8 ms·

> Many suburbs are not sustainable, and are degrading. Genuinely curious: what is the basis for that claim? Even if you don't cite a source. Edit: these respo

by Yhippa 4y ago

> Many suburbs are not sustainable, and are degrading. Genuinely curious: what is the basis for that claim? Even if you don't cite a source. Edit: these responses are very insightful. Thank you all for the responses.

ethanbond 4y ago
At least American suburbs are ultra car-dependent meaning you're not walking anywhere (literally physically degrading to both you and the environment) and you do not have chance social encounters at nearly the frequency of any walking city (socially degrading). This is not to say there aren't real benefits to life in the burbs and serious disadvantages to city life, but it's fairly evident by now that American suburbia is not the utopian dream it was sold as.
- Alupis 4y ago
  Perhaps for you city dweller's, but for the rest of us, we really like our suburbs. Not being able to walk everywhere is literally not even a factor I look for when moving to a new area. I want quiet, safety, cleanliness, privacy and affordability. I have yet to see the metropolis that checks all of those boxes, or any of them for the matter.
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    Pick any moderate sized city in Europe! There's no reason Americans have to choose between glass and concrete imposing megastructures a la (parts of) NYC or sprawling car-dependent and socially atomized burbs a la Houston/Phoenix etc. We can have moderately dense, highly walkable, transit-connected, safe, clean, private, quiet, socially vibrant, affordable towns and suburbs all over the country. We just choose not to in large part because many Americans, brainwashed by The Automobile, can't even imagine such a state of affairs.
    - oceanplexian 4y ago
      If ZEV’s and alternative energy take off, and self driving eventually lives up to the hype, public transportation will be obsolete with the exception of dense cities. Assuming such a future comes to pass (And that’s obviously a big question mark), desirability and property values in suburban-like neighborhoods would go up, since suburbs are no longer at a disadvantage for all those things you are arguing, like walkability, socially vibrancy, etc. A quick tap on your phone and 15 minutes later you can be at the bar or the shops or whatever else. Combine that with the remote work revolution and the future is looking great for suburbs and terrible for cities. If anything, I’d argue Americans are ahead of the curve. In a society where self driving cars are cheap, environmentally sustainable, and always available people would naturally fan out into suburban living, with mixed-use development falling out of favor.
      - ethanbond 4y ago
        Unfortunately even in the optimistic case this will exacerbate many of the real insidious problems: obesity, loneliness/social atomization, extreme age and income stratification
    - Alupis 4y ago
      The thing is, America is very big. For perspective, America is just shy of the square mileage of all of Europe - but America is just one country... and it has half the population of Europe. This means things can be, and are, very spread out. It is not unusual for a person in the US to live 20-60+ miles from their work - by choice. It is simply not possible for everyone in the US to live in or near these mega-cities. Nor do most people (by the numbers) want to live in or near these mega-cities. When I visit mega-cities, I see overt drug usage on the streets, trash everywhere, homeless camps everywhere, parts of the city a visitor is unsafe being in... and worse. That doesn't mean these things don't exist in a suburb - but clearly they are more readily evident in a mega-city. We can go on about externalized things like carbon emissions from the commuter cars... but every time I visit a mega-city, there's miles of idling cars just spewing emissions while in traffic. If you like living in a mega-city - good for you. Enjoy it, as is your right. That, however, also means I get to enjoy my suburbs. We don't get to tell each other how to live.
  - karamanolev 4y ago
    I see why you like the suburbs. But it's essentially a hoax, it's like living above your means on a bunch of credit cards - at least for most people (not all). Affordability for a lot of suburbs is when you allow for degrading infrastructure and moving more and more towards bankruptcy of cities. Budget analysis for a lot of suburbs show very troubling trends. In essence, living in a properly maintained suburbia is not affordable. Too much street, pipe and wire per capita. Cleanliness - it's only in appearance. The dirtiness is externalized to the environment by means of CO2 and other emissions due to personal transport. A lot of concrete and asphalt being poured require massive excavations and destruction of nature elsewhere. More than cities. Quiet is also externalized - cars are extremely noisy and suburbia basically requires a lot of 4000 lbs metal hunks with mostly a single person inside. Privacy is there, but it costs quite a lot in total societal costs.
