6 ms·

If people want to live in cities and want to have a car-free lifestyle, then more power to you. Cities are becoming increasingly unaffordable and increasingly

by efitz 3y ago

If people want to live in cities and want to have a car-free lifestyle, then more power to you. Cities are becoming increasingly unaffordable and increasingly violent. I think that we are past “peak metro” and that the absolute refusal of many people to return to office work is going to result in an acceleration of out-migration from cities. This in turn will exacerbate other urban problems as the revenue base dries up and low wage employees become ever more difficult to find in urban areas.

bertil 3y ago
Do you have any data to support the claim that cities are becoming more violent? That’s a common trope that is generally debunked by police statistics.
- paulddraper 3y ago
  San Fransisco crime increased 5% last year. [1] NYC crime increased 22% last year. [2] Chicago crime increased 41% last year. [3] [1] https://missionlocal.org/2023/01/explore-how-crime-changed-in-2022/ https://missionlocal.org/2023/01/explore-how-crime-changed-i... [2] https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p00071/nypd-citywide-crime-statistics-december-2022 https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p00071/nypd-citywide-crim... [3] https://www.illinoispolicy.org/chicago-crime-spikes-in-2022-but-first-drop-in-murder-since-pandemic/ https://www.illinoispolicy.org/chicago-crime-spikes-in-2022-... ** That said, the OP said "violent" and technically the increase was almost entirely non-violent crimes (e.g. theft).
  - sva_ 3y ago
    > San Fransisco crime increased 5% last year. If you want to decrease your crime rates, just make crimes more legal tips forehead.
  - jjxw 3y ago
    Also important to note that "last year" includes the tail end of the pandemic where crime as a whole fell due to lockdowns. SF and NYC fall far below other, less dense, cities in the US such as Cleveland Ohio, Lansing Michigan, Rockford Illinois, and Anchorage Alaska in violent crime rates. Granted, Chicago is in the top 20 in violent crime, though, if I had to guess those statistics are driven by crime that occurs outside the "urban core". Perception certainly matters -- perceptions of SF BART and MUNI probably are not helping ridership -- but the narrative that San Francisco has become an urban hellscape is not borne out by the data nor by my personal anecdotal experience.
    - google234123 3y ago
      You can't report a lot of crimes online (assault, Residential Burglaries, Robbery Incidents, Stolen Vehicles, stolen Electric Bicycles) and the police will tell you it's pointless to report minor ones in SF If a homeless guy punches you in SF, would you really bother to walk to a police station and wait in line and waste a ton of time for literally nothing to happen?
      - jjxw 3y ago
        I don't think you can report some of those crimes online in other cities either. Houston (https://www.houstontx.gov/police/online_report.htm https://www.houstontx.gov/police/online_report.htm) doesn't let you report violent crime nor stolen vehicles. Miami (https://www.miami-police.org/incident_reporting.html https://www.miami-police.org/incident_reporting.html) doesn't allow violent crime to be reported either. Smaller cities like the city I grew up nearby like Rogers, Arkansas don't even allow you to file a report online at all. I don't have time to do a comprehensive survey of how other cities operate online crime reporting, but I'm assuming in good faith that the implication here is that San Francisco's violent crime statistics are under reported if you can't report online. It seems to me that many other cities don't allow you to report online either. Open to having a good faith discussion on if crime stats in SF are deflated due to underreporting. My guess would be that the base rate of actual people getting assaulted by a homeless guy is pretty low - curious if you have any anecdotal evidence or data to the contrary.
        bombcar 3y ago
        Violent crimes are probably relatively well reported at some violence threshold - something like "did you need medical assistance". It's property crimes that are below the insurance threshold that will just not be reported; why bother? I had cars broken into and I never reported any of them because it would be pointless; the only time I did report was when the car was stolen - and that only because I didn't want it to turn up burning somewhere and blamed on me.
    - tptacek 3y ago
      Chicago isn't even the top 50 worldwide for homicide, let alone the top 20. Several US cities are, though, including places like Cleveland. Chicago puts up big numbers because the city is deceptively big.
- pedroma 3y ago
  Can you post some of those police statistics that debunk that claim?
  - bertil 3y ago
