8 ms·

For those of us not affiliated with a University, is there a way to read the article without paying $37.50? Anecdotally, there's a lot of mythology in America

For those of us not affiliated with a University, is there a way to read the article without paying $37.50? Anecdotally, there's a lot of mythology in America about the supremacy of single family exclusive neighborhoods that's contradicted by actual numbers (mentioned in the abstract). There's also people's preference for the thing they know and at this point we have two generations that have grown up in single family exclusive neighborhoods. It's really difficult to soften this kind of opposition.

xyzzyz 5y ago
Use Sci Hub.
- sebmellen 5y ago
  Unfortunately Sci-Hub is not able to index all articles. See: http://sci-hub.se/10.1177/10780874211065776 http://sci-hub.se/10.1177/10780874211065776.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
AlbertCory 5y ago
Such loaded language! "mythology in America", "people's preference for the thing they know", "really difficult to soften this kind of opposition" Can you accept that your preferences are not shared by large numbers of people? And that they have free will and know what they want?
- nemothekid 5y ago
  It's a very hard pill to swallow when those preferences are built on flawed data, and those preferences lead to choices that massively increase housing prices, exacerbate homelessness, destroy local businesses and indirectly contributes to climate change through increased vehicle usage
  - uberman 5y ago
    You look only at the problem from your perspective. There are other perspectives as well. I'm not going to sugar coat it, public schooling is terrible in most dense large cities in America. Raising a kid in general is terrible in large cities. Without these perspectives it is bogus to claim "flawed data". Solve schooling and create safe places for children to grow and play without the need to constant adult supervision before condemning suburbia. I'm not saying that density is without merits but it is certainly not without flaws. BTW, I would love to know more about why you feel suburbia destroys local businesses and how it exacerbate homelessness, unless your argument is that higher density is more houses and thus fewer homeless. If you do believe this, you need to do some more research on the causes of chronic homelessness.
    - nemothekid 5y ago
      >I'm not going to sugar coat it, public schooling is terrible in most dense large cities in America. I don't see how this is relevant to housing, unless you also believe public schooling worldwide is terrible in most dense cities. It's a uniquely American problem that public schooling is terrible in all but the most elite of zip codes. Rural schools suffer the same problem too, and it has little to do with housing (except for, surprisingly, Texas, which allocates funding for schools at the state level). In short, in the US, school quality is not a function of density; it's a function of funding; and in the US school funding is primarily allocated from property taxes. >BTW, I would love to know more about why you feel suburbia destroys local businesses and how it exacerbate homelessness, Suburban zoning (as designed in America) lead to strip malls and big box dependence. When every store is 10 miles from each other, you end up in a situation where Walmart becomes the only game in town. Secondly, the parking requirements also increase the fixed costs for any business; which limits the type of businesses you can open. You can see this effect in a the types of businesses and restaurants you have in San Jose vs San Francisco. San Jose is a larger city than SF but is far more hostile to local businesses. To be clear, I'm not advocating that every city should be Manhattan. The missing middle housing (https://missingmiddlehousing.com/ https://missingmiddlehousing.com/) has been posted a number of times, and Not Just Bikes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0) goes into it as well. There's a middle ground that is better than American designed suburbs that aren't as suffocating as Manhattan.
- keawade 5y ago
  Yes, I can. However I am not convinced that is what has happened in the US and Canada's suburban development with regards to the overwhelming adoption of single family homes. Charles Marohn, a former city planner and engineer, has written about this "the free market has spoken" position as his own previous position on this topic which he no longer holds: > At this point in my life, I was a self-described free-market Republican with an outspoken passion for markets and my chosen profession of civil engineering, which to me was a technical way to say “city building.” If I had been pushed to reconcile my rejection of congestion pricing with my support for the free market, I would have had no problem. I would have said something like: > > Markets are about the expression of personal preference. It was clear that, since most people drove automobiles, auto-based infrastructure was the clear market preference. Since most people lived in single-family homes, they were also the clear market preference. Given those clear and obvious preferences—combined with the fact that people paid taxes and expected the government to respond to their desires—charging people more for something they already paid for was a ploy to benefit the rich. Instead of congestion pricing, the state should have been building more capacity. The ubiquity of a given mode of something, in this case single family homes in US and Canadian suburbs, is not necessarily evidence that people overwhelming want or support those modes. Especially if there is rarely, if ever, a true alternative available to actually choose instead. Further, even if we assume that the free market _did_ actually freely choose this mode that it should stand unquestioned in perpetuity. Needs and desires change as people and the world change together. 0: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/10/25/my-journey-from-free-market-ideologue-to-strong-towns-advocate-revisited https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/10/25/my-journey-fr...
