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But this isn't how the world works. It's not Simcity where you lay down neat grids of zones and the dutiful citizens follow your orders. People will want to t
by treis 5y ago
But this isn't how the world works. It's not Simcity where you lay down neat grids of zones and the dutiful citizens follow your orders. People will want to take advantage of cheap(er) land alongside your "road" so that they can own a house while still having reasonable access to the "street". And boom now you have a stroad.
Attempting to use zoning to stop that runs into the problem that by and large people don't want to live in dense areas. Most of them want the cheap home in the burbs. And they'll vote for those that give it to them.
This is the root problem with Strongtowns and their ilk. They love to navel gaze and contemplate the platonic ideal of how a city should be laid out. But for the most part fail to provide a viable option that people can and will choose.
- woah 5y agoYou're wrong. People want to live in walkable cities. Property prices prove this.
- cozzyd 5y agoAnd the reason people often move out with kids is that it's too expensive to own a large-enough property for most people due to the high demand for walkable places.
- adgjlsfhk1 5y agothere's a very simple solution then. build more walkable places.
- cozzyd 5y agoIf only it were so simple. Building walkable places is illegal almost everywhere in the US due to onerous parking minimums, regulations about street design and restrictive zoning. It's still possible to build walkable places with highrises, but low-rise walkable areas like https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9181247,-87.6517955,3a,60y,71.84h,95.3t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sqinRW2vFZUSuqeKA70edlQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9181247,-87.6517955,3a,60y,7... are almost lost art in the US. There are entire major metro areas in the US with no street like this.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- captainmuon 5y agoI wonder why nobody just changes these regulations. Sure it's difficult and you won't get a majority in most places, but I find it hard to understand why not at least some cities designate a small area as a "model community" and relax zoning and parking requirements.
- cozzyd 5y agoThis is happening to some extent (e.g. Chicago removing parking minimums near transit stations, Houston removing parking minimums in two downtown-adjacent neighborhoods) but mainly only in large cities. Parking minimums are especially onerous since they almost ensure you can only build strip malls for retail.
- mcv 5y agoExactly. And it's those policies that need to change. But because this is such a lost art, and because Americans have been raised to believe in the car-centric suburban dream, most people don't even know that this is an option. It's a policy issue, but also an awareness issue.
- treis 5y agoWalkable places are inherently more expensive because they lack economy of scale. It's why Dunkin Donuts can sell a dozen for $10 but it costs ~$20 for half a dozen at my local walkable place. Granted, there is a quality of ingredients difference but not 4x the cost.
- cozzyd 5y agoThere are plenty of Dunkin Donuts stores in walkable places. I have a Dunks across the street from my condo and another one around the corner (and several others several blocks away). (I live in this area, which is VERY walkable: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8822495,-87.6254941,1122a,35y,3.11h/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8822495,-87.6254941,1122a,35...) It's true there are also other, superior, options, but that's a bonus!
- wilkommen 5y agoNo, it's the suburbs that lack economy of scale. The walkable areas contribute far more per acre in taxes than the suburbs. They also require fewer resources to maintain per person because they're physically smaller. The suburbs have such a paucity of "economies of scale" that municipalities around the country have gone into debt to support them. The reason donuts cost more at your local walkable place is because real estate prices are higher in walkable places, because walkable places are so in-demand that as a nation we've bid the prices of those places to the moon. So we ought to change our zoning rules so that the market can build more of them. That's the whole point of Strong Towns idea.
- QuarterReptile 5y agoPlus the Dunkin Donuts was gifted expensive public infrastructure since, in all likelihood, they have a 10 year tax incentive that prevents them from paying almost any property taxes.
- cozzyd 5y agoDunkin Donuts also doesn't bake their donuts on premises (with a few exceptions). Surprise, you can get even cheaper (and shittier) donuts at the dollar store!
- occz 5y agoIt's illegal to build them under most zoning laws in the U.S.
- fragmede 5y agoIs that actually true? That's absolutely true in SF, but the Bay Area is bonkers for lots of reasons, housing prices is a well known one so I want to be careful about extrapolating from there.
- danielvaughn 5y agoIt's true. The Not Just Bikes channel has a video on walkable neighborhoods in the US. They're all massively expensive because of the high quality of life. edit: here it is - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0
- treis 5y agoBut they choose not to. US population is roughly 1/2 suburban, 1/4 rural, and 1/4 urban. Which backs up my point.
- occz 5y ago>But they choose not to. US population is roughly 1/2 suburban, 1/4 rural, and 1/4 urban. Which backs up my point. With single-family zoning being the norm in the U.S, it would be unfair to call this a choice. The supply of other types of housing is severely constrained.