    - Alupis 4y ago
      > Budget analysis for a lot of suburbs show very troubling trends Do you have real examples of this? The past few suburbs I've lived in have been very prosperous, as a counter-example anecdote. I don't doubt some towns/suburbs are having financial troubles... but so are mega-cities too. Recall all the city bailout money that got spread around during the pandemic? How much of it went to small suburbs vs. mega-cities? > The dirtiness is externalized to the environment by means of CO2 and other emissions due to personal transport. I disagree here. A lot of hand-waving has been done about commuter cars - but somehow we ignore the miles of idling cars stuck in traffic every day for hours in these mega-cities. Fewer individuals may own vehicles in a mega-city, but the pollution is still there. > Quiet is also externalized - cars are extremely noisy On a freeway maybe. Inside a neighborhood? You can't hear any traffic noises. There's been this movement to villainize suburbs and push everyone into mega-cities. It's rather misguided at best.
      - unity1001 4y ago
        > miles of idling cars stuck in traffic every day for hours in these mega-cities A US problem, created by the very suburbia that forces people to buy cars. All those suburbans are going to go downtown to work. Naturally you get congestion. The argument for cities is that you can build no-car-required infrastructure that is both cheaper and easier for humans. Like in Europe etc.
  - the_gastropod 4y ago
    > I want quiet, safety, cleanliness, privacy and affordability. Most of these are pretty cliche. New York City is one of the safest cities in the country per capita. But as with “cleanliness” is usually trotted out in a dog whistly kind of way that really is about something else. And affordability: yep. You’ve got that for a couple reasons: 1. People LIKE living in cities. Good old supply/demand. 2. As this thread is discussing, suburbs are massively subsidized to the detriment of the cities they neighbor.
    - seneca 4y ago
      > Most of these are pretty cliche. New York City is one of the safest cities in the country per capita. But as with “cleanliness” is usually trotted out in a dog whistly kind of way that really is about something else. Calling someone's preferences cliches and dog whistles is a really lazy way to have a discussion and degrades this forum.
    - abeyer 4y ago
      > New York City is one of the safest cities in the country per capita. But as with “cleanliness” is usually trotted out in a dog whistly kind of way Having lived in other big cities that manage to collect garbage in containers, NYC's continued practice of dumping uncontained garbage on the sidewalk for collection gives it a very real non-dog-whistly feeling(/sight/odor) of dirtyness.
      - drivers99 4y ago
        I just heard they were working on that. It looks like it actually started in April. Clean Curbs Pilot Program https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dsny/site/our-work/containerized-waste-rfei https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dsny/site/our-work/containerized...
        abeyer 4y ago
        A step in the right direction, it sounds like.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - quartesixte 4y ago
    >I have yet to see the metropolis that checks all of those boxes, or any of them for the matter. I hate beating this drum because it's borderline stereotypical at this point, but Tokyo really should be studied because for an incredibly dense city of nearly 14 million people they manage to achieve quiet, safety, cleanliness, privacy, and affordability >I want quiet Visit the residential neighborhoods of the largest city in the world, Tokyo, and discover that you can get quiet with density. These are not mutually exclusive items, we as American society have somehow decided that noise pollution was an acceptable feature of urban landscapes. Japan decided, as a society, that anti-social noise activities in residential areas were bad and makes sure it stays that way. >safety A controversial topic pre-loaded with mountains of baggage, but IMO this is a result of policy and philosophical decisions. Japanese cities are incredibly safe at all times of the day -- you can leave a phone out in the open and no one will steal it. A lot of theories as to why that is, but the end result is clear: Japan, a city of 14million residents, is safe. >cleanliness Interestingly enough, 1960s and 70s Tokyo was a bit infamous for its litter/trash problem. I am a little fuzzy on how they turned that around, but they did