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Warning: speculation. Suppose that a city’s value and economy descend in large part from connectivity. A transit system is extremely useful at a few very speci

Warning: speculation. Suppose that a city’s value and economy descend in large part from connectivity. A transit system is extremely useful at a few very specific points, but your connectedness drops off sharply as you get even a few blocks away from it, due to the extreme inefficiency of walking or (worse) waiting for a connecting bus. A road network’s utility is broad and diffuse, with gentle gradients of utility from place to place, as an extra few miles means little. Two points have to be very far apart indeed before they are noticeable different in terms of access/connectedness. So it makes complete sense to me that transit-oriented cities should be higher-maximum-value, higher-variance, while car oriented cities should be lower—maximum-value but much more equal. Exactly what the article finds.

perennate 8y ago
Doesn't a transit system complement a road network? Rapid transit serves the most trips when either the source or destination (or both) are in the urban center. The road network is typically most congested in the urban center. Thus, transit reduces congestion in the areas that would otherwise be most congested, making the road network more useful. Perhaps "car-oriented cities" simply haven't yet reached the density (and size of the high-density area) where transit becomes necessary.
- the_gastropod 8y ago
  This is kind of a chicken-egg situation. You can't reach the high-density requirement when cars are the primary means of transportation. Cars are an extraordinarily low-density means of transportation. And some evidence, based on city age, seems to suggest that cities built with cars in mind (e.g., non-east coast cities in the U.S.) tend to sprawl quite a bit.
  - perennate 8y ago
    That's true, I guess that ties back into a counterargument to the parent's point, that the connectedness issue with transit would be mitigated had the city been planned differently.
  - njarboe 8y ago
    Isn't it wonderful how the car allowed a large number of families to own a home with a piece of land, yet have access to the amenities of a city? Nice and spread out living spaces with concentration for work and culture. Now we just need some tunnels or something to deal with the problems that fast above ground car transport causes (mostly noise, pollution, and using up precious surface land).
    - the_gastropod 8y ago
      Is that true? The U.S. doesn't have a particularly high percentage of home ownership (64.5%) compared to other countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_ownership_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_owne...
      - TylerE 8y ago
        I don't have numbers to back it up, but home RENTAL rates are quite high in many places. A home with a decent sized lawn, say, a dozen blocks from downtown will often rent for about the same (or even cheaper) than a smaller downtown apartment.
    - so33 8y ago
      >Isn't it wonderful how the car allowed a large number of families to own a home with a piece of land, yet have access to the amenities of a city? That was an illusion. House prices are soaring in the inner suburbs (case in point: the Bay Area) to the point of complete unaffordability, forcing people out further and further from where they work and, consequently, creating situations where commuters drive for hours every day because there is no other choice. To drive to the city, you have to find a place to park your car. As more people want to drive to access the amenities of a city (and they have to, because they might live more than an hour away as they can’t afford anything closer), they will need to pay more and more to park, because of the costs of real estate. And tunnels are no panacea. The congestion created by single occupancy trips created by people who might be living an hour or more away from their destination will persist. Density would go a long way to solving some of these problems. Simple things from lowering minimum lot sizes, to mid size apartments and condos, would increase access to home ownership. But we can’t have anything lowering those property prices, can we?
- benj111 8y ago
  The problem is, is that car orientated cities tend to grow out, rather than densify. So you never get the critical mass, where transit becomes required.
  - Kerrick 8y ago
    There are major exceptions to this, usually involving the city's potential expansion zone being bounded by water on multiple sides. Manhattan, San Francisco, and Seattle all have this feature -- and they've all developed into critical mass, where transit becomes required.
    - benj111 8y ago
      Manhattan and San Francisco at least, developed before the car, so may well have already had the critical mass before the car came along.
  - bluGill 8y ago
    You cannot actually say that. non car oriented cities have been growing for hundreds of years, while car oriented cities only for about 80. You could well be right, but we will all be dead before we can actually state it with confidence.
    - benj111 8y ago
      Look at a 1900 city that was 80 years old, you will find it significantly denser, you can't have a 50 mile wide city, when the main mode of transport is a horse. Northern British industrial cities fit into that age bracket at the turn of the century. Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle weren't spread out at that time.
jacobolus 8y ago
More realistically: being able to live without a car is desirable for enough people and rare enough in the US that places where it is possible have their rents driven up by demand, pricing out the people who were living there before.
chabons 8y ago
The phenomenon you're describing gives rise to the last mile transport problem, which is notoriously hard to solve. You either want something which is compact enough to fit on existing transit systems or exists in a sufficient quantity at transit nodes to augment human mobility and smooth out the gradients between transit nodes. I'm hoping that as battery and motor technology advance we'll be able to miniaturize personal transit technology enough to make such devices ubiquitous.
- WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
  > miniaturize personal transit technology This was the segway model.
  - bobthepanda 8y ago
    This is also now the e-scooter and e-bike model, which seems to be faring better.
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      Ironically, some are actually made by Segway.
benj111 8y ago
That makes sense. Cities are basically gathering places. Shops, jobs, accommodation all gather there in a self reinforcing manner. It follows that transport connections would influence that.
bunderbunder 8y ago
Related anecdote: I was recently looking at home prices in Chicago, and it seems that people place an enormous value on easy access to the train system. Just eyeballing it, it looked like a house that's less than 1 mile from the nearest train station commands about a $150-$200,000 premium over one that's more than 2 miles from the L.
- kevindong 8y ago
  Driving in downtown Chicago during rush hour is awful. I remember it taking something like 15 minutes just to move a handful of city blocks due to how backed up the on-ramp onto the highway was. Also, are you controlling for the housing type? Condos in high rises (which are much more expensive than detached single family detached) tend to be concentrated near the trains.
  - bunderbunder 8y ago
    Yeah, this was just comparing within a specific kind of housing. So I didn't even compare 2 and 3-flat condos to high rise condos. I would not drive to work just because the train isn't within walking distance, because, yeah, not worth the time and stress and expense. Having to take a bus or ride a bike to get to the nearest train station doesn't add that much time to a commute.
  - nkrisc 8y ago
    You can see this effect pretty drastically along the Blue Line where many of the neighborhoods it passes through do have a relatively large inventory of single family homes and as you get further Northwest you have fewer good transit options to downtown and the Loop. It applies to renting as well. Rentals close to transit command noticeably higher rent as well. There's so many factors that it's hard to make direct comparisons, but for example you can look at homes near the Irving Park blue line stop (which also next to a Metra stop) and then similar home just a few miles West where there are fewer transit options. It's a pretty drastic drop off in home prices for relatively comparable neighborhoods.
  - paulie_a 8y ago
    I am going to generalize your statement: driving in Chicago is awful. Ive consistently had it take an hour to move ten miles regardless of the day of week to visit family in Milwaukee. At least a third of the drive I could see the Sears tower in the rear view mirror. Amtrak/metra is far superior to car ownership. Uber for local travel and is quite frankly cheaper with less aggravation because I don't have to deal with it. apparently honking your horn and not using a blinker is standard. Also just generally driving like a complete asshole. And don't get me started on the taxis. That entire industry in Chicago should go out of business. And cyclists seem to vary. Some are very respectful and will quickly stop for a j walker and politely say they shouldn't do that. Others run red lights and get pissed when you call them out for riding on the sidewalk. Some startup should come with a device that is required for Chicago drivers... every time you honk your horn it costs 5-50 dollars. What are you fucking honking for there is 25-100 cars ahead of you not moving.

