7 ms·

The demographic inversion of the American city.

63 points by rms 18y ago

dominik 18y ago
I've been working in Detroit this summer. I can confidently say: Detroit sure hasn't inverted.
siculars 18y ago
I live in NYC and, over the last decade, can attest to this reverse migration phenomena. The city is definitely becoming gentrified, safer and expensive. For the first time in years the city is expanding public grade school capacity in area long deserted by families.
- daniel-cussen 18y ago
  I vividly remember going to Manhattan in 1998 and not seeing a single child. (I was 12 at the time).
  - jimbokun 18y ago
    I remember moving to Manhattan in 2000, and not realizing at first almost all of the people pushing strollers around were not mothers, but nannies. The lack of physical resemblance to the children (nannies generally darker in skin tone) should have clued me in sooner.
- time_management 18y ago
  New York is probably the strangest case of this. Usually, before gentrification can occur, the housing stock must be upgraded, with laundry machines in each apartment and common spaces for each building. New York is gentrifying rapidly, but the housing stock remains of utterly terrible quality.
ojbyrne 18y ago
I think tourism is also part of this - I know that in Barcelona large numbers of the lower class were convinced to leave the downtown because they were causing problems for visitors (crime, poorly maintaining housing) - whereas gentrification side by side with hotels and sightseers works pretty well.
- falsestprophet 18y ago
  Can you convince a population to move somewhere else without doing something villainous?
  - ojbyrne 18y ago
    The article talks about the same thing happening in Chicago and its public housing projects. Basically gentrification does it for you. Prices go up, developers push to have crappy housing torn down, lower income people move out one way or another.
  - lacker 18y ago
    Sure - just add things like parks and restrictions on new construction that increase property values. This will lead to higher rents. The population that can't afford it will eventually have to move somewhere else.
    - Agathos 18y ago
      Restrictions on new construction to increase rents count as villainous in my book.
      - stcredzero 18y ago
        At some point, someone will have to post eviction notices, and the sheriff will have to show up and throw someone's stuff out on the sidewalk.
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
- wallflower 18y ago
  Eminent domain. Kelo v. New London "Here is where [Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day] O'Connor asks about the specific plans for the homes before the court, and Horton pulls out his Pareto-optimal town-planning schematic, and everyone on the bench briefly contemplates buying a new condo in Fort Trumbull, Conn." http://www.slate.com/id/2113868 http://www.slate.com/id/2113868
msluyter 18y ago
I live in Austin, TX, and can attest to a boom of downtown condo construction in the last few years. Most of these are 300k and up, which is a fair bit above the median house price (roughly 175k or so).
geebee 18y ago
It'll be interesting to see how this goes in the future. In San Francisco, there has been a huge resurgence in the number of families with small children. That's small children, not necessarily school aged children, which is why I'm still wait-and-see on this. I attended public elementary school in SF in the 70s, which surprises a lot of the parents I meet now (I have a three year old). I don't, unfortunately, have very encouraging things to say. It was a rough environment. Fights (and by that, I mean fist fights) were extremely common, even among eight year olds. Then again, a lot of people didn't enjoy school, so I'm not necessarily saying things were all peachy in Marin or Palo Alto. I have to wonder if the middle-class people will stick around once they are faced with difficult decisions about school. San Francisco still uses a lottery to determine school assignment, while wealthy suburbs guarantee you access to the "free" wealthy local school. I know a lot of people with three year olds, and I really like these folks, but very few of them grew up here, and I wonder how they'll react when the city tells them they've been assigned to a poorly performing school across town. Will they accept the assignment (hard to swallow)? Pay $17K+ for private schools (hard to do when you're struggling to make the mortgage payments)? Or will they just move out of the city? Keep in mind that SF is very expensive, just as pricey as these tony suburbs. It could be that city centers become wealthy, safe playgrounds for singles, retirees, and young couples who stick around until their children hit school age.
- hugh 18y ago
  Aren't fistfights between eight-year-olds common everywhere? It's the fistfights between 16-year-olds that indicate an area has problems.
  - geebee 18y ago
    Could be. They're definitely less dangerous than they become later in life. I really don't know how it was elsewhere. It irritates me when people think they know me better than I do, and I don't want to be guilty of acting that way toward someone else. When I transferred to private school in sixth grade, fights essentially vanished. Believe it or not, there was never a single fistfight in my high school.
rms 18y ago
This is even slowly happening in Pittsburgh, whereas until very recently absolutely no one has lived downtown and the area adjacent to downtown, uptown/"The Bluff" is the most blighted area in the entire city. I'm optimistic that the area will eventually revitalize; it's just that they just built a damn highway along the best riverfront land.
- time_management 18y ago
  You can thank Robert Moses, at least indirectly, for this. He was the one with the brilliant idea of placing highways along rivers, in order to provide the best views for the wealthy people who, in his mind, would be the primary users of the highway system.
- jimbokun 18y ago
