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The US government subsidizes houses in suburbs by guaranteeing mortgages and building toll free highways. Apartments are literally illegal to build in many area

The US government subsidizes houses in suburbs by guaranteeing mortgages and building toll free highways. Apartments are literally illegal to build in many areas (restrictive zoning). Property developers are mandated to include ample free parking. So in many places you are not allowed to have a different lifestyle than drive everywhere.

quantumwannabe 6y ago
First off, you get all the same mortgage benefits with a condo or townhouse; those benefits are not just for single family houses [1]. The Seattle area has an urban growth boundary [2, see the red line] that effectively bans construction of new single family housing. The Seattle government also makes it impossible to get a project approved if it has "too many" parking spots and the the vast majority of the transit system is not paid for by its riders: Sound Transit, Seattle's train and express buses, has around 30-40% farebox recovery of operating costs, and capital costs are fully subsidized [3, Page 8]. King County Metro, the bus system, has a farebox recovery of around 25%, again with capital costs being fully subsidized [4, last graph]. User fees (tolls, car registration, gas taxes, etc.) pay a far larger percentage of roads than this: Washington collects 63.5% of road spending from user fees, which is a figure that includes both capital (new roads) and operational (maintenance on existing roads) costs [5]. So someone living in the Seattle area who wants to have a "different lifestyle" has to pay to subsidize the government's preferred lifestyle. Seattle isn't the only region with a strong bias towards transit (especially with new development), so generalizing across the entire country isn't helpful as different areas have very different urban planning cultures. [1] https://www.irs.gov/publications/p530 https://www.irs.gov/publications/p530 [2] https://www.kingcounty.gov/property/permits/codes/growth/GMPC/~/media/property/permits/documents/GrowthManagement/CPP_ugb_gmpc_Map.ashx https://www.kingcounty.gov/property/permits/codes/growth/GMP... [3] https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2018-fare-revenue-report.pdf https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2... [4] https://kingcounty.gov/depts/transportation/metro/about/accountability-center/performance/financial/annual.aspx https://kingcounty.gov/depts/transportation/metro/about/acco... [5] https://taxfoundation.org/states-road-funding-2019/ https://taxfoundation.org/states-road-funding-2019/

quantumwannabe 6y ago

First off, you get all the same mortgage benefits with a condo or townhouse; those benefits are not just for single family houses [1]. The Seattle area has an urban growth boundary [2, see the red line] that effectively bans construction of new single family housing. The Seattle government also makes it impossible to get a project approved if it has "too many" parking spots and the the vast majority of the transit system is not paid for by its riders: Sound Transit, Seattle's train and express buses, has around 30-40% farebox recovery of operating costs, and capital costs are fully subsidized [3, Page 8]. King County Metro, the bus system, has a farebox recovery of around 25%, again with capital costs being fully subsidized [4, last graph]. User fees (tolls, car registration, gas taxes, etc.) pay a far larger percentage of roads than this: Washington collects 63.5% of road spending from user fees, which is a figure that includes both capital (new roads) and operational (maintenance on existing roads) costs [5]. So someone living in the Seattle area who wants to have a "different lifestyle" has to pay to subsidize the government's preferred lifestyle. Seattle isn't the only region with a strong bias towards transit (especially with new development), so generalizing across the entire country isn't helpful as different areas have very different urban planning cultures. [1] https://www.irs.gov/publications/p530 https://www.irs.gov/publications/p530 [2] https://www.kingcounty.gov/property/permits/codes/growth/GMPC/~/media/property/permits/documents/GrowthManagement/CPP_ugb_gmpc_Map.ashx https://www.kingcounty.gov/property/permits/codes/growth/GMP... [3] https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2018-fare-revenue-report.pdf https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2... [4] https://kingcounty.gov/depts/transportation/metro/about/accountability-center/performance/financial/annual.aspx https://kingcounty.gov/depts/transportation/metro/about/acco... [5] https://taxfoundation.org/states-road-funding-2019/ https://taxfoundation.org/states-road-funding-2019/