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You sound like you're describing the LA area (with the exception of the city center gentrifying). It seems that what has happened is that, for the majority of

You sound like you're describing the LA area (with the exception of the city center gentrifying). It seems that what has happened is that, for the majority of American cities, they grew as an either/or option: you're either in the city, or you're in the suburbs, and the car enabled that in cities where it could. The cities which were geographically constrained, such as NYC or SF, were unable to sprawl outwards, and have commutes within reason, so the middle-classes stayed. That means things like good schools are able to exist because the demand was always there from the middle classes that didn't leave.

_delirium 15y ago
Yeah, I think that's the correct analysis. Having lived in Houston a few years, one thing that I think happens is that without geographical constraints, and with the way things are currently funded, it's easier to just keep moving out. Where I lived in the 1990s was a "new" suburban area of Houston, but already by the 2000s there were abandoned stores, because if a store moved out of a building, sometimes another store moved in, but often it was easier to just build a new to-order building another mile south on the freeway, instead of renovating an existing one. With no constraints, you can just keep moving out another mile every year for decades. Same with suburbs; why renovate a 1970s house if you can just move another mile down the freeway and build a new one? Especially given the cheap construction that's been used for the last 50 years... Part of that I think is also because some of the costs that incurs aren't properly charged. There was a proposal in Houston to charge developers for the cost of new infrastructure. For every 10,000 new homes built in a new suburb, for example, you can estimate what new capital infrastructure they'll need: on average 1 elementary school, 0.5 high schools, 1 fire station, 1 police station, X miles of roads, X miles of sewers, etc. (whatever the real numbers are). Add the estimated cost of that up, divide by 10,000, and charge that as a per-house assessment on new developments. That proposal failed, though, so new developments' indirect capital costs are subsidized by homeowners in the older areas of the city.
- hkarthik 15y ago
  We've got nearly the same problem in Dallas. For decades the development has moved further north into the Ex-burbs and bedroom communities. The interesting component is how the development gets financed in a Ponzi-esque scheme. Suburbs are built out with municipal bonds, which subsidize the build outs of services (schools, police, fire stations, roads) while keeping property taxes low. Once the suburb is completely built out, the taxes double or triple to pay back the bonds. Then the next suburb just north or south of it is built with more new bonds and the cycle continues.
waterlesscloud 15y ago
LA is its own weird beast where geology plays a role. There's a stripe running east west through the center, following the hills and the area immediately south of the hills, from Santa Monica to Griffith Park. That stripe is notably higher priced, with prices within the stripe generally increasing towards the ocean. Then there's a ring around that stripe where prices decrease for a while, and then move up again to be sort of traditionally suburban in pricing. And then there's the strange outer regions like Topanga / Calabasas / Malibu, where you move waaaay up the scale again.
- re_todd 15y ago
  LA is hard to figure out. I was around Long Beach a few weeks ago, and it looked like a pretty nice street, but about 5-6 blocks over was another main street that looked like a real ghetto. Also, I was in Pasadena a few months ago, on Lake Avenue south of the 210 it seemed pretty fancy, but as soon as you go over the freeway, still on Lake Avenue, North, you feel like you may not live very long.

_delirium 15y ago

Yeah, I think that's the correct analysis. Having lived in Houston a few years, one thing that I think happens is that without geographical constraints, and with the way things are currently funded, it's easier to just keep moving out. Where I lived in the 1990s was a "new" suburban area of Houston, but already by the 2000s there were abandoned stores, because if a store moved out of a building, sometimes another store moved in, but often it was easier to just build a new to-order building another mile south on the freeway, instead of renovating an existing one. With no constraints, you can just keep moving out another mile every year for decades. Same with suburbs; why renovate a 1970s house if you can just move another mile down the freeway and build a new one? Especially given the cheap construction that's been used for the last 50 years... Part of that I think is also because some of the costs that incurs aren't properly charged. There was a proposal in Houston to charge developers for the cost of new infrastructure. For every 10,000 new homes built in a new suburb, for example, you can estimate what new capital infrastructure they'll need: on average 1 elementary school, 0.5 high schools, 1 fire station, 1 police station, X miles of roads, X miles of sewers, etc. (whatever the real numbers are). Add the estimated cost of that up, divide by 10,000, and charge that as a per-house assessment on new developments. That proposal failed, though, so new developments' indirect capital costs are subsidized by homeowners in the older areas of the city.

hkarthik 15y ago
We've got nearly the same problem in Dallas. For decades the development has moved further north into the Ex-burbs and bedroom communities. The interesting component is how the development gets financed in a Ponzi-esque scheme. Suburbs are built out with municipal bonds, which subsidize the build outs of services (schools, police, fire stations, roads) while keeping property taxes low. Once the suburb is completely built out, the taxes double or triple to pay back the bonds. Then the next suburb just north or south of it is built with more new bonds and the cycle continues.

waterlesscloud 15y ago

LA is its own weird beast where geology plays a role. There's a stripe running east west through the center, following the hills and the area immediately south of the hills, from Santa Monica to Griffith Park. That stripe is notably higher priced, with prices within the stripe generally increasing towards the ocean. Then there's a ring around that stripe where prices decrease for a while, and then move up again to be sort of traditionally suburban in pricing. And then there's the strange outer regions like Topanga / Calabasas / Malibu, where you move waaaay up the scale again.

re_todd 15y ago
LA is hard to figure out. I was around Long Beach a few weeks ago, and it looked like a pretty nice street, but about 5-6 blocks over was another main street that looked like a real ghetto. Also, I was in Pasadena a few months ago, on Lake Avenue south of the 210 it seemed pretty fancy, but as soon as you go over the freeway, still on Lake Avenue, North, you feel like you may not live very long.