- whatshisface 5y agoThere may be forces at work behind that other than individual home preferences.
- cozzyd 5y agoThere are entire metro areas where there are effectively zero walkable areas. People there don't have much of a choice at all!
- hannasanarion 5y agoHow much of that is "choice"? People can only live in places that exist, and places that exist must be constructed in compliance with certain government standards, and the government standards for the US for the last fifty years have been all cars, all the time. In most places, it is illegal to build a house without a garage, or a bar without a parking space for every stool. The law mandates that everyone drive everywhere whether they want to or not.
- treis 5y agoNone of this is true. You can easily find dense walkable places to live. You will just pay more money for a much smaller house. Your living expenses will be higher. And you'll have to rely on public transportation which is a pain in the ass when you have small kids. It's easy to see why people choose the suburbs.
- bobthepanda 5y agowe do have roads where we prohibit driveways onto them. They're called Interstates. somehow we don't have massive issues with people illegally building driveways onto them. It kills me that US road planners don't even bother putting in medium-term solutions that would fix most of the issues, like a road with separated through lanes in the middle and a one-lane service road for the driveways.
- quantumwannabe 5y agoThose exist in some areas of the country. Here's an example: https://www.google.com/maps/@33.5823608,-111.9504203,3a,75y,306.11h,83.59t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sgHDu1gHhaG0bGcHeiNqkjA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@33.5823608,-111.9504203,3a,75y,...
- Baeocystin 5y agoLots of them in San Diego, too. Here's an example in Clairemont, which is an early post-war suburb. Note that the homes pictured are also 'missing middle' construction. https://www.google.com/maps/@32.8276267,-117.2033566,3a,75y,42.74h,84.9t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sk-ZsqIAi07i806QEKLl39g!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@32.8276267,-117.2033566,3a,75y,... https://missingmiddlehousing.com/ https://missingmiddlehousing.com/
- treis 5y agoThat's clearly a stroad. 1,000 feet away from where you linked to are shops and restaurants.
- bobthepanda 5y agoMy problem with this is that it is the exception and not the rule. Even this is the case; that type of service road access is only on one side of the road. This ofc doesn’t solve everything, like how crossing a super wide stroad is terrible for both cars and non-motorized users given the large number of conflict points, the long cycle times needed to move cars through fat intersections, etc.
- mcv 5y agoI just watched a video in response to this story that explained how zoning in North America is actually too much like SimCity, with very restrictive homogenous zoning and no mixed zoning at all. It's mixed zoning that allows people to live closer to the shops for their daily needs, and that reduces traffic. These shops aren't on the stroad because the US is an anarchy where everything goes, they're there because it's designed that way. But the design is inefficient and dangerous.
- QuarterReptile 5y ago>This is the root problem with Strongtowns and their ilk. They love to navel gaze and contemplate the platonic ideal of how a city should be laid out. But for the most part fail to provide a viable option that people can and will choose. They fail to provide a viable option because, as they point out, cities are complicated so universal prescriptions will fail. If no one in your place cares enough to come up with a local solution, then any intervention would have failed anyway, as we've seen for decades with aid work throughout the world. Most of what they do is showing that what we have now is on a predictable, medium-term trajectory to insolvency by its fundamental financial unsound structure. Their 'ilk', so much as they have any, would be Urban3, who do GIS mapping of financial productivity within cities. So, 'navel gazing', I guess.
- Vinnl 5y agoAnd yet somehow the country I live in has proper streets. I see that more often, where things are dismissed as "not viable" in the US even though they actually exist elsewhere.
- scrollaway 5y agoWhat. No, strong towns "and their ilk" (biased much?) provide an unlimited supply of solutions to a variety of problems. If you're not seeing them it's because you don't want to see them. There isn't a "now the city is better" red button you can hit. It takes a lot of effort to get there. One of the efforts is in fact a marketing one: you need to spread awareness of where the problems actually are and why they are a problem. Stroads are a good example; I had never realized they were a problem, but since I discovered them I've been noticing them whenever traveling and thinking a lot about the implications and how they could be redesigned in that spot. Stroads are very difficult to find in western Europe by the way, compared to the US. In some countries they're non existent. Clearly you're mistaken about how they can and will just appear out of nowhere. Maybe things are more nuanced and complex than your three second opinion lets on.
- timwaagh 5y agoYou might have a parallel street immediately next to the road but separate from it. That way people or business can be next to a road but will not block traffic. It's what we often do here. Those then will be connected to the road at some point via a side street. I have never seen a multi lane road with a lot of intersections and parking space next to it, immediately adjacent to stores. We don't have 'turning lanes' either. I'm really wondering whether they are cherry picking these things for badness or whether it's really very common in the States.