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The housing crisis is (in part) a transport crisis. A city is a technology for optimizing time. In North America, the car made suburbanization possible. You c

by neilk 3y ago

The housing crisis is (in part) a transport crisis. A city is a technology for optimizing time. In North America, the car made suburbanization possible. You could live much further out, and still get everywhere you wanted. (Or at least, that was the promise; sometimes not the reality). In our most desirable cities, we have simply run out of space that can be reasonably traversed by car. At least given our current patterns of land use. We're not running out of land - most of North America is very empty. We're running out of land that's close enough to urban centers that can support the lifestyles we want. If we had some better methods of transport - flying cars, high speed trains everywhere, who knows - that might be an answer. But that doesn't seem likely any time soon. So we have to rethink land use, or rethink the lifestyles we want.

eesmith 3y ago
> we have simply run out of space that can be reasonably traversed by car I don't think it's that simple. There's a lot more housing that could be added with more density, and less transport needed if mixed-use zoning were more common. > flying cars, high speed trains everywhere You can get great cities with normal speed trains. Trains can carry far more passengers, for the same footprint, than a highway. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_capacity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_capacity > In North America, the car made suburbanization possible In North America, suburbanization started with streetcars, running on rails. The car changed how we built, yes, but so did Federal Housing Administration, whose standards promoted single-family homes with on-street parking and made it hard to get loans ("red-lining") for the types of housing which made streetcar suburbs economically viable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb#Decline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb#Decline

by neilk 3y ago

eesmith 3y ago

> we have simply run out of space that can be reasonably traversed by car I don't think it's that simple. There's a lot more housing that could be added with more density, and less transport needed if mixed-use zoning were more common. > flying cars, high speed trains everywhere You can get great cities with normal speed trains. Trains can carry far more passengers, for the same footprint, than a highway. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_capacity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_capacity > In North America, the car made suburbanization possible In North America, suburbanization started with streetcars, running on rails. The car changed how we built, yes, but so did Federal Housing Administration, whose standards promoted single-family homes with on-street parking and made it hard to get loans ("red-lining") for the types of housing which made streetcar suburbs economically viable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb#Decline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb#Decline