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Though it's the road expansion itself that often leads to more sprawl. Every trip taken is an economic activity that would not have otherwise occurred. Traffi

Though it's the road expansion itself that often leads to more sprawl. Every trip taken is an economic activity that would not have otherwise occurred. Traffic is commerce. Sprawl allows the middle class to continue to exist. More people, more property taxes, more fuel taxes, more money for roads.

ryukafalz 5y ago
Sprawl allows the middle class to continue to exist? There are plenty of places that don't have nearly the level of sprawl that we have in the US; does the middle class not exist there? (Japan, for example.) More money for roads? If the population increases but is pushed to the periphery, requiring new roads to support them, aren't we just digging ourselves in deeper? How does that pay for the existing roads?
- mcguire 5y ago
  "Sprawl allows the middle class to continue to exist? There are plenty of places that don't have nearly the level of sprawl that we have in the US; does the middle class not exist there? (Japan, for example.)" I can't really speak to the existence of the middle class but I'll just leave this here: "An astonishing fact: 92 percent of Japanese [like many countries including the US] consider themselves middle-class, according to a labor ministry report published in 2019. That seems to clash with another fact: that nearly 40 percent of Japan’s work force is employed on a part-time or temporary basis, earning less and more vulnerable to layoffs than regular company employees." Anyway, this is interesting: https://resources.realestate.co.jp/rent/what-is-the-average-rent-in-tokyo-2020-ranking-by-ward-and-layout/ https://resources.realestate.co.jp/rent/what-is-the-average-... A 1K/1DK (1 bedroom) apartment in the Central Six wards of Tokyo averages 106,000Y per month. The other 17 wards average 72,000Y. A 1K/1DK apartment in Saitama (https://resources.realestate.co.jp/rent/what-is-the-average-rent-in-saitama/ https://resources.realestate.co.jp/rent/what-is-the-average-...) is 49,000Y. That's ~30-45 min by car or 40 min to 1hr by train (according to Google); i.e. kinda sprawly. I can't find a median wage for Japan, but the average seems to be about 300,000Y per month, meaning that apartment in the Central Six is out of reach, the other wards would be doable, and outside Tokyo proper would be very doable.
- modriano 5y ago
  But the reason Japan doesn't have this kind of sprawl is that buildings are depreciating assets in Japan with an expected lifespan between 20 and 40 years, which both creates regular opportunities to build higher occupancy buildings and eliminates the paralyzing financial incentives for restricting housing supply [0]. In the US, real estate is the dominant store of wealth for a plurality of Americans, which is why we see such fierce opposition to development. Dense accumulations of people affords great economic opportunities which attract more people, but people need somewhere to live, and if the supply of housing is held far below the demand, prices rise and push out people who can't afford said prices. So people who can't afford sufficient housing within commuting range of economic opportunities within their abilities can either A) forgo the benefits of metropolitan living, B) search the fringes of the metropolitan area for places they can afford/are allowed to build, or C) become homeless. It would be great if we could just nationally eradicate the regulations, ordinances, zoning codes, etc that cities and towns use to prevent development, but I don't think the 10th amendment allows for that kind of law. And without more housing, there will be sprawl. [0] https://www.rethinktokyo.com/2018/06/06/depreciate-limited-life-span-japanese-home/1527843245l https://www.rethinktokyo.com/2018/06/06/depreciate-limited-l...
