4 ms·

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

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.
- evgen 16y ago
  When you talk about "subsidies" for abstract "resources" and then try to decouple them from the available market in these resources (through such terms as "other things being equal") you are engaging in a bit of sophistry. Yes, resource usage may be greater per capita in the suburbs, but the most expensive resource in most cases is space/land and it is very, very expensive in urban cores. Urban space is so expensive that it often washes out the more efficient usage of other resources that density can offer. You can claim that in a city people will have mass transit available, but with only a few exceptions in the US that mass transit is underutilized and really only serves to get a small fraction of the urban residents to work and back; it does not serve other daily needs quite as well, so after taking mass transit back from work you will hop into your car to go get groceries or go out for some entertainment in the evening. If these magical subsidies truly existed at the level you are suggesting they would be both obvious and a source of growing political friction given the re-urbanization of the American population. Could you point out some examples of these subsidies? [And before you start, "fuel" does not really count since it cuts both ways in this argument and urban residents to not lead significantly more fuel efficient lives than their suburban counterparts.]
  - meric 16y ago
    "Urban space is so expensive that it often washes out the more efficient usage of other resources that density can offer." Err... He capitalized "PER CAPITA". In cities, a piece of land the size of 6 suburban homes (counting backyard) can be home to several thousand people, that's why land is expensive. Go to Hong Kong, you'll see apartment buildings with 40 floors. On each floor there are 20 units. In each unit there are 2 rooms, a living room, a kitchen and a toilet. Each room is 2.5 metres by 2.5 metres, the living room 3 times that. Anywhere from 2 to 6 people can live in a single unit, but usually 4; The government doesn't hand out public housing with 2 rooms to only 2 people. 4 * 20 * 40 is over 3200 residents. In the suburbs the same land is home to only around two dozen people. Thus it would make sense that in Hong Kong land could be a hundred times more expensive than in a suburb anywhere else.
    - evgen 16y ago
      I understand what PER CAPITA means and I was stating explicitly that the claims being made were, on a PER CAPITA basis, erroneous. A plot of land can only be home to several thousand people if you are willing to pay a lot of money to build it in that fashion. Building up is not a cost saving measure, it is a demand placed upon a plot of land as a consequence of population density. Building suburban homes for several thousand people will occupy more land than a dense urban apartment tower, but it will be an order of magnitude cheaper to build in the first place.
- bokonist 16y ago
  Many low density towns get away without a sewer system, houses can use a septic system instead. In low density towns you can build horizontally, which uses less human, energy, material resources than building upwards. In a low density town, parks and fields have low enough usage that the grass can be maintained on its own, in cities the fields need to re-sodded often and require extra fertilizer. In cities you end up building roads on multiple levels, railways underground, etc, all of which adds enormous resource costs to construction. Cities have so much pavement they are noticeably hotter in the summer, which requires more air conditioning. On the flip side, low density towns require more asphalt per capita and more day-to-day gasoline usage. Overall though, it's not on the face of it obvious to me that low density is more resource intensive. I'd be interested if you have links to detailed research on the matter. It's also not obvious to me that small towns are more subsidized. Bridges, highways, subways, etc, going into a city are all government funded. And cities like Washington D.C. and New York are basically imperial cities - they make most of their income from politically connected agencies, banks, contractors, etc.
  - lkrubner 16y ago
    You write: "Many low density towns get away without a sewer system, houses can use a septic system instead." A septic system still uses resources. In fact, per capita, a septic system is one of the most wasteful kinds of systems for handling sewage. Think of the land that a septic system needs.
    - anamax 16y ago
      > In fact, per capita, a septic system is one of the most wasteful kinds of systems for handling sewage. Think of the land that a septic system needs. Yes, think of the land, specifically the marginal cost of using said land for a septic system. A septic system in the country can easily cost less than the comparable amount of NYC's sewer system.
- anamax 16y ago
  > 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. True, but the question is not resources used, but cost of resources and the value of the benefits received.

