4 ms·

I'm all for letting people live how they want, but suburban planning tends not to account for the true lifetime cost of that mode of living. If we can fix that

I'm all for letting people live how they want, but suburban planning tends not to account for the true lifetime cost of that mode of living. If we can fix that, then knock yourself out.

esotericn 7y ago
Suburban living is essentially what I'm describing here as being the 'bad' middle state that causes the issues. You have congestion because there are just houses dotted everywhere clustered around the city, making the 'last few miles' hellish. Later, those suburbs become 'urbs'. I'm saying have urban and rural with a sharp divide. Inside the 'event horizon' of where you'd normally have suburbs, have car parks and dump people on to urban transport that uses space more effectively like trains/buses/etc.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  > I'm saying have urban and rural with a sharp divide. Inside the 'event horizon' of where you'd normally have suburbs, have car parks and dump people on to urban transport that uses space more effectively like trains/buses/etc. The problem with this design is that cities commonly grow over time. If you have a core which is full of 30 story buildings, it makes much more sense to allow the radius of the core to expand from 10 miles to 20 by bulldozing some car parks and replacing them with more 20 and 30 story buildings than to have to bulldoze the existing 30 story buildings and replace them all with 95 story ones. The sharp divide is what we already have and is one half of the causes of the existing problem. You have a core which is zoned for higher density surrounded by suburbs that aren't, which prevents the dense core from expanding outward as necessary. The other half is that even the core doesn't allow very high densities, so you generally don't get 50+ story buildings even there, you just get outrageously high rents instead because it can neither expand upwards nor outwards. You're essentially suggesting that it expand only upwards, but that's still a lot more expensive than expanding in both directions, and there comes a point that it becomes impractical. We don't really have a lot of experience constructing large numbers of 200 story buildings and even if we could figure it out it probably wouldn't be cost effective and result in affordable rents. Meanwhile there is a threshold density above which you can have things like effective mass transit, at which point expanding outward at the same density allows you to maintain those advantages over a larger area without paying the high cost of constructing buildings at the limits of our engineering talents (and also paying to destroy existing tall buildings in order to do it). Which is basically what naturally happens without zoning density restrictions. In theory someone could then build a 30 story building in the middle of the suburbs, but that doesn't make a lot of sense when it's more profitable to put that building closer to the core, until the core is already full of those, and then the most profitable place for that building is right next to the core. Which is how the core expands as needed. You don't really need to prohibit people from building at inappropriate densities when appropriateness is already closely aligned with profitability.
Spooky23 7y ago
Real estate never accounts for itself. It’s too boom/bust. If anything, suburbia with individual owners and smaller governments are better maintained than urban core.
- chrisdhoover 7y ago
  Better schools, better roads, nicer parks and playgrounds, lower crime, less homeless, worse food, worse entertainment, worse public transportation
  - cure 7y ago
    Here in Massachusetts, I'd say there are not many playgrounds in suburbs at all. There are many very nice playgrounds in (certain) cities. I've always assumed that suburbs don't care as much about playgrounds and parks because most houses have a (large) yard already. On the whole, suburbs also have nicer libraries, though there are examples to the contrary - e.g. Cambridge, MA has a really fantastic main library. The quality of libraries and schools mostly tracks how wealthy the suburb/city is. I agree with you that no matter how wealthy the suburb, food, entertainment and public transportation are going to be seriously underwhelming compared to a city.
  - Spooky23 7y ago
    Depends on your point of view. For 50 years in vital cities, the model has been that most people who aren't rich boogey out of the city when their entertainment needs evolve away from nightlife. Unless you are a 9-5 corporate or .gov type, which is increasingly less common, suburbia is more convenient for many purposes once you have the ability to support a car. Being chained to public transit corridors and schedules is very difficult for workers with marginal means. I live in the city and love it. Fortunately I bought my home earlier -- today it would be dumb. Living in the city is great, except when school lotteries mean that your kids have to go to school 45 minutes away from your home, because of a court order from 1970, and you end up paying for private school. My city has to fund a large police department and fire department, so my city taxes are 30% higher than a suburb. The city school district has to provide much more special ed and social services, so those taxes are 40% higher. Good news is that living for my family is cheap and convenient. But I can't improve my home, because the value won't go up due the taxes. If I had invested about 30% more in 2002, my housing investment would be about 150% more valuable today.

