9 ms·

Are you advocating for sprawl?

cyberax 4y ago
Absolutely. Sprawl (with some small adjustments) is the best way to structure cities. It's also the only workable way to provide affordable housing.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  Sprawl leads to cheaper housing at the cost of more expensive infrastructure costs (mainly roads, but water, sewer, schools becomes more difficult to support without density). It also leads to places that are not very nice to live at.
  - cyberax 4y ago
    > Sprawl leads to cheaper housing at the cost of more expensive infrastructure costs Nope. Sprawl's infrastructure cost is about the same as urban cost over time. This is because maintenance of city infrastructure is way more expensive. "Expensive roads" are also a myth. As I said, one mile of NYC subway can cost as much as 1000 miles of 6-lane freeway. Or another point, Seattle is building subway expansion at the cost of $60B. It's projected to increase rideship by about ~100k daily passengers. For that $60B we could have instead built a city, gave 100k people houses for free, and still have enough money left to allow them to live on investment income from that. Sure, we'll need to do some small adjustments: switch from giant SUVs to medium-sized and small-sized EVs. Improve pedestrian and bicycle accessibility within suburban villages, etc. But these are all relatively minor changes that can be done gradually. > It also leads to places that are not very nice to live at. Most people surveyed (80+%) would prefer to live in suburbs if they could. Yep, very unpleasant places.
    - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
      The cities that allow for lots of sprawl (eg Houston) are not very nice places to live in many people’s viewpoints. They definitely never make the list of nicest cities. People aren’t clamoring to live in Houston, they are trying to live in Seattle. Turning Seattle in Houston would probably just make less people want to live there (well, that’s one way to solve Seattle’s housing crisis). Roads are a bad value for what you get. Not only is the throughput not great, they are expensive to maintain. Switching to EVs only really solves pollution and energy usage problems, it doesn’t make traffic somehow more streamlined.
      - cyberax 4y ago
        > The cities that allow for lots of sprawl (eg Houston) are not very nice places to live in many people’s viewpoints. "Many peoples' viewpoints" is a cop-out. You can apply it to ANY phrase: "In many people's viewpoints we should drop a nuke on Manhattan and rebuild it from scratch". If you look at objective data, Houston beats NYC handily in pretty much any important metric. Houston commute is 26 minutes vs 33 minutes for NYC. Per-capita income after taxes is similar, and housing costs in Houston are not even in the same league ($3000 average rent vs $1300). Houston also has less income inequality (Gini coefficient of 0.51 vs 0.55 for NYC). > People aren’t clamoring to live in Houston This is rich, because Houston is one of the fastest-growing cities in the US: https://www.click2houston.com/news/2016/03/24/census-data-shows-houston-leads-in-population-growth-across-us/ https://www.click2houston.com/news/2016/03/24/census-data-sh... - it's THE fastest growing city in some measures. Apparently, nobody goes there - it's too crowded. > Roads are a bad value for what you get. Not only is the throughput not great, they are expensive to maintain. You're making factually false statement after factually false statement. I really find it curious how people swallow the urbanist propaganda without ever bothering to check if it makes sense.
        bigDinosaur 4y ago
        You accuse others of 'swallowing urbanist propaganda' but that's both highly uncharitable and also grossly ignorant given the extremely high demand for pre-war and denser areas.
        cyberax 4y ago
        "pre-war"? WTF? > the extremely high demand for pre-war and denser areas. Of course there is a high demand for urban areas. It's an effect of runaway density. Companies have competitive advantage if they locate their offices in The Downtown of a large city. This in turn makes the area around it more expensive, as people try to move closer to avoid longer commutes. This is a vicious circle, leading to a sort of "density pollution". And it should be solved in exactly the same way we dealt with other forms of pollution: via regulation and gradual tightening of rules.
