6 ms·

US cities are broken. Majority taxes are collected by residential zip code, and every person who works in the city, lives in the suburbs. The suburbs get wealth

by screye 3y ago

US cities are broken. Majority taxes are collected by residential zip code, and every person who works in the city, lives in the suburbs. The suburbs get wealthier off the economic productivity of the city. Only in the US would cities like Beverly hills-CA, Brookline-MA, Piedmont-CA exist. If you want the city to accommodate your suburban commute, (parking requirements, wider roads) and your safety (the homeless are bussed to the downtown core), then you need to pay taxes into the city. If you avail of cheap labor from the city's poor, then you need to be paying taxes into the city.

gottorf 3y ago
> Only in the US would cities like Beverly hills-CA, Brookline-MA, Piedmont-CA exist. I supposed places like Neilly-sur-Seine outside of Paris don't exist? I fail to see how rich, lower-density suburbs that well-to-do people prefer to live in while working in downtown centers is a uniquely American trait.
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  Notoriously, Neuilly-sur-Seine does pay a penalty for its underbuilding (actually, complete non-building) of social housing. https://www.france24.com/en/20101220-french-cities-rather-pay-fine-invest-social-housing-municipal-urban-planning-fondation-abbe-pierre-homeless https://www.france24.com/en/20101220-french-cities-rather-pa...
- screye 3y ago
  > Neilly-sur-Seine https://www.google.com/maps/@48.8863259,2.2692631,3a,75y,38.83h,106.97t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sfP55S2edJX4IIuWRoKH6OQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@48.8863259,2.2692631,3a,75y,38.... This does not look like low density suburb to me. The town only gets a commuter rail, and driving into Paris is a total nightmare. Suburbs are no the issue. Destroying cities to accommodate suburbs is. The suburbs I mention are walking distance to the city's downtown, take advantage of positives of dense urban development near them, while doing everything in their power from letting density touch their own neighborhood. It is selfishness at its worst. Paris has a population of 2 million, is a neat circle and clearly deprioritizes the needs of anyone outside the peripheral boulevard. You are making my point for me. Historically, suburbs were low density because an outer donut has more area than an inner circle. In the absence of land development regulation, density reflects the demand per sq/ft. If Americans were so sure of low density suburbs being a natural outcome, then they wouldn't wield every dirty weapon to ban land development in the aforementioned suburbs. In most American cities, the city does not control its own road or transportation budgets. This means that suburbs get to affect the lawmaking in the city, but cities do not get to do vice versa. I am not even going to address brain-dead laws like Prop 13 or rent-control that further destroy a city's ability to govern itself.
  - sib 3y ago
    > Only in the US would cities like Beverly hills-CA, Brookline-MA, Piedmont-CA exist. > The suburbs I mention are walking distance to the city's downtown, take advantage of positives of dense urban development near them, while doing everything in their power from letting density touch their own neighborhood. You have an interesting concept of "walking distance." Google Maps shows a 3 hour and 27 minute walk from Beverly Hills to DTLA. https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Beverly+Hills,+CA/Downtown+Los+Angeles,+Los+Angeles,+CA/@34.0614859,-118.4085144,12z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x80c2bc04d6d147ab:0xd6c7c379fd081ed1!2m2!1d-118.4003563!2d34.0736204!1m5!1m1!1s0x80c2c634253dfd01:0x26fe52df19a5a920!2m2!1d-118.2517828!2d34.0487969!3e2?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Beverly+Hills,+CA/Downtown+L... Brookline, MA, has a population density of nearly 9,000 people per square mile, so not exactly low density.
