5 ms·

The article talked a lot about the leftist/statist hatred of suburbs, but never gave the real reason why. Suburbs aren't dense enough and humans are the scourg

The article talked a lot about the leftist/statist hatred of suburbs, but never gave the real reason why. Suburbs aren't dense enough and humans are the scourge of the planet.

prostoalex 12y ago
It's overall a greater tax on society resources to maintain suburbs than dense urban housing. Just the total mileage of roads, waterways, gas pipes that need to be built out and maintained pretty much forever. That's just the tax money. From the personal perspective a mandate of car ownership (and until recently oil purchases) is ridding consumer of disposable income that could be spent somewhere else.
- zo1 12y ago
  But it is their willing choice to live that way. And they pay taxes, just like the rest of society. Remember, we're all equal under the law, so they say. Next thing you'll be telling people "No, you can't have only one person per apartment/room, you have to share with at least 3 people in bunkbeds. One person per home/room is 'too great a tax on society's resourced to maintain'.". Yes, that's a slippery slope. But one that points out the futility of arguments such as yours. Namely, that you've drawn an arbitrary line where you find convenient. And along with it, you've conveniently neglected to acknowledge that other people would have drawn that line further, or closer.
  - prawn 12y ago
    Are the taxes proportional to that mode of living and the costs of servicing it?
    - zo1 12y ago
      I'm not sure... Probably not directly (if you could even quantify it). However, lemme ask you this: Do sick people pay more taxes because they use more healthcare? I hope not. But, now that I think about it. I think they do, especially if it's represented by a usage tax. Say fuel levies, or property taxes.
      - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
        > I'm not sure... Probably not directly (if you could even quantify it). However, lemme ask you this: Do sick people pay more taxes because they use more healthcare? I hope not. A) Sick people are not making a deliberate lifestyle choice. B) Public healthcare is something provided by public decision-making and majority vote. Therefore, frankly, if the public decides it yields greater public benefit to pour taxes taken from urban areas into improving urban areas rather than into subsidizing the suburban minority of the population, that is our democratic right. It's also important to note the actual population shift taking place: it used to be in the USA that most people lived in either rural areas, outer suburbs, or inner suburbs, with the center cities containing only a minority of the population and lacking a plurality of economic productivity. Everything was genuinely more spread out. Nowadays, things have developed away from the post-WW2 pattern and back towards the pattern of the Industrial Revolution: heavy urbanization of the population and the economy. Most people now live in either the core cities or the inner suburbs, and so does most of the economic value-creation. Which means that there's an entirely legitimate reason why urban issues are back on the agenda! Now, the stick up our asses we city-dwelling types have got, is that thanks to various aspects of the districting systems, our vote counts for less than that of a rural-dweller in deciding what to do with our own damn tax money.
        zo1 12y ago
        >"A) Sick people are not making a deliberate lifestyle choice." Most likely that is the case, yes. But you can't know for sure, as there are many actual life-style choices out there that negatively or positively impact health, and as a consequence, individuals' level of healthcare need. >"B) Public healthcare is something provided by public decision-making and majority vote." And we've also, by majority vote, decided that people should live where they please. And by majority vote, we've elected and chosen representatives that represent that. Let's not argue democracy here by claiming that healthcare is somehow more "democratic" or more "democratically chosen" than housing and urban-planning. >"Therefore, frankly, if the public decides it yields greater public benefit to pour taxes taken from urban areas into improving urban areas rather than into subsidizing the suburban minority of the population, that is our democratic right." Isn't that why we're discussing this? The public already chose and/or allowed people to live freely and in areas they choose. Not only that, but they've given tacit permission (by virtue of democratic vote) to representatives and government officials to plan the way they have, and that includes suburbia. >"Nowadays, things have developed away from the post-WW2 pattern and back towards the pattern of the Industrial Revolution: heavy urbanization of the population and the economy. Most people now live in either the core cities or the inner suburbs, and so does most of the economic value-creation." I don't see how this has any relevance or bearing on where people are allowed to live. Just because you deem it most efficient to optimize "economic value-creation" by packing people into as small a space as possible (seemingly against their will as they're picking suburban living now), doesn't make it the right way, or the moral way. >"Now, the stick up our asses we city-dwelling types have got, is that thanks to various aspects of the districting systems, our vote counts for less than that of a rural-dweller in deciding what to do with our own damn tax money." That's unfortunate. You should really get that fixed up. But let me get something a little clear, as I'm not 100% aware of the voting issues in America. Are you saying that individuals that live in suburban areas are part of a separate district? And their vote counts more than yours? That honestly doesn't sound very "democratic" to me.