and today it's one of the cleanest cities in the world. Again, a societal decision that has enforcement with teeth. And mind you, there aren't a lot of trash cans on the street. You have to carry around your trash with you if you generate any until you find a suitable trashcan or take it home with you. Yet the streets stay really clean. >privacy I will hand it to you, a big city can be a lot less private. But there are ways to create that sense of privacy within a more dense urban residential area without sacrificing density. Also, as density rises, you can get a weird counter-intuitive effect where the crowd affords you even greater privacy. >affordability The average house in Japan costs around $400,000 to build from scratch. Yes. You heard me right. When you buy a house in Japan you buy the lot it sits on, demolish the previous house, and build a house customized to your liking (designed and built by one of many competing housing companies). All for around $400,000. Now, is it smaller than the current average American 2-story house? Yes. Is such a house size necessary? As it turns out, that's also a philosophical question and society over there has decided that in a trade off between smaller house + more urban density vs bigger house + less density, the density was worth the trade. You can definitely spend a million dollars and get yourself a proper sized mansion. But at least you get a proper sized mansion. --- This isn't direct at you specifically, but one thing that frustrates me in the debates between urbanization vs non-urbanization in the USA is the lack of imagination everyone possess. So much possibility, so much possibility that IS ALREADY PROVEN and yet we circle back around the same things. American cities aren't the only way cities are. Our cities can be so much better, they HAVE been better, and we can make them better again if we collectively as a society choose to.
- refurb 4y ago
  At least with WFH, the trend is reversing. People are leaving urban cores and moving to the suburbs where they can get more space for less money and avoid a lot of the QOL issues. San Francisco is a great example. The once bustling downtown is losing business at a rapid click not only because residents have left, but also office workers aren't coming in anywhere near as often. I predict it'll be a positive feedback loop. As more businesses close, QOL issues become worse, it'll accelerate the exodus. It's like a repeat of the 60's.
  - sagarm 4y ago
    I predict that with people who weren't interested in the amenities of the city and not contributing to the culture and community gone, SF will recover some of the culture it lost when high rents pushed all the creatives out. It'll make SF even better than before. Cities are the lifeblood of any culture and economy, after all.
    - refurb 4y ago
      Sure. To be honest the most interesting cities are the unpopular ones. They tend to have a bigger mix of people, long established communities and lower cost of living. Once they become “hot” they tend to lose a lot of what makes them unique. Until suddenly it’s trendy to live their again.
mwest217 4y ago
Lots of resources on the subject from Strong Towns[1], Not Just Bikes[2], and various consulting firms like Urban3[3] [1] https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI [3] https://www.urbanthree.com/ https://www.urbanthree.com/
tomrod 4y ago
Not the OP. It's a literal claim, not metaphorical. Pipes break. Schools wear out. Roads wear out. Houses and fencing wear out, etc. Many cities don't budget in perpetuity and (further) can't maintain existing infrastructure as a population bulge dissipates or as young people move away.
- egberts1 4y ago
  You can move into cities whose mayor is constantly reinvesting. Or you can move out if the mayor does not bother to reinvest into its community.
  - tomrod 4y ago
    Aye, some communities get it (mayors don't typically have a lot of power or knowledge in these matters). These tend to be communities that have an industrial base of some sector, the more varied the better. Farming communities tend to have more maintainable infrastructure than bedroom communities under stable or growth regimes. All hell breaks loose when the population sinks. Its hard to justify higher taxes now to pay for things 10 years away.
    - egberts1 4y ago
      Aldermen or council folks typically have too much power over their mayor such that it renders such city inert and non-responsive to rapid market changes (technologies). I am reminded of some cities having "weak mayor" government structure. And it is painfully self-evident by looking at the unmaintained roads and sidewalks. Also I noticed unchecked huge retirement benefits used as an award for "good" governance toward token administrators, and disproportionate sapping of local taxation by its state government (one such tax example, Robin Hood school funding).