    The most famous case for it is here: https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_the_surprising_decline_in_violence?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_the_surprising_decli... but there are a lot more cases, generally in the same direction, depending on the time frame, whether it’s city vs. country, race-related, drug-related, enforcement-related, from strangers, etc. Overall, far fewer cases are being given a lot more cover while deaths preventable with standard healthcare increase, and deaths and life-altering injuries from car accidents remain so frequent you’d need a metronome to count them.
650REDHAIR 3y ago
“ increasingly violent” Where are you getting that data?
- efitz 3y ago
  Violent crime in the US was steadily falling since the early 1990s but has risen since 2014, with a hiatus during lockdowns. [1] Violent crime is more prevalent in urban areas of the US than in rural areas [2]. [1] https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12281 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12281 [2] https://www.city-journal.org/article/criminal-neglect#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20NCVS%2C%20violent,the%20rate%20in%20rural%20areas https://www.city-journal.org/article/criminal-neglect#:~:tex....
dukeyukey 3y ago
I don't think "increasingly unaffordable" and "acceleration of out-migration from cities" can realistically happen at the same time. I can definitely say that London's (where I am) population is growing, and grew consistently through Covid. A quick Google tells me NYC, Seattle, Chicago are all adding people at comparable-or-greater rates than the US population is growing.
digging 3y ago
This is weird, misguided fear-mongering. Cities are increasingly unaffordable largely because of anti-urban, car-centric policies (zoning, infrastructure plans). > If people want to live in cities and want to have a car-free lifestyle, then more power to you. It's really not about what people want, it never has been. It is illegal to build walkable areas in almost all of the US. Laws need to be changed, immediately, for our well-being and the survival of our civilization. And then you can still go live in the country if you want to; it's awesome out there and you can be even further from the sprawl.
- efitz 3y ago
  I said nothing fear mongering; weird is in the eye of the beholder. Never before in human history have humans lived in densities that they live in modern cities, especially surrounded by strangers. I think that is weird. There are certainly some places with dumb laws, but I’d want to see evidence that “It’s illegal to build walkable areas in most of the US”. THAT sounds like fear mongering. Every house I have ever bought has had local ordinances requiring sidewalks. You aren’t allowed to build sidewalks and trails on land you don’t own; I guess that is illegal in the sense that trespass is illegal. Also many areas don’t have the revenue to keep up sidewalks so they don’t build them. That sounds fiscally responsible to me even if a little sad, but is also a far cry from “illegal”.
  - zamnos 3y ago
    > Never before in human history have humans lived in densities that they live in modern cities, especially surrounded by strangers. The Roman empire, which existed from 27 BC to AD 395, had Rome as its capital, and while numbers are subject to discussion given the age, the floor for the density of the city of Rome back then, which had a large number of insulae, or apartment buildings, is 30,000 people/sq km. A more recent estimate put it at 72,150 people per square kilometer *. For reference, Manhattans' population density as of the 2020 census is 72,918 people per square kilometer. This was 1,600 years ago! That is to say, there is precedent for humans living in the kinds of densities we have today, without anywhere near the kinds of technology we have. There was no electricity, no cars, no Internet back in '400. They most modern revolutionary thing was running water, and even then they used lead pipes for it and had no electrical pumps to pump it up to the 9th floor. One thing that will be familiar to modern readers is that the government came in and imposed regulations, making some buildings illegal due to height restrictions. * https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA20586744&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=0003598X&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7Ee281e682#:~:text=Estimates%20of%20the%20population%20of,72%2C150%20persons%20per%20sq%20km https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA20586744&sid=googleSc....
juve1996 3y ago
Cities can't continually become unaffordable if all the rich people you say are leaving don't come back. It doesn't equate.
- efitz 3y ago
  Rich salary earners can move out due to tax burdens while property investors and landlords purchase the properties.
  - juve1996 3y ago
    Owning property in a place where all the money is leaving is a poor investment.
shipscode 3y ago
Agree with you 100%, the next few years are going to be wild WRT people moving out of metro areas. The housing costs in NYC for example haven't returned to 2016 levels and likely won't in the near future.
- bombcar 3y ago
  Outside the 2008 funny business, housing just doesn't go down in nominal dollars. The best we can realistically hope for is it staying relatively steady in nominal dollars whilst inflation burns up the purchasing power associated.