  - prostoalex 12y ago
    http://www.theamericanconservative.com/urbs/the-conservative-case-against-the-suburbs/ http://www.theamericanconservative.com/urbs/the-conservative...
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    > Yes, that's a slippery slope. But one that points out the futility of arguments such as yours. Namely, that you've drawn an arbitrary line where you find convenient. And along with it, you've conveniently neglected to acknowledge that other people would have drawn that line further, or closer. There'a quite a bit of distance between "you're drawing arbitrary lines" and "you have been free-riding due to use not properly including previously externalized costs, which will now be properly accounted for". The suburbs are predicated on cheap land and petroleum. If you're able to continue the suburbs model while the price of both increase, more power to you. I'd rather have my tax dollars finance public transit vs limited use suburban roads though, thanks. Its mostly a moot point though; the majority of people around the world continue to move into cities: https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&q=people%20moving%20to%20cities https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&q=people%20moving%20t...
ArkyBeagle 12y ago
If humans are the scourge of the planet then it's difficult to see why population density is of value. There must be something else at play. Density simply improves the availability of goods and services. Some of the more snide ( myself included ) might accuse those "liberals" of simply preferring a wider variety of restaurants - sort of the Anthony Bourdain school of liberalism :) Suburbs are a compromise with positional land rents ala Ricardo/Henry George. People who want to make more humans will probably always head there. While I can more or less understand the distaste for automobiles, I doubt they're going anywhere. And it might even be possible to have suburbs as an artifact of public transport - Bourdain did a show on The Bronx, which according to his show ends at a relatively rural setting. I get more than enough "culture" through my cable wire in the form of cable TV and Internet. That includes Anthony Bourdain :) As a practitioner of live music since Carter was president, pardon my cynicism w.r.t. "culture".
- hsitz 12y ago
  "If humans are the scourge of the planet then it's difficult to see why population density is of value. . . . Density simply improves the availability of goods and services." I don't follow. Density does not merely improve _availability_ of goods and services. It improves the efficiency of providing those goods and services (besides other efficiencies). So to me it seems that density is of value, and that applies whether or not humans are the scourge of the planet. Using resources efficiently = Good. Wasting resources = Bad. On another note, I would add that getting all your culture from the internet and tv is probably not the best thing. The cocoon of your car separates you from having to experience street/neighborhood culture firsthand. Not a good thing in my book. Far easier to detach yourself from people you see on tv than people you walk by on the street.
  - ArkyBeagle 12y ago
    Two weeks later... Density does not necessarily improve efficiency. It makes for a wider variety of ...restaurants. I might have agreed with "efficiency" before the logistics revolution of the last thirty years. If there had been actual efficiency then there would never have been suburbs in the first place. Suburbs were a (perhaps cheap) trick of finance, but ... there they are. Suburbs are a triumph of land rents avoidance. I have plenty of exposure to "street" culture. It's hugely overrated. The term "tinpot" comes to mind - remember "Billie Joe Must Die"? That's an extreme case, but... You used to be able to go into the Five Spot and hear Ornette Coleman, or catch Buddy Emmons jamming at one of the downtown Nashville bars. Not so much any more. Converting that to mass market is the real test. I did a hugely unscientific and completely informal test when I was living in a downtown space - "Why do you like it here?" When we culled the things they said they liked ( museums, theater, live music ) but didn't actually do, it came down to ... bars. Or restaurants, once you don't want to be seen as a reprobate any more. (Cable) TV is a much better resource than it's given credit for ( BookTv is great ) - but you have to be picky. The internet? Mixed at best. Books are the best, but they don't make 'em like they used to.
BrainInAJar 12y ago
as a libertarian, I hate suburbs because the only reason they exist is massive subsidies. If suburbanites had to pay for the highways leading to their suburbs, nobody but the richest could afford them, instead I have to pay because you want a yard.
- kasey_junk 12y ago
  Not to get into a political thread, but last time I looked highways are actually one of the most difficult to attribute to subsidies (ie usage taxes pay for most/all/more than the usage of the highways so it is hard to say one way or another where subsidies go).
  - BrainInAJar 12y ago
    usage taxes (gas tax and what have you) emphatically do not even begin to cover the cost of maintenance alone, let alone the land cost, the initial construction cost (billions), etc.

