4 ms·

The low-density areas within city limits are functionally suburbs. You basically said as much yourself. Whether they have their own name and mayor or town counc

The low-density areas within city limits are functionally suburbs. You basically said as much yourself. Whether they have their own name and mayor or town council is a historical accident, not significant in this context. For example, Detroit is one of the geographically largest cities in the US. I lived there, and I lived in an adjoining suburb. There was no difference with respect to density or development type. The stroad near our house in Detroit was actually worse than the stroad near our house in Hazel Park. Whatever you can do within the "suburban style" parts of Seattle you can do in a politically separate suburb, as long as there are votes. Cities absorbing their near suburbs (as Detroit did long ago except for Hamtramck and Highland Park) and using weight of numbers to force change would possibly allow for greater density and more walkable areas in those places, but nowadays no current suburb would allow that to happen (because of property values, school funding, etc.) so it's a pipe dream. Transit would not be affected, since that's usually regional anyway. Again, the only way to affect how suburbs are built is to vote there. Running away helps the individual, but doesn't help society, and I'm sorry that people would rather not hear that about themselves but it's the truth here in reality.

marssaxman 3y ago
> Whatever you can do within the "suburban style" parts of Seattle you can do in a politically separate suburb I can't speak to Detroit, but here in Seattle, I just don't believe that's true. For example, look at Greenwood - close to the dense part of the city, it has a classic grid layout and there's already a good commercial core. Great bones, ready to pop, it just needs a zoning change and some transit investment: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Greenwood,+Seattle,+WA/@47.6945832,-122.3639625,3289m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x5490141fe0a394f9:0x9103e85c90d74880!8m2!3d47.6907107!4d-122.3553345!16zL20vMDNrZnA0?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/place/Greenwood,+Seattle,+WA/@47... Madison Valley, where I used to live, is currently going through that transition, and may in another 10-20 years become properly urban: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Madison+Valley,+Seattle,+WA/@47.6232455,-122.2996457,1647m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x54906b2b9d8d2fbf:0x4e321f8bb5da3f09!8m2!3d47.6233254!4d-122.2963918!16zL20vMDlxZmcw?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/place/Madison+Valley,+Seattle,+W... Compare this to a neighborhood in the suburbs, built in the sprawl era - for example East Hill, in Kent. What can be done with a place like this, full of wide roads, big box stores with vast parking lots, and meandery low-density cul-de-sac blocks which don't connect to each other? https://www.google.com/maps/place/East+Hill,+Kent,+WA+98031/@47.3862104,-122.2106976,3308m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x54905ea3b89e29d1:0xbb93c7e979d00439!8m2!3d47.3862114!4d-122.2003979!16s%2Fm%2F04c4ldg?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/place/East+Hill,+Kent,+WA+98031/... Move to a place like that and vote all you like, the whole structure of the place has been built around cars in a way which will be very difficult to fix. Lest you accuse me of cherry-picking a particularly obnoxious example, here's Totem Lake, equally hopeless: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Totem+Lake,+Kirkland,+WA/@47.7089469,-122.1900798,3586m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x54900d8043decd27:0xde65dccabcd1a0aa!8m2!3d47.7081862!4d-122.1805125!16s%2Fg%2F1vl9r5ll?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/place/Totem+Lake,+Kirkland,+WA/@... If Seattle relaxed its zoning and let urban development happen throughout, we could fit an enormous share of the region's population growth into the city limits. This would create a virtuous cycle where investment grows, rapid transit development becomes increasingly economical, the economy diversifies, and services improve. That can't be done in a remote suburb, because urban value is a function of proximity to resources. > Again, the only way to affect how suburbs are built is to vote there. Why do any more suburbs need to be built at all? Fix the cities and there will be plenty of space.
- notacoward 3y ago
  > the economy diversifies, and services improve Pure wishful thinking. Is there any empirical reason to believe this would be more true with everyone living in a couple of dozen large cities (as if that can even happen - see later) instead of in a greater number of more self-sufficient smaller cities and towns within a region? It's not like every company even in your own metropolitan area wants to be in "Seattle proper" is it? I used to work at a large one that basically moved out and they're not the only one. Investors didn't seem to mind one bit. > Why do any more suburbs need to be built at all I never said that they should. They need to be rebuilt, not built anew. More precisely, they need to be reconfigured to avoid the waste and ecological damage of tearing down one place and then building somewhere else. > Fix the cities and there will be plenty of space. Fix the suburbs and you'll have plenty of space too. Consolidation can happen as easily in each town as in the central city, and without some of the downsides - increased prices and decreasing affordability (already a major problem in Seattle), power distribution, waste disposal, what traffic still (and necessarily) remains, etc. I've been to Seattle. Consolidating most of the region's population into Seattle city limits would not be a utopia; it would be a nightmare even from a new-urbanist perspective. Ditto for the many other cities I've been to. A certain level of geographic expansion is inevitable, but not all such expansion is sprawl. More importantly, restructuring suburbs in place is the only way this can happen. People just won't move to the cities en masse. The current milieu of property values, school funding, etc. won't allow it. Changing those realities would be even harder than adopting a strong towns[1] or missing middle[2] approach in the places where people are and will remain. And that requires people voting where they are instead of running away. [1] https://www.strongtowns.org/ https://www.strongtowns.org/ [2] https://missingmiddlehousing.com/ https://missingmiddlehousing.com/