  - wombatpm 5y ago
    If you want to see no zoning in action go to Houston, TX. You can build anything anywhere. You will find a stately mansion next door to a gas station and a titty bar. The result has been the rise of MasterPlan communities and developments. See SugarLand, TX. Imagine your homeowners association with the power to regulate and control businesses in it's area as well.
    - modriano 5y ago
      That's not true. It's correct that Houston's building restrictions aren't referred to as "zoning", but Houston absolutely has regulations and ordinances that produce the same effect [0][1]. [0] https://youtu.be/TaU1UH_3B5k https://youtu.be/TaU1UH_3B5k [1] https://www.houstontx.gov/planning/DevelopRegs/ https://www.houstontx.gov/planning/DevelopRegs/
klyrs 5y ago
A tale of two cities: In city A, I walk from my apartment to the corner store In city B, there's no corner stores in my subdivision. There's a gas station 5 miles away, about half a mile within the subdivision, but mostly on a major road or highway. Both trips are "economic activity," but one is extremely inefficient. What should be a painless transaction is full of friction and is detrimental to other users of the major road.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  In city B, you have a private backyard, an outdoor kitchen with grill, a private pool, and you only have to drive to the store once a month because you have room for a real freezer and pantry. And you pay less per month than city A.
  - ryukafalz 5y ago
    And you have a much greater environmental impact with all that driving, detached homes being worse at retaining heat than attached ones, etc. How many years do we have left to slash our emissions again? > And you pay less per month than city A. That's a consequence of us basically not building anything like city A for the last several decades.
    - nitrogen 5y ago
      How many years do we have left to slash our emissions again? How many years to we have to keep listening to the "stop living your ugly human lives" rhetoric before we realize that the "save the trees" activists caused insane amounts of pollution and death through uncontrolled wildfires, the "anti-nuke" activists directly caused global warming, and the idea of an individual carbon footprint was a creation of oil companies to distract from systemic solutions to systemic problems? You solve problems of scale at scale. If people want something en masse, you figure out how to make that thing efficient. If people want something that is currently bad, figure out how to make it good. The more energy we can consume sustainably per capita, the better. Now make that energy carbon-free, at the system level. If you want people to pack into cities like sardines, make it actually better, quieter, cleaner, and cheaper, even for people with kids and dogs and hobbies and kayaks. My years lived in various parts of supposedly good cities have been noisier, dirtier, tinier, slower (it takes up to two hours to go a few miles by any mode of transportation -- that's a lot of wasted fuel) and more expensive than elsewhere. You don't tell people to lower their energy, you build desirable technologies that use less energy automatically, and most importantly, raise the energy consumption level that is sustainable by building more carbon-free power ASAP.
avs733 5y ago
You pretty much just described a ponzu scheme. If we perpetually need more than we will never have enough as we head towards/are in a negative feedback loop of sustainable maintenance.