  'the area adjacent to downtown, uptown/"The Bluff"' Isn't that The Hill (or am I not following your geography)?
  - rms 18y ago
    This map has a few too many subdivisions for my liking (no North Side?) but it's all here. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Pittsburgh_Pennsylvania_neighborhoods.svg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Pittsburgh_Pennsylva... The Hill District is on the hill above the Bluff -- if you drive from downtown to Oakland along Centre Ave you drive through The Hill and if you drive from Oakland to downtown along 5th then you drive through The Bluff.
    - jimbokun 18y ago
      That's an awesome map! Thanks for the link!
- mleonhard 18y ago
  Seattle also built an ugly elevated highway all along the riverfront. Since Seattle is built on a mountainside it doesn't spoil the views from/of the city, but the noise is very bad. They also built I-5 just 7 blocks away.
iamelgringo 18y ago
I was shocked to read that Chicago had torn down the Robert Taylor homes as well as the Cabrini Green projects. But, really, they had to go. I worked as an ER/trauma nurse in Chicago in the 90's. The year that I moved there, there were 994 murders within the city limits. That doesn't include the ones that we were able to patch back together. I'm sure that a large percentage of those murders happened within those housing projects. Between tearing the housing projects down, whatever Chicago PD is doing and the changing demographics of the city, the murder rate is half of what it was in the mid 90's. I'm sure that people can't really understand what those housing projects were like, but to give you a couple of examples--people use to snipe at police men and paramedics from the top of the buildings in the Cabrini Green projects. Cabrini Green was about 2 square miles of 10 story slums, and within those two square miles, there were two full police precincts. Paramedics would not enter the Cabrini Green projects unless they were escorted by one or two police cars. I worked two ER's within a mile of Cabrini Green. It was an adventure to say the least. One of them was a small 16 bed ER, and we staffed 6 security guards for our department. Every single ER stretcher had restraints to tie patients down, chained to the frame of the stretcher. There were a number of times that I got called out to the entry way to see a car parked, riddled with bullet holes. The driver and passengers usually had couple of holes in them as well that needed to be patched up. And, the Cabrini Green housing project was about 1 mile away from the "Gold Coast" of Chicago, which was one of the most expensive zip codes in the nation when we lived there. Mayor Daley slated Cabrini Green for removal, and last I heard, they had built a hip new development for the neo-urbanites moving in. So, they relocated thousands of the cities poorest people. And, they removed a bunch of gangs in the process. The crime rate went down quite a bit after that, but those people took their Section 8 vouchers to the local burbs. Those local burbs just don't have the resources or the tax base to deal with problems. Just Google for images of Gary, Indiana if you want to see what those local burbs are becoming. But, even back in the 90's, there was a lot of gentrification already occurring. One of the things the article didn't mention was how beneficial to the city it was to have a large gay and lesbian community. Some of the first areas of Chicago to get gentrified were because gay and lesbian couples who didn't have kids and didn't have to worry about the school system. They moved in to neighborhoods in Chicago like the Halstead neighborhood and Andersonville, and really turned them into hip, trendy and safe areas to live.
bmj 18y ago
One interesting bit from the article: Each morning, there are nearly as many people commuting out of the center to jobs in the suburbs as there are commuting in. As far as I'm concerned, this defeats the point, unless there is excellent public transportation to the suburbs. Another commenter mentioned Pittsburgh, and yep, this is even happening here. The developers, however, are very much pushing this toward "young" (read: single, or married without children) people. I don't think we'll see an influx of families/children into the downtown area (which is quite small by comparison) because there are very distinct urban neighborhoods with things like trees and grass within 5 miles of the city center. I can be in downtown Pittsburgh on my bike in 20 minutes, and I live near one of the rivers, have two parks within walking distance, and own a house that costs a fraction of what they are charging downtown. There are at least half a dozen other neighborhoods like this, too. Most of these neighborhoods also include a small business district with enough amenities to keep people in the neighborhood (and out of their cars).
- Chocobean 18y ago
  The developers, however, are very much pushing this toward "young" (read: single, or married without children) people. I don't think we'll see an influx of families/children into the downtown area A side effect of having singles or newly married folks is children. Families with children don't so much "influx" into new neighbourhoods like that as "spawn" there naturally.
  - bmj 18y ago
    This is true, but when there are amenities for families (playgrounds, green space in general, and schools) this is less likely happen, especially given that in Pittsburgh, at least, you can live in the city, within 5 miles of downtown, in a walkable neighborhood, for less money.
    - BrandonM 18y ago
      This description applies to Columbus, OH, as well.
- 18y ago
ckinnan 18y ago
Thank Rudy Giuliani and community policing and predictive law enforcement software for making cities relatively safe again.
- Retric 18y ago
  Thank video games and the gay community for making cities safe again.
- william42 18y ago
  Thank the end of the crack boom for making cities relatively safe again.
eru 18y ago
Are there really suburbs in America without sidewalks?
- pg 18y ago
