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Why Many Cities Have No Money

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Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#381

Post by cptskippy »

tropo wrote: post #365
cptskippy wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their economy is going to get you in the kind of trouble that you see a lot of these bankrupt towns in the US in. I think you're discounting the affect that big box retailers have had on rural and small towns in the US. They're often given tax brakes and other incentives to build and then they park themselves right outside city/town limits to avoid any sales or property taxes. They then proceed to drive every small…

Big box retailers sell things in big boxes. Without the giant parking lot, it isn't viable to sell most of the products. Delivery from a separate warehouse would be required. Buyers aren't going to toss a refrigerator in a backpack and then hop on a bicycle! Putting a refrigerator in a minivan is reasonable. The same goes for large TVs, washing machines, clothes dryers, mattresses, sofas, desks, chairs, whiteboards,…

> Big box retailers sell things in big boxes.

Err... I think we have different definitions of what a big box retailer is. Big box is a reference to the shape of the building and not what it sells.

Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big-box_store

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#382

Post by gozur88 »

CalRobert wrote: post #177
gozur88 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Density brings costs of its own, though. There's a reason everything is more expensive in dense areas.

"There's a reason everything is more expensive in dense areas." Often, that reason is "there's a strong market preference for density, but supply is artificially restricted by parking minimums and zoning regulations put in place by property owners who wish to maximize the value of their asset"

If that were actually true there would be housing shortages in cities that aren't trendy, and that's not the case. There's not a lot of "preference for density" in places like Kansas City and Cleveland.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#383

Post by tropo »

cptskippy wrote: post #381
tropo wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big box retailers sell things in big boxes. Without the giant parking lot, it isn't viable to sell most of the products. Delivery from a separate warehouse would be required. Buyers aren't going to toss a refrigerator in a backpack and then hop on a bicycle! Putting a refrigerator in a minivan is reasonable. The same goes for large TVs, washing machines, clothes dryers, mattresses, sofas, desks, chairs, whiteboards,…

> Big box retailers sell things in big boxes. Err... I think we have different definitions of what a big box retailer is. Big box is a reference to the shape of the building and not what it sells. Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big-box_store

Yes, but why is the building like that? The building is a big box largely so that it can sell large items. You can't fit very many large items in a small store; small stores typically limit themselves to small things.

You could sell refrigerators in a small building. The selection would be very limited, and there would be a high risk of stock running out. The refrigerators out on the floor at a Home Depot or Lowe's take up more space than an old-style downtown store has. That's just refrigerators, and just the ones put out on the floor for display. Many more refrigerators are stored in the back, away from customers, and refrigerators are just one of many products.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#384

Post by yummyfajitas »

kasey_junk wrote: post #342
yummyfajitas wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to you, the problem is that the rich moved away and stopped providing resources. Suppose inequality were lower and those rich people simply didn't exist. They would still be unable to provide resources, and the low level of services you describe would still exist. Wouldn't the crime/drug use/etc still happen?

> According to you, the problem is that the rich moved away and stopped providing resources. That is not what I said. What I said was that the powerful moved the poor, into higher density, more resource intensive areas and then neglected to provide adequate services. If the inequality were lower and those rich people (and really I prefer powerful in this case, but they are largely the same group so I suppose it is fi…

If this narrative is true, and concentrated poverty is the result of rich people somehow moving the poor, then countries with lower inequality will not have concentrated poverty.

At least here in India, with significantly less inequality than the US, we still have lots of concentrated poverty. It's almost as if residential separation is the result of market forces and individual choices (c.f. the Schelling model).

http://nifty.stanford.edu/2014/mccown-schelling-model-segreg...

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#385

Post by krakensden »

ceras wrote: post #375
krakensden wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like urbanists should talk about Mexico more. They have really narrow streets, as-of-right construction, and they are much closer than Vienna or Hong Kong.

As someone with a city planning hobbyist interest, I've visited Mexico City and greatly disliked it. It's a miserable city to get around in, though I can see its potential if it ever decides to move away from heavy car infrastructure (some core neighborhoods are pretty nice so long as you don't want to leave them). Were you thinking of somewhere else in Mexico, or specific parts of Mexico City?