    - JPws_Prntr_Fngr 4y ago
      Your choice of metrics is so nonsensical it can only be bad faith. For the other readers, I'll submit some more relevant questions. NYC subway is more expensive per meter? No shit. What's the ROI? How many passengers per day? What do you think are the economic payoffs for those investments? What survey showed 80% of respondents preferring suburbs? A suburb versus what? What kind of respondents do you think they got? How do you reconcile this with the market reality of brutal real estate shortages in America's denser cities? (Just pull up some pricing per sqft. How do urban vs rural compare?) This is all even without taking into account the market distortions (and ponzi schemes) arising from the US's infrastructure sprawl since the 50s. What happens if/when the cities stop subsidizing the completely financially insolvent surrounding areas?
      - cyberax 4y ago
        > NYC subway is more expensive per meter? No shit. What's the ROI? How many passengers per day? What do you think are the economic payoffs for those investments? I don't think infrastructure in NYC is cost-effective. For that matter, infrastructure in Seattle (where I live now) is not cost effective. Its ROI is in fact negative, as it forces further unsustainable agglomeration of wealth in a small area, while starving smaller cities. > What survey showed 80% of respondents preferring suburbs? It's a metric that is pretty constant with only small variations: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/12/16/americans-are-less-likely-than-before-covid-19-to-want-to-live-in-cities-more-likely-to-prefer-suburbs/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/12/16/america... > A suburb versus what? Dense urban areas. > What happens if/when the cities stop subsidizing the completely financially insolvent surrounding areas? Sigh. Cities do not subsidize suburbs. Most of the US wealth is generated by people living in suburbs.
        JPws_Prntr_Fngr 4y ago
        For anyone reading my response to this incredibly bad faith commenter, note: - that his own linked survey shows 46% preferring suburbs, not 80% - that "it forces further unsustainable agglomeration of wealth in a small area" would suggest a very high ROI, actually (and "forces" is an interesting word choice vs "attracts") - this Lafayette case study shows exactly how denser areas pay for themselves in tax revenue, and how the surrounding ones don't [0] [0] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason-your-city-has-no-money https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason...
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  Sprawl with competing “centres” I think is fine. Sprawl where everyone is trying to get to the centre for work and play not so much. London has good sprawl IMO. I doubt it affects affordable housing. Although it may make houses more affordable vs. appartments.

Absolutely. Sprawl (with some small adjustments) is the best way to structure cities. It's also the only workable way to provide affordable housing.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago
Sprawl leads to cheaper housing at the cost of more expensive infrastructure costs (mainly roads, but water, sewer, schools becomes more difficult to support without density). It also leads to places that are not very nice to live at.
- cyberax 4y ago
  > Sprawl leads to cheaper housing at the cost of more expensive infrastructure costs Nope. Sprawl's infrastructure cost is about the same as urban cost over time. This is because maintenance of city infrastructure is way more expensive. "Expensive roads" are also a myth. As I said, one mile of NYC subway can cost as much as 1000 miles of 6-lane freeway. Or another point, Seattle is building subway expansion at the cost of $60B. It's projected to increase rideship by about ~100k daily passengers. For that $60B we could have instead built a city, gave 100k people houses for free, and still have enough money left to allow them to live on investment income from that. Sure, we'll need to do some small adjustments: switch from giant SUVs to medium-sized and small-sized EVs. Improve pedestrian and bicycle accessibility within suburban villages, etc. But these are all relatively minor changes that can be done gradually. > It also leads to places that are not very nice to live at. Most people surveyed (80+%) would prefer to live in suburbs if they could. Yep, very unpleasant places.
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    The cities that allow for lots of sprawl (eg Houston) are not very nice places to live in many people’s viewpoints. They definitely never make the list of nicest cities. People aren’t clamoring to live in Houston, they are trying to live in Seattle. Turning Seattle in Houston would probably just make less people want to live there (well, that’s one way to solve Seattle’s housing crisis). Roads are a bad value for what you get. Not only is the throughput not great, they are expensive to maintain. Switching to EVs only really solves pollution and energy usage problems, it doesn’t make traffic somehow more streamlined.
