4 ms·

It is confusing, especially because the few places in the US that have walkable neighborhoods like you're describing are also extremely expensive, so clearly th

It is confusing, especially because the few places in the US that have walkable neighborhoods like you're describing are also extremely expensive, so clearly they are desirable. It is rational to buy a cheaper house in an area that doesn't have this stuff, because that's what you can afford or you want to save your money for other things you care about, but then why fight against it once you live there? Wouldn't it make your neighborhood a better place to live while also raising your property value?

rayiner 9mo ago
Judging by what the moms in my neighborhood say—traffic and parking.
kevin_thibedeau 9mo ago
> few places in the US that have walkable neighborhoods Lots of places in the US have walkable neighborhods. You just have to live in a place that was developed before WW2 and car ownership wasn't assumed.
- gnz11 9mo ago
  Those are often the expensive places.
  - kevin_thibedeau 9mo ago
    I have a pre-civil war cottage behind me. The neighborhood built out in 1870 and then again in 1925. All the houses are below $200k.
    - 0x1ch 9mo ago
      In Washington, a half million dollar home is generally becoming a demo lot for property builders, if you don't you just bought a half mil crack house... What state are you in?
      - bigstrat2003 9mo ago
        A lot of the country has houses for less than $200k. I'm not the person you are replying to, but in my home state of Wisconsin it's very common. I myself live in a fairly high COL city (Denver), and even here things aren't as dire as what you are describing. I think your area (Seattle I'm guessing?) is rather an outlier.
        seanmcdirmid 9mo ago
        Even Spokane is expensive these days, but you could get a house for $150k in 2010 at least. The west in general has higher housing costs, it applies to Idaho and Utah as well, and especially western Montana. Things don’t get cheap until you hit eastern Montana or New Mexico.
- lotsoweiners 9mo ago
  I live in as suburban of an area as you can imagine with master planned communities and what not. I can still walk to 3 grocery stores, multiple bars, fast food restaurants, fast casual restaurants, coffee shops, medical offices, convenience stores, and loads of other services in under 15 minutes. The suburbs built in the 90s and 2000s are not the dystopia people make them out to be.
  - idontwantthis 9mo ago
    Not all are but most are. I too live in a single family zone surrounded by commercial zones in walking distance and it’s fantastic! But most of my city and its surroundings are not like this and you would need to drive to get anywhere. It’s really an almost perfect spot that I’ve found.
    - smugma 9mo ago
      Where are these two places?!
      - deleted 9mo ago
        [deleted]
    - seanmcdirmid 9mo ago
      It really depends what region of the USA you are in. The south? Ya, things are hard, walkability was never emphasized because of harsh weather. The west coast or northeast will be more reasonable, the intermountain west is more hit or miss.
  - jjav 9mo ago
    Very much this. My neighborhood was built in the late 90s. Single family home small town suburbia. I can walk to just about anything I need in daily life. Within 10 minutes walk there are 2 supermarkets, movies, many restaurants, variety of services, library, parks, theaters, doctors, and more. If we count cycling, I can bike to 99% of what I could need in life. (Problem in practice is lack of safe bike parking but that's not a distance problem.) Most places I've lived in the US in my adult life have been similar. The exception was once when I lived in a very rural area and had to drive 10 minutes to the nearest supermarket. I don't understand these threads that talk about suburbs where you have to drive an hour to the nearest convenience store. I'm skeptical that such places exist. Where are they?
phil21 9mo ago
It’s just hyper-local nimby vs regular nimby. Everyone where I live wants a corner store or corner bar 2 or 3 blocks away from them. Close enough to walk to conveniently but far enough they never have to know it exists unless they are personally interacting with the establishment in the moment. No one wants such a thing a few houses down. So the local neighbors get their friends who live close by to join the local neighborhood meetings and rail against the noise/traffic/crime/etc. And of course the ever-present “property values” boogeyman. Houses directly next to a corner shop I guess are worth a bit less than the same house a block away. There also might be traffic! Sitting through local neighborhood association meetings is exhausting. Anyone who actually desires to get things done burns out pretty quick.
- burkaman 9mo ago
  > Houses directly next to a corner shop I guess are worth a bit less than the same house a block away This could be true but I would want to see some data. I have paid extra for an apartment before because it it had a grocery store on the first floor, so it's not obvious to me that being adjacent and having to walk past the shop every day would drive a home price down. I know apartments and detached homes are different, but still. I just think the common explanation for NIMBYism, that everyone wants to protect their property value, doesn't actually make sense when it seems like the densest American cities are also the most expensive to live in. I have the same confusion about public transit. It's common for suburbs to fight very hard to keep public transit out of their town, but it's incredibly expensive to live within walking distance of a train station, so property values don't work as an explanation for this either. You also hear people say it's because the NIMBYs are afraid of the city folk invading their suburban paradise, but if you go to NYC or DC nobody is taking the train from the city to the suburbs to have fun, there's nothing to do there. These stops are almost exclusively used by upper middle class office workers going into the city for work. You don't have to worry about poor city people because as soon as the stop is built, they won't be able to afford a house anywhere near it.
  - bombcar 9mo ago
    You have to look at it through a "conservative" lens - not the political one, but literally "I don't want things to change!"
hattmall 9mo ago
This isn't true at all though. There's a small amount of areas that are able to be super expensive and you can walk to stuff. Then there's far more cheap areas where you can walk to stuff that aren't generally desirable. The slightly more expensive unwalkable areas are intentional because the only way to keep the area safe is to make it inhospitable for people who can't afford cars. Allowing business also does the opposite to property values, it creates demand to sell because fewer people want to live adjacent to heavily trafficked areas. There has to be a careful mix to have business and residential in the US and it not devolve into Vape Shops, lottery stores and other highly profitable but exploitative businesses. It really only works if there's some other sort of barrier like general unaffordability.