  Most don't, I'd guess. The street I grew up on didn't have them.
- mleonhard 18y ago
  I live in downtown Seattle and walk or take public transportation. It feels strange to visit my parents in the suburbs of Atlanta. They recently moved about 10 miles further away from the city, to a new suburban wasteland of cheap but expensive oversized wooden houses and badly landscaped enormous lawns. There are no sidewalks in their neighborhood. The closest restaurant is at least 1/2 mile away. The main reason they moved is that had begun to feel unsafe in their previous neighborhood. Apparently a lot of poorer people have been moving out to the suburbs, some of them bringing crime and gangs. I'm glad that they enjoy their new house and neighborhood. But I wonder if it will still be a nice place to live when gas is $15/gallon. I could tolerate living in a suburb if there was public transportation to reach some decent restaurants. It would need to be a streetcar, train, or bus that runs every 20-30 minutes until midnight.
  - eru 18y ago
    In Germany we pay around $8.50/gallon for gas, now.
- Xichekolas 18y ago
  The suburbs around where I grew up had sidewalks... but no one used them. There was no point, you couldn't actually walk anywhere in under an hour. Oddly enough, we also had some local ordinance that you couldn't ride your bike on the sidewalks, which removed the last use we really had for them.
- biohacker42 18y ago
  Suburbs in America are a freaky place. Well off people, with no sidewalks, and nothing to do, not locally I mean. And absolutely nowhere to walk to within 20 minutes walking distance. With nothing to do anywhere withing walking distance, and no sidewalks, people almost never stroll through the neighborhood. The results is, absolutely no community feelings, most people don't know their neighbors. But because everyone is well off, there's no crime. It's like a chicken farm but for kids. Freaky I tell you.
jobeirne 18y ago
As a kid growing up in the nineties, the city seems the inherently obvious place for anyone who enjoys life to live. City-dwellers are flanked on all ends by some of the highest forms of functional art (architecture), not to mention the huge supply of dedicated people who spend waking hours forging enjoyment out of hard work. Cities seem to encapsulate all the qualities of youth. Unfortunately, residence in a prominent city seems to be growing more unattainable by the minute. This should not be the case. Cities, even during periods of prominent trendiness, should have cheap domiciles on account of the various methods of bulk housing construction used. Things like rent control provide a scathing impediment to the expansion and cost effectiveness of urban areas. Rent control, for example, is a hugely negative incentive for an entrepreneur to throw up a high rise. For my sake, I wish this were not the case, but I know I'll make it anyway.
- Chocobean 18y ago
  if i understand you correctly, you want trendy architecture and stuff to happen in an area with cheap housing without rent control...? is your city doing this, or do you have a plan for how that can be incorporated?
  - jobeirne 18y ago
    are you familiar with capitalism?
    - Chocobean 18y ago
      I'm not following. In a capitalistic society a trendy area of "high value" will push the prices up unless some sort of socialistic program like rent control steps in, no? My question was what's your take on how cheap residences can coexist in a trendy neighborhood.
      - jimbokun 18y ago
        No. People will just build more residences until supply and demand meet a happy medium. Rent control actively pushes prices up for everyone by discouraging new development (unless you win the rent control lottery). Of course, there will be certain ultra trendy neighborhoods that will still be out of reach for all but the wealthy. But allowing developers to build new residences in urban areas make it more likely that poor, just out of college graduates will have some place they can afford to live. And if you think it is not possible to build new residences in already urban areas: note the article says that residences in lower Manhattan have doubled to house 50,000 people since 2001.
BrandonM 18y ago
The era of the mom-and-pop grocer, the shoemaker, and the candy store has ended for good. I disagree with this idea. As we have seen on the Internet, the more people that one can reach at low cost, the more niche the needs a business can successfully fill. The best candidates to fill such niche needs are small startups, not corporations. If people with money are moving into the city, then by definition, more people can be reached at a lower cost. If these people have money, then they will be willing to spend it on something that improves their lives. The argument is really easy when you just look at shops today. Even without a rich population, the denser downtown areas are full of small businesses. In the suburbs, where people are more spread out, chains rule. In Europe, where the author claims this gentrification has already occurred in several places, are there not small town book stores, restaurants, coffee shops, and even shoemakers? I'm really curious what made the author even add this comment to begin with. It was like he was too afraid of saying that city life in the future is going to be wonderful, so he had to throw something negative in there.
- anamax 18y ago
  > The argument is really easy when you just look at shops today. Even without a rich population, the denser downtown areas are full of small businesses. In the suburbs, where people are more spread out, chains rule. Part of that is zoning. But, how many of those stores are bookstores? How many of them would have sold food if Webvan hadn't screwed the pooch? Frankly, I don't see the appeal of small stores, especially for things like drugs and food. The prices are higher, the selection is smaller, and they tend to have lousy hours (unless they're liquor stores). If they employ anyone outside the owner's family, they don't pay much and they don't pay benefits.