marssaxman 3y ago

> Whatever you can do within the "suburban style" parts of Seattle you can do in a politically separate suburb I can't speak to Detroit, but here in Seattle, I just don't believe that's true. For example, look at Greenwood - close to the dense part of the city, it has a classic grid layout and there's already a good commercial core. Great bones, ready to pop, it just needs a zoning change and some transit investment: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Greenwood,+Seattle,+WA/@47.6945832,-122.3639625,3289m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x5490141fe0a394f9:0x9103e85c90d74880!8m2!3d47.6907107!4d-122.3553345!16zL20vMDNrZnA0?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/place/Greenwood,+Seattle,+WA/@47... Madison Valley, where I used to live, is currently going through that transition, and may in another 10-20 years become properly urban: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Madison+Valley,+Seattle,+WA/@47.6232455,-122.2996457,1647m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x54906b2b9d8d2fbf:0x4e321f8bb5da3f09!8m2!3d47.6233254!4d-122.2963918!16zL20vMDlxZmcw?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/place/Madison+Valley,+Seattle,+W... Compare this to a neighborhood in the suburbs, built in the sprawl era - for example East Hill, in Kent. What can be done with a place like this, full of wide roads, big box stores with vast parking lots, and meandery low-density cul-de-sac blocks which don't connect to each other? https://www.google.com/maps/place/East+Hill,+Kent,+WA+98031/@47.3862104,-122.2106976,3308m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x54905ea3b89e29d1:0xbb93c7e979d00439!8m2!3d47.3862114!4d-122.2003979!16s%2Fm%2F04c4ldg?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/place/East+Hill,+Kent,+WA+98031/... Move to a place like that and vote all you like, the whole structure of the place has been built around cars in a way which will be very difficult to fix. Lest you accuse me of cherry-picking a particularly obnoxious example, here's Totem Lake, equally hopeless: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Totem+Lake,+Kirkland,+WA/@47.7089469,-122.1900798,3586m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x54900d8043decd27:0xde65dccabcd1a0aa!8m2!3d47.7081862!4d-122.1805125!16s%2Fg%2F1vl9r5ll?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/place/Totem+Lake,+Kirkland,+WA/@... If Seattle relaxed its zoning and let urban development happen throughout, we could fit an enormous share of the region's population growth into the city limits. This would create a virtuous cycle where investment grows, rapid transit development becomes increasingly economical, the economy diversifies, and services improve. That can't be done in a remote suburb, because urban value is a function of proximity to resources. > Again, the only way to affect how suburbs are built is to vote there. Why do any more suburbs need to be built at all? Fix the cities and there will be plenty of space.

notacoward 3y ago
> the economy diversifies, and services improve Pure wishful thinking. Is there any empirical reason to believe this would be more true with everyone living in a couple of dozen large cities (as if that can even happen - see later) instead of in a greater number of more self-sufficient smaller cities and towns within a region? It's not like every company even in your own metropolitan area wants to be in "Seattle proper" is it? I used to work at a large one that basically moved out and they're not the only one. Investors didn't seem to mind one bit. > Why do any more suburbs need to be built at all I never said that they should. They need to be rebuilt, not built anew. More precisely, they need to be reconfigured to avoid the waste and ecological damage of tearing down one place and then building somewhere else. > Fix the cities and there will be plenty of space. Fix the suburbs and you'll have plenty of space too. Consolidation can happen as easily in each town as in the central city, and without some of the downsides - increased prices and decreasing affordability (already a major problem in Seattle), power distribution, waste disposal, what traffic still (and necessarily) remains, etc. I've been to Seattle. Consolidating most of the region's population into Seattle city limits would not be a utopia; it would be a nightmare even from a new-urbanist perspective. Ditto for the many other cities I've been to. A certain level of geographic expansion is inevitable, but not all such expansion is sprawl. More importantly, restructuring suburbs in place is the only way this can happen. People just won't move to the cities en masse. The current milieu of property values, school funding, etc. won't allow it. Changing those realities would be even harder than adopting a strong towns[1] or missing middle[2] approach in the places where people are and will remain. And that requires people voting where they are instead of running away. [1] https://www.strongtowns.org/ https://www.strongtowns.org/ [2] https://missingmiddlehousing.com/ https://missingmiddlehousing.com/