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Suburban land is cheaper to buy but far more expensive to service (water, electricity, roads, etc.) and maintain. https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-

Suburban land is cheaper to buy but far more expensive to service (water, electricity, roads, etc.) and maintain. https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-02/inside-the-new-suburban-crisis https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-02/inside-th... Cities are subsidizing your excessive consumption and land use not the other way around.

echelon 5y ago
> Cities are subsidizing your excessive consumption and land use not the other way around. You're making value judgments about me, and they're not even factual. I happen to live in the city. I just see the value of suburbs and the incredible waste, inequality, and ineptitude of cities. Servicing suburbs isn't expensive. With wind and solar, they'll grow even cheaper. Suburbs often have their own municipal water supplies paid for by their tax base. Roads aren't as expensive to build or maintain, and many people own trucks that can drive on dirt, gravel, and potholes. Cities have pollution that contribute to cancer and pulmonary diseases. Noise that increases stress. Busy people that have less sense of community. Name a city where an average American can even afford to buy a home.
- embedder 5y ago
  With wind and solar, everything grows cheaper. Single family homes are irrefutably less efficient than denser multi-family homes. https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2014-03/documents/location_efficiency_btu.pdf https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2014-03/documents/lo... I won’t disagree with your comments on noise and pollution, because those are real factors, but you are 100% moving goalposts now.
  - truffdog 5y ago
    Single family sprawl is more cost efficient than dense development when you include regulatory compliance.
    - freshpots 5y ago
      What regulatory compliance? Got any studies? Just from a logical perspective, companies don't build skyscrapers/increase density in cities to lose money.
      - truffdog 5y ago
        This is a reference to the NIMBY/YIMBY fight, where the YIMBY position is that most non-single-family-home developments, other than the super high end, have been effectively been made illegal through a combination of zoning laws, neighborhood review processes that add extraordinary costs, unreasonable requirements and delays, and other arbitrary veto points. The best intro points to the argument are probably still https://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO https://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B... or https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Gates-Fighting-Housing-America/dp/0525560211 https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Gates-Fighting-Housing-America... although neither is free.
  - kiba 5y ago
    Where is pollution coming from? Cars generate lot of noise and pollution when they through city streets or on highways. Motorcycles can be especially loud if nobody bother to muffle them.
- freshpots 5y ago
  I didn't intend to, I meant cities are subsidizing suburbia. You sure went off on a tangent and didn't address a single point, correctly - but mostly at all, I or the article made. Pipes are expensive, underground utilities are expensive, roads are expensive. All of those things scale much better within a city and its population & density. Servicing suburbs IS expensive compared to cities. Water is typically metered and paid for as a user rate not from the general tax fund. Sense of community is on you, not where you live. Either you're not getting involved or people don't want to be around you. You are talking right past me to be heard, with subjective facts, not to have a discussion.
- amrocha 5y ago
  Cities don't "have" pollution. The pollution is brought there by suburbanites driving their cars into the city, and by car-centric city design.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    Um, there are other sources of pollution besides cars...
    - amrocha 5y ago
      Cars are the main source of noise pollution and air pollution in cities, nothing else comes to mind. Factories and such were either moved to other continents, or zoning was updated to ban them in population centers. I guess fossil fuel combustion contributes as well, but that's on its way to becoming less of a problem.
thehappypm 5y ago
Is this really true though? Every infrastructure project in cities seems to cost billions of dollars (Boston’s Green Line Extension, New York’s 2nd Avenue Subway). It would take quite a lot of suburban road, gas, electric etc infrastructure to add up to anything close to that.
- kiba 5y ago
  They cost billion of dollars but they are also supporting places that also pays a lot more taxes. With suburbia, you get low cost infrastructure, but also low tax revenue. You better hope that your tax revenue exceeds the costs of supporting suburbia.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  The infrastructure costs in cities are more expensive but service many more people and economic activity, they are amortized much more efficiently than a suburban bridge to nowhere.
  - thehappypm 5y ago
    Is this true? As a case study, Boston’s population is about 700k, call it a million people living in a genuinely urban environment in greater Boston, of a metro area of 3 million. I think there’s more suburbanites than urbanites in most American metros.
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      Where do the suburbanites work? That tunnel, rail, or subway is allowing who to get into and out of the city easier? > The Green Line Extension (GLX) project will extend the existing MBTA Green Line service north of Lechmere Station and into the communities of Somerville, Cambridge, and Medford.
      - thehappypm 5y ago
        GLX is primarily about serving the urban community better.