by efitz 3y ago

bertil 3y ago

Do you have any data to support the claim that cities are becoming more violent? That’s a common trope that is generally debunked by police statistics.

paulddraper 3y ago
San Fransisco crime increased 5% last year. [1] NYC crime increased 22% last year. [2] Chicago crime increased 41% last year. [3] [1] https://missionlocal.org/2023/01/explore-how-crime-changed-in-2022/ https://missionlocal.org/2023/01/explore-how-crime-changed-i... [2] https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p00071/nypd-citywide-crime-statistics-december-2022 https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p00071/nypd-citywide-crim... [3] https://www.illinoispolicy.org/chicago-crime-spikes-in-2022-but-first-drop-in-murder-since-pandemic/ https://www.illinoispolicy.org/chicago-crime-spikes-in-2022-... ** That said, the OP said "violent" and technically the increase was almost entirely non-violent crimes (e.g. theft).
- sva_ 3y ago
  > San Fransisco crime increased 5% last year. If you want to decrease your crime rates, just make crimes more legal tips forehead.
- jjxw 3y ago
  Also important to note that "last year" includes the tail end of the pandemic where crime as a whole fell due to lockdowns. SF and NYC fall far below other, less dense, cities in the US such as Cleveland Ohio, Lansing Michigan, Rockford Illinois, and Anchorage Alaska in violent crime rates. Granted, Chicago is in the top 20 in violent crime, though, if I had to guess those statistics are driven by crime that occurs outside the "urban core". Perception certainly matters -- perceptions of SF BART and MUNI probably are not helping ridership -- but the narrative that San Francisco has become an urban hellscape is not borne out by the data nor by my personal anecdotal experience.
  - google234123 3y ago
    You can't report a lot of crimes online (assault, Residential Burglaries, Robbery Incidents, Stolen Vehicles, stolen Electric Bicycles) and the police will tell you it's pointless to report minor ones in SF If a homeless guy punches you in SF, would you really bother to walk to a police station and wait in line and waste a ton of time for literally nothing to happen?
    - jjxw 3y ago
      I don't think you can report some of those crimes online in other cities either. Houston (https://www.houstontx.gov/police/online_report.htm https://www.houstontx.gov/police/online_report.htm) doesn't let you report violent crime nor stolen vehicles. Miami (https://www.miami-police.org/incident_reporting.html https://www.miami-police.org/incident_reporting.html) doesn't allow violent crime to be reported either. Smaller cities like the city I grew up nearby like Rogers, Arkansas don't even allow you to file a report online at all. I don't have time to do a comprehensive survey of how other cities operate online crime reporting, but I'm assuming in good faith that the implication here is that San Francisco's violent crime statistics are under reported if you can't report online. It seems to me that many other cities don't allow you to report online either. Open to having a good faith discussion on if crime stats in SF are deflated due to underreporting. My guess would be that the base rate of actual people getting assaulted by a homeless guy is pretty low - curious if you have any anecdotal evidence or data to the contrary.
      - bombcar 3y ago
        Violent crimes are probably relatively well reported at some violence threshold - something like "did you need medical assistance". It's property crimes that are below the insurance threshold that will just not be reported; why bother? I had cars broken into and I never reported any of them because it would be pointless; the only time I did report was when the car was stolen - and that only because I didn't want it to turn up burning somewhere and blamed on me.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    Chicago isn't even the top 50 worldwide for homicide, let alone the top 20. Several US cities are, though, including places like Cleveland. Chicago puts up big numbers because the city is deceptively big.
pedroma 3y ago
Can you post some of those police statistics that debunk that claim?
- bertil 3y ago
  The most famous case for it is here: https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_the_surprising_decline_in_violence?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_the_surprising_decli... but there are a lot more cases, generally in the same direction, depending on the time frame, whether it’s city vs. country, race-related, drug-related, enforcement-related, from strangers, etc. Overall, far fewer cases are being given a lot more cover while deaths preventable with standard healthcare increase, and deaths and life-altering injuries from car accidents remain so frequent you’d need a metronome to count them.