    - screye 3y ago
      LA is a misleading because it does not have a proper downtown. LA downtown is effectively a block from Skidrow (US's worst drug addled neighborhood), which means most people never want to be seen anywhere near downtown LA. The next most downtowny/dense areas of LA are West Hollywood, Century City and Santa Monica. All 3 of which are very close to Beverly Hills. To be honest, LA is such a nightmare of urban design, that no one issue can justify the complete and utter disaster that it is. North-Brookline is 1 block from the densest neighborhood in Boston (BU, Fenway), but is lined with single family homes because of NIMBY housing policy. It is a dense suburb, but it has no business being a suburb 1 block from 2 of the country's biggest schools (BU,NEU), 1 block from the sports mecca of the nation (Fenway) and 1 block from the center of medical research in the entire world (Longwood). Brookline gets to conveniently push its homeless out to Mass-n-cass and Packard's corner. They get to enforce increasingly ridiculous parking laws despite people needing to cross Brookline to get to other parts of Boston. They get all the benefits of the MBTA (B-Line, C-line), but refuse to make their own neighborhoods transit friendly [1]. They get access to cheaper-labor because the labor can make the commute from the more working class parts of Boston. When their ""cheap"" nannies have to access subsidized social services, it comes out the coffers of the city of Boston. Now, I will admit that the city of Boston is pretty badly run, when compared to the neighboring Cambridge, Brookline, Newton & Somerville. But, that's besides my main point. [1] https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/05/17/opinion/brookline-housing-zoning-mbta-communities-harvard-street/ https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/05/17/opinion/brookline-hou... My hot-take is that cities should have some level of default jurisdiction over their entire metro area. Land-use around public transportation, pass-through rights for new-transit, etc.
alephnerd 3y ago
> Only in the US would cities like Beverly hills-CA, Brookline-MA, Piedmont-CA exist Ever been to Reading just outside of London? Or Richmond in Vancouver? Or Como outside of Milan? Or Icheon outside of Seoul?
- rangestransform 3y ago
  At least Richmond also has the issue of mooching off of the productivity of Vancouver, though the issue is less pronounced there due to decreased political power allocated to individual municipalities
- screye 3y ago
  If you think Como, Incheon or Reading are anything like Beverly hills, Brookline or Piedmont, then I'm not sure you're getting my point. All 3 of my examples are within 10 minutes walking/driving from the downtown core of the city. Yet, they have carved out a completely isolated township for themselves, so as to avoid taxation from the parent city, while benefiting from every aspects of being geographically inside the parent city. It stops a city from expanding organically, leading to oddly tiny cities (SF) or city boundaries that look like a kids scribbles (LA, Boston). If you city isn't propagating radially from the downtown core then there better be a good explanation for it.

