4 ms·

People do it because they would rather have a bigger, newer house, in a place with better schools, than a shorter commute. The article not only fails to quantif

by xyzzyz 7y ago

People do it because they would rather have a bigger, newer house, in a place with better schools, than a shorter commute. The article not only fails to quantify the value of those additional amenities, it refuses to acknowledge they even exist. Indeed. As much as I agree with urban activists on many policy goals (liberalize zoning, densify city cores and increase walkability in them), I get a feeling that they often don't get that many people would hate living in dense city cores. I was on both sides of this, I hated rural/suburban living as a teenager and in my early twenties, and I yearned for a big city life and enjoyed it very much when I achieved it, but now that I got older, big city life, being squeezed in an urban apartment, with noise outside, loud neighbors, no yard or workshop of my own etc sounds extremely unappealing. I get the impression that the urban activists think that I'm somehow stupid and wrong to like it, and instead I should like to live in a dense walkable city core.

davidw 7y ago
> I get the impression that the urban activists think that I'm somehow stupid and wrong to like it, and instead I should like to live in a dense walkable city core. Not at all. There is obviously a range of places people want to live in, from very dense to very rural. It should all be allowed, and people should also shoulder the costs of the choices they make. This would likely include higher gas taxes and fewer subsidies for automobiles.
- rayiner 7y ago
  It’s not clear to me that on a per passenger basis automobile subsidies are higher (even accounting for pollution) than subsidies for transit. We should eliminate both kinds of subsidies and replace them with direct cash payments to low income people.
  - mikeyouse 7y ago
    Some of the "subsidies" are inherent in the services themselves though. At the top of this thread was a quote about the dollar value of time saved on a commute. What's the dollar value of the 100k people taking the Caltrain from SJ to SF to the people driving on the 101? The people who have to commute by car are greatly benefit by every incremental person who takes transit and to some extent vice versa since trains are less crowded, etc. Eliminating subsidies (whatever that means) seems every bit as centrally planned and subject to great economic inefficiency as the decisions to fund transit.

by xyzzyz 7y ago

davidw 7y ago

> I get the impression that the urban activists think that I'm somehow stupid and wrong to like it, and instead I should like to live in a dense walkable city core. Not at all. There is obviously a range of places people want to live in, from very dense to very rural. It should all be allowed, and people should also shoulder the costs of the choices they make. This would likely include higher gas taxes and fewer subsidies for automobiles.

rayiner 7y ago
It’s not clear to me that on a per passenger basis automobile subsidies are higher (even accounting for pollution) than subsidies for transit. We should eliminate both kinds of subsidies and replace them with direct cash payments to low income people.
- mikeyouse 7y ago
  Some of the "subsidies" are inherent in the services themselves though. At the top of this thread was a quote about the dollar value of time saved on a commute. What's the dollar value of the 100k people taking the Caltrain from SJ to SF to the people driving on the 101? The people who have to commute by car are greatly benefit by every incremental person who takes transit and to some extent vice versa since trains are less crowded, etc. Eliminating subsidies (whatever that means) seems every bit as centrally planned and subject to great economic inefficiency as the decisions to fund transit.