7 ms·

You could say the same about restaurants, stores, or streets themselves. Those people can choose to live in the woods away from society if that’s a problem. Th

by pigsty 4y ago

You could say the same about restaurants, stores, or streets themselves. Those people can choose to live in the woods away from society if that’s a problem. The vast majority of people like having things they need within a few minutes of their home—particularly people who aren’t in HOA-governed cookie cutter suburbs.

meany 4y ago
Are you sure that its the majority in the districts they have the zoning? If it was the majority, wouldn't the rules change?
krisroadruck 4y ago
This is factually incorrect and easily verifiable so. The vast majority - 80% of the US population prefers single family homes. There are 138 Million households in the US and fully half - 68 million - reside in owner occupied single family homes, another ~15% (about 44 million people) live in rented single family homes. This is just the people who have achieved the desired outcome. There are another 15% of people who would prefer to be in one, but just haven't gotten there yet. Very few people actually want to be stacked on top of each other and packed in like sardines around a bunch of loud shops and offices. Very few people want to walk through dirty city streets stepping over feces and around homeless people or forced to be smushed in with strangers on public transportation to grab their groceries. They want to be 5-10 minutes away from that stuff in a car which they can afford to own. The reason a lot of people are putting up with this anyway is an affordability issue only. They are forced to work in a handful of cities to be paid well and the cost of parking and the congestion in these cities make it impractical to own a car or commute. I obviously know there is a slice of people who actually do just love the hell out of city life and wouldn't trade NYC or SF for the world, but to claim that this is the vast majority is demonstrably false. Edit: Adding a source. There are many, but this one is nice in that it breaks it out by age in addition to overall and breaks out actual vs preferred. https://news.gallup.com/poll/245249/americans-big-idea-living-country.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/245249/americans-big-idea-livin...
- throw009 4y ago
  That's all very nice but the calculations would change quite quickly if people had to pay for the upkeep of the roads they use for their cars. Cities for the most part use their productive core to subsidise the unproductive suburbs until they inevitably go bankrupt when the roads build 40 years ago need to be replaced.
  - howinteresting 4y ago
    This. The preferences are obviously driven by the widespread subsidies provided to suburban living. Take that away and those preferences will shift rapidly.
    - krisroadruck 4y ago
      Looking at your average suburb, there are about 110 houses on quarter acre lots per mile of paved 2 lane road within said suburb, plus an additional bit to connect to an arterial street (which also connects other suburbs) and back out to main drags that have businesses and such. Starting with the street the houses are actually on, it costs approx $300-$500K to repave 1 mile of residential 2 lane undivided road. Using the upper end we've got $500,000 / 110 houses / 20 year lifespan = $18/mo per household. A rounding error against property taxes. Now lets assume that per mile of suburb, you also have 3 miles of connecting minor arterial roads those houses also need to account for. These run $400-$800K per mile, and again we'll take the upper limit here. So $800K * 3 / 110 / 20 = $90/mo So our grand total is $108/mo or $1,306/year. The average American pays $2500/year in property taxes already. I don't think the extra $108/mo is going to change peoples preferences for not being packed in on top of each other. I also don't think that these folks are contributing zero to this now. The gas at the pump is taxed and earmarked for road improvement, some of their property tax goes to it as well. We can do the same thing for power, water, et cetera. Yes over the lifetime of suburban living a single person probably needs to account for something like $250K of extra infrastructure their sprawl requires, but that's not a lot to pay over a lifetime and a lot of it is already baked into the initial cost of their house (Builders had to pave those suburbs, wire & plumb the neighborhood and that cost is baked into those initial home sales). I very probably can't make a similar argument for truly rural homes - but a lot of those are farms and I'm sure that complicates things quite a bit - as subsidizing rural farms benefits anyone who eats food from those farms.

by pigsty 4y ago

meany 4y ago

Are you sure that its the majority in the districts they have the zoning? If it was the majority, wouldn't the rules change?

krisroadruck 4y ago

This is factually incorrect and easily verifiable so. The vast majority - 80% of the US population prefers single family homes. There are 138 Million households in the US and fully half - 68 million - reside in owner occupied single family homes, another ~15% (about 44 million people) live in rented single family homes. This is just the people who have achieved the desired outcome. There are another 15% of people who would prefer to be in one, but just haven't gotten there yet. Very few people actually want to be stacked on top of each other and packed in like sardines around a bunch of loud shops and offices. Very few people want to walk through dirty city streets stepping over feces and around homeless people or forced to be smushed in with strangers on public transportation to grab their groceries. They want to be 5-10 minutes away from that stuff in a car which they can afford to own. The reason a lot of people are putting up with this anyway is an affordability issue only. They are forced to work in a handful of cities to be paid well and the cost of parking and the congestion in these cities make it impractical to own a car or commute. I obviously know there is a slice of people who actually do just love the hell out of city life and wouldn't trade NYC or SF for the world, but to claim that this is the vast majority is demonstrably false. Edit: Adding a source. There are many, but this one is nice in that it breaks it out by age in addition to overall and breaks out actual vs preferred. https://news.gallup.com/poll/245249/americans-big-idea-living-country.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/245249/americans-big-idea-livin...

throw009 4y ago
That's all very nice but the calculations would change quite quickly if people had to pay for the upkeep of the roads they use for their cars. Cities for the most part use their productive core to subsidise the unproductive suburbs until they inevitably go bankrupt when the roads build 40 years ago need to be replaced.
- howinteresting 4y ago
  This. The preferences are obviously driven by the widespread subsidies provided to suburban living. Take that away and those preferences will shift rapidly.
  - krisroadruck 4y ago
    Looking at your average suburb, there are about 110 houses on quarter acre lots per mile of paved 2 lane road within said suburb, plus an additional bit to connect to an arterial street (which also connects other suburbs) and back out to main drags that have businesses and such. Starting with the street the houses are actually on, it costs approx $300-$500K to repave 1 mile of residential 2 lane undivided road. Using the upper end we've got $500,000 / 110 houses / 20 year lifespan = $18/mo per household. A rounding error against property taxes. Now lets assume that per mile of suburb, you also have 3 miles of connecting minor arterial roads those houses also need to account for. These run $400-$800K per mile, and again we'll take the upper limit here. So $800K * 3 / 110 / 20 = $90/mo So our grand total is $108/mo or $1,306/year. The average American pays $2500/year in property taxes already. I don't think the extra $108/mo is going to change peoples preferences for not being packed in on top of each other. I also don't think that these folks are contributing zero to this now. The gas at the pump is taxed and earmarked for road improvement, some of their property tax goes to it as well. We can do the same thing for power, water, et cetera. Yes over the lifetime of suburban living a single person probably needs to account for something like $250K of extra infrastructure their sprawl requires, but that's not a lot to pay over a lifetime and a lot of it is already baked into the initial cost of their house (Builders had to pave those suburbs, wire & plumb the neighborhood and that cost is baked into those initial home sales). I very probably can't make a similar argument for truly rural homes - but a lot of those are farms and I'm sure that complicates things quite a bit - as subsidizing rural farms benefits anyone who eats food from those farms.