4 ms·

I kinda have mixed feelings about it (and I plan to move out even further, since my job allows remoting.) The thing is, money "lost" are spend on wages for peo

by hippich 12y ago

I kinda have mixed feelings about it (and I plan to move out even further, since my job allows remoting.) The thing is, money "lost" are spend on wages for people building roads, infrastructure, houses, etc. And this type of work more often done by local workforce, not some international company with bank accounts in caymans. So... how exactly money are "lost"? Lost by whom exactly? People found jobs, which otherwise would not exists, and more infrastructure is built. Which in turn bring more people to live there, which in turn brings more local jobs (i.e. mom-n-pop AC/plumbing/electric company, Homedepot, etc) And built roads are not quite wasteful too - as far as I know roads drive economy, not subdue it.

danjayh 12y ago
The other thing that this article ignores is that not everybody wants to live in an urban setting. Indeed, I suspect that to the people who live in the suburban sprawl, the money doesn't appear "lost" at all - in fact, they probably see it as money well spent for what they consider to be an improved standard of living. Personally, I live on 11 acres about 15 miles and a 17 minute drive from work. Although I could have a 5 minute, 3 mile drive if I felt like living in the 'burbs (my employer is located in the suburban part of town), to me the additional cost and time that I spend on transportation is well worth it (I don't particularly enjoy having neighbors any closer than a few hundred meters/yards, and my wife enjoys keeping a couple of horses). I suspect that those people who live in the suburbs enjoy their 3/4 acre lots with enough space to put in a swimming pool and a McMansion (say what you want about them, but McMansions are nice places to live ... although I live in a relatively modest 1500sqft/140 m^2 house). "Different strokes for different folks" really seems to apply here.
- twelvechairs 12y ago
  The point you miss is that governments spend far more on roads/services/infrastructure to benefit each mcmansion dweller than they do on roads/services/infrastrucutre to benefit each apartment dweller. So its not a 'free market' of choice - apartment dwellers effectively subsidise house dwellers. A real economic zero-sum choice would be the house dweller paying more tax or with worse services and the apartment dweller enjoying better public transport or similar. I agree some people will still prefer their mcmansion, but far fewer than now when the decision making is skewed.
  - danjayh 12y ago
    I suspect that most families living in a half million dollar McMansions actually do pay far more in tax than the typical apartment dweller. In my area, the flow of capital is definitely the opposite of what you describe: without question, the individuals living in the suburbs heavily subsidize the lives of those living in the more urban areas and apartments, at least those who live in a tax district that has a combination of the two. More typically, the tax districts for the areas with McMansions are entirely separate from those with a high concentration of apartments and urban housing. In this situation, the residents in a particular area bear the tax burden for the services that they consume. My particular metropolitan area is divided into several "cities" (I put it in quotes because they really all run together) that serve to ensure that each area's residents bear the cost of their services. Even in this situation, due to taxes levied by the state government, the flow of capital still tends to go from the suburbs to the urban areas. In fact, I suspect that most house dwellers would be hugely in favor of further segregating the tax system so that funds paid by a group of individuals are used for services desired by that same group. In my area this would, however, result in the defunding of most public transportation (which is largely financed by people who do not use it), urban schools, the community college (which is funded by the whole county, but mostly used by lower income residents), etc. As an example, the public bus system recently appropriated lanes on many busy streets that were paid for by gas taxes. Since those with longer commutes pay more in gas tax, it stands to reason that these lanes were originally paid for by suburban commuters, and are now being used by the apartment dwellers and urban residents who are the primary clientele of the bus system (use fees make up only a small part of the funding for public transit in my area). I am not stating that the existence of any of these things is bad, but simply that your belief that apartment dwellers are subsidizing the lives of McMansion residents is entirely incorrect.
    - prostoalex 12y ago
      This dilemma is solved (at least in some states) with townships and neighborhoods seceding from the major city and incorporating their own. This way "most families living in a half million dollar McMansions" get their own road-heavy city budget, and a "typical apartment dweller" gets his parks/libraries/schools/transportation fix.
javert 12y ago
Your view is the broken window fallacy. [1] All the man-hours and natural resources spent building all those roads and paying for all that gas to move around on them could have instead gone to expanding production. For instance, funding new companies, scientific research, and so on. That is the point of the article. Of course, the article is fallacious in that expanding production is not inherently better than consumption, so consumption is not necessarily "wasteful." If people had preferred to live in an apartment and invest their money, they would have. Other things being equal, suburban sprawl reflects peoples' economic preferences. People are willing to pay for all the resources to make suburban sprawl possible. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window edit: though living in an apartment will be more expensive, so that wasn't a great example.
- hippich 12y ago
  new companies needs to be built somewhere, not all companies are virtual server instance in the "cloud". Having infrasture in place makes it much easier to build (both because you can actually deliver something, and also because you can hire local people) Like with everything, there must be a balance (we need scientific research,) but having suburbia and infrasture is not automatically bad in my opinion.
- eropple 12y ago
  > People are willing to pay for all the resources to make suburban sprawl possible. Except for the massive externalities involved, sure, they're willing to pay for it. Urban dwellers largely subsidize your suburbia, and have since its inception.
prostoalex 12y ago
Once it's built out, a portion of society is forced to dedicate their careers and extract public funding just to maintain the existing status quo of the infrastructure. Consider what a large city budget could be spent on if a large portion of it didn't go towards maintaining the roads, maintaining the streetlights and accompanying infrastructure, and hiring extra police force to properly cover the expanded driving area.
- hippich 12y ago
  What exactly you would expect city budget to be spent on, if city would eliminate needs for supporting infrastructure? Also, why having more infrastructure is automatically bad?
  - prostoalex 12y ago
    This is the matter of personal preference, but parks, libraries, schools, playgrounds, beautification projects, public transport, water quality, the list goes on. If nothing else, property tax reduction. > Also, why having more infrastructure is automatically bad? Don't think it's that absolute. Think about tax dollars collected from a given square mile vs tax dollars spent on a given square mile. Suburbs tend to decrease the former and increase the latter, high-density projects tend to move the money in the opposite direction.

