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> This was only made possible by enormous federal subsidies for returning soldiers and huge investments in public infrastructure by the federal government. > P

by mabbo 7y ago

> This was only made possible by enormous federal subsidies for returning soldiers and huge investments in public infrastructure by the federal government. > People ... couldn’t imagine returning to the city which continued to decline. I begin to wonder whether the demise of the city was really caused by the government subsidies of the suburban lifestyle. It's not that Levittown isn't sustainable anymore, it's that it never was, not on a long term scale. Low density living should be expensive because it is expensive. The government chose to invest in suburbs instead of the city. The city rotted without investment, exacerbating the problem. It's only the last couple decades as governments tightened their coffers that the suburbs have had to carry their own load- and they can't.

burlesona 7y ago
“It’s not that Levittown isn’t sustainable anymore, it’s that it never was.” I think this is a key point, really well expanded upon here: https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme
- clarkmoody 7y ago
  To expand a bit more here, the Strong Towns folks argue that city infrastructure project costs do not factor in long-term maintenance. Growth is the driver of revenue in the short term (building permit fees, more expensive single-family homes paying property taxes). Once growth slows or stops, the party is over. Maintenance costs kick in, and the errors made during the boom time are revealed in the form of broken streets, abandonment, blight, etc. They consult with cities to target a 20-to-1 "return on investment" when taking on infrastructure projects. That means that the costs to build street or water pipes should result in 20x that cost in economic activity.
mc32 7y ago
Maybe it makes more sense to say losing population brings about viability issues. If people for whatever reason started to leave Oakland, I’m sure it would implode as much as a Vallejo would if they suddenly had an exodus.
- ghaff 7y ago
  Whether cities or suburbs, viability is pretty much driven by whether people want to live/work there or not. Some cities are more viable than others. Some suburbs are more viable than others.
  - mc32 7y ago
    I agree with you but disagree with parent who seems to claim suburbs were never viable. They are and so are cities but their viability rests on having a large enough tax base to be self sustaining. As suburbs reached their apex many cities risked insolvency. As cities begin syphoning people from suburbs some of them too will experience insolvency issues.
    - ghaff 7y ago
      Certainly. Plenty of suburbs (and even exurban towns) do quite well. As do many cities. One can argue about who is paying their "fair share" of infrastructure etc. but it's hard to buy the argument that the vast suburbs of elite cities today aren't "viable." Especially given that there actually isn't room for all those people (and companies) to locate in the city even if they wanted to. But, yes, as housing preferences shift it affects pricing and viability of different neighborhoods, at least at the margin.
      - acdha 7y ago
        I agree that demand is there but one interesting challenge is tax revenue: many people moved to suburbs because the taxes are lower, and many will move again if they’re raised to the level needed to maintain city services & infrastructure. Toss in an aging population with many people unwilling to pay for services such as schools which their grown children no longer need (or climate change hardening which they won’t live long enough to need) and it’ll be an interesting fight in many suburbs across the country, with some finding a viable balance and others falling apart.
    - timerol 7y ago