I'm all for letting people live how they want, but suburban planning tends not to account for the true lifetime cost of that mode of living. If we can fix that, then knock yourself out.

esotericn 7y ago

Suburban living is essentially what I'm describing here as being the 'bad' middle state that causes the issues. You have congestion because there are just houses dotted everywhere clustered around the city, making the 'last few miles' hellish. Later, those suburbs become 'urbs'. I'm saying have urban and rural with a sharp divide. Inside the 'event horizon' of where you'd normally have suburbs, have car parks and dump people on to urban transport that uses space more effectively like trains/buses/etc.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> I'm saying have urban and rural with a sharp divide. Inside the 'event horizon' of where you'd normally have suburbs, have car parks and dump people on to urban transport that uses space more effectively like trains/buses/etc. The problem with this design is that cities commonly grow over time. If you have a core which is full of 30 story buildings, it makes much more sense to allow the radius of the core to expand from 10 miles to 20 by bulldozing some car parks and replacing them with more 20 and 30 story buildings than to have to bulldoze the existing 30 story buildings and replace them all with 95 story ones. The sharp divide is what we already have and is one half of the causes of the existing problem. You have a core which is zoned for higher density surrounded by suburbs that aren't, which prevents the dense core from expanding outward as necessary. The other half is that even the core doesn't allow very high densities, so you generally don't get 50+ story buildings even there, you just get outrageously high rents instead because it can neither expand upwards nor outwards. You're essentially suggesting that it expand only upwards, but that's still a lot more expensive than expanding in both directions, and there comes a point that it becomes impractical. We don't really have a lot of experience constructing large numbers of 200 story buildings and even if we could figure it out it probably wouldn't be cost effective and result in affordable rents. Meanwhile there is a threshold density above which you can have things like effective mass transit, at which point expanding outward at the same density allows you to maintain those advantages over a larger area without paying the high cost of constructing buildings at the limits of our engineering talents (and also paying to destroy existing tall buildings in order to do it). Which is basically what naturally happens without zoning density restrictions. In theory someone could then build a 30 story building in the middle of the suburbs, but that doesn't make a lot of sense when it's more profitable to put that building closer to the core, until the core is already full of those, and then the most profitable place for that building is right next to the core. Which is how the core expands as needed. You don't really need to prohibit people from building at inappropriate densities when appropriateness is already closely aligned with profitability.

Spooky23 7y ago

Real estate never accounts for itself. It’s too boom/bust. If anything, suburbia with individual owners and smaller governments are better maintained than urban core.

chrisdhoover 7y ago
Better schools, better roads, nicer parks and playgrounds, lower crime, less homeless, worse food, worse entertainment, worse public transportation
- cure 7y ago
  Here in Massachusetts, I'd say there are not many playgrounds in suburbs at all. There are many very nice playgrounds in (certain) cities. I've always assumed that suburbs don't care as much about playgrounds and parks because most houses have a (large) yard already. On the whole, suburbs also have nicer libraries, though there are examples to the contrary - e.g. Cambridge, MA has a really fantastic main library. The quality of libraries and schools mostly tracks how wealthy the suburb/city is. I agree with you that no matter how wealthy the suburb, food, entertainment and public transportation are going to be seriously underwhelming compared to a city.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  Depends on your point of view. For 50 years in vital cities, the model has been that most people who aren't rich boogey out of the city when their entertainment needs evolve away from nightlife. Unless you are a 9-5 corporate or .gov type, which is increasingly less common, suburbia is more convenient for many purposes once you have the ability to support a car. Being chained to public transit corridors and schedules is very difficult for workers with marginal means. I live in the city and love it. Fortunately I bought my home earlier -- today it would be dumb. Living in the city is great, except when school lotteries mean that your kids have to go to school 45 minutes away from your home, because of a court order from 1970, and you end up paying for private school. My city has to fund a large police department and fire department, so my city taxes are 30% higher than a suburb. The city school district has to provide much more special ed and social services, so those taxes are 40% higher. Good news is that living for my family is cheap and convenient. But I can't improve my home, because the value won't go up due the taxes. If I had invested about 30% more in 2002, my housing investment would be about 150% more valuable today.