5 ms·

Lots of shade thrown towards people living in suburbia on here. Maybe not everyone wants to live in a (rented) closet sized apartment in a major city, complete

by geddy 7y ago

Lots of shade thrown towards people living in suburbia on here. Maybe not everyone wants to live in a (rented) closet sized apartment in a major city, complete with all the noise pollution, actual pollution, crime rates, and a lingering piss-smell 24/7, and all for the low price of _more than owning a house_?

phkahler 7y ago
>> and all for the low price of _more than owning a house_? I didnt read much judgement in th parent post, but it does imply suburbia is subsidized because it has higher infrastructure cost per dollar of tax revenue. The was a study on that very thing a couple years ago IIRC and they found the most solvent towns and cities are actually the higher density ones even if they are lower income areas.
- SubuSS 7y ago
  Are you thinking of dollar revenue as an average OR considering suburbian dollar revenue separate? You'd think the suburbia also brings in more cash to the government (I got no sources).
  - davidw 7y ago
    It really doesn't, on a per acre basis. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/2/1/the-surprising-relationship-between-retail-taxand-property-tax https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/2/1/the-surprising-...
    - ummonk 7y ago
      The discussion was about per-person costs, so per-acre revenues are irrelevant.
      - davidw 7y ago
        You can have cities configured to have more or less people per acre. It turns out that having more of them per acre is more cost effective.
0x262d 7y ago
well, people in suburbia get their infrastructure subsidized by everyone and in addition are destroying the planet, people in cities are paying artificially super-high rent to the landowning class. it seems like we could solve both these problems at the same time and change the value proposition here.
davidw 7y ago
Ideally, this discussion would not be emotional, but simply one of saying "hey, we should all be free to live like we want, as long as we're willing to pay the associated costs".
AcerbicZero 7y ago
I live in a city, and I love cars. The issue isn't density, its road damage caused by long and short haul trucking. The shade being thrown towards the suburbs is because some people haven't learned the real enemy is (as almost always) crony capitalism that subsidizes trucking by distributing the costs of roads and road repair onto the local people, while the trucks do the real damage.
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  It would be preferable that rail be used for transportation and it's unfortunate that trucking in particular gets subsidized. However, I don't think your argument justifies that American policy prejudice towards cars and suburbs. Suburbs involve more roads - trucks may the force that mainly consumes roads but of course the higher the road-to-people ratio is, the more those roads are going to be consumed by those trucks. Which is to say, of course cars and trucks both go to the far suburbs and the nowhere's villes around the country and of course these trips are part of maintaining these places. Moreover, if we moved to more rail transit, the little towns would be more in trouble because rail tends to require larger loads and so would raise the price of goods in far suburban malls and such.
- asdff 7y ago
  The real damage to suburban roads is old man winter.
stefan_ 7y ago
I don't think anyone cares if you prefer to live rural, the problem is suburbanites having their yard, big house and pool, then every workday commuting into the city where they expect urban dwellers to subsidize the parking spot and eat all the death, destruction and pollution their hunks of metal bring along. It's like I'm happy to have the walkable grocery store and 24/7 piss smell, but when feeling adventurous driving out to the suburbs to set up camp in your garden.
- nitrogen 7y ago
  they expect urban dwellers to subsidize the parking spot I think most urban commuter parking is paid, whether public or private, and the expectation is that a city charges appropriate property taxes on commercial buildings to cover any costs imposed by commuters.

by geddy 7y ago

phkahler 7y ago

>> and all for the low price of _more than owning a house_? I didnt read much judgement in th parent post, but it does imply suburbia is subsidized because it has higher infrastructure cost per dollar of tax revenue. The was a study on that very thing a couple years ago IIRC and they found the most solvent towns and cities are actually the higher density ones even if they are lower income areas.

SubuSS 7y ago
Are you thinking of dollar revenue as an average OR considering suburbian dollar revenue separate? You'd think the suburbia also brings in more cash to the government (I got no sources).
- davidw 7y ago
  It really doesn't, on a per acre basis. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/2/1/the-surprising-relationship-between-retail-taxand-property-tax https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/2/1/the-surprising-...
  - ummonk 7y ago
    The discussion was about per-person costs, so per-acre revenues are irrelevant.
    - davidw 7y ago
      You can have cities configured to have more or less people per acre. It turns out that having more of them per acre is more cost effective.

0x262d 7y ago

well, people in suburbia get their infrastructure subsidized by everyone and in addition are destroying the planet, people in cities are paying artificially super-high rent to the landowning class. it seems like we could solve both these problems at the same time and change the value proposition here.

davidw 7y ago

Ideally, this discussion would not be emotional, but simply one of saying "hey, we should all be free to live like we want, as long as we're willing to pay the associated costs".

AcerbicZero 7y ago

I live in a city, and I love cars. The issue isn't density, its road damage caused by long and short haul trucking. The shade being thrown towards the suburbs is because some people haven't learned the real enemy is (as almost always) crony capitalism that subsidizes trucking by distributing the costs of roads and road repair onto the local people, while the trucks do the real damage.

joe_the_user 7y ago
It would be preferable that rail be used for transportation and it's unfortunate that trucking in particular gets subsidized. However, I don't think your argument justifies that American policy prejudice towards cars and suburbs. Suburbs involve more roads - trucks may the force that mainly consumes roads but of course the higher the road-to-people ratio is, the more those roads are going to be consumed by those trucks. Which is to say, of course cars and trucks both go to the far suburbs and the nowhere's villes around the country and of course these trips are part of maintaining these places. Moreover, if we moved to more rail transit, the little towns would be more in trouble because rail tends to require larger loads and so would raise the price of goods in far suburban malls and such.
asdff 7y ago
The real damage to suburban roads is old man winter.

stefan_ 7y ago

I don't think anyone cares if you prefer to live rural, the problem is suburbanites having their yard, big house and pool, then every workday commuting into the city where they expect urban dwellers to subsidize the parking spot and eat all the death, destruction and pollution their hunks of metal bring along. It's like I'm happy to have the walkable grocery store and 24/7 piss smell, but when feeling adventurous driving out to the suburbs to set up camp in your garden.

nitrogen 7y ago
they expect urban dwellers to subsidize the parking spot I think most urban commuter parking is paid, whether public or private, and the expectation is that a city charges appropriate property taxes on commercial buildings to cover any costs imposed by commuters.