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Building new towns is hard because you need jobs nearby and there's no guarantee they'll materialize to a large enough degree to support the town. I'm wonderin

Building new towns is hard because you need jobs nearby and there's no guarantee they'll materialize to a large enough degree to support the town. I'm wondering if it's okay to have the government take over properties that are simply poor uses of land even if the owners don't want to sell?

toast0 1y ago
Building new, isolated, towns is hard for that reason. But if you build a town on a train or bus line that connects to places people work you don't need to bootstrap self sufficiency. Building near a highway works too.
- goosedragons 1y ago
  Is that a new town? Or sprawl of an existing city? There's only so far out you can reasonably go before the commute stops making sense. Many cities have already hit that limit. For example, there really isn't any space outside Toronto for a new community to have a tolerable commute with the current infrastructure.
  - swsieber 1y ago
    I think the key thing is to frame the new city as a city, and not just an extension. As part of that you'd need to keep enough space to let business pop up, etc. I think part of the problem extensions run into is that they don't want to be a city.
  - toast0 1y ago
    I mean, yes to both. Depending on local political boundary systems, it might be part of the main city or not. Reasonable commute has a different definition for different people. Some people don't commute for work, so two hours to city center is fine if they only go a few times a year. Some only commute for work a couple times a week and an hour and a half sucks, but is doable if the housing is better enough on whatever dimension. Some will be able to move their job to the new location. If the new town has appropriate zoning and desires, a handful of companies in the city center may setup offices there to reduce office costs and attract workers that are in the periphery, instead of making everyone go into the city center. This definitely happens around Toronto, just from looking at the density of roads on Google Maps. There's plenty of pockets of density in lines out from Toronto, and there's also several named places where there's no clear boundary between the names (there probably is at other levels of detail).
  - AlotOfReading 1y ago
    Terrible infrastructure is a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy here. If you've only ever built it out to places that already have density, there won't be places without density almost by definition unless something like Detroit has happened in the meantime. There's certainly land within close proximity to Toronto that could be used if there were political will. Georgetown is closer than Bletchley Park and already has a (terrible) train connection. Nobleton is like 10km from Vaughan, well within easy reach. If you look at other Canadian cities there are even easier wins. Calgary has empty land (not parks, not reservation) within 8km of downtown. Winnipeg is practically a model city for this kind of treatment. Vancouver and Montreal are the only obviously difficult ones due to their geography.
    - goosedragons 1y ago
      But it's still sprawl. Yes, there's cities that can still sprawl more, but building sprawl is not the same thing as building a new city. You're just building a place for people to sleep while they work somewhere else. You have to build something self sustaining and that requires jobs in the new city. You can't just have a connection to an existing city. You need an industry or institution or something there to attract workers and the workers to support those workers.
  - mr_toad 1y ago
    Infrastructure makes a big difference, as does WFH. People commute from Canterbury to London, which is > 50 miles. But they have over 100 trains a day, many of them high speed.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 1y ago
  Near a highway there is so much noise for homes though, I'm always shocked people find that acceptable. I checked a home near a highway and I couldn't even open the window due to the noise
  - toast0 1y ago
    Depends on what you count as 'near'. Adjacent to, yeah, it's noisy. Highway noise travels, but not that far. Textured walls and trees and bushes help reduce the distance that noise travels as well.
    - Fire-Dragon-DoL 1y ago
      Oh sure, the places I'm talking about were maybe 100m from two highways. It was insane. I can't even imagine the amount of dust and air pollution you get in your home by opening the window
      - int_19h 1y ago
        It depends. I live ~100m from a highway (I-90), and I have an air quality sensor that measures particulate pollution. AQI is usually in single digits.
  - Oanid 1y ago
    There are apartments along Highway 427 in Toronto that are like that.
HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago
In the US, that's Eminent Domain and it usually doesn't happen without a fight.
- fragmede 1y ago
  So have the fight. People living in plastic tents in the middle cities is abhorrent.
  - anonym29 1y ago
    There will be people living in plastic tents in inner cities regardless of whether the government does or does not infringe upon the basic right to private property. You're not proposing the solution to injustice you think you're posing, you're just proposing an argument for more injustice.
rich_sasha 1y ago
...is my point - UK did it multiple times, overall successfully I would say: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_towns_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_towns_in_the_United_King... These towns often have a bit of a reputation for being full of, well, 1960s architecture and being a bit dated and unexciting, but frankly that's just a lot of the UK. Functionally, I have been to a few of them and they are just fine, if a little boring, places to live. > [is it] okay to have the government take over properties that are simply poor uses of land even if the owners don't want to sell? I mean, happens all the time with infrastructure projects - roads, railroads, power plants.
averageRoyalty 1y ago
> Building new towns is hard because you need jobs nearby and there's no guarantee they'll materialize to a large enough degree to support the town. There's an Australian quote from the 80s I can't recall the source of right now, but it's something along the lines of "we're a country of people serving each other flat whites", indicating that the primary spend in economy is local service based. I suspect that's true in most western countries - cafes, supermarkets, dog grooming services, dentists, hairdressers, etc. Many jobs exist where people are, and if a new suburb or city were to crop up, commercial areas would be planned and a smart council could incentivise by discounting rent for the first X years or similar programs.