perennate 8y ago

Doesn't a transit system complement a road network? Rapid transit serves the most trips when either the source or destination (or both) are in the urban center. The road network is typically most congested in the urban center. Thus, transit reduces congestion in the areas that would otherwise be most congested, making the road network more useful. Perhaps "car-oriented cities" simply haven't yet reached the density (and size of the high-density area) where transit becomes necessary.

the_gastropod 8y ago
This is kind of a chicken-egg situation. You can't reach the high-density requirement when cars are the primary means of transportation. Cars are an extraordinarily low-density means of transportation. And some evidence, based on city age, seems to suggest that cities built with cars in mind (e.g., non-east coast cities in the U.S.) tend to sprawl quite a bit.
- perennate 8y ago
  That's true, I guess that ties back into a counterargument to the parent's point, that the connectedness issue with transit would be mitigated had the city been planned differently.
- njarboe 8y ago
  Isn't it wonderful how the car allowed a large number of families to own a home with a piece of land, yet have access to the amenities of a city? Nice and spread out living spaces with concentration for work and culture. Now we just need some tunnels or something to deal with the problems that fast above ground car transport causes (mostly noise, pollution, and using up precious surface land).
  - the_gastropod 8y ago
    Is that true? The U.S. doesn't have a particularly high percentage of home ownership (64.5%) compared to other countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_ownership_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_owne...
    - TylerE 8y ago
      I don't have numbers to back it up, but home RENTAL rates are quite high in many places. A home with a decent sized lawn, say, a dozen blocks from downtown will often rent for about the same (or even cheaper) than a smaller downtown apartment.
  - so33 8y ago
    >Isn't it wonderful how the car allowed a large number of families to own a home with a piece of land, yet have access to the amenities of a city? That was an illusion. House prices are soaring in the inner suburbs (case in point: the Bay Area) to the point of complete unaffordability, forcing people out further and further from where they work and, consequently, creating situations where commuters drive for hours every day because there is no other choice. To drive to the city, you have to find a place to park your car. As more people want to drive to access the amenities of a city (and they have to, because they might live more than an hour away as they can’t afford anything closer), they will need to pay more and more to park, because of the costs of real estate. And tunnels are no panacea. The congestion created by single occupancy trips created by people who might be living an hour or more away from their destination will persist. Density would go a long way to solving some of these problems. Simple things from lowering minimum lot sizes, to mid size apartments and condos, would increase access to home ownership. But we can’t have anything lowering those property prices, can we?
benj111 8y ago
The problem is, is that car orientated cities tend to grow out, rather than densify. So you never get the critical mass, where transit becomes required.
- Kerrick 8y ago
  There are major exceptions to this, usually involving the city's potential expansion zone being bounded by water on multiple sides. Manhattan, San Francisco, and Seattle all have this feature -- and they've all developed into critical mass, where transit becomes required.
  - benj111 8y ago
    Manhattan and San Francisco at least, developed before the car, so may well have already had the critical mass before the car came along.
- bluGill 8y ago
  You cannot actually say that. non car oriented cities have been growing for hundreds of years, while car oriented cities only for about 80. You could well be right, but we will all be dead before we can actually state it with confidence.
  - benj111 8y ago
    Look at a 1900 city that was 80 years old, you will find it significantly denser, you can't have a 50 mile wide city, when the main mode of transport is a horse. Northern British industrial cities fit into that age bracket at the turn of the century. Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle weren't spread out at that time.