The article talked a lot about the leftist/statist hatred of suburbs, but never gave the real reason why. Suburbs aren't dense enough and humans are the scourge of the planet.

prostoalex 12y ago

It's overall a greater tax on society resources to maintain suburbs than dense urban housing. Just the total mileage of roads, waterways, gas pipes that need to be built out and maintained pretty much forever. That's just the tax money. From the personal perspective a mandate of car ownership (and until recently oil purchases) is ridding consumer of disposable income that could be spent somewhere else.

zo1 12y ago
But it is their willing choice to live that way. And they pay taxes, just like the rest of society. Remember, we're all equal under the law, so they say. Next thing you'll be telling people "No, you can't have only one person per apartment/room, you have to share with at least 3 people in bunkbeds. One person per home/room is 'too great a tax on society's resourced to maintain'.". Yes, that's a slippery slope. But one that points out the futility of arguments such as yours. Namely, that you've drawn an arbitrary line where you find convenient. And along with it, you've conveniently neglected to acknowledge that other people would have drawn that line further, or closer.
- prawn 12y ago
  Are the taxes proportional to that mode of living and the costs of servicing it?
  - zo1 12y ago
    I'm not sure... Probably not directly (if you could even quantify it). However, lemme ask you this: Do sick people pay more taxes because they use more healthcare? I hope not. But, now that I think about it. I think they do, especially if it's represented by a usage tax. Say fuel levies, or property taxes.
    - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
      > I'm not sure... Probably not directly (if you could even quantify it). However, lemme ask you this: Do sick people pay more taxes because they use more healthcare? I hope not. A) Sick people are not making a deliberate lifestyle choice. B) Public healthcare is something provided by public decision-making and majority vote. Therefore, frankly, if the public decides it yields greater public benefit to pour taxes taken from urban areas into improving urban areas rather than into subsidizing the suburban minority of the population, that is our democratic right. It's also important to note the actual population shift taking place: it used to be in the USA that most people lived in either rural areas, outer suburbs, or inner suburbs, with the center cities containing only a minority of the population and lacking a plurality of economic productivity. Everything was genuinely more spread out. Nowadays, things have developed away from the post-WW2 pattern and back towards the pattern of the Industrial Revolution: heavy urbanization of the population and the economy. Most people now live in either the core cities or the inner suburbs, and so does most of the economic value-creation. Which means that there's an entirely legitimate reason why urban issues are back on the agenda! Now, the stick up our asses we city-dwelling types have got, is that thanks to various aspects of the districting systems, our vote counts for less than that of a rural-dweller in deciding what to do with our own damn tax money.
      - zo1 12y ago
        >"A) Sick people are not making a deliberate lifestyle choice." Most likely that is the case, yes. But you can't know for sure, as there are many actual life-style choices out there that negatively or positively impact health, and as a consequence, individuals' level of healthcare need. >"B) Public healthcare is something provided by public decision-making and majority vote." And we've also, by majority vote, decided that people should live where they please. And by majority vote, we've elected and chosen representatives that represent that. Let's not argue democracy here by claiming that healthcare is somehow more "democratic" or more "democratically chosen" than housing and urban-planning. >"Therefore, frankly, if the public decides it yields greater public benefit to pour taxes taken from urban areas into improving urban areas rather than into subsidizing the suburban minority of the population, that is our democratic right." Isn't that why we're discussing this? The public already chose and/or allowed people to live freely and in areas they choose. Not only that, but they've given tacit permission (by virtue of democratic vote) to representatives and government officials to plan the way they have, and that includes suburbia. >"Nowadays, things have developed away from the post-WW2 pattern and back towards the pattern of the Industrial Revolution: heavy urbanization of the population and the economy. Most people now live in either the core cities or the inner suburbs, and so does most of the economic value-creation." I don't see how this has any relevance or bearing on where people are allowed to live. Just because you deem it most efficient to optimize "economic value-creation" by packing people into as small a space as possible (seemingly against their will as they're picking suburban living now), doesn't make it the right way, or the moral way. >"Now, the stick up our asses we city-dwelling types have got, is that thanks to various aspects of the districting systems, our vote counts for less than that of a rural-dweller in deciding what to do with our own damn tax money." That's unfortunate. You should really get that fixed up. But let me get something a little clear, as I'm not 100% aware of the voting issues in America. Are you saying that individuals that live in suburban areas are part of a separate district? And their vote counts more than yours? That honestly doesn't sound very "democratic" to me.
- prostoalex 12y ago
  http://www.theamericanconservative.com/urbs/the-conservative-case-against-the-suburbs/ http://www.theamericanconservative.com/urbs/the-conservative...
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  > Yes, that's a slippery slope. But one that points out the futility of arguments such as yours. Namely, that you've drawn an arbitrary line where you find convenient. And along with it, you've conveniently neglected to acknowledge that other people would have drawn that line further, or closer. There'a quite a bit of distance between "you're drawing arbitrary lines" and "you have been free-riding due to use not properly including previously externalized costs, which will now be properly accounted for". The suburbs are predicated on cheap land and petroleum. If you're able to continue the suburbs model while the price of both increase, more power to you. I'd rather have my tax dollars finance public transit vs limited use suburban roads though, thanks. Its mostly a moot point though; the majority of people around the world continue to move into cities: https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&q=people%20moving%20to%20cities https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&q=people%20moving%20t...

