3 ms·

> And, don't we just call suburbs without a city center, you know, towns? Towns still typically need to manage their own utilities while suburbs don't.

danaris 4y ago
But towns that manage their own utilities do exist. That suggests that suburbs are not fundamentally unsustainable, they just need to adjust their calculations and expectations.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Exactly. I'm in a smallish town that owns its own power and water utility and maintains its own roads, and isn't "wealthy" or "exceptionally taxed" compared to other areas. I suspect there are bad suburbs somewhere, but here ain't it.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > I'm in a smallish town that owns its own power and water utility and maintains its own roads, and isn't "wealthy" or "exceptionally taxed" compared to other areas Are you in a net contributor state as well? I live in a similar town, but it's in Wyoming, a state which benefits from federal transfers from urban centers.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Not sure, is there a list of "net contributor" states? And I suspect those look at federal budgets only, and ignore the other methods of "contributing".
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > is there a list of "net contributor" states? Yup [1]. > ignore the other methods of "contributing" Nobody is arguing we write off New Mexico, Mississippi or West Virginia. But their lifestyles are subsidized by Delaware (special case), Minnesota, New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut and New York. (Scaling the net contribution to GDP removes much of the partisan slant introduced by urban centers having more people, and thus bigger numbers, as well as leaning blue.) [1] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2011/08/01/the-red-and-the-black https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2011/08/01/the-red-...
      - HelpfulLinkp 4y ago
        [dead]
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - heyda 4y ago
    That's not really how funding works though. Say a company bids to build or refurbish a new street, the money paid to the company comes from a variety of pools, local, state, federal and utilities, to get funding from the different organizations the contract usually have multiple requirements like 'must build pipes for sewage, power, internet, ect' and the funding percentages of the project will depend on whats being built and where. That said, the people living in those houses will likely also pay state/federal taxes and utilities so its more complex. You also can't expect local towns or cities to foot the complete for big projects like highway overpasses and bridges and stuff, so how much a city contributes to infrastructure and gets back is harder to say.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  Yeah, I would agree with that. It's not that towns shouldn't exist, they should, it's that the weird no-man's land suburbs probably shouldn't.
  - danaris 4y ago
    But my point is: Why not? I have yet to see anything that points to them being fundamentally worse than towns: if you just treat them as Towns Next To Cities, it seems like you solve the vast majority of the problems.
    - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
      Because right now most don't and instead become cancerous growths on a city rather than their own financially independent communities. Where I live the suburbs aren't their own towns and that's where the problem is.
ghaff 4y ago
Suburbs are towns (or small cities) in many parts of the US. I'm not sure it's even especially common in the US for cities to expand to engulf the whole surrounding area with a single central government. Although there are certainly examples such as Houston, I believe.
- dionidium 4y ago
  Annexation happened a lot in the U.S. but it didn't happen everywhere. Some places, like my hometown of St. Louis, are practically defined by the lack of annexation (although, even in that most famous case, St. Louis did annex several suburbs in the 19th Century, before its Great Divorce). Other places, like Chicago or NYC, pretty famously annexed practically everything around them. (Brooklyn was even once its own city.)
  - ghaff 4y ago
    It's probably more common out West. In New England, while Boston did annex some neighboring communities, Cambridge and Somerville are still separate cities. And get just a little bit further out and you have a bunch of clumps of a few thousand people that are independent towns. I used to work with someone from Australia who could never get over all the 5,000 person towns with their own school system, various boards, etc.

danaris 4y ago

But towns that manage their own utilities do exist. That suggests that suburbs are not fundamentally unsustainable, they just need to adjust their calculations and expectations.

bombcar 4y ago
Exactly. I'm in a smallish town that owns its own power and water utility and maintains its own roads, and isn't "wealthy" or "exceptionally taxed" compared to other areas. I suspect there are bad suburbs somewhere, but here ain't it.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > I'm in a smallish town that owns its own power and water utility and maintains its own roads, and isn't "wealthy" or "exceptionally taxed" compared to other areas Are you in a net contributor state as well? I live in a similar town, but it's in Wyoming, a state which benefits from federal transfers from urban centers.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Not sure, is there a list of "net contributor" states? And I suspect those look at federal budgets only, and ignore the other methods of "contributing".
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > is there a list of "net contributor" states? Yup [1]. > ignore the other methods of "contributing" Nobody is arguing we write off New Mexico, Mississippi or West Virginia. But their lifestyles are subsidized by Delaware (special case), Minnesota, New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut and New York. (Scaling the net contribution to GDP removes much of the partisan slant introduced by urban centers having more people, and thus bigger numbers, as well as leaning blue.) [1] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2011/08/01/the-red-and-the-black https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2011/08/01/the-red-...
    - HelpfulLinkp 4y ago
      [dead]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- heyda 4y ago
  That's not really how funding works though. Say a company bids to build or refurbish a new street, the money paid to the company comes from a variety of pools, local, state, federal and utilities, to get funding from the different organizations the contract usually have multiple requirements like 'must build pipes for sewage, power, internet, ect' and the funding percentages of the project will depend on whats being built and where. That said, the people living in those houses will likely also pay state/federal taxes and utilities so its more complex. You also can't expect local towns or cities to foot the complete for big projects like highway overpasses and bridges and stuff, so how much a city contributes to infrastructure and gets back is harder to say.
SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
Yeah, I would agree with that. It's not that towns shouldn't exist, they should, it's that the weird no-man's land suburbs probably shouldn't.
- danaris 4y ago
  But my point is: Why not? I have yet to see anything that points to them being fundamentally worse than towns: if you just treat them as Towns Next To Cities, it seems like you solve the vast majority of the problems.
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    Because right now most don't and instead become cancerous growths on a city rather than their own financially independent communities. Where I live the suburbs aren't their own towns and that's where the problem is.

ghaff 4y ago

Suburbs are towns (or small cities) in many parts of the US. I'm not sure it's even especially common in the US for cities to expand to engulf the whole surrounding area with a single central government. Although there are certainly examples such as Houston, I believe.

dionidium 4y ago
Annexation happened a lot in the U.S. but it didn't happen everywhere. Some places, like my hometown of St. Louis, are practically defined by the lack of annexation (although, even in that most famous case, St. Louis did annex several suburbs in the 19th Century, before its Great Divorce). Other places, like Chicago or NYC, pretty famously annexed practically everything around them. (Brooklyn was even once its own city.)
- ghaff 4y ago
  It's probably more common out West. In New England, while Boston did annex some neighboring communities, Cambridge and Somerville are still separate cities. And get just a little bit further out and you have a bunch of clumps of a few thousand people that are independent towns. I used to work with someone from Australia who could never get over all the 5,000 person towns with their own school system, various boards, etc.