jacobolus 8y ago

More realistically: being able to live without a car is desirable for enough people and rare enough in the US that places where it is possible have their rents driven up by demand, pricing out the people who were living there before.

chabons 8y ago

The phenomenon you're describing gives rise to the last mile transport problem, which is notoriously hard to solve. You either want something which is compact enough to fit on existing transit systems or exists in a sufficient quantity at transit nodes to augment human mobility and smooth out the gradients between transit nodes. I'm hoping that as battery and motor technology advance we'll be able to miniaturize personal transit technology enough to make such devices ubiquitous.

WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
> miniaturize personal transit technology This was the segway model.
- bobthepanda 8y ago
  This is also now the e-scooter and e-bike model, which seems to be faring better.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    Ironically, some are actually made by Segway.

benj111 8y ago

That makes sense. Cities are basically gathering places. Shops, jobs, accommodation all gather there in a self reinforcing manner. It follows that transport connections would influence that.

bunderbunder 8y ago

Related anecdote: I was recently looking at home prices in Chicago, and it seems that people place an enormous value on easy access to the train system. Just eyeballing it, it looked like a house that's less than 1 mile from the nearest train station commands about a $150-$200,000 premium over one that's more than 2 miles from the L.

kevindong 8y ago
Driving in downtown Chicago during rush hour is awful. I remember it taking something like 15 minutes just to move a handful of city blocks due to how backed up the on-ramp onto the highway was. Also, are you controlling for the housing type? Condos in high rises (which are much more expensive than detached single family detached) tend to be concentrated near the trains.
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  Yeah, this was just comparing within a specific kind of housing. So I didn't even compare 2 and 3-flat condos to high rise condos. I would not drive to work just because the train isn't within walking distance, because, yeah, not worth the time and stress and expense. Having to take a bus or ride a bike to get to the nearest train station doesn't add that much time to a commute.
- nkrisc 8y ago
  You can see this effect pretty drastically along the Blue Line where many of the neighborhoods it passes through do have a relatively large inventory of single family homes and as you get further Northwest you have fewer good transit options to downtown and the Loop. It applies to renting as well. Rentals close to transit command noticeably higher rent as well. There's so many factors that it's hard to make direct comparisons, but for example you can look at homes near the Irving Park blue line stop (which also next to a Metra stop) and then similar home just a few miles West where there are fewer transit options. It's a pretty drastic drop off in home prices for relatively comparable neighborhoods.
- paulie_a 8y ago
  I am going to generalize your statement: driving in Chicago is awful. Ive consistently had it take an hour to move ten miles regardless of the day of week to visit family in Milwaukee. At least a third of the drive I could see the Sears tower in the rear view mirror. Amtrak/metra is far superior to car ownership. Uber for local travel and is quite frankly cheaper with less aggravation because I don't have to deal with it. apparently honking your horn and not using a blinker is standard. Also just generally driving like a complete asshole. And don't get me started on the taxis. That entire industry in Chicago should go out of business. And cyclists seem to vary. Some are very respectful and will quickly stop for a j walker and politely say they shouldn't do that. Others run red lights and get pissed when you call them out for riding on the sidewalk. Some startup should come with a device that is required for Chicago drivers... every time you honk your horn it costs 5-50 dollars. What are you fucking honking for there is 25-100 cars ahead of you not moving.