I was further north- Guanajuato, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#386

Post by yummyfajitas »

ptaipale wrote: post #211
yummyfajitas wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would having fewer rich people prevent the poor from committing crimes against the middle class (or just publicly engaging in victimless crimes[1]) and engaging in other behaviors that make an area feel unsafe? As a counterpoint, consider India and most of Asia. Poor areas are dirty and have little infrastructure, but they don't feel unsafe. I occasionally shop in Dharavi and don't feel unsafe at all. [1] I belie…

When the middle class is only barely more wealthy than the destitute, there is no point for the poor to try to rob them. And then only the political elite is much richer (in practise even if not in theory), and they are protected well by the police and the military. This can be the situation in places with centrally managed economies like North Korea today. Obviously, they are also very safe (from the regular crimina…

If that were true then areas with concentrated poverty should have negligible crime - why bother robbing anyone if everyone is poor? Yet that is the exact opposite of what is seen in reality.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#387

Post by vvpan »

indexhtml wrote: post #45
vvpan wrote: post #18

I can't say much about mathematics of taxes described in the article, but I always thought that Soviet Union got a lot of it's city planning very much right. Even a small town is built as a relatively tight formation of high-rises, yet leaving plenty of public space and greenery in the middle. The quality of life in the town that I grew up in is super high, because everything one might need: school, hospital, store,…

I grew up in the same town and strongly share your sentiments! I noticed Americans tend to be incredulous when I speak positively about it. Perhaps this is due to the obvious similarity to public housing layouts here and their negative associations, but also from a lack of appreciation (due to lack of first-hand experience of) the benefits that you mentioned above.

The very same town?

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#388

Post by vvpan »

tasuki wrote: post #173
indexhtml wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in the same town and strongly share your sentiments! I noticed Americans tend to be incredulous when I speak positively about it. Perhaps this is due to the obvious similarity to public housing layouts here and their negative associations, but also from a lack of appreciation (due to lack of first-hand experience of) the benefits that you mentioned above.

What's the town's name?

Troitsk: https://goo.gl/maps/ZZPWKeFuYCR2

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#389

Post by closeparen »

rwallace wrote: post #379
closeparen wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had to pay the insane real estate prices to live close to everything (or take buses) everywhere I'd go mad too.

One of the factors driving insane real estate prices is low density, partly to accommodate cars. Another factor is bad zoning laws, tolerated on the assumption that cars will be used. And if the bus service in your neighborhood is bad, that's likely because the rich and powerful drive cars, so they have no incentive to improve the buses. Remember, the proposed new state of the world is not just like the current one e…

>the rich and powerful drive cars, so they have no incentive to improve the buses.

The urban rich and powerful can afford to live within short walks of their offices, or right next to stations on the best parts of (small) existing transit corridors. They are most assuredly not sitting in rush-hour traffic.

>low density, partly to accommodate cars

Figure 1000 people work downtown, half of them park in 200sqft spaces, the other half live in 400sqft apartments.

Convert all the parking to apartments. Now downtown can support only 750 workers. Great for me if I'm one of the 250 who no longer has to drive, but what if I'm one of the 250 who can now neither drive nor live there?

Statistically, it was worth ~$9,000/year to me not to ride a bicycle or use public transit. Unless that was purely ignorant, starting to do so will be a bad time.

>bad zoning laws,

I'm with you there. We need to massively increase the height of buildings in the small walkable cores and along transit corridors so that more people can live in them. Over time, employers could also spread out, so that there is not a single downtown that everyone's trying to get to. And of course it is ridiculous that any one lives far from a grocery store by fiat, rather than by economics.

>It's one where nobody owns a car, and everyone shares the benefits of that.

But if we do that and, the contention for housing along the transit corridors will be so intense that only the wealthiest can remain, even with free-for-all zoning and a huge construction boom. I've no doubt that the proposed new state of the world will be awesome for the few people who can afford it, I merely doubt that I will be one of them, and I'm not looking forward to 3+ hour/day commutes, no matter how safe the streets.

Sprawl, the automobile, and the highway are fundamentally housing affordability devices. Land value isn't so important if you can traverse 10 miles in 10 minutes. When 10 minutes its half a mile, it suddenly matters a great deal.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#390

Post by WWLink »

LordKano wrote: post #271
davidw wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I see what you are saying: you think that suburbs are not planned down to the most minute of details? I don't know where you live, but I bet if you read a copy of your local zoning code, and have a look at the zoning map, you will probably find that yes, your suburb is very, very heavily regulated, including parking minimums, minimum floor/area ratios, setbacks, uses, and so on and so forth. Probably less than so…

You raise a valid point. I just looked at my local code book of ordinances and they do cover a lot, including the number of parking spaces by square footage. In my experience, in a smaller town, these things are primarily used as a weapon to punish otherwise bad businesses. For example, we had a bar whose patrons became a neighborhood nuisance. They began to enforce the letter of the law for every violation until the…

That sounds pretty bad. If you make everything illegal then only selectively enforce the laws...
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