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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 mo

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.
  - howinteresting 4y ago
    It's not just the direct subsidies, it's also the massive amounts of free parking in both suburbs and cities that have distorted the built environment, and things like the mortgage interest deduction + the capital gains tax exemption that have made single-family homeownership cheaper than it would otherwise be.

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.
- howinteresting 4y ago
  It's not just the direct subsidies, it's also the massive amounts of free parking in both suburbs and cities that have distorted the built environment, and things like the mortgage interest deduction + the capital gains tax exemption that have made single-family homeownership cheaper than it would otherwise be.