echelon 5y ago

> Cities are subsidizing your excessive consumption and land use not the other way around. You're making value judgments about me, and they're not even factual. I happen to live in the city. I just see the value of suburbs and the incredible waste, inequality, and ineptitude of cities. Servicing suburbs isn't expensive. With wind and solar, they'll grow even cheaper. Suburbs often have their own municipal water supplies paid for by their tax base. Roads aren't as expensive to build or maintain, and many people own trucks that can drive on dirt, gravel, and potholes. Cities have pollution that contribute to cancer and pulmonary diseases. Noise that increases stress. Busy people that have less sense of community. Name a city where an average American can even afford to buy a home.

embedder 5y ago
With wind and solar, everything grows cheaper. Single family homes are irrefutably less efficient than denser multi-family homes. https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2014-03/documents/location_efficiency_btu.pdf https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2014-03/documents/lo... I won’t disagree with your comments on noise and pollution, because those are real factors, but you are 100% moving goalposts now.
- truffdog 5y ago
  Single family sprawl is more cost efficient than dense development when you include regulatory compliance.
  - freshpots 5y ago
    What regulatory compliance? Got any studies? Just from a logical perspective, companies don't build skyscrapers/increase density in cities to lose money.
    - truffdog 5y ago
      This is a reference to the NIMBY/YIMBY fight, where the YIMBY position is that most non-single-family-home developments, other than the super high end, have been effectively been made illegal through a combination of zoning laws, neighborhood review processes that add extraordinary costs, unreasonable requirements and delays, and other arbitrary veto points. The best intro points to the argument are probably still https://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO https://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B... or https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Gates-Fighting-Housing-America/dp/0525560211 https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Gates-Fighting-Housing-America... although neither is free.
- kiba 5y ago
  Where is pollution coming from? Cars generate lot of noise and pollution when they through city streets or on highways. Motorcycles can be especially loud if nobody bother to muffle them.
freshpots 5y ago
I didn't intend to, I meant cities are subsidizing suburbia. You sure went off on a tangent and didn't address a single point, correctly - but mostly at all, I or the article made. Pipes are expensive, underground utilities are expensive, roads are expensive. All of those things scale much better within a city and its population & density. Servicing suburbs IS expensive compared to cities. Water is typically metered and paid for as a user rate not from the general tax fund. Sense of community is on you, not where you live. Either you're not getting involved or people don't want to be around you. You are talking right past me to be heard, with subjective facts, not to have a discussion.
amrocha 5y ago
Cities don't "have" pollution. The pollution is brought there by suburbanites driving their cars into the city, and by car-centric city design.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  Um, there are other sources of pollution besides cars...
  - amrocha 5y ago
    Cars are the main source of noise pollution and air pollution in cities, nothing else comes to mind. Factories and such were either moved to other continents, or zoning was updated to ban them in population centers. I guess fossil fuel combustion contributes as well, but that's on its way to becoming less of a problem.

thehappypm 5y ago

Is this really true though? Every infrastructure project in cities seems to cost billions of dollars (Boston’s Green Line Extension, New York’s 2nd Avenue Subway). It would take quite a lot of suburban road, gas, electric etc infrastructure to add up to anything close to that.

kiba 5y ago
They cost billion of dollars but they are also supporting places that also pays a lot more taxes. With suburbia, you get low cost infrastructure, but also low tax revenue. You better hope that your tax revenue exceeds the costs of supporting suburbia.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
The infrastructure costs in cities are more expensive but service many more people and economic activity, they are amortized much more efficiently than a suburban bridge to nowhere.
- thehappypm 5y ago
  Is this true? As a case study, Boston’s population is about 700k, call it a million people living in a genuinely urban environment in greater Boston, of a metro area of 3 million. I think there’s more suburbanites than urbanites in most American metros.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    Where do the suburbanites work? That tunnel, rail, or subway is allowing who to get into and out of the city easier? > The Green Line Extension (GLX) project will extend the existing MBTA Green Line service north of Lechmere Station and into the communities of Somerville, Cambridge, and Medford.
    - thehappypm 5y ago
      GLX is primarily about serving the urban community better.