karamanolev 4y ago
Aside from the other replies, they are degrading in terms of "living experience" - infrastructure, budgets, HOAs and whatnot. The infrastructure is being subsidised by dense cities, as there's simply too much street/pipe/wire per capita to support. So you either get prohibitive taxes, unsustainable budgets or subsidies from some level of government. Either way, they're not heading in a good direction.
akiselev 4y ago
See the Strong Towns article "The Growth Ponzi Scheme" [1] and the ASCE Infrastructure Report Card for more concrete data [2]. The gist is that we've funded the construction of our infrastructure nationwide without accounting for the cost of maintenance. Now after decades of neglect, the cost of fixing all of our infrastructure is astronomical, far worse than if we had been doing it correctly from the beginning. [1] https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme [2] https://infrastructurereportcard.org/ https://infrastructurereportcard.org/
- 88913527 4y ago
  If it is indeed that much cheaper to start from scratch, we have the open land to do so. Housing prices might fall in the areas that are chosen for divestment, but if we can't afford it, it's unclear what other paths remain. I largely believe in Strong Town's thesis, but we can't make everything a 5+1 because there is too much underdeveloped land use to justify that level of density everywhere given the total population size. There certainly are plenty of areas where's it's economical to upzone, but in many areas it won't be.
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    What? We can't do 5+1 everywhere because first we need to litter every last bit of countryside with failed sprawling towns that were swallowed by their own maintenance costs? That doesn't seem workable.
    - 88913527 4y ago
      You can't do 5+1 on the current total land area occupied by low-density because you'd end up with far more housing than 330 million or so people need. You add that level of density to the core of small towns, then you have enough for everyone. That leaves a long tail of abandoned infrastructure in the areas that you're describing (rural/exurbs not picked for 5+1 upzoning). The suburbs take a huge amount of land. If everyone lived in NYC-level of density, we could all fit in New Jersey. If we all lived in middle-missing housing level density, that amount of land is still far less than the total area of all the suburbs.
duped 4y ago
Not GP but locally there are a few exurbs that have serious budget problems because they overbuilt infrastructure and don't have the tax base to fully maintain it which creates a feedback loop of poorly maintained roads, water systems, parks, etc. Some of it had to do with the murder of brick and mortar retail in tightly packed downtowns in favor of the big box stores on the edge of town. That creates an enormous waste in municipal resources, doubly so if the store got property/sales tax subsidies. This is less of an issue in the denser near suburbs where populations and revenues have been consistently rising the last few years.
- tstrimple 4y ago
  > doubly so if the store got property/sales tax subsidies. Walmart is particularly good at this. Search for Walmart property tax lawsuit and you'll find hundreds of examples of Walmart filing lawsuits to get their property taxes lowered. The latest ploy for these big retailers is to push to have their property taxes valued as if the store was empty and shut down and had no inventory. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-14/to-cut-taxes-big-box-stores-use-dark-store-theory https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-14/to-cut-ta...
escalt 4y ago
It is said that the infrastructure required to sustain suburbs costs more money than these suburbs bring in. In the US a city gets federal money to build new suburbs, but when it comes to renewing them after a few decades, the city has to pay on its own and it often has not enough money to do it. I am by no means an expert on this topic and just poorly summarized the contents of this video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0
- parker_mountain 4y ago
  It's also affecting some cities, such as Chicago. Wacker Drive is an example of this. It turns out that core infrastructure should be built to be inexpensive to maintain, and density helps greatly with that goal.
kbf 4y ago
Density. North American suburbs built around cars spread taxpayers thin over a large area that requires a lot of expensive infrastructure. These places can’t actually afford the services they depend on and infrastructure debt is usually paid off by new developments kind of like a ponzi scheme.
- egberts1 4y ago
  We got our gas line and sewer in the streets replaced. And replaced too. Just need a willing city mayor to be re-investing into infrastructure.