  - AlbertCory 5y ago
    I don't find anything about houses in the first one. Can you share where the critical data is, so I don't have to read all seven? Anyone in the suburbs can move to the city if they want to, and the ubiquity of expensive downtown condo projects for empty-nesters demonstrates that a fair number do. So your citing of a lack of alternatives is pretty unconvincing. You're left with forcing people to do what they choose not to.
    - 5y ago
- Jackim 5y ago
  Free will is part of the equation, but when good mid-density housing has been illegal in North America since WWII is it really a question of free will?
  - AlbertCory 5y ago
    OK, let's ignore North America for a second [1] [2] and look at the whole world. I only find one country under 50% (barely!) and that's Hong Kong. I've been there; it's pretty crowded. Given that much or even most high-density housing in big cities is rental and not condo or other ownership, it does seem like most people worldwide prefer to own. I don't have the data on single-family vs. multi-unit. Canada and the US are nowhere near the top of the list. [1] https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/home-ownership-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/home-ownership-rat... [2] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-highest-home-ownership-rates.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-highe...
    - Jackim 5y ago
      I'm not sure why type of ownership pertains here? I would say that in North America, single-family zoning has become the dominant form because it's been the cheapest to build. It should not be the cheapest to build. We haven't been accounting for the externalities of increased land-use and transportation costs, but municipalities will increasingly bear that burden and taxpayers in denser areas will continue to subsidize the suburban lifestyle.
      - AlbertCory 5y ago
        > I'm not sure why type of ownership pertains here? I demonstrated the home ownership is well over 50% worldwide. I conceded that that might well be more condos / flats / coops in other countries, but I don't have that data. As for single-family being the cheapest to build: that is quite likely true worldwide outside of urban cores. If you think it's not, it's on you to prove it. If it IS true, then it's obviously not a US political problem.
- Daishiman 5y ago
  A preference uninformed by alternative ways of living. Having lived in suburbs, exurbs, dense and extremely dense cities, I find most people have no idea of the benefits and disadvantages of each place. My impression is that the vast majority of suburbanites live in thoroughly suboptimal conditions and that their health and social lives would be massively better served by living in more dense and walkable areas.
  - uberman 5y ago
    Try sending your children to the public schools in any dense city in America. You will then have a better understanding of the other perspective which I happen to currently view as "thoroughly suboptimal". For reference, I have lived in both SF and NYC.
  - AlbertCory 5y ago
    > the vast majority of suburbanites live in thoroughly suboptimal conditions and that their health and social lives would be massively better served by living in more dense and walkable areas. And yet, they don't believe that. What are you going to do, force them?
- cheriot 5y ago
  It's loaded for a reason: people are using the law to force their preference on others and ruining lives. There will always be single family detached housing, but making them the only legal thing drives up prices and commute times to insane levels.
  - AlbertCory 5y ago
    "ruining lives" -- LOL. Why not just say it's "actual violence"?
hdesh 5y ago
The author's webpage lists the article: https://faculty.ucmerced.edu/jtrounstine/Skittles_UAR_ALL.pdf https://faculty.ucmerced.edu/jtrounstine/Skittles_UAR_ALL.pd...
- cheriot 5y ago
  Thanks!
jerkstate 5y ago
Telling people that they are wrong to want a single family home is a statement with a short memory, when just a few short months ago the reasons for having private space for every occupant, some outside space, and separation from other families seemed very, very, very clear.
- cheriot 5y ago
  Who is telling you your preference is wrong? The problem is when people use the law to force their own preference on others. In residential zoning, that takes the form of forcing people into single family homes that would prefer walkable urban areas.
  - jerkstate 5y ago
    >The problem is when people use the law to force their own preference on others So we're in agreement, then? zoning should stay the way it is now?
    - cheriot 5y ago
      No, zoning laws are forcing your preferences on other people. They need to be significantly relaxed if not removed entirely. How about everyone can build the type of house they want on their own land.
      - uberman 5y ago
        Can I put a toxic waste dump on my property next to yours then? How about an incinerator, or an open pit mine? I mean if zoning laws should be removed and I can do whatever I want with my property?
        cheriot 5y ago
        That's the argument people fall back on to defend zoning: we have to separate industrial use from where people live! It does not follow that we need to regulate the number of kitchens and locations of doors in a house. Because kitchens and doors are often the only difference between a oneplex, duplex, triplex, and fourplex.