ArkyBeagle 12y ago

If humans are the scourge of the planet then it's difficult to see why population density is of value. There must be something else at play. Density simply improves the availability of goods and services. Some of the more snide ( myself included ) might accuse those "liberals" of simply preferring a wider variety of restaurants - sort of the Anthony Bourdain school of liberalism :) Suburbs are a compromise with positional land rents ala Ricardo/Henry George. People who want to make more humans will probably always head there. While I can more or less understand the distaste for automobiles, I doubt they're going anywhere. And it might even be possible to have suburbs as an artifact of public transport - Bourdain did a show on The Bronx, which according to his show ends at a relatively rural setting. I get more than enough "culture" through my cable wire in the form of cable TV and Internet. That includes Anthony Bourdain :) As a practitioner of live music since Carter was president, pardon my cynicism w.r.t. "culture".

hsitz 12y ago
"If humans are the scourge of the planet then it's difficult to see why population density is of value. . . . Density simply improves the availability of goods and services." I don't follow. Density does not merely improve _availability_ of goods and services. It improves the efficiency of providing those goods and services (besides other efficiencies). So to me it seems that density is of value, and that applies whether or not humans are the scourge of the planet. Using resources efficiently = Good. Wasting resources = Bad. On another note, I would add that getting all your culture from the internet and tv is probably not the best thing. The cocoon of your car separates you from having to experience street/neighborhood culture firsthand. Not a good thing in my book. Far easier to detach yourself from people you see on tv than people you walk by on the street.
- ArkyBeagle 12y ago
  Two weeks later... Density does not necessarily improve efficiency. It makes for a wider variety of ...restaurants. I might have agreed with "efficiency" before the logistics revolution of the last thirty years. If there had been actual efficiency then there would never have been suburbs in the first place. Suburbs were a (perhaps cheap) trick of finance, but ... there they are. Suburbs are a triumph of land rents avoidance. I have plenty of exposure to "street" culture. It's hugely overrated. The term "tinpot" comes to mind - remember "Billie Joe Must Die"? That's an extreme case, but... You used to be able to go into the Five Spot and hear Ornette Coleman, or catch Buddy Emmons jamming at one of the downtown Nashville bars. Not so much any more. Converting that to mass market is the real test. I did a hugely unscientific and completely informal test when I was living in a downtown space - "Why do you like it here?" When we culled the things they said they liked ( museums, theater, live music ) but didn't actually do, it came down to ... bars. Or restaurants, once you don't want to be seen as a reprobate any more. (Cable) TV is a much better resource than it's given credit for ( BookTv is great ) - but you have to be picky. The internet? Mixed at best. Books are the best, but they don't make 'em like they used to.

BrainInAJar 12y ago

as a libertarian, I hate suburbs because the only reason they exist is massive subsidies. If suburbanites had to pay for the highways leading to their suburbs, nobody but the richest could afford them, instead I have to pay because you want a yard.

kasey_junk 12y ago
Not to get into a political thread, but last time I looked highways are actually one of the most difficult to attribute to subsidies (ie usage taxes pay for most/all/more than the usage of the highways so it is hard to say one way or another where subsidies go).
- BrainInAJar 12y ago
  usage taxes (gas tax and what have you) emphatically do not even begin to cover the cost of maintenance alone, let alone the land cost, the initial construction cost (billions), etc.