63 points by rms 18y ago

I've been working in Detroit this summer. I can confidently say: Detroit sure hasn't inverted.

I live in NYC and, over the last decade, can attest to this reverse migration phenomena. The city is definitely becoming gentrified, safer and expensive. For the first time in years the city is expanding public grade school capacity in area long deserted by families.

daniel-cussen 18y ago
I vividly remember going to Manhattan in 1998 and not seeing a single child. (I was 12 at the time).
- jimbokun 18y ago
  I remember moving to Manhattan in 2000, and not realizing at first almost all of the people pushing strollers around were not mothers, but nannies. The lack of physical resemblance to the children (nannies generally darker in skin tone) should have clued me in sooner.
time_management 18y ago
New York is probably the strangest case of this. Usually, before gentrification can occur, the housing stock must be upgraded, with laundry machines in each apartment and common spaces for each building. New York is gentrifying rapidly, but the housing stock remains of utterly terrible quality.

ojbyrne 18y ago

I think tourism is also part of this - I know that in Barcelona large numbers of the lower class were convinced to leave the downtown because they were causing problems for visitors (crime, poorly maintaining housing) - whereas gentrification side by side with hotels and sightseers works pretty well.

falsestprophet 18y ago
Can you convince a population to move somewhere else without doing something villainous?
- ojbyrne 18y ago
  The article talks about the same thing happening in Chicago and its public housing projects. Basically gentrification does it for you. Prices go up, developers push to have crappy housing torn down, lower income people move out one way or another.
- lacker 18y ago
  Sure - just add things like parks and restrictions on new construction that increase property values. This will lead to higher rents. The population that can't afford it will eventually have to move somewhere else.
  - Agathos 18y ago
    Restrictions on new construction to increase rents count as villainous in my book.
    - stcredzero 18y ago
      At some point, someone will have to post eviction notices, and the sheriff will have to show up and throw someone's stuff out on the sidewalk.
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
wallflower 18y ago
Eminent domain. Kelo v. New London "Here is where [Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day] O'Connor asks about the specific plans for the homes before the court, and Horton pulls out his Pareto-optimal town-planning schematic, and everyone on the bench briefly contemplates buying a new condo in Fort Trumbull, Conn." http://www.slate.com/id/2113868 http://www.slate.com/id/2113868

msluyter 18y ago

I live in Austin, TX, and can attest to a boom of downtown condo construction in the last few years. Most of these are 300k and up, which is a fair bit above the median house price (roughly 175k or so).

