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Its not just a space optimization but a locality optimization. Segregated neighborhoods from 50 years ago are still likely to be largely minority and gated comm
by zanny 8y ago
Its not just a space optimization but a locality optimization. Segregated neighborhoods from 50 years ago are still likely to be largely minority and gated communities adjacent still largely white. A tremendous amount of the demand that goes into urban sprawl is the desire to live distant from those deposed by the society the homeowners often perpetuate and instigate.
The quarter acre of manicured grass, the per-working adult car, the maximum occupancy limits, the minimum square footage requirements, zoning in general all work to keep the "riff raff" out economically.
Nothing about sprawl housing is efficient. Its almost maximally inefficient - you get the worst of everything, the traffic and congestion problems of density without any of the actual density because the people centralize on an urban core and surround it in extraordinarily wide expanses of cloned stick houses. But that inefficiency is baked in by design to push out those who cannot afford to participate in such inefficiency. You don't need gates on your community if the area is unlivable for the working poor for miles around.
- nostrademons 8y agoI don't doubt that's one consideration, but my point is that people's preferences - whether they be racism, greenery, privacy, autonomy, or whatever - function as constraints that the market then optimizes around. And given those constraints, the suburban tract neighborhoods with a road hierarchy and wide boulevards lined with strip malls optimize for efficiency. I grew up in suburban New England. That's inefficiency - triangular acre lots, empty space with no road access, single-lane roads, three lefts that get you back to your starting location, driving to the next town (or New Hampshire, often) for the nearest commercial zone, the "Massachusetts left" because there's no protected left-turn lane at most intersections, major roads that terminate at a stop sign on a freeway where people routinely drive 85 mph. The suburban sprawl of Silicon Valley was a breath of fresh air by comparison - the lights on the 3-lane boulevards here are at least timed in rational ways with protected turn lanes. Hell, they have traffic lights here - I grew up 2 houses down from the intersection of 3 state highways at a stop sign, and we fought for about a decade, fruitlessly, to get a traffic light and crosswalk there. It backs up for literally a mile in each direction during rush hour, and accidents are common.