials aren't going to buy up those suburban homes.
      - brightball 8y ago
        Because they aren't having kids... Not because there's a problem with the homes or the locations. It's because somehow, an entire generation has grown up with the idea that the one biologically necessary act to further the survival of the species...is not a good idea. Maybe it's marketing, maybe it's the message, maybe it's the intensity of school causing people to believe that workaholism is necessary, maybe it's pride that working for somebody else is more important to people than raising a family and maybe it's student loan debt making the idea of the costs of raising kids difficult to bear, maybe it's culture that has changed the relationships between potential parents enough to make them incompatible. Whatever it is, something serious has happened to cause that many people to go against biology.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Spooky23 8y ago
I get what you’re saying but just from a legal and complexity point of view, you’re unlikely to find radical change in suburbia. It’s just like the issues with rail — because you have so many landowners, the capital costs of transforming a single family block or subdivision to higher density is really expensive or requires eminent domain, which would be politically difficult. You can have scenarios (especially now that it’s ok to walk away from mortgages) where prices drop. Single family isn’t going away.
darpa_escapee 8y ago
> Personally, I think the Boomers are in for a big shock when they try to sell their homes for a "fair" price, and discover that Millennials neither want nor can afford large suburban homes There are plenty of foreigner investors who'd be happy to buy their property.
sxv 8y ago
> Millennials neither want nor can afford large suburban homes Due to the economics of supply and demand, if the former clause is true then the latter clause cannot also be true.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  There's a lag in between those things where both clauses can definitely be true.

enobrev 8y ago

Are you saying Brooklyn, The Bronx, and the neighborhoods outside of downtown Chicago are suburbs? If so, we may have vastly different ideas about the definition of a city. Also, Seattle, Philly, Boston, Miami, and lots of other smaller cities are very much unlike living in the suburbs.

marssaxman 8y ago
I know nothing about the latter three cities, but most of Seattle is made up of low-density, residential-only neighborhoods, very suburban-feeling to my sensibilities - and I'm talking about the city proper, too, not including all the even-more-suburban areas surrounding.
- enobrev 8y ago
  I grew up in Chicago. I've lived in Brooklyn, LA, Seattle, and now I'm back in Chicago. As far as I'm concerned, there's a ton more "city" in those neighborhoods than those high-rises. Density is only one variable in an incredibly large equasion. Seattle has a good deal of its own as well. Even in neighborhoods as nice as Queen Anne. That said, I wish most other cities had it as good as Seattle. And I wish Seattle was far more diverse than it is.

TheTrotters 8y ago

That's a false choice. Do the right thing on the margin! Allow lots of new high-density construction. Tax cars entering city centres. Extend metro lines and allow plenty of high-density construction around each station. Sure, you won't turn Tampa into Rotterdam overnight but those changes are important and they do add up. 50 years of these policies would give us much better, even if not perfect, cities.

adrianN 8y ago
They didn't turn Rotterdam into Rotterdam over night either. It took several decades of infrastructure work for the city to become bikeable.

ant6n 8y ago

> We will be living with this housing stock for decades--if not centuries--to come. I had the impression suburban homes tend not to be well-built. They may last a few decades, but that's about it.