      The "suburbs were never viable" claim is built upon a few facts about most US suburbs: 1) They are advertised partially based on the low property taxes in their municipalities. 2) They have restrictive building codes that prevent additional development from occurring. In other words, they are built all at once, to a finished state. Then you run the math on property taxes vs. maintenance costs. If repairing the road, pipes, etc to one additional house costs more money than that house contributes via property tax (over a period of 25 years or so), then the suburb is considered insolvent. It could raise property taxes, or allow additional development, but without those actions the suburb remains insolvent.
Gibbon1 7y ago
I think demise of cities was due to being starved for capital, redlining, automobiles, and crime due to lead pollution. Post war capital was invested in suburbs instead of urban cores which then decayed. Redlining also meant urban areas inhabited by minorities were cut off from capital. Not only couldn't minorities get loans, but even their often white landlords couldn't. Automobiles allowed workers to locate their families in cheap suburbs while sucking at the corporate teat in Urban Cities. At least until too many people spoiled a good thing as auto congestion built up. Leaded gasoline caused brain damage which effected dense urban areas the most, resulting in high crime rates. The last 40 years has seen a reversal of that at least for some urban cities. Capital is being invested in cities. Hard redlining is gone. Replaced by jacking minorities with exploitative loan products. Suburban congestion has made suburbs much less attractive. The decline of lead pollution means urban cities are again 'safe'.
- NorthOf33rd 7y ago
  Lead pollution hypothesis is one of many plausible explanations and shouldn’t be presented as fact.
  - shereadsthenews 7y ago
    True, but there is recent evidence that is pretty much the gold standard for a perfect randomized experiment where they tracked children with high blood levels who did and did not receive interventions to lower it. Those receiving treatment committed violent crimes at a far lower rate than those who were exposed but had no intervention. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/app.20160056 https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/app.20160056
    - akie 7y ago
      Are you saying that inner city crime is by brain damage, rather than by living in desperate circumstances?
      - shereadsthenews 7y ago
javert 7y ago
In fact, if the suburbs were going to be sustainable without extra government funding in the long run, they would have been developed without the government's helping hand in the first place. This is exactly the problem that finance exists to solve.
larl 7y ago
There certainly appears to be some sort of sub-urbanity trap. Low density living isn't necessarily more expensive than living in a high density area, but that relies on certain economic modes that do not include much infrastructure. But those economic modes are not the ones that fit the needs of a modern office worker. Modern suburban living requires roads, water, electrical, police, and other services, where the cost tends to scale with area. When the tax base doesn't experience growth, the required services must funded through something like ballooning debt, which quickly leads to insolvency, or be curtailed. Both of which seem to form a feedback cycle.
guelo 7y ago
What are you referring to that changed in government over the last couple decades?
golergka 7y ago
Low density, low-rise areas also offer much higher survivability in a case of nuclear bombing. Thankfully, not a pressing concern at the moment, but 1950s were a different world.
microcolonel 7y ago
> I begin to wonder whether the demise of the city was really caused by the government subsidies of the suburban lifestyle. To be frank, I think nothing has been as destructive as zoning. Here in Hamilton, Ontario, I'm in a single-family zoned area, and the two closest consumer businesses are a brewery (with outlet), about 200m away, and a couple convenience stores, 600m away. The brewery is only there because of a specific zoning bylaw. Most everything else is more than 1.2km away or farther.