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.

evgen 16y ago
When you talk about "subsidies" for abstract "resources" and then try to decouple them from the available market in these resources (through such terms as "other things being equal") you are engaging in a bit of sophistry. Yes, resource usage may be greater per capita in the suburbs, but the most expensive resource in most cases is space/land and it is very, very expensive in urban cores. Urban space is so expensive that it often washes out the more efficient usage of other resources that density can offer. You can claim that in a city people will have mass transit available, but with only a few exceptions in the US that mass transit is underutilized and really only serves to get a small fraction of the urban residents to work and back; it does not serve other daily needs quite as well, so after taking mass transit back from work you will hop into your car to go get groceries or go out for some entertainment in the evening. If these magical subsidies truly existed at the level you are suggesting they would be both obvious and a source of growing political friction given the re-urbanization of the American population. Could you point out some examples of these subsidies? [And before you start, "fuel" does not really count since it cuts both ways in this argument and urban residents to not lead significantly more fuel efficient lives than their suburban counterparts.]
- meric 16y ago
  "Urban space is so expensive that it often washes out the more efficient usage of other resources that density can offer." Err... He capitalized "PER CAPITA". In cities, a piece of land the size of 6 suburban homes (counting backyard) can be home to several thousand people, that's why land is expensive. Go to Hong Kong, you'll see apartment buildings with 40 floors. On each floor there are 20 units. In each unit there are 2 rooms, a living room, a kitchen and a toilet. Each room is 2.5 metres by 2.5 metres, the living room 3 times that. Anywhere from 2 to 6 people can live in a single unit, but usually 4; The government doesn't hand out public housing with 2 rooms to only 2 people. 4 * 20 * 40 is over 3200 residents. In the suburbs the same land is home to only around two dozen people. Thus it would make sense that in Hong Kong land could be a hundred times more expensive than in a suburb anywhere else.
  - evgen 16y ago
    I understand what PER CAPITA means and I was stating explicitly that the claims being made were, on a PER CAPITA basis, erroneous. A plot of land can only be home to several thousand people if you are willing to pay a lot of money to build it in that fashion. Building up is not a cost saving measure, it is a demand placed upon a plot of land as a consequence of population density. Building suburban homes for several thousand people will occupy more land than a dense urban apartment tower, but it will be an order of magnitude cheaper to build in the first place.
bokonist 16y ago
Many low density towns get away without a sewer system, houses can use a septic system instead. In low density towns you can build horizontally, which uses less human, energy, material resources than building upwards. In a low density town, parks and fields have low enough usage that the grass can be maintained on its own, in cities the fields need to re-sodded often and require extra fertilizer. In cities you end up building roads on multiple levels, railways underground, etc, all of which adds enormous resource costs to construction. Cities have so much pavement they are noticeably hotter in the summer, which requires more air conditioning. On the flip side, low density towns require more asphalt per capita and more day-to-day gasoline usage. Overall though, it's not on the face of it obvious to me that low density is more resource intensive. I'd be interested if you have links to detailed research on the matter. It's also not obvious to me that small towns are more subsidized. Bridges, highways, subways, etc, going into a city are all government funded. And cities like Washington D.C. and New York are basically imperial cities - they make most of their income from politically connected agencies, banks, contractors, etc.
- lkrubner 16y ago
  You write: "Many low density towns get away without a sewer system, houses can use a septic system instead." A septic system still uses resources. In fact, per capita, a septic system is one of the most wasteful kinds of systems for handling sewage. Think of the land that a septic system needs.
  - anamax 16y ago
    > In fact, per capita, a septic system is one of the most wasteful kinds of systems for handling sewage. Think of the land that a septic system needs. Yes, think of the land, specifically the marginal cost of using said land for a septic system. A septic system in the country can easily cost less than the comparable amount of NYC's sewer system.
anamax 16y ago
> 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. True, but the question is not resources used, but cost of resources and the value of the benefits received.