4 ms·

An individual with the choice of living in the city or in suburbia is faced with a conundrum. Although you would think that by living in the city the individual

An individual with the choice of living in the city or in suburbia is faced with a conundrum. Although you would think that by living in the city the individual will save money by expending significantly less natural resources and dramatically lowering his carbon footprint, it ironically costs him less money to do the exact opposite by living in the suburbs. This is because if the individual chooses to live in the city he must pay an extraordinarily high commission in the form of capital gains or rent to land lords. From a financial standpoint living in the suburbs is the only rational choice. This type of counterintuitive behavior only occurs because we live in an era where oil is dirt cheap. This is the only time in human history where living farther away from the city is actually cheaper then living closer to it. Before the advent of the automobile, urban infrastructure centered around walkable cities as you will see throughout Europe. One day, as we start running out of oil, the suburbs will become the new ghettos.

ars 12y ago
> This is the only time in human history where living farther away from the city is actually cheaper then living closer. That is not in the slightest true. Your thing about oil is a red herring. Urban areas (farms back then) were ALWAYS cheaper than cities.
- crimsonalucard 12y ago
  Think about the lifestyle we have today. If I live on the farm and work on the farm then yes it's cheaper. But I'm talking about suburbia, in which most people live outside the city but drive into the city to work everyday. That's a huge energy cost that can only be paid for through oil. Perhaps this statement is more clear: Due to cheap oil this is the only time in history where living outside the city and driving miles and miles to work everyday is cheaper then living in the city right next to work.
enjo 12y ago
I'm not following. Capital gains?
- crimsonalucard 12y ago
  Sorry shouldn't have wrote that. Capital gains represents income a person gains simply from owning an asset. No GDP or work is produced by that person yet by simply owning assets he gets money. Rent is a form of this.
hayksaakian 12y ago
what if electric cars (tesla, nissan leaf, etc.) get more popular? then you can separate the source of energy from the consumer of energy.
- crimsonalucard 12y ago
  Shifting power consumption away from gasoline onto the grid is definitely more efficient. However a significant amount of our grid is still powered by fossil fuels. It will depend on whether or not renewable sources have the capacity to support a car economy.
BrainInAJar 12y ago
Only short-term. Once you factor in gas, ownership of multiple cars, etc it's cheaper to live in the city. Doubly so if your time isn't worthless (time sitting in traffic is working for free)
- javert 12y ago
  As an American who prefers rural living, I prefer not living in a city because my time is valuable. I like being able to go from A to B at 60 miles and hour and not worry about parking. I don't like waiting for busses or subways. I think suburban living is generally going to be less time-consuming than urban living unless you're doing something dumb, like communting into Los Angles or Washington, D.C.
  - jmspring 12y ago
    I'd love rural living, but I've opted for a walkable suburb on the coast. My current job allows me to work at home full time unless I am traveling, and my wife commutes but has a flexible schedule and gets to work at home regularly. There are times where the diversity of a city would be great, but I don't like the noise, traffic, or public transportation. In the bay area, BART is ok, Caltrain isn't bad, but Muni? Oy. Just coming back from a business trip to Tokyo (my first time here), I can see how public transport can be very efficient. That said, even here, I got to over hear some google employees whining about their offices being moved to an area that was mostly business park and not wanting to commute. No matter where you choose to live, there are personal choices that are part of the calculus.
  - eropple 12y ago
    It doesn't sound to me like you know urban living all that well at all. In Somerville, MA, I can get anywhere I want to go--stores, work, play, downtown Boston--in thirty minutes by foot or bus or train. I do not worry about places to park, nor do I worry about traffic. I can, on the other hand, speak to suburban living being as alienating as anything I've ever encountered. Sitting in a car, alone, for an hour a day to go to and from work--time I couldn't spend doing anything of use, be it reading or working or talking to a friend--was the most soul-killing time of my life.
javert 12y ago
Unlikely we'll run out of oil in the foreseeable future.
- crimsonalucard 12y ago
  Hard to say. I can't find any reliable/definitive metric on this topic.
- cauterized 12y ago
  We're not going to run out entirely, but we are going to exhaust the purest and most accessible sources. As a result, extraction and refinement costs are expected to rise as a proportion of the production cost, forcing up the price of the end product.
cauterized 12y ago
In the last decade, that's exactly what's happened in NYC. young college graduates have flooded the city, pushing poorer people to the outskirts, and unlike their parents have not chosen to retreat to the suburbs to raise kids. One time inner city ghettos like Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Crown Heights are gradually being gentrified into middle class neighborhoods. Property values are even rising in what were once the most entrenched slums, like East New York. Meanwhile, the inner suburbs are beginning to decay as middle class professionals no longer move there to raise families. Low income residents displaced from the inner city are being pushed into these areas where rent is low - but still not saving money because they have to buy a car and pay for gas just to get groceries, and if they take transit to work it's now the 3-10x more expensive commuter rail rather than the affordable subway. The outer suburbs where McMansions dominate are still thriving, but a few years ago I drove around the middle ring suburb where my dad grew up. In his childhood and even in mine it had been a solidly middle class Levittown clone. Tidy homes and yards, well-kept strip malls, and all. Now it's a textbook example of suburban decay. Entire blocks of houses that desperately need paint jobs and repairs. Deserted parking lots in strip malls with half the storefronts empty and the pavement cracked so badly a small child could get lost in the gaps. Independent businesses boarded up. Old people pushing grocery carts along nearly deserted sidewalks -- probably two or three miles each way to the supermarket. Not a pretty sight. You see the same in Detroit, among other places. A suburb populated by wealthy or even middle class taxpayers can afford to keep up the infrastructure and economic engine to make it a pleasant place to live. One populated by low income people can't -- it soon becomes unlivable. That's going to be a conundrum for us to solve in this century. I hope we address it by building upwards and expanding public transit to make city-style living affordable again for everyone (which would also be a more efficient use of taxpayer dollars than repaving thousands of miles of roads and keeping up sprawling electric and water/sewer lines in suburbs where people wouldn't live if they could afford the city), but fear we haven't the political will to do so.