ryukafalz 5y ago

Sprawl allows the middle class to continue to exist? There are plenty of places that don't have nearly the level of sprawl that we have in the US; does the middle class not exist there? (Japan, for example.) More money for roads? If the population increases but is pushed to the periphery, requiring new roads to support them, aren't we just digging ourselves in deeper? How does that pay for the existing roads?

mcguire 5y ago
"Sprawl allows the middle class to continue to exist? There are plenty of places that don't have nearly the level of sprawl that we have in the US; does the middle class not exist there? (Japan, for example.)" I can't really speak to the existence of the middle class but I'll just leave this here: "An astonishing fact: 92 percent of Japanese [like many countries including the US] consider themselves middle-class, according to a labor ministry report published in 2019. That seems to clash with another fact: that nearly 40 percent of Japan’s work force is employed on a part-time or temporary basis, earning less and more vulnerable to layoffs than regular company employees." Anyway, this is interesting: https://resources.realestate.co.jp/rent/what-is-the-average-rent-in-tokyo-2020-ranking-by-ward-and-layout/ https://resources.realestate.co.jp/rent/what-is-the-average-... A 1K/1DK (1 bedroom) apartment in the Central Six wards of Tokyo averages 106,000Y per month. The other 17 wards average 72,000Y. A 1K/1DK apartment in Saitama (https://resources.realestate.co.jp/rent/what-is-the-average-rent-in-saitama/ https://resources.realestate.co.jp/rent/what-is-the-average-...) is 49,000Y. That's ~30-45 min by car or 40 min to 1hr by train (according to Google); i.e. kinda sprawly. I can't find a median wage for Japan, but the average seems to be about 300,000Y per month, meaning that apartment in the Central Six is out of reach, the other wards would be doable, and outside Tokyo proper would be very doable.
modriano 5y ago
But the reason Japan doesn't have this kind of sprawl is that buildings are depreciating assets in Japan with an expected lifespan between 20 and 40 years, which both creates regular opportunities to build higher occupancy buildings and eliminates the paralyzing financial incentives for restricting housing supply [0]. In the US, real estate is the dominant store of wealth for a plurality of Americans, which is why we see such fierce opposition to development. Dense accumulations of people affords great economic opportunities which attract more people, but people need somewhere to live, and if the supply of housing is held far below the demand, prices rise and push out people who can't afford said prices. So people who can't afford sufficient housing within commuting range of economic opportunities within their abilities can either A) forgo the benefits of metropolitan living, B) search the fringes of the metropolitan area for places they can afford/are allowed to build, or C) become homeless. It would be great if we could just nationally eradicate the regulations, ordinances, zoning codes, etc that cities and towns use to prevent development, but I don't think the 10th amendment allows for that kind of law. And without more housing, there will be sprawl. [0] https://www.rethinktokyo.com/2018/06/06/depreciate-limited-life-span-japanese-home/1527843245l https://www.rethinktokyo.com/2018/06/06/depreciate-limited-l...
- wombatpm 5y ago
  If you want to see no zoning in action go to Houston, TX. You can build anything anywhere. You will find a stately mansion next door to a gas station and a titty bar. The result has been the rise of MasterPlan communities and developments. See SugarLand, TX. Imagine your homeowners association with the power to regulate and control businesses in it's area as well.
  - modriano 5y ago
    That's not true. It's correct that Houston's building restrictions aren't referred to as "zoning", but Houston absolutely has regulations and ordinances that produce the same effect [0][1]. [0] https://youtu.be/TaU1UH_3B5k https://youtu.be/TaU1UH_3B5k [1] https://www.houstontx.gov/planning/DevelopRegs/ https://www.houstontx.gov/planning/DevelopRegs/

klyrs 5y ago

A tale of two cities: In city A, I walk from my apartment to the corner store In city B, there's no corner stores in my subdivision. There's a gas station 5 miles away, about half a mile within the subdivision, but mostly on a major road or highway. Both trips are "economic activity," but one is extremely inefficient. What should be a painless transaction is full of friction and is detrimental to other users of the major road.

nitrogen 5y ago
In city B, you have a private backyard, an outdoor kitchen with grill, a private pool, and you only have to drive to the store once a month because you have room for a real freezer and pantry. And you pay less per month than city A.
- ryukafalz 5y ago
  And you have a much greater environmental impact with all that driving, detached homes being worse at retaining heat than attached ones, etc. How many years do we have left to slash our emissions again? > And you pay less per month than city A. That's a consequence of us basically not building anything like city A for the last several decades.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    How many years do we have left to slash our emissions again? How many years to we have to keep listening to the "stop living your ugly human lives" rhetoric before we realize that the "save the trees" activists caused insane amounts of pollution and death through uncontrolled wildfires, the "anti-nuke" activists directly caused global warming, and the idea of an individual carbon footprint was a creation of oil companies to distract from systemic solutions to systemic problems? You solve problems of scale at scale. If people want something en masse, you figure out how to make that thing efficient. If people want something that is currently bad, figure out how to make it good. The more energy we can consume sustainably per capita, the better. Now make that energy carbon-free, at the system level. If you want people to pack into cities like sardines, make it actually better, quieter, cleaner, and cheaper, even for people with kids and dogs and hobbies and kayaks. My years lived in various parts of supposedly good cities have been noisier, dirtier, tinier, slower (it takes up to two hours to go a few miles by any mode of transportation -- that's a lot of wasted fuel) and more expensive than elsewhere. You don't tell people to lower their energy, you build desirable technologies that use less energy automatically, and most importantly, raise the energy consumption level that is sustainable by building more carbon-free power ASAP.

avs733 5y ago

You pretty much just described a ponzu scheme. If we perpetually need more than we will never have enough as we head towards/are in a negative feedback loop of sustainable maintenance.