toast0 1y ago

Building new, isolated, towns is hard for that reason. But if you build a town on a train or bus line that connects to places people work you don't need to bootstrap self sufficiency. Building near a highway works too.

goosedragons 1y ago
Is that a new town? Or sprawl of an existing city? There's only so far out you can reasonably go before the commute stops making sense. Many cities have already hit that limit. For example, there really isn't any space outside Toronto for a new community to have a tolerable commute with the current infrastructure.
- swsieber 1y ago
  I think the key thing is to frame the new city as a city, and not just an extension. As part of that you'd need to keep enough space to let business pop up, etc. I think part of the problem extensions run into is that they don't want to be a city.
- toast0 1y ago
  I mean, yes to both. Depending on local political boundary systems, it might be part of the main city or not. Reasonable commute has a different definition for different people. Some people don't commute for work, so two hours to city center is fine if they only go a few times a year. Some only commute for work a couple times a week and an hour and a half sucks, but is doable if the housing is better enough on whatever dimension. Some will be able to move their job to the new location. If the new town has appropriate zoning and desires, a handful of companies in the city center may setup offices there to reduce office costs and attract workers that are in the periphery, instead of making everyone go into the city center. This definitely happens around Toronto, just from looking at the density of roads on Google Maps. There's plenty of pockets of density in lines out from Toronto, and there's also several named places where there's no clear boundary between the names (there probably is at other levels of detail).
- AlotOfReading 1y ago
  Terrible infrastructure is a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy here. If you've only ever built it out to places that already have density, there won't be places without density almost by definition unless something like Detroit has happened in the meantime. There's certainly land within close proximity to Toronto that could be used if there were political will. Georgetown is closer than Bletchley Park and already has a (terrible) train connection. Nobleton is like 10km from Vaughan, well within easy reach. If you look at other Canadian cities there are even easier wins. Calgary has empty land (not parks, not reservation) within 8km of downtown. Winnipeg is practically a model city for this kind of treatment. Vancouver and Montreal are the only obviously difficult ones due to their geography.
  - goosedragons 1y ago
    But it's still sprawl. Yes, there's cities that can still sprawl more, but building sprawl is not the same thing as building a new city. You're just building a place for people to sleep while they work somewhere else. You have to build something self sustaining and that requires jobs in the new city. You can't just have a connection to an existing city. You need an industry or institution or something there to attract workers and the workers to support those workers.
- mr_toad 1y ago
  Infrastructure makes a big difference, as does WFH. People commute from Canterbury to London, which is > 50 miles. But they have over 100 trains a day, many of them high speed.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 1y ago
Near a highway there is so much noise for homes though, I'm always shocked people find that acceptable. I checked a home near a highway and I couldn't even open the window due to the noise
- toast0 1y ago
  Depends on what you count as 'near'. Adjacent to, yeah, it's noisy. Highway noise travels, but not that far. Textured walls and trees and bushes help reduce the distance that noise travels as well.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 1y ago
    Oh sure, the places I'm talking about were maybe 100m from two highways. It was insane. I can't even imagine the amount of dust and air pollution you get in your home by opening the window
    - int_19h 1y ago
      It depends. I live ~100m from a highway (I-90), and I have an air quality sensor that measures particulate pollution. AQI is usually in single digits.
- Oanid 1y ago
  There are apartments along Highway 427 in Toronto that are like that.

HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago

In the US, that's Eminent Domain and it usually doesn't happen without a fight.

fragmede 1y ago
So have the fight. People living in plastic tents in the middle cities is abhorrent.
- anonym29 1y ago
  There will be people living in plastic tents in inner cities regardless of whether the government does or does not infringe upon the basic right to private property. You're not proposing the solution to injustice you think you're posing, you're just proposing an argument for more injustice.

rich_sasha 1y ago

...is my point - UK did it multiple times, overall successfully I would say: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_towns_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_towns_in_the_United_King... These towns often have a bit of a reputation for being full of, well, 1960s architecture and being a bit dated and unexciting, but frankly that's just a lot of the UK. Functionally, I have been to a few of them and they are just fine, if a little boring, places to live. > [is it] okay to have the government take over properties that are simply poor uses of land even if the owners don't want to sell? I mean, happens all the time with infrastructure projects - roads, railroads, power plants.

averageRoyalty 1y ago

> Building new towns is hard because you need jobs nearby and there's no guarantee they'll materialize to a large enough degree to support the town. There's an Australian quote from the 80s I can't recall the source of right now, but it's something along the lines of "we're a country of people serving each other flat whites", indicating that the primary spend in economy is local service based. I suspect that's true in most western countries - cafes, supermarkets, dog grooming services, dentists, hairdressers, etc. Many jobs exist where people are, and if a new suburb or city were to crop up, commercial areas would be planned and a smart council could incentivise by discounting rent for the first X years or similar programs.