ars 12y ago

> This is the only time in human history where living farther away from the city is actually cheaper then living closer. That is not in the slightest true. Your thing about oil is a red herring. Urban areas (farms back then) were ALWAYS cheaper than cities.

crimsonalucard 12y ago
Think about the lifestyle we have today. If I live on the farm and work on the farm then yes it's cheaper. But I'm talking about suburbia, in which most people live outside the city but drive into the city to work everyday. That's a huge energy cost that can only be paid for through oil. Perhaps this statement is more clear: Due to cheap oil this is the only time in history where living outside the city and driving miles and miles to work everyday is cheaper then living in the city right next to work.

enjo 12y ago

I'm not following. Capital gains?

crimsonalucard 12y ago
Sorry shouldn't have wrote that. Capital gains represents income a person gains simply from owning an asset. No GDP or work is produced by that person yet by simply owning assets he gets money. Rent is a form of this.

hayksaakian 12y ago

what if electric cars (tesla, nissan leaf, etc.) get more popular? then you can separate the source of energy from the consumer of energy.

crimsonalucard 12y ago
Shifting power consumption away from gasoline onto the grid is definitely more efficient. However a significant amount of our grid is still powered by fossil fuels. It will depend on whether or not renewable sources have the capacity to support a car economy.

BrainInAJar 12y ago

Only short-term. Once you factor in gas, ownership of multiple cars, etc it's cheaper to live in the city. Doubly so if your time isn't worthless (time sitting in traffic is working for free)

javert 12y ago
As an American who prefers rural living, I prefer not living in a city because my time is valuable. I like being able to go from A to B at 60 miles and hour and not worry about parking. I don't like waiting for busses or subways. I think suburban living is generally going to be less time-consuming than urban living unless you're doing something dumb, like communting into Los Angles or Washington, D.C.
- jmspring 12y ago
  I'd love rural living, but I've opted for a walkable suburb on the coast. My current job allows me to work at home full time unless I am traveling, and my wife commutes but has a flexible schedule and gets to work at home regularly. There are times where the diversity of a city would be great, but I don't like the noise, traffic, or public transportation. In the bay area, BART is ok, Caltrain isn't bad, but Muni? Oy. Just coming back from a business trip to Tokyo (my first time here), I can see how public transport can be very efficient. That said, even here, I got to over hear some google employees whining about their offices being moved to an area that was mostly business park and not wanting to commute. No matter where you choose to live, there are personal choices that are part of the calculus.
- eropple 12y ago
  It doesn't sound to me like you know urban living all that well at all. In Somerville, MA, I can get anywhere I want to go--stores, work, play, downtown Boston--in thirty minutes by foot or bus or train. I do not worry about places to park, nor do I worry about traffic. I can, on the other hand, speak to suburban living being as alienating as anything I've ever encountered. Sitting in a car, alone, for an hour a day to go to and from work--time I couldn't spend doing anything of use, be it reading or working or talking to a friend--was the most soul-killing time of my life.

javert 12y ago

Unlikely we'll run out of oil in the foreseeable future.

crimsonalucard 12y ago
Hard to say. I can't find any reliable/definitive metric on this topic.
cauterized 12y ago
We're not going to run out entirely, but we are going to exhaust the purest and most accessible sources. As a result, extraction and refinement costs are expected to rise as a proportion of the production cost, forcing up the price of the end product.

cauterized 12y ago

In the last decade, that's exactly what's happened in NYC. young college graduates have flooded the city, pushing poorer people to the outskirts, and unlike their parents have not chosen to retreat to the suburbs to raise kids. One time inner city ghettos like Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Crown Heights are gradually being gentrified into middle class neighborhoods. Property values are even rising in what were once the most entrenched slums, like East New York. Meanwhile, the inner suburbs are beginning to decay as middle class professionals no longer move there to raise families. Low income residents displaced from the inner city are being pushed into these areas where rent is low - but still not saving money because they have to buy a car and pay for gas just to get groceries, and if they take transit to work it's now the 3-10x more expensive commuter rail rather than the affordable subway. The outer suburbs where McMansions dominate are still thriving, but a few years ago I drove around the middle ring suburb where my dad grew up. In his childhood and even in mine it had been a solidly middle class Levittown clone. Tidy homes and yards, well-kept strip malls, and all. Now it's a textbook example of suburban decay. Entire blocks of houses that desperately need paint jobs and repairs. Deserted parking lots in strip malls with half the storefronts empty and the pavement cracked so badly a small child could get lost in the gaps. Independent businesses boarded up. Old people pushing grocery carts along nearly deserted sidewalks -- probably two or three miles each way to the supermarket. Not a pretty sight. You see the same in Detroit, among other places. A suburb populated by wealthy or even middle class taxpayers can afford to keep up the infrastructure and economic engine to make it a pleasant place to live. One populated by low income people can't -- it soon becomes unlivable. That's going to be a conundrum for us to solve in this century. I hope we address it by building upwards and expanding public transit to make city-style living affordable again for everyone (which would also be a more efficient use of taxpayer dollars than repaving thousands of miles of roads and keeping up sprawling electric and water/sewer lines in suburbs where people wouldn't live if they could afford the city), but fear we haven't the political will to do so.