geebee 18y ago

It'll be interesting to see how this goes in the future. In San Francisco, there has been a huge resurgence in the number of families with small children. That's small children, not necessarily school aged children, which is why I'm still wait-and-see on this. I attended public elementary school in SF in the 70s, which surprises a lot of the parents I meet now (I have a three year old). I don't, unfortunately, have very encouraging things to say. It was a rough environment. Fights (and by that, I mean fist fights) were extremely common, even among eight year olds. Then again, a lot of people didn't enjoy school, so I'm not necessarily saying things were all peachy in Marin or Palo Alto. I have to wonder if the middle-class people will stick around once they are faced with difficult decisions about school. San Francisco still uses a lottery to determine school assignment, while wealthy suburbs guarantee you access to the "free" wealthy local school. I know a lot of people with three year olds, and I really like these folks, but very few of them grew up here, and I wonder how they'll react when the city tells them they've been assigned to a poorly performing school across town. Will they accept the assignment (hard to swallow)? Pay $17K+ for private schools (hard to do when you're struggling to make the mortgage payments)? Or will they just move out of the city? Keep in mind that SF is very expensive, just as pricey as these tony suburbs. It could be that city centers become wealthy, safe playgrounds for singles, retirees, and young couples who stick around until their children hit school age.

hugh 18y ago
Aren't fistfights between eight-year-olds common everywhere? It's the fistfights between 16-year-olds that indicate an area has problems.
- geebee 18y ago
  Could be. They're definitely less dangerous than they become later in life. I really don't know how it was elsewhere. It irritates me when people think they know me better than I do, and I don't want to be guilty of acting that way toward someone else. When I transferred to private school in sixth grade, fights essentially vanished. Believe it or not, there was never a single fistfight in my high school.

rms 18y ago

This is even slowly happening in Pittsburgh, whereas until very recently absolutely no one has lived downtown and the area adjacent to downtown, uptown/"The Bluff" is the most blighted area in the entire city. I'm optimistic that the area will eventually revitalize; it's just that they just built a damn highway along the best riverfront land.

time_management 18y ago
You can thank Robert Moses, at least indirectly, for this. He was the one with the brilliant idea of placing highways along rivers, in order to provide the best views for the wealthy people who, in his mind, would be the primary users of the highway system.
jimbokun 18y ago
'the area adjacent to downtown, uptown/"The Bluff"' Isn't that The Hill (or am I not following your geography)?
- rms 18y ago
  This map has a few too many subdivisions for my liking (no North Side?) but it's all here. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Pittsburgh_Pennsylvania_neighborhoods.svg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Pittsburgh_Pennsylva... The Hill District is on the hill above the Bluff -- if you drive from downtown to Oakland along Centre Ave you drive through The Hill and if you drive from Oakland to downtown along 5th then you drive through The Bluff.
  - jimbokun 18y ago
    That's an awesome map! Thanks for the link!
mleonhard 18y ago
Seattle also built an ugly elevated highway all along the riverfront. Since Seattle is built on a mountainside it doesn't spoil the views from/of the city, but the noise is very bad. They also built I-5 just 7 blocks away.