by Yhippa 4y ago

ethanbond 4y ago

At least American suburbs are ultra car-dependent meaning you're not walking anywhere (literally physically degrading to both you and the environment) and you do not have chance social encounters at nearly the frequency of any walking city (socially degrading). This is not to say there aren't real benefits to life in the burbs and serious disadvantages to city life, but it's fairly evident by now that American suburbia is not the utopian dream it was sold as.

Alupis 4y ago
Perhaps for you city dweller's, but for the rest of us, we really like our suburbs. Not being able to walk everywhere is literally not even a factor I look for when moving to a new area. I want quiet, safety, cleanliness, privacy and affordability. I have yet to see the metropolis that checks all of those boxes, or any of them for the matter.
- ethanbond 4y ago
  Pick any moderate sized city in Europe! There's no reason Americans have to choose between glass and concrete imposing megastructures a la (parts of) NYC or sprawling car-dependent and socially atomized burbs a la Houston/Phoenix etc. We can have moderately dense, highly walkable, transit-connected, safe, clean, private, quiet, socially vibrant, affordable towns and suburbs all over the country. We just choose not to in large part because many Americans, brainwashed by The Automobile, can't even imagine such a state of affairs.
  - oceanplexian 4y ago
    If ZEV’s and alternative energy take off, and self driving eventually lives up to the hype, public transportation will be obsolete with the exception of dense cities. Assuming such a future comes to pass (And that’s obviously a big question mark), desirability and property values in suburban-like neighborhoods would go up, since suburbs are no longer at a disadvantage for all those things you are arguing, like walkability, socially vibrancy, etc. A quick tap on your phone and 15 minutes later you can be at the bar or the shops or whatever else. Combine that with the remote work revolution and the future is looking great for suburbs and terrible for cities. If anything, I’d argue Americans are ahead of the curve. In a society where self driving cars are cheap, environmentally sustainable, and always available people would naturally fan out into suburban living, with mixed-use development falling out of favor.
    - ethanbond 4y ago
      Unfortunately even in the optimistic case this will exacerbate many of the real insidious problems: obesity, loneliness/social atomization, extreme age and income stratification
  - Alupis 4y ago
    The thing is, America is very big. For perspective, America is just shy of the square mileage of all of Europe - but America is just one country... and it has half the population of Europe. This means things can be, and are, very spread out. It is not unusual for a person in the US to live 20-60+ miles from their work - by choice. It is simply not possible for everyone in the US to live in or near these mega-cities. Nor do most people (by the numbers) want to live in or near these mega-cities. When I visit mega-cities, I see overt drug usage on the streets, trash everywhere, homeless camps everywhere, parts of the city a visitor is unsafe being in... and worse. That doesn't mean these things don't exist in a suburb - but clearly they are more readily evident in a mega-city. We can go on about externalized things like carbon emissions from the commuter cars... but every time I visit a mega-city, there's miles of idling cars just spewing emissions while in traffic. If you like living in a mega-city - good for you. Enjoy it, as is your right. That, however, also means I get to enjoy my suburbs. We don't get to tell each other how to live.
- karamanolev 4y ago
  I see why you like the suburbs. But it's essentially a hoax, it's like living above your means on a bunch of credit cards - at least for most people (not all). Affordability for a lot of suburbs is when you allow for degrading infrastructure and moving more and more towards bankruptcy of cities. Budget analysis for a lot of suburbs show very troubling trends. In essence, living in a properly maintained suburbia is not affordable. Too much street, pipe and wire per capita. Cleanliness - it's only in appearance. The dirtiness is externalized to the environment by means of CO2 and other emissions due to personal transport. A lot of concrete and asphalt being poured require massive excavations and destruction of nature elsewhere. More than cities. Quiet is also externalized - cars are extremely noisy and suburbia basically requires a lot of 4000 lbs metal hunks with mostly a single person inside. Privacy is there, but it costs quite a lot in total societal costs.
  - Alupis 4y ago
    > Budget analysis for a lot of suburbs show very troubling trends Do you have real examples of this? The past few suburbs I've lived in have been very prosperous, as a counter-example anecdote. I don't doubt some towns/suburbs are having financial troubles... but so are mega-cities too. Recall all the city bailout money that got spread around during the pandemic? How much of it went to small suburbs vs. mega-cities? > The dirtiness is externalized to the environment by means of CO2 and other emissions due to personal transport. I disagree here. A lot of hand-waving has been done about commuter cars - but somehow we ignore the miles of idling cars stuck in traffic every day for hours in these mega-cities. Fewer individuals may own vehicles in a mega-city, but the pollution is still there. > Quiet is also externalized - cars are extremely noisy On a freeway maybe. Inside a neighborhood? You can't hear any traffic noises. There's been this movement to villainize suburbs and push everyone into mega-cities. It's rather misguided at best.
    - unity1001 4y ago
      > miles of idling cars stuck in traffic every day for hours in these mega-cities A US problem, created by the very suburbia that forces people to buy cars. All those suburbans are going to go downtown to work. Naturally you get congestion. The argument for cities is that you can build no-car-required infrastructure that is both cheaper and easier for humans. Like in Europe etc.