650REDHAIR 3y ago

“ increasingly violent” Where are you getting that data?

efitz 3y ago
Violent crime in the US was steadily falling since the early 1990s but has risen since 2014, with a hiatus during lockdowns. [1] Violent crime is more prevalent in urban areas of the US than in rural areas [2]. [1] https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12281 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12281 [2] https://www.city-journal.org/article/criminal-neglect#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20NCVS%2C%20violent,the%20rate%20in%20rural%20areas https://www.city-journal.org/article/criminal-neglect#:~:tex....

dukeyukey 3y ago

I don't think "increasingly unaffordable" and "acceleration of out-migration from cities" can realistically happen at the same time. I can definitely say that London's (where I am) population is growing, and grew consistently through Covid. A quick Google tells me NYC, Seattle, Chicago are all adding people at comparable-or-greater rates than the US population is growing.

digging 3y ago

This is weird, misguided fear-mongering. Cities are increasingly unaffordable largely because of anti-urban, car-centric policies (zoning, infrastructure plans). > If people want to live in cities and want to have a car-free lifestyle, then more power to you. It's really not about what people want, it never has been. It is illegal to build walkable areas in almost all of the US. Laws need to be changed, immediately, for our well-being and the survival of our civilization. And then you can still go live in the country if you want to; it's awesome out there and you can be even further from the sprawl.

efitz 3y ago
I said nothing fear mongering; weird is in the eye of the beholder. Never before in human history have humans lived in densities that they live in modern cities, especially surrounded by strangers. I think that is weird. There are certainly some places with dumb laws, but I’d want to see evidence that “It’s illegal to build walkable areas in most of the US”. THAT sounds like fear mongering. Every house I have ever bought has had local ordinances requiring sidewalks. You aren’t allowed to build sidewalks and trails on land you don’t own; I guess that is illegal in the sense that trespass is illegal. Also many areas don’t have the revenue to keep up sidewalks so they don’t build them. That sounds fiscally responsible to me even if a little sad, but is also a far cry from “illegal”.
- zamnos 3y ago
  > Never before in human history have humans lived in densities that they live in modern cities, especially surrounded by strangers. The Roman empire, which existed from 27 BC to AD 395, had Rome as its capital, and while numbers are subject to discussion given the age, the floor for the density of the city of Rome back then, which had a large number of insulae, or apartment buildings, is 30,000 people/sq km. A more recent estimate put it at 72,150 people per square kilometer *. For reference, Manhattans' population density as of the 2020 census is 72,918 people per square kilometer. This was 1,600 years ago! That is to say, there is precedent for humans living in the kinds of densities we have today, without anywhere near the kinds of technology we have. There was no electricity, no cars, no Internet back in '400. They most modern revolutionary thing was running water, and even then they used lead pipes for it and had no electrical pumps to pump it up to the 9th floor. One thing that will be familiar to modern readers is that the government came in and imposed regulations, making some buildings illegal due to height restrictions. * https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA20586744&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=0003598X&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7Ee281e682#:~:text=Estimates%20of%20the%20population%20of,72%2C150%20persons%20per%20sq%20km https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA20586744&sid=googleSc....

juve1996 3y ago

Cities can't continually become unaffordable if all the rich people you say are leaving don't come back. It doesn't equate.

efitz 3y ago
Rich salary earners can move out due to tax burdens while property investors and landlords purchase the properties.
- juve1996 3y ago
  Owning property in a place where all the money is leaving is a poor investment.

shipscode 3y ago

Agree with you 100%, the next few years are going to be wild WRT people moving out of metro areas. The housing costs in NYC for example haven't returned to 2016 levels and likely won't in the near future.

bombcar 3y ago
Outside the 2008 funny business, housing just doesn't go down in nominal dollars. The best we can realistically hope for is it staying relatively steady in nominal dollars whilst inflation burns up the purchasing power associated.