by screye 3y ago

gottorf 3y ago

> Only in the US would cities like Beverly hills-CA, Brookline-MA, Piedmont-CA exist. I supposed places like Neilly-sur-Seine outside of Paris don't exist? I fail to see how rich, lower-density suburbs that well-to-do people prefer to live in while working in downtown centers is a uniquely American trait.

Scoundreller 3y ago
Notoriously, Neuilly-sur-Seine does pay a penalty for its underbuilding (actually, complete non-building) of social housing. https://www.france24.com/en/20101220-french-cities-rather-pay-fine-invest-social-housing-municipal-urban-planning-fondation-abbe-pierre-homeless https://www.france24.com/en/20101220-french-cities-rather-pa...
screye 3y ago
> Neilly-sur-Seine https://www.google.com/maps/@48.8863259,2.2692631,3a,75y,38.83h,106.97t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sfP55S2edJX4IIuWRoKH6OQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@48.8863259,2.2692631,3a,75y,38.... This does not look like low density suburb to me. The town only gets a commuter rail, and driving into Paris is a total nightmare. Suburbs are no the issue. Destroying cities to accommodate suburbs is. The suburbs I mention are walking distance to the city's downtown, take advantage of positives of dense urban development near them, while doing everything in their power from letting density touch their own neighborhood. It is selfishness at its worst. Paris has a population of 2 million, is a neat circle and clearly deprioritizes the needs of anyone outside the peripheral boulevard. You are making my point for me. Historically, suburbs were low density because an outer donut has more area than an inner circle. In the absence of land development regulation, density reflects the demand per sq/ft. If Americans were so sure of low density suburbs being a natural outcome, then they wouldn't wield every dirty weapon to ban land development in the aforementioned suburbs. In most American cities, the city does not control its own road or transportation budgets. This means that suburbs get to affect the lawmaking in the city, but cities do not get to do vice versa. I am not even going to address brain-dead laws like Prop 13 or rent-control that further destroy a city's ability to govern itself.
- sib 3y ago
  > Only in the US would cities like Beverly hills-CA, Brookline-MA, Piedmont-CA exist. > The suburbs I mention are walking distance to the city's downtown, take advantage of positives of dense urban development near them, while doing everything in their power from letting density touch their own neighborhood. You have an interesting concept of "walking distance." Google Maps shows a 3 hour and 27 minute walk from Beverly Hills to DTLA. https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Beverly+Hills,+CA/Downtown+Los+Angeles,+Los+Angeles,+CA/@34.0614859,-118.4085144,12z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x80c2bc04d6d147ab:0xd6c7c379fd081ed1!2m2!1d-118.4003563!2d34.0736204!1m5!1m1!1s0x80c2c634253dfd01:0x26fe52df19a5a920!2m2!1d-118.2517828!2d34.0487969!3e2?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Beverly+Hills,+CA/Downtown+L... Brookline, MA, has a population density of nearly 9,000 people per square mile, so not exactly low density.
  - screye 3y ago
    LA is a misleading because it does not have a proper downtown. LA downtown is effectively a block from Skidrow (US's worst drug addled neighborhood), which means most people never want to be seen anywhere near downtown LA. The next most downtowny/dense areas of LA are West Hollywood, Century City and Santa Monica. All 3 of which are very close to Beverly Hills. To be honest, LA is such a nightmare of urban design, that no one issue can justify the complete and utter disaster that it is. North-Brookline is 1 block from the densest neighborhood in Boston (BU, Fenway), but is lined with single family homes because of NIMBY housing policy. It is a dense suburb, but it has no business being a suburb 1 block from 2 of the country's biggest schools (BU,NEU), 1 block from the sports mecca of the nation (Fenway) and 1 block from the center of medical research in the entire world (Longwood). Brookline gets to conveniently push its homeless out to Mass-n-cass and Packard's corner. They get to enforce increasingly ridiculous parking laws despite people needing to cross Brookline to get to other parts of Boston. They get all the benefits of the MBTA (B-Line, C-line), but refuse to make their own neighborhoods transit friendly [1]. They get access to cheaper-labor because the labor can make the commute from the more working class parts of Boston. When their ""cheap"" nannies have to access subsidized social services, it comes out the coffers of the city of Boston. Now, I will admit that the city of Boston is pretty badly run, when compared to the neighboring Cambridge, Brookline, Newton & Somerville. But, that's besides my main point. [1] https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/05/17/opinion/brookline-housing-zoning-mbta-communities-harvard-street/ https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/05/17/opinion/brookline-hou... My hot-take is that cities should have some level of default jurisdiction over their entire metro area. Land-use around public transportation, pass-through rights for new-transit, etc.

alephnerd 3y ago

> Only in the US would cities like Beverly hills-CA, Brookline-MA, Piedmont-CA exist Ever been to Reading just outside of London? Or Richmond in Vancouver? Or Como outside of Milan? Or Icheon outside of Seoul?

rangestransform 3y ago
At least Richmond also has the issue of mooching off of the productivity of Vancouver, though the issue is less pronounced there due to decreased political power allocated to individual municipalities
screye 3y ago
If you think Como, Incheon or Reading are anything like Beverly hills, Brookline or Piedmont, then I'm not sure you're getting my point. All 3 of my examples are within 10 minutes walking/driving from the downtown core of the city. Yet, they have carved out a completely isolated township for themselves, so as to avoid taxation from the parent city, while benefiting from every aspects of being geographically inside the parent city. It stops a city from expanding organically, leading to oddly tiny cities (SF) or city boundaries that look like a kids scribbles (LA, Boston). If you city isn't propagating radially from the downtown core then there better be a good explanation for it.