- the_gastropod 4y ago
  > I want quiet, safety, cleanliness, privacy and affordability. Most of these are pretty cliche. New York City is one of the safest cities in the country per capita. But as with “cleanliness” is usually trotted out in a dog whistly kind of way that really is about something else. And affordability: yep. You’ve got that for a couple reasons: 1. People LIKE living in cities. Good old supply/demand. 2. As this thread is discussing, suburbs are massively subsidized to the detriment of the cities they neighbor.
  - seneca 4y ago
    > Most of these are pretty cliche. New York City is one of the safest cities in the country per capita. But as with “cleanliness” is usually trotted out in a dog whistly kind of way that really is about something else. Calling someone's preferences cliches and dog whistles is a really lazy way to have a discussion and degrades this forum.
  - abeyer 4y ago
    > New York City is one of the safest cities in the country per capita. But as with “cleanliness” is usually trotted out in a dog whistly kind of way Having lived in other big cities that manage to collect garbage in containers, NYC's continued practice of dumping uncontained garbage on the sidewalk for collection gives it a very real non-dog-whistly feeling(/sight/odor) of dirtyness.
    - drivers99 4y ago
      I just heard they were working on that. It looks like it actually started in April. Clean Curbs Pilot Program https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dsny/site/our-work/containerized-waste-rfei https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dsny/site/our-work/containerized...
      - abeyer 4y ago
        A step in the right direction, it sounds like.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- quartesixte 4y ago
  >I have yet to see the metropolis that checks all of those boxes, or any of them for the matter. I hate beating this drum because it's borderline stereotypical at this point, but Tokyo really should be studied because for an incredibly dense city of nearly 14 million people they manage to achieve quiet, safety, cleanliness, privacy, and affordability >I want quiet Visit the residential neighborhoods of the largest city in the world, Tokyo, and discover that you can get quiet with density. These are not mutually exclusive items, we as American society have somehow decided that noise pollution was an acceptable feature of urban landscapes. Japan decided, as a society, that anti-social noise activities in residential areas were bad and makes sure it stays that way. >safety A controversial topic pre-loaded with mountains of baggage, but IMO this is a result of policy and philosophical decisions. Japanese cities are incredibly safe at all times of the day -- you can leave a phone out in the open and no one will steal it. A lot of theories as to why that is, but the end result is clear: Japan, a city of 14million residents, is safe. >cleanliness Interestingly enough, 1960s and 70s Tokyo was a bit infamous for its litter/trash problem. I am a little fuzzy on how they turned that around, but they did and today it's one of the cleanest cities in the world. Again, a societal decision that has enforcement with teeth. And mind you, there aren't a lot of trash cans on the street. You have to carry around your trash with you if you generate any until you find a suitable trashcan or take it home with you. Yet the streets stay really clean. >privacy I will hand it to you, a big city can be a lot less private. But there are ways to create that sense of privacy within a more dense urban residential area without sacrificing density. Also, as density rises, you can get a weird counter-intuitive effect where the crowd affords you even greater privacy. >affordability The average house in Japan costs around $400,000 to build from scratch. Yes. You heard me right. When you buy a house in Japan you buy the lot it sits on, demolish the previous house, and build a house customized to your liking (designed and built by one of many competing housing companies). All for around $400,000. Now, is it smaller than the current average American 2-story house? Yes. Is such a house size necessary? As it turns out, that's also a philosophical question and society over there has decided that in a trade off between smaller house + more urban density vs bigger house + less density, the density was worth the trade. You can definitely spend a million dollars and get yourself a proper sized mansion. But at least you get a proper sized mansion. --- This isn't direct at you specifically, but one thing that frustrates me in the debates between urbanization vs non-urbanization in the USA is the lack of imagination everyone possess. So much possibility, so much possibility that IS ALREADY PROVEN and yet we circle back around the same things. American cities aren't the only way cities are. Our cities can be so much better, they HAVE been better, and we can make them better again if we collectively as a society choose to.
refurb 4y ago
At least with WFH, the trend is reversing. People are leaving urban cores and moving to the suburbs where they can get more space for less money and avoid a lot of the QOL issues. San Francisco is a great example. The once bustling downtown is losing business at a rapid click not only because residents have left, but also office workers aren't coming in anywhere near as often. I predict it'll be a positive feedback loop. As more businesses close, QOL issues become worse, it'll accelerate the exodus. It's like a repeat of the 60's.
- sagarm 4y ago
  I predict that with people who weren't interested in the amenities of the city and not contributing to the culture and community gone, SF will recover some of the culture it lost when high rents pushed all the creatives out. It'll make SF even better than before. Cities are the lifeblood of any culture and economy, after all.
  - refurb 4y ago
    Sure. To be honest the most interesting cities are the unpopular ones. They tend to have a bigger mix of people, long established communities and lower cost of living. Once they become “hot” they tend to lose a lot of what makes them unique. Until suddenly it’s trendy to live their again.

