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It is perfectly valid for you to write this: "contain large majorities of their residents who couldn't stand city life and far prefer the openness of the subur

It is perfectly valid for you to write this: "contain large majorities of their residents who couldn't stand city life and far prefer the openness of the suburbs, sprawl and all" but you can not combine it with this: "In a free society, however, such aesthetics are always balanced against utility and, when people have a choice, they will often choose utility." Suburbs require gigantic subsidies to be made to work, so you need to be careful how you use the phrase "free society". Because the population is relatively sparse in the suburbs (compared to a dense city), the cost of procurement of infrastructure tends to go up on a per capita basis. Just think of the energy loss carrying electricity, kilometer after kilometer, in the suburbs, and compare that to carrying the same amount of energy in the city, where the power does not need to travel as much of a distance (per capita). For any given 100,000 people a dense city allows the cheaper availability of roads and sewers and power and transport. Such density is economically rational. Think carefully about some of the things that people love most about the suburbs. One thing people love is the wide open spaces, and the lack of crowds (especially compared to a dense urban core). And yet, the crowds in the city are usually economically rational, especially compared to the expense of provisioning the suburbs. Think about the wide open highways of Texas - "wide open" means "used less than a road in New York City" and the greater use that the road gets in New York City means the money spent on it is more wisely spent. The suburbs need to be seen as a luxury item. Since the USA is wealthy, it can afford many luxuries, and the suburbs are one of them. But the suburbs are more luxurious than the cities, and the cities are more economically rational. And of course, in the suburbs, one has to use a car to get anywhere. This is, of course, a tremendous use of resources, on a per capita basis. In a dense urban core, such as New York City, you can travel by mass transit, which uses less resources per capita. And you can even travel by foot or by bicycle. The suburbs depend on the use of automobiles, and automobiles, too, need to be seen as luxury items. Again, because the USA is wealthy, it can afford many luxuries, but again, the heavy dependence on the automobiles makes the life in the suburbs more resource intensive, per capita, than life in the city. Where you use the phrase "free society" I would prefer the use of the phrase "subsidized society". Where you use the word "utility" I would use the word "subsidy." And yes, of course, everyone would like to live in a heavily subsidized society, so long as you can get the subsidies from someone else.

lkrubner 16y ago
Why is this being downvoted? Does someone want to make the argument that life in suburbs in less resource intensive per capita than life in a dense urban core? If so, they should make that argument and I'll make my counter-argument. But my point is fairly obvious: people living close together can share be provided with infrastructure with less resources per capita, or to put it another way, the denser the population the more intensely used any given piece of infrastructure is likely to be used (the same point, stated the other way round). Think of a road in New York City, and then think of a road west of Washington DC, in the suburbs of Virginia. Which gets more use? I suspect that anyone wanting to downvote my comment is someone who themselves lives in the suburbs, and they are downvoting my comment because my post makes them uncomfortable. But just because an idea makes you uncomfortable doesn't make it untrue. My point is entirely valid, and it is correct.
- usaar333 16y ago
  I didn't downvote, but I am not convinced infrastructure cost is that much higher in the suburbs. In a dense core, maintenance and development are vastly much costlier than in the suburbs Acquiring land for any project is going to be harder and pricier. If you close a road in a suburb to do work on it or do other construction, no big deal; in a city, you create horrible traffic problems. Politically you have to deal with 3-4x as many people per mile work of anything in a city. In an urban environment, sure fuel costs per person drop drastically, but when other costs are taken into account, I remain unconvinced it is so much cheaper. Just look how expensive it is to live in a big city in the US relative to a suburb.
  - lkrubner 16y ago
    You do not understand what I've written. No where did I mention absolute price. I am talking strictly about resources used per capita. Let me emphasize that: PER CAPITA You write: "Acquiring land for any project is going to be harder and pricier. " Yes, obviously. Of course the land is pricier in the big urban cities. This has nothing to do with what I wrote. The resources used PER CAPITA in suburbs will be greater than the resources used PER CAPITA in a dense urban core, other things being equal. This is a simple matter of space and resource use. Resources will tend to be more heavily used in a dense urban core, therefore society gains more benefit from that those resources, assuming the point of the resource is to be used. Compare the use of fuel in the city, and fuel in suburbs. Much fuel in the suburb is spent on automobiles, which are well known to be inefficient. In a city you will have mass transit, which offers a more efficient use of fuel, per capita. You write: "In an urban environment, sure fuel costs per person drop drastically, but when other costs are taken into account, I remain unconvinced it is so much cheaper." Nowhere did I say the city was cheaper than the suburbs. I suggest the opposite - the suburbs are cheaper than the cities. And I suggest the reason why - it is because the suburbs are subsidized to a greater extent than the cities. There is a large literature on this subject in the field of urban planning.

lkrubner 16y ago

Why is this being downvoted? Does someone want to make the argument that life in suburbs in less resource intensive per capita than life in a dense urban core? If so, they should make that argument and I'll make my counter-argument. But my point is fairly obvious: people living close together can share be provided with infrastructure with less resources per capita, or to put it another way, the denser the population the more intensely used any given piece of infrastructure is likely to be used (the same point, stated the other way round). Think of a road in New York City, and then think of a road west of Washington DC, in the suburbs of Virginia. Which gets more use? I suspect that anyone wanting to downvote my comment is someone who themselves lives in the suburbs, and they are downvoting my comment because my post makes them uncomfortable. But just because an idea makes you uncomfortable doesn't make it untrue. My point is entirely valid, and it is correct.

usaar333 16y ago
I didn't downvote, but I am not convinced infrastructure cost is that much higher in the suburbs. In a dense core, maintenance and development are vastly much costlier than in the suburbs Acquiring land for any project is going to be harder and pricier. If you close a road in a suburb to do work on it or do other construction, no big deal; in a city, you create horrible traffic problems. Politically you have to deal with 3-4x as many people per mile work of anything in a city. In an urban environment, sure fuel costs per person drop drastically, but when other costs are taken into account, I remain unconvinced it is so much cheaper. Just look how expensive it is to live in a big city in the US relative to a suburb.
- lkrubner 16y ago
  You do not understand what I've written. No where did I mention absolute price. I am talking strictly about resources used per capita. Let me emphasize that: PER CAPITA You write: "Acquiring land for any project is going to be harder and pricier. " Yes, obviously. Of course the land is pricier in the big urban cities. This has nothing to do with what I wrote. The resources used PER CAPITA in suburbs will be greater than the resources used PER CAPITA in a dense urban core, other things being equal. This is a simple matter of space and resource use. Resources will tend to be more heavily used in a dense urban core, therefore society gains more benefit from that those resources, assuming the point of the resource is to be used. Compare the use of fuel in the city, and fuel in suburbs. Much fuel in the suburb is spent on automobiles, which are well known to be inefficient. In a city you will have mass transit, which offers a more efficient use of fuel, per capita. You write: "In an urban environment, sure fuel costs per person drop drastically, but when other costs are taken into account, I remain unconvinced it is so much cheaper." Nowhere did I say the city was cheaper than the suburbs. I suggest the opposite - the suburbs are cheaper than the cities. And I suggest the reason why - it is because the suburbs are subsidized to a greater extent than the cities. There is a large literature on this subject in the field of urban planning.