rayiner 9mo ago

Judging by what the moms in my neighborhood say—traffic and parking.

kevin_thibedeau 9mo ago

> few places in the US that have walkable neighborhoods Lots of places in the US have walkable neighborhods. You just have to live in a place that was developed before WW2 and car ownership wasn't assumed.

gnz11 9mo ago
Those are often the expensive places.
- kevin_thibedeau 9mo ago
  I have a pre-civil war cottage behind me. The neighborhood built out in 1870 and then again in 1925. All the houses are below $200k.
  - 0x1ch 9mo ago
    In Washington, a half million dollar home is generally becoming a demo lot for property builders, if you don't you just bought a half mil crack house... What state are you in?
    - bigstrat2003 9mo ago
      A lot of the country has houses for less than $200k. I'm not the person you are replying to, but in my home state of Wisconsin it's very common. I myself live in a fairly high COL city (Denver), and even here things aren't as dire as what you are describing. I think your area (Seattle I'm guessing?) is rather an outlier.
      - seanmcdirmid 9mo ago
        Even Spokane is expensive these days, but you could get a house for $150k in 2010 at least. The west in general has higher housing costs, it applies to Idaho and Utah as well, and especially western Montana. Things don’t get cheap until you hit eastern Montana or New Mexico.
lotsoweiners 9mo ago
I live in as suburban of an area as you can imagine with master planned communities and what not. I can still walk to 3 grocery stores, multiple bars, fast food restaurants, fast casual restaurants, coffee shops, medical offices, convenience stores, and loads of other services in under 15 minutes. The suburbs built in the 90s and 2000s are not the dystopia people make them out to be.
- idontwantthis 9mo ago
  Not all are but most are. I too live in a single family zone surrounded by commercial zones in walking distance and it’s fantastic! But most of my city and its surroundings are not like this and you would need to drive to get anywhere. It’s really an almost perfect spot that I’ve found.
  - smugma 9mo ago
    Where are these two places?!
    - deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
  - seanmcdirmid 9mo ago
    It really depends what region of the USA you are in. The south? Ya, things are hard, walkability was never emphasized because of harsh weather. The west coast or northeast will be more reasonable, the intermountain west is more hit or miss.
- jjav 9mo ago
  Very much this. My neighborhood was built in the late 90s. Single family home small town suburbia. I can walk to just about anything I need in daily life. Within 10 minutes walk there are 2 supermarkets, movies, many restaurants, variety of services, library, parks, theaters, doctors, and more. If we count cycling, I can bike to 99% of what I could need in life. (Problem in practice is lack of safe bike parking but that's not a distance problem.) Most places I've lived in the US in my adult life have been similar. The exception was once when I lived in a very rural area and had to drive 10 minutes to the nearest supermarket. I don't understand these threads that talk about suburbs where you have to drive an hour to the nearest convenience store. I'm skeptical that such places exist. Where are they?

phil21 9mo ago

It’s just hyper-local nimby vs regular nimby. Everyone where I live wants a corner store or corner bar 2 or 3 blocks away from them. Close enough to walk to conveniently but far enough they never have to know it exists unless they are personally interacting with the establishment in the moment. No one wants such a thing a few houses down. So the local neighbors get their friends who live close by to join the local neighborhood meetings and rail against the noise/traffic/crime/etc. And of course the ever-present “property values” boogeyman. Houses directly next to a corner shop I guess are worth a bit less than the same house a block away. There also might be traffic! Sitting through local neighborhood association meetings is exhausting. Anyone who actually desires to get things done burns out pretty quick.

burkaman 9mo ago
> Houses directly next to a corner shop I guess are worth a bit less than the same house a block away This could be true but I would want to see some data. I have paid extra for an apartment before because it it had a grocery store on the first floor, so it's not obvious to me that being adjacent and having to walk past the shop every day would drive a home price down. I know apartments and detached homes are different, but still. I just think the common explanation for NIMBYism, that everyone wants to protect their property value, doesn't actually make sense when it seems like the densest American cities are also the most expensive to live in. I have the same confusion about public transit. It's common for suburbs to fight very hard to keep public transit out of their town, but it's incredibly expensive to live within walking distance of a train station, so property values don't work as an explanation for this either. You also hear people say it's because the NIMBYs are afraid of the city folk invading their suburban paradise, but if you go to NYC or DC nobody is taking the train from the city to the suburbs to have fun, there's nothing to do there. These stops are almost exclusively used by upper middle class office workers going into the city for work. You don't have to worry about poor city people because as soon as the stop is built, they won't be able to afford a house anywhere near it.
- bombcar 9mo ago
  You have to look at it through a "conservative" lens - not the political one, but literally "I don't want things to change!"

hattmall 9mo ago

This isn't true at all though. There's a small amount of areas that are able to be super expensive and you can walk to stuff. Then there's far more cheap areas where you can walk to stuff that aren't generally desirable. The slightly more expensive unwalkable areas are intentional because the only way to keep the area safe is to make it inhospitable for people who can't afford cars. Allowing business also does the opposite to property values, it creates demand to sell because fewer people want to live adjacent to heavily trafficked areas. There has to be a careful mix to have business and residential in the US and it not devolve into Vape Shops, lottery stores and other highly profitable but exploitative businesses. It really only works if there's some other sort of barrier like general unaffordability.