by hippich 12y ago

danjayh 12y ago

The other thing that this article ignores is that not everybody wants to live in an urban setting. Indeed, I suspect that to the people who live in the suburban sprawl, the money doesn't appear "lost" at all - in fact, they probably see it as money well spent for what they consider to be an improved standard of living. Personally, I live on 11 acres about 15 miles and a 17 minute drive from work. Although I could have a 5 minute, 3 mile drive if I felt like living in the 'burbs (my employer is located in the suburban part of town), to me the additional cost and time that I spend on transportation is well worth it (I don't particularly enjoy having neighbors any closer than a few hundred meters/yards, and my wife enjoys keeping a couple of horses). I suspect that those people who live in the suburbs enjoy their 3/4 acre lots with enough space to put in a swimming pool and a McMansion (say what you want about them, but McMansions are nice places to live ... although I live in a relatively modest 1500sqft/140 m^2 house). "Different strokes for different folks" really seems to apply here.

twelvechairs 12y ago
The point you miss is that governments spend far more on roads/services/infrastructure to benefit each mcmansion dweller than they do on roads/services/infrastrucutre to benefit each apartment dweller. So its not a 'free market' of choice - apartment dwellers effectively subsidise house dwellers. A real economic zero-sum choice would be the house dweller paying more tax or with worse services and the apartment dweller enjoying better public transport or similar. I agree some people will still prefer their mcmansion, but far fewer than now when the decision making is skewed.
- danjayh 12y ago
  I suspect that most families living in a half million dollar McMansions actually do pay far more in tax than the typical apartment dweller. In my area, the flow of capital is definitely the opposite of what you describe: without question, the individuals living in the suburbs heavily subsidize the lives of those living in the more urban areas and apartments, at least those who live in a tax district that has a combination of the two. More typically, the tax districts for the areas with McMansions are entirely separate from those with a high concentration of apartments and urban housing. In this situation, the residents in a particular area bear the tax burden for the services that they consume. My particular metropolitan area is divided into several "cities" (I put it in quotes because they really all run together) that serve to ensure that each area's residents bear the cost of their services. Even in this situation, due to taxes levied by the state government, the flow of capital still tends to go from the suburbs to the urban areas. In fact, I suspect that most house dwellers would be hugely in favor of further segregating the tax system so that funds paid by a group of individuals are used for services desired by that same group. In my area this would, however, result in the defunding of most public transportation (which is largely financed by people who do not use it), urban schools, the community college (which is funded by the whole county, but mostly used by lower income residents), etc. As an example, the public bus system recently appropriated lanes on many busy streets that were paid for by gas taxes. Since those with longer commutes pay more in gas tax, it stands to reason that these lanes were originally paid for by suburban commuters, and are now being used by the apartment dwellers and urban residents who are the primary clientele of the bus system (use fees make up only a small part of the funding for public transit in my area). I am not stating that the existence of any of these things is bad, but simply that your belief that apartment dwellers are subsidizing the lives of McMansion residents is entirely incorrect.
  - prostoalex 12y ago
    This dilemma is solved (at least in some states) with townships and neighborhoods seceding from the major city and incorporating their own. This way "most families living in a half million dollar McMansions" get their own road-heavy city budget, and a "typical apartment dweller" gets his parks/libraries/schools/transportation fix.

javert 12y ago

Your view is the broken window fallacy. [1] All the man-hours and natural resources spent building all those roads and paying for all that gas to move around on them could have instead gone to expanding production. For instance, funding new companies, scientific research, and so on. That is the point of the article. Of course, the article is fallacious in that expanding production is not inherently better than consumption, so consumption is not necessarily "wasteful." If people had preferred to live in an apartment and invest their money, they would have. Other things being equal, suburban sprawl reflects peoples' economic preferences. People are willing to pay for all the resources to make suburban sprawl possible. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window edit: though living in an apartment will be more expensive, so that wasn't a great example.

hippich 12y ago
new companies needs to be built somewhere, not all companies are virtual server instance in the "cloud". Having infrasture in place makes it much easier to build (both because you can actually deliver something, and also because you can hire local people) Like with everything, there must be a balance (we need scientific research,) but having suburbia and infrasture is not automatically bad in my opinion.
eropple 12y ago
> People are willing to pay for all the resources to make suburban sprawl possible. Except for the massive externalities involved, sure, they're willing to pay for it. Urban dwellers largely subsidize your suburbia, and have since its inception.

prostoalex 12y ago

Once it's built out, a portion of society is forced to dedicate their careers and extract public funding just to maintain the existing status quo of the infrastructure. Consider what a large city budget could be spent on if a large portion of it didn't go towards maintaining the roads, maintaining the streetlights and accompanying infrastructure, and hiring extra police force to properly cover the expanded driving area.

hippich 12y ago
What exactly you would expect city budget to be spent on, if city would eliminate needs for supporting infrastructure? Also, why having more infrastructure is automatically bad?
- prostoalex 12y ago
  This is the matter of personal preference, but parks, libraries, schools, playgrounds, beautification projects, public transport, water quality, the list goes on. If nothing else, property tax reduction. > Also, why having more infrastructure is automatically bad? Don't think it's that absolute. Think about tax dollars collected from a given square mile vs tax dollars spent on a given square mile. Suburbs tend to decrease the former and increase the latter, high-density projects tend to move the money in the opposite direction.