xyzzyz 5y ago

Use Sci Hub.

sebmellen 5y ago
Unfortunately Sci-Hub is not able to index all articles. See: http://sci-hub.se/10.1177/10780874211065776 http://sci-hub.se/10.1177/10780874211065776.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

AlbertCory 5y ago

Such loaded language! "mythology in America", "people's preference for the thing they know", "really difficult to soften this kind of opposition" Can you accept that your preferences are not shared by large numbers of people? And that they have free will and know what they want?

nemothekid 5y ago
It's a very hard pill to swallow when those preferences are built on flawed data, and those preferences lead to choices that massively increase housing prices, exacerbate homelessness, destroy local businesses and indirectly contributes to climate change through increased vehicle usage
- uberman 5y ago
  You look only at the problem from your perspective. There are other perspectives as well. I'm not going to sugar coat it, public schooling is terrible in most dense large cities in America. Raising a kid in general is terrible in large cities. Without these perspectives it is bogus to claim "flawed data". Solve schooling and create safe places for children to grow and play without the need to constant adult supervision before condemning suburbia. I'm not saying that density is without merits but it is certainly not without flaws. BTW, I would love to know more about why you feel suburbia destroys local businesses and how it exacerbate homelessness, unless your argument is that higher density is more houses and thus fewer homeless. If you do believe this, you need to do some more research on the causes of chronic homelessness.
  - nemothekid 5y ago
    >I'm not going to sugar coat it, public schooling is terrible in most dense large cities in America. I don't see how this is relevant to housing, unless you also believe public schooling worldwide is terrible in most dense cities. It's a uniquely American problem that public schooling is terrible in all but the most elite of zip codes. Rural schools suffer the same problem too, and it has little to do with housing (except for, surprisingly, Texas, which allocates funding for schools at the state level). In short, in the US, school quality is not a function of density; it's a function of funding; and in the US school funding is primarily allocated from property taxes. >BTW, I would love to know more about why you feel suburbia destroys local businesses and how it exacerbate homelessness, Suburban zoning (as designed in America) lead to strip malls and big box dependence. When every store is 10 miles from each other, you end up in a situation where Walmart becomes the only game in town. Secondly, the parking requirements also increase the fixed costs for any business; which limits the type of businesses you can open. You can see this effect in a the types of businesses and restaurants you have in San Jose vs San Francisco. San Jose is a larger city than SF but is far more hostile to local businesses. To be clear, I'm not advocating that every city should be Manhattan. The missing middle housing (https://missingmiddlehousing.com/ https://missingmiddlehousing.com/) has been posted a number of times, and Not Just Bikes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0) goes into it as well. There's a middle ground that is better than American designed suburbs that aren't as suffocating as Manhattan.
keawade 5y ago
Yes, I can. However I am not convinced that is what has happened in the US and Canada's suburban development with regards to the overwhelming adoption of single family homes. Charles Marohn, a former city planner and engineer, has written about this "the free market has spoken" position as his own previous position on this topic which he no longer holds: > At this point in my life, I was a self-described free-market Republican with an outspoken passion for markets and my chosen profession of civil engineering, which to me was a technical way to say “city building.” If I had been pushed to reconcile my rejection of congestion pricing with my support for the free market, I would have had no problem. I would have said something like: > > Markets are about the expression of personal preference. It was clear that, since most people drove automobiles, auto-based infrastructure was the clear market preference. Since most people lived in single-family homes, they were also the clear market preference. Given those clear and obvious preferences—combined with the fact that people paid taxes and expected the government to respond to their desires—charging people more for something they already paid for was a ploy to benefit the rich. Instead of congestion pricing, the state should have been building more capacity. The ubiquity of a given mode of something, in this case single family homes in US and Canadian suburbs, is not necessarily evidence that people overwhelming want or support those modes. Especially if there is rarely, if ever, a true alternative available to actually choose instead. Further, even if we assume that the free market _did_ actually freely choose this mode that it should stand unquestioned in perpetuity. Needs and desires change as people and the world change together. 0: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/10/25/my-journey-from-free-market-ideologue-to-strong-towns-advocate-revisited https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/10/25/my-journey-fr...
- AlbertCory 5y ago
  I don't find anything about houses in the first one. Can you share where the critical data is, so I don't have to read all seven? Anyone in the suburbs can move to the city if they want to, and the ubiquity of expensive downtown condo projects for empty-nesters demonstrates that a fair number do. So your citing of a lack of alternatives is pretty unconvincing. You're left with forcing people to do what they choose not to.
  - 5y ago
Jackim 5y ago
Free will is part of the equation, but when good mid-density housing has been illegal in North America since WWII is it really a question of free will?
- AlbertCory 5y ago
  OK, let's ignore North America for a second [1] [2] and look at the whole world. I only find one country under 50% (barely!) and that's Hong Kong. I've been there; it's pretty crowded. Given that much or even most high-density housing in big cities is rental and not condo or other ownership, it does seem like most people worldwide prefer to own. I don't have the data on single-family vs. multi-unit. Canada and the US are nowhere near the top of the list. [1] https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/home-ownership-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/home-ownership-rat... [2] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-highest-home-ownership-rates.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-highe...
  - Jackim 5y ago
    I'm not sure why type of ownership pertains here? I would say that in North America, single-family zoning has become the dominant form because it's been the cheapest to build. It should not be the cheapest to build. We haven't been accounting for the externalities of increased land-use and transportation costs, but municipalities will increasingly bear that burden and taxpayers in denser areas will continue to subsidize the suburban lifestyle.
    - AlbertCory 5y ago
      > I'm not sure why type of ownership pertains here? I demonstrated the home ownership is well over 50% worldwide. I conceded that that might well be more condos / flats / coops in other countries, but I don't have that data. As for single-family being the cheapest to build: that is quite likely true worldwide outside of urban cores. If you think it's not, it's on you to prove it. If it IS true, then it's obviously not a US political problem.
Daishiman 5y ago
A preference uninformed by alternative ways of living. Having lived in suburbs, exurbs, dense and extremely dense cities, I find most people have no idea of the benefits and disadvantages of each place. My impression is that the vast majority of suburbanites live in thoroughly suboptimal conditions and that their health and social lives would be massively better served by living in more dense and walkable areas.
- uberman 5y ago
  Try sending your children to the public schools in any dense city in America. You will then have a better understanding of the other perspective which I happen to currently view as "thoroughly suboptimal". For reference, I have lived in both SF and NYC.
- AlbertCory 5y ago
  > the vast majority of suburbanites live in thoroughly suboptimal conditions and that their health and social lives would be massively better served by living in more dense and walkable areas. And yet, they don't believe that. What are you going to do, force them?
cheriot 5y ago
It's loaded for a reason: people are using the law to force their preference on others and ruining lives. There will always be single family detached housing, but making them the only legal thing drives up prices and commute times to insane levels.
- AlbertCory 5y ago
  "ruining lives" -- LOL. Why not just say it's "actual violence"?

