4 ms·

Workplaces tend to agglomerate, for all sorts of reasons. Biking distance is, what, five miles? Ten? Economics & geometry mean it's challenging to provide eno

Workplaces tend to agglomerate, for all sorts of reasons. Biking distance is, what, five miles? Ten? Economics & geometry mean it's challenging to provide enough of this that the median family can afford it. It's quite practical to do at the scale of a small city (250k population ish), but such places tend to be relatively poor unless they have some premium offering, a top university or a high-margin specialist industry. Big business seems to prefer bigger cities (they want a large talent pool, and peoples' willingness to relocate can be limited), and at that point for the average citizen, you have a choice between higher-density apartment living with biking distance, or the family home but a longer commute. The relocation thing is a bit of a vicious cycle tbh, high property prices make it harder to move, but also make people more invested in what they've bought, which in turn makes them less keen to relocate, which forces companies to locate where talent is, which pushes prices in those areas up further.

mitthrowaway2 2y ago
There are a lot of different types of workplaces, from office towers to corner stores to shipping ports to neighbourhood restaurants to nail salons to farms to industrial parks. I think with office towers being the only possible exception, the rest could easily have all of their workers live within biking distance. The office towers can be located walking distance from a metro stop. The key is just to avoid restrictive zoning that prevents people from opening a barber shop or a corner store in their residential neighbourhood.
- Earw0rm 2y ago
  That and having a dynamic housing market; flexibility in other services e.g. schools, so that people can move where work is, and move somewhere else when they're not working; and building mixed-use neighbourhoods that have schools, doctors, sports facilities and so on. Not sure how the US handles that, but in my country (UK) there are various factors that mean people don't move as much as common sense might suggest. High sales tax on houses, very variable quality of schools meaning the good ones are oversubscribed and if you move your kids may end up at a worse school some distance away, and so on.

mitthrowaway2 2y ago

There are a lot of different types of workplaces, from office towers to corner stores to shipping ports to neighbourhood restaurants to nail salons to farms to industrial parks. I think with office towers being the only possible exception, the rest could easily have all of their workers live within biking distance. The office towers can be located walking distance from a metro stop. The key is just to avoid restrictive zoning that prevents people from opening a barber shop or a corner store in their residential neighbourhood.

Earw0rm 2y ago
That and having a dynamic housing market; flexibility in other services e.g. schools, so that people can move where work is, and move somewhere else when they're not working; and building mixed-use neighbourhoods that have schools, doctors, sports facilities and so on. Not sure how the US handles that, but in my country (UK) there are various factors that mean people don't move as much as common sense might suggest. High sales tax on houses, very variable quality of schools meaning the good ones are oversubscribed and if you move your kids may end up at a worse school some distance away, and so on.