mwest217 4y ago

Lots of resources on the subject from Strong Towns[1], Not Just Bikes[2], and various consulting firms like Urban3[3] [1] https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI [3] https://www.urbanthree.com/ https://www.urbanthree.com/

tomrod 4y ago

Not the OP. It's a literal claim, not metaphorical. Pipes break. Schools wear out. Roads wear out. Houses and fencing wear out, etc. Many cities don't budget in perpetuity and (further) can't maintain existing infrastructure as a population bulge dissipates or as young people move away.

egberts1 4y ago
You can move into cities whose mayor is constantly reinvesting. Or you can move out if the mayor does not bother to reinvest into its community.
- tomrod 4y ago
  Aye, some communities get it (mayors don't typically have a lot of power or knowledge in these matters). These tend to be communities that have an industrial base of some sector, the more varied the better. Farming communities tend to have more maintainable infrastructure than bedroom communities under stable or growth regimes. All hell breaks loose when the population sinks. Its hard to justify higher taxes now to pay for things 10 years away.
  - egberts1 4y ago
    Aldermen or council folks typically have too much power over their mayor such that it renders such city inert and non-responsive to rapid market changes (technologies). I am reminded of some cities having "weak mayor" government structure. And it is painfully self-evident by looking at the unmaintained roads and sidewalks. Also I noticed unchecked huge retirement benefits used as an award for "good" governance toward token administrators, and disproportionate sapping of local taxation by its state government (one such tax example, Robin Hood school funding).