hdesh 5y ago

The author's webpage lists the article: https://faculty.ucmerced.edu/jtrounstine/Skittles_UAR_ALL.pdf https://faculty.ucmerced.edu/jtrounstine/Skittles_UAR_ALL.pd...

cheriot 5y ago
Thanks!

jerkstate 5y ago

Telling people that they are wrong to want a single family home is a statement with a short memory, when just a few short months ago the reasons for having private space for every occupant, some outside space, and separation from other families seemed very, very, very clear.

cheriot 5y ago
Who is telling you your preference is wrong? The problem is when people use the law to force their own preference on others. In residential zoning, that takes the form of forcing people into single family homes that would prefer walkable urban areas.
- jerkstate 5y ago
  >The problem is when people use the law to force their own preference on others So we're in agreement, then? zoning should stay the way it is now?
  - cheriot 5y ago
    No, zoning laws are forcing your preferences on other people. They need to be significantly relaxed if not removed entirely. How about everyone can build the type of house they want on their own land.
    - uberman 5y ago
      Can I put a toxic waste dump on my property next to yours then? How about an incinerator, or an open pit mine? I mean if zoning laws should be removed and I can do whatever I want with my property?
      - cheriot 5y ago
        That's the argument people fall back on to defend zoning: we have to separate industrial use from where people live! It does not follow that we need to regulate the number of kitchens and locations of doors in a house. Because kitchens and doors are often the only difference between a oneplex, duplex, triplex, and fourplex.