iamelgringo 18y ago

I was shocked to read that Chicago had torn down the Robert Taylor homes as well as the Cabrini Green projects. But, really, they had to go. I worked as an ER/trauma nurse in Chicago in the 90's. The year that I moved there, there were 994 murders within the city limits. That doesn't include the ones that we were able to patch back together. I'm sure that a large percentage of those murders happened within those housing projects. Between tearing the housing projects down, whatever Chicago PD is doing and the changing demographics of the city, the murder rate is half of what it was in the mid 90's. I'm sure that people can't really understand what those housing projects were like, but to give you a couple of examples--people use to snipe at police men and paramedics from the top of the buildings in the Cabrini Green projects. Cabrini Green was about 2 square miles of 10 story slums, and within those two square miles, there were two full police precincts. Paramedics would not enter the Cabrini Green projects unless they were escorted by one or two police cars. I worked two ER's within a mile of Cabrini Green. It was an adventure to say the least. One of them was a small 16 bed ER, and we staffed 6 security guards for our department. Every single ER stretcher had restraints to tie patients down, chained to the frame of the stretcher. There were a number of times that I got called out to the entry way to see a car parked, riddled with bullet holes. The driver and passengers usually had couple of holes in them as well that needed to be patched up. And, the Cabrini Green housing project was about 1 mile away from the "Gold Coast" of Chicago, which was one of the most expensive zip codes in the nation when we lived there. Mayor Daley slated Cabrini Green for removal, and last I heard, they had built a hip new development for the neo-urbanites moving in. So, they relocated thousands of the cities poorest people. And, they removed a bunch of gangs in the process. The crime rate went down quite a bit after that, but those people took their Section 8 vouchers to the local burbs. Those local burbs just don't have the resources or the tax base to deal with problems. Just Google for images of Gary, Indiana if you want to see what those local burbs are becoming. But, even back in the 90's, there was a lot of gentrification already occurring. One of the things the article didn't mention was how beneficial to the city it was to have a large gay and lesbian community. Some of the first areas of Chicago to get gentrified were because gay and lesbian couples who didn't have kids and didn't have to worry about the school system. They moved in to neighborhoods in Chicago like the Halstead neighborhood and Andersonville, and really turned them into hip, trendy and safe areas to live.

bmj 18y ago

One interesting bit from the article: Each morning, there are nearly as many people commuting out of the center to jobs in the suburbs as there are commuting in. As far as I'm concerned, this defeats the point, unless there is excellent public transportation to the suburbs. Another commenter mentioned Pittsburgh, and yep, this is even happening here. The developers, however, are very much pushing this toward "young" (read: single, or married without children) people. I don't think we'll see an influx of families/children into the downtown area (which is quite small by comparison) because there are very distinct urban neighborhoods with things like trees and grass within 5 miles of the city center. I can be in downtown Pittsburgh on my bike in 20 minutes, and I live near one of the rivers, have two parks within walking distance, and own a house that costs a fraction of what they are charging downtown. There are at least half a dozen other neighborhoods like this, too. Most of these neighborhoods also include a small business district with enough amenities to keep people in the neighborhood (and out of their cars).

Chocobean 18y ago
The developers, however, are very much pushing this toward "young" (read: single, or married without children) people. I don't think we'll see an influx of families/children into the downtown area A side effect of having singles or newly married folks is children. Families with children don't so much "influx" into new neighbourhoods like that as "spawn" there naturally.
- bmj 18y ago
  This is true, but when there are amenities for families (playgrounds, green space in general, and schools) this is less likely happen, especially given that in Pittsburgh, at least, you can live in the city, within 5 miles of downtown, in a walkable neighborhood, for less money.
  - BrandonM 18y ago
    This description applies to Columbus, OH, as well.
18y ago

ckinnan 18y ago

Thank Rudy Giuliani and community policing and predictive law enforcement software for making cities relatively safe again.

Retric 18y ago
Thank video games and the gay community for making cities safe again.
william42 18y ago
Thank the end of the crack boom for making cities relatively safe again.

eru 18y ago

Are there really suburbs in America without sidewalks?