by mabbo 7y ago

burlesona 7y ago

“It’s not that Levittown isn’t sustainable anymore, it’s that it never was.” I think this is a key point, really well expanded upon here: https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme

clarkmoody 7y ago
To expand a bit more here, the Strong Towns folks argue that city infrastructure project costs do not factor in long-term maintenance. Growth is the driver of revenue in the short term (building permit fees, more expensive single-family homes paying property taxes). Once growth slows or stops, the party is over. Maintenance costs kick in, and the errors made during the boom time are revealed in the form of broken streets, abandonment, blight, etc. They consult with cities to target a 20-to-1 "return on investment" when taking on infrastructure projects. That means that the costs to build street or water pipes should result in 20x that cost in economic activity.

mc32 7y ago

Maybe it makes more sense to say losing population brings about viability issues. If people for whatever reason started to leave Oakland, I’m sure it would implode as much as a Vallejo would if they suddenly had an exodus.

ghaff 7y ago
Whether cities or suburbs, viability is pretty much driven by whether people want to live/work there or not. Some cities are more viable than others. Some suburbs are more viable than others.
- mc32 7y ago
  I agree with you but disagree with parent who seems to claim suburbs were never viable. They are and so are cities but their viability rests on having a large enough tax base to be self sustaining. As suburbs reached their apex many cities risked insolvency. As cities begin syphoning people from suburbs some of them too will experience insolvency issues.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    Certainly. Plenty of suburbs (and even exurban towns) do quite well. As do many cities. One can argue about who is paying their "fair share" of infrastructure etc. but it's hard to buy the argument that the vast suburbs of elite cities today aren't "viable." Especially given that there actually isn't room for all those people (and companies) to locate in the city even if they wanted to. But, yes, as housing preferences shift it affects pricing and viability of different neighborhoods, at least at the margin.
    - acdha 7y ago
      I agree that demand is there but one interesting challenge is tax revenue: many people moved to suburbs because the taxes are lower, and many will move again if they’re raised to the level needed to maintain city services & infrastructure. Toss in an aging population with many people unwilling to pay for services such as schools which their grown children no longer need (or climate change hardening which they won’t live long enough to need) and it’ll be an interesting fight in many suburbs across the country, with some finding a viable balance and others falling apart.
  - timerol 7y ago
    The "suburbs were never viable" claim is built upon a few facts about most US suburbs: 1) They are advertised partially based on the low property taxes in their municipalities. 2) They have restrictive building codes that prevent additional development from occurring. In other words, they are built all at once, to a finished state. Then you run the math on property taxes vs. maintenance costs. If repairing the road, pipes, etc to one additional house costs more money than that house contributes via property tax (over a period of 25 years or so), then the suburb is considered insolvent. It could raise property taxes, or allow additional development, but without those actions the suburb remains insolvent.

Gibbon1 7y ago

I think demise of cities was due to being starved for capital, redlining, automobiles, and crime due to lead pollution. Post war capital was invested in suburbs instead of urban cores which then decayed. Redlining also meant urban areas inhabited by minorities were cut off from capital. Not only couldn't minorities get loans, but even their often white landlords couldn't. Automobiles allowed workers to locate their families in cheap suburbs while sucking at the corporate teat in Urban Cities. At least until too many people spoiled a good thing as auto congestion built up. Leaded gasoline caused brain damage which effected dense urban areas the most, resulting in high crime rates. The last 40 years has seen a reversal of that at least for some urban cities. Capital is being invested in cities. Hard redlining is gone. Replaced by jacking minorities with exploitative loan products. Suburban congestion has made suburbs much less attractive. The decline of lead pollution means urban cities are again 'safe'.

NorthOf33rd 7y ago
Lead pollution hypothesis is one of many plausible explanations and shouldn’t be presented as fact.
- shereadsthenews 7y ago
  True, but there is recent evidence that is pretty much the gold standard for a perfect randomized experiment where they tracked children with high blood levels who did and did not receive interventions to lower it. Those receiving treatment committed violent crimes at a far lower rate than those who were exposed but had no intervention. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/app.20160056 https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/app.20160056
  - akie 7y ago
    Are you saying that inner city crime is by brain damage, rather than by living in desperate circumstances?
    - shereadsthenews 7y ago

javert 7y ago

In fact, if the suburbs were going to be sustainable without extra government funding in the long run, they would have been developed without the government's helping hand in the first place. This is exactly the problem that finance exists to solve.

larl 7y ago

There certainly appears to be some sort of sub-urbanity trap. Low density living isn't necessarily more expensive than living in a high density area, but that relies on certain economic modes that do not include much infrastructure. But those economic modes are not the ones that fit the needs of a modern office worker. Modern suburban living requires roads, water, electrical, police, and other services, where the cost tends to scale with area. When the tax base doesn't experience growth, the required services must funded through something like ballooning debt, which quickly leads to insolvency, or be curtailed. Both of which seem to form a feedback cycle.

guelo 7y ago

What are you referring to that changed in government over the last couple decades?

golergka 7y ago

Low density, low-rise areas also offer much higher survivability in a case of nuclear bombing. Thankfully, not a pressing concern at the moment, but 1950s were a different world.

microcolonel 7y ago

> I begin to wonder whether the demise of the city was really caused by the government subsidies of the suburban lifestyle. To be frank, I think nothing has been as destructive as zoning. Here in Hamilton, Ontario, I'm in a single-family zoned area, and the two closest consumer businesses are a brewery (with outlet), about 200m away, and a couple convenience stores, 600m away. The brewery is only there because of a specific zoning bylaw. Most everything else is more than 1.2km away or farther.