karamanolev 4y ago

Aside from the other replies, they are degrading in terms of "living experience" - infrastructure, budgets, HOAs and whatnot. The infrastructure is being subsidised by dense cities, as there's simply too much street/pipe/wire per capita to support. So you either get prohibitive taxes, unsustainable budgets or subsidies from some level of government. Either way, they're not heading in a good direction.

akiselev 4y ago

See the Strong Towns article "The Growth Ponzi Scheme" [1] and the ASCE Infrastructure Report Card for more concrete data [2]. The gist is that we've funded the construction of our infrastructure nationwide without accounting for the cost of maintenance. Now after decades of neglect, the cost of fixing all of our infrastructure is astronomical, far worse than if we had been doing it correctly from the beginning. [1] https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme [2] https://infrastructurereportcard.org/ https://infrastructurereportcard.org/

88913527 4y ago
If it is indeed that much cheaper to start from scratch, we have the open land to do so. Housing prices might fall in the areas that are chosen for divestment, but if we can't afford it, it's unclear what other paths remain. I largely believe in Strong Town's thesis, but we can't make everything a 5+1 because there is too much underdeveloped land use to justify that level of density everywhere given the total population size. There certainly are plenty of areas where's it's economical to upzone, but in many areas it won't be.
- ethanbond 4y ago
  What? We can't do 5+1 everywhere because first we need to litter every last bit of countryside with failed sprawling towns that were swallowed by their own maintenance costs? That doesn't seem workable.
  - 88913527 4y ago
    You can't do 5+1 on the current total land area occupied by low-density because you'd end up with far more housing than 330 million or so people need. You add that level of density to the core of small towns, then you have enough for everyone. That leaves a long tail of abandoned infrastructure in the areas that you're describing (rural/exurbs not picked for 5+1 upzoning). The suburbs take a huge amount of land. If everyone lived in NYC-level of density, we could all fit in New Jersey. If we all lived in middle-missing housing level density, that amount of land is still far less than the total area of all the suburbs.

duped 4y ago

Not GP but locally there are a few exurbs that have serious budget problems because they overbuilt infrastructure and don't have the tax base to fully maintain it which creates a feedback loop of poorly maintained roads, water systems, parks, etc. Some of it had to do with the murder of brick and mortar retail in tightly packed downtowns in favor of the big box stores on the edge of town. That creates an enormous waste in municipal resources, doubly so if the store got property/sales tax subsidies. This is less of an issue in the denser near suburbs where populations and revenues have been consistently rising the last few years.

tstrimple 4y ago
> doubly so if the store got property/sales tax subsidies. Walmart is particularly good at this. Search for Walmart property tax lawsuit and you'll find hundreds of examples of Walmart filing lawsuits to get their property taxes lowered. The latest ploy for these big retailers is to push to have their property taxes valued as if the store was empty and shut down and had no inventory. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-14/to-cut-taxes-big-box-stores-use-dark-store-theory https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-14/to-cut-ta...

escalt 4y ago

It is said that the infrastructure required to sustain suburbs costs more money than these suburbs bring in. In the US a city gets federal money to build new suburbs, but when it comes to renewing them after a few decades, the city has to pay on its own and it often has not enough money to do it. I am by no means an expert on this topic and just poorly summarized the contents of this video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0

parker_mountain 4y ago
It's also affecting some cities, such as Chicago. Wacker Drive is an example of this. It turns out that core infrastructure should be built to be inexpensive to maintain, and density helps greatly with that goal.

kbf 4y ago

Density. North American suburbs built around cars spread taxpayers thin over a large area that requires a lot of expensive infrastructure. These places can’t actually afford the services they depend on and infrastructure debt is usually paid off by new developments kind of like a ponzi scheme.

egberts1 4y ago
We got our gas line and sewer in the streets replaced. And replaced too. Just need a willing city mayor to be re-investing into infrastructure.