    - cyberax 4y ago
      > The cities that allow for lots of sprawl (eg Houston) are not very nice places to live in many people’s viewpoints. "Many peoples' viewpoints" is a cop-out. You can apply it to ANY phrase: "In many people's viewpoints we should drop a nuke on Manhattan and rebuild it from scratch". If you look at objective data, Houston beats NYC handily in pretty much any important metric. Houston commute is 26 minutes vs 33 minutes for NYC. Per-capita income after taxes is similar, and housing costs in Houston are not even in the same league ($3000 average rent vs $1300). Houston also has less income inequality (Gini coefficient of 0.51 vs 0.55 for NYC). > People aren’t clamoring to live in Houston This is rich, because Houston is one of the fastest-growing cities in the US: https://www.click2houston.com/news/2016/03/24/census-data-shows-houston-leads-in-population-growth-across-us/ https://www.click2houston.com/news/2016/03/24/census-data-sh... - it's THE fastest growing city in some measures. Apparently, nobody goes there - it's too crowded. > Roads are a bad value for what you get. Not only is the throughput not great, they are expensive to maintain. You're making factually false statement after factually false statement. I really find it curious how people swallow the urbanist propaganda without ever bothering to check if it makes sense.
      - bigDinosaur 4y ago
        You accuse others of 'swallowing urbanist propaganda' but that's both highly uncharitable and also grossly ignorant given the extremely high demand for pre-war and denser areas.
        cyberax 4y ago
        "pre-war"? WTF? > the extremely high demand for pre-war and denser areas. Of course there is a high demand for urban areas. It's an effect of runaway density. Companies have competitive advantage if they locate their offices in The Downtown of a large city. This in turn makes the area around it more expensive, as people try to move closer to avoid longer commutes. This is a vicious circle, leading to a sort of "density pollution". And it should be solved in exactly the same way we dealt with other forms of pollution: via regulation and gradual tightening of rules.
  - JPws_Prntr_Fngr 4y ago
    Your choice of metrics is so nonsensical it can only be bad faith. For the other readers, I'll submit some more relevant questions. NYC subway is more expensive per meter? No shit. What's the ROI? How many passengers per day? What do you think are the economic payoffs for those investments? What survey showed 80% of respondents preferring suburbs? A suburb versus what? What kind of respondents do you think they got? How do you reconcile this with the market reality of brutal real estate shortages in America's denser cities? (Just pull up some pricing per sqft. How do urban vs rural compare?) This is all even without taking into account the market distortions (and ponzi schemes) arising from the US's infrastructure sprawl since the 50s. What happens if/when the cities stop subsidizing the completely financially insolvent surrounding areas?
    - cyberax 4y ago
      > NYC subway is more expensive per meter? No shit. What's the ROI? How many passengers per day? What do you think are the economic payoffs for those investments? I don't think infrastructure in NYC is cost-effective. For that matter, infrastructure in Seattle (where I live now) is not cost effective. Its ROI is in fact negative, as it forces further unsustainable agglomeration of wealth in a small area, while starving smaller cities. > What survey showed 80% of respondents preferring suburbs? It's a metric that is pretty constant with only small variations: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/12/16/americans-are-less-likely-than-before-covid-19-to-want-to-live-in-cities-more-likely-to-prefer-suburbs/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/12/16/america... > A suburb versus what? Dense urban areas. > What happens if/when the cities stop subsidizing the completely financially insolvent surrounding areas? Sigh. Cities do not subsidize suburbs. Most of the US wealth is generated by people living in suburbs.
      - JPws_Prntr_Fngr 4y ago
        For anyone reading my response to this incredibly bad faith commenter, note: - that his own linked survey shows 46% preferring suburbs, not 80% - that "it forces further unsustainable agglomeration of wealth in a small area" would suggest a very high ROI, actually (and "forces" is an interesting word choice vs "attracts") - this Lafayette case study shows exactly how denser areas pay for themselves in tax revenue, and how the surrounding ones don't [0] [0] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason-your-city-has-no-money https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason...
quickthrower2 4y ago
Sprawl with competing “centres” I think is fine. Sprawl where everyone is trying to get to the centre for work and play not so much. London has good sprawl IMO. I doubt it affects affordable housing. Although it may make houses more affordable vs. appartments.