pg 18y ago
Most don't, I'd guess. The street I grew up on didn't have them.
mleonhard 18y ago
I live in downtown Seattle and walk or take public transportation. It feels strange to visit my parents in the suburbs of Atlanta. They recently moved about 10 miles further away from the city, to a new suburban wasteland of cheap but expensive oversized wooden houses and badly landscaped enormous lawns. There are no sidewalks in their neighborhood. The closest restaurant is at least 1/2 mile away. The main reason they moved is that had begun to feel unsafe in their previous neighborhood. Apparently a lot of poorer people have been moving out to the suburbs, some of them bringing crime and gangs. I'm glad that they enjoy their new house and neighborhood. But I wonder if it will still be a nice place to live when gas is $15/gallon. I could tolerate living in a suburb if there was public transportation to reach some decent restaurants. It would need to be a streetcar, train, or bus that runs every 20-30 minutes until midnight.
- eru 18y ago
  In Germany we pay around $8.50/gallon for gas, now.
Xichekolas 18y ago
The suburbs around where I grew up had sidewalks... but no one used them. There was no point, you couldn't actually walk anywhere in under an hour. Oddly enough, we also had some local ordinance that you couldn't ride your bike on the sidewalks, which removed the last use we really had for them.
biohacker42 18y ago
Suburbs in America are a freaky place. Well off people, with no sidewalks, and nothing to do, not locally I mean. And absolutely nowhere to walk to within 20 minutes walking distance. With nothing to do anywhere withing walking distance, and no sidewalks, people almost never stroll through the neighborhood. The results is, absolutely no community feelings, most people don't know their neighbors. But because everyone is well off, there's no crime. It's like a chicken farm but for kids. Freaky I tell you.

jobeirne 18y ago

As a kid growing up in the nineties, the city seems the inherently obvious place for anyone who enjoys life to live. City-dwellers are flanked on all ends by some of the highest forms of functional art (architecture), not to mention the huge supply of dedicated people who spend waking hours forging enjoyment out of hard work. Cities seem to encapsulate all the qualities of youth. Unfortunately, residence in a prominent city seems to be growing more unattainable by the minute. This should not be the case. Cities, even during periods of prominent trendiness, should have cheap domiciles on account of the various methods of bulk housing construction used. Things like rent control provide a scathing impediment to the expansion and cost effectiveness of urban areas. Rent control, for example, is a hugely negative incentive for an entrepreneur to throw up a high rise. For my sake, I wish this were not the case, but I know I'll make it anyway.

Chocobean 18y ago
if i understand you correctly, you want trendy architecture and stuff to happen in an area with cheap housing without rent control...? is your city doing this, or do you have a plan for how that can be incorporated?
- jobeirne 18y ago
  are you familiar with capitalism?
  - Chocobean 18y ago
    I'm not following. In a capitalistic society a trendy area of "high value" will push the prices up unless some sort of socialistic program like rent control steps in, no? My question was what's your take on how cheap residences can coexist in a trendy neighborhood.
    - jimbokun 18y ago
      No. People will just build more residences until supply and demand meet a happy medium. Rent control actively pushes prices up for everyone by discouraging new development (unless you win the rent control lottery). Of course, there will be certain ultra trendy neighborhoods that will still be out of reach for all but the wealthy. But allowing developers to build new residences in urban areas make it more likely that poor, just out of college graduates will have some place they can afford to live. And if you think it is not possible to build new residences in already urban areas: note the article says that residences in lower Manhattan have doubled to house 50,000 people since 2001.

BrandonM 18y ago

The era of the mom-and-pop grocer, the shoemaker, and the candy store has ended for good. I disagree with this idea. As we have seen on the Internet, the more people that one can reach at low cost, the more niche the needs a business can successfully fill. The best candidates to fill such niche needs are small startups, not corporations. If people with money are moving into the city, then by definition, more people can be reached at a lower cost. If these people have money, then they will be willing to spend it on something that improves their lives. The argument is really easy when you just look at shops today. Even without a rich population, the denser downtown areas are full of small businesses. In the suburbs, where people are more spread out, chains rule. In Europe, where the author claims this gentrification has already occurred in several places, are there not small town book stores, restaurants, coffee shops, and even shoemakers? I'm really curious what made the author even add this comment to begin with. It was like he was too afraid of saying that city life in the future is going to be wonderful, so he had to throw something negative in there.

anamax 18y ago
> The argument is really easy when you just look at shops today. Even without a rich population, the denser downtown areas are full of small businesses. In the suburbs, where people are more spread out, chains rule. Part of that is zoning. But, how many of those stores are bookstores? How many of them would have sold food if Webvan hadn't screwed the pooch? Frankly, I don't see the appeal of small stores, especially for things like drugs and food. The prices are higher, the selection is smaller, and they tend to have lousy hours (unless they're liquor stores). If they employ anyone outside the owner's family, they don't pay much and they don't pay benefits.