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The myth of revealed preference for suburbs

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Re: The myth of revealed preference for suburbs

#91

Post by seanmcdirmid »

RandallBrown wrote: post #86
DanAndersen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame you're being downvoted for expressing quite accurate downsides to city living. Issues like what you describe are why I will never live in SF and only begrudgingly live in any large city.

It's not a surprise they're being downvoted because while their claims are technically accurate, they're pretty disingenuous. I lived in an "urban" area and I didn't have bars on my windows. I'm sure the chance of me being mugged was higher than a suburb, but that's more a function of population than anything else. It's still low enough that it's a negligible risk for me and my girlfriend. While I've certainly seen d…

I live in downtown urban Bellevue, and I’m sure it is much safer/cleaner/more boring than the more suburban parts Seattle.

Re: The myth of revealed preference for suburbs

#92

Post by ColanR »

afpx wrote: post #89
graeme wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just did a cursory search, and houston has mandatory parking minimums. Those are one of the most sprawl policies you can find. It also mandates setbacks from the street, wide roads, and long blocks. Overall Houston does a lot of stuff right! But, I think they have still baked sprawl into their system. From what I can see, my dense Montreal neighbourbood would be illegal in Houston. (It's illegal almost everywhere i…

“Wait, why are we deregulating again? It didn’t even work the last time.” “Oh ... well ... we just didn’t deregulate enough last time. Let’s just deregulate a little more , and we’ll see the results!”

The parent gave an exact rationale that answered the point made...an intelligent response would be appropriate. Not... this.

Re: The myth of revealed preference for suburbs

#93

Post by username90 »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #74
twblalock wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Millions of children grow up in cities (in apartments, no less!) and they turn out just fine.

And millions of them don't. Educational outcomes, crime (both as victim and perpetrator), and mental health are all worse for those who grew up in cities, and not just slightly worse. Much worse.

In Europe all of those are better in cities than suburbs.

Re: The myth of revealed preference for suburbs

#94

Post by jacobolus »

squirrelicus wrote: post #79
Turing_Machine wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's see: Drunks/junkies/mentally ill people shitting, pissing, and vomiting everywhere, while verbally (and sometimes physically) abusing the passers-by. Noise. Breathing the stench of exhaust fumes, week-old garbage, and someone else's idea of cooking. Having no place for your children to sit on the grass without worrying about them finding someone's discarded needle or excrement. Having no space for gardens, hobb…

+1 My favorite part of the suburbs is that my kids are physically incapable of walking or biking to an urban area. When they have grown to acquire the sense to look out for themselves, then they coincidentally will have the freedom (e.g. drivers license) to go to an urban place. Until then, I love that I can let them just go outside without supervision and dick around. American urbanity is just not for families.

I grew up in a suburb and I am sure glad my kid will be growing up in the city with access to transit and a wide range of amenities within walking distance, and streets/neighborhoods actually designed for walking around. American suburbs are awful for anyone under the age of 16 or anyone without a car. Kids can't do anything without being babied around by a parent.

Re: The myth of revealed preference for suburbs

#95

Post by mcbits »

AvocadoPanic wrote: post #24
mc32 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about Atlanta but Boston suburban lots tend to be about half an acre, the ones outside of the 495, closer to an acre. Inside the 128 they do get smallish though. So given those sizes, I’m not surprised people are okay with “more density”.

We're just outside the 495, our lot is just under 5 acres. There's a acre minimum zoning requirement in some areas, but most lots in our area are larger.

Judging by Zillow's map, 5+ acre lots are a small minority of the properties in that area. Probably less than 10%, although 10% could feel like "most" compared to places where it's closer to 0%.

Re: The myth of revealed preference for suburbs

#96

Post by CM30 »

sanderjd wrote: post #52
djrogers wrote: post #12

Yet another article claiming that I, every member of my family, and all of my friends don’t actually want to live in our horrible susburbs. It’s not possible that we actually love it here, that we like the clean air, wide open spaces, huge yards, non-crowded downtown, small family friendly parades, and our rodeo. Nope, we’re all just lying to ourselves and really want to love in a cramped arcology.

That doesn't sound like a suburb to me, it sounds like a town. The suburbs I'm familiar with don't have a downtown to be non-crowded or in which to have a small family friendly parade. I like towns too, but the ones where I live are still expensive akin to the cities in the area, whereas the non-town residential + strip mall only suburbs are where it is cheaper to live.

Probably depends on the area and country. In parts of the US I suspect the average 'suburban' area doesn't have a downtown or local shops or what not, but in much of Europe and other parts of the US it often does, with 'suburb' often being taken more to mean 'smaller town just outside of a city'.

Re: The myth of revealed preference for suburbs

#97

Post by rdl »

neilwilson wrote: post #87

Interesting to note that there is only two choices - city or commuter suburb with cars. The third choice is villages and towns where people live with their own front door onto the street and still walk to work. Move the work where the people are. Decentralise

Something like downtown Palo Alto would be my choice; you could probably do a lot in Palo Alto without a car, although you'd still want to have one available. The problem with Palo Alto is just that it costs 10x too much.

Re: The myth of revealed preference for suburbs

#98

Post by tokyodude »

ausvisaissues wrote: post #56
Isamu wrote: post #2

>If so many people live in suburbs, it must be because that’s what they prefer, right? But the evidence is to the contrary. This article makes its point from the book "Zoned Out" (2005.) Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the argument is that zoning policies make suburban sprawl, not free markets. They argue that if zoning restrictions were lifted and development responded to free market forces, higher density hous…

It is also culture that plays a big part. I've lived in very high density housing in Japan (20 floor manshion type apartment) and medium density in US (2 level apartment). Higher density in Japan is much more pleasant due to the culture of being considerate of others. If I have to live in the US, I will choose suburbia for that reason.

I live in Tokyo and well, I'm not so sure. Maybe you just got lucky or I got unlucky. I've lived in places where they neighboring couple would scream and throw things at 3-4am for 30 minutes every couple of weeks. Lived in a place across the kanda river from the Chou line where the trains were so loud I couldn't hear the TV when they went by. My current place is nice enough but I feel I have to tiptoe all the time which I hate. I want to not have to think about it rather then always have to think about it.

Those are not unique to Japan though. My SF apartment had the thinest floors ever and I got all kinds of complaints even though I'm way more aware of the noise I make than most, even going so far as to always watch TV with wireless headphones.

Conversely I've lived in apartments designed for noise in Los Angeles where the landlord told me it was okay to run the washing machine 24/7 because the neighbors wouldn't be able to hear it next door as the walls were concrete and doubled with a space between to absorb the sound.

I know some of the newer 20-30 floor apartment buildings in Japan are built similarly but I don't currently make enough to live in a place like that, probably $3k-$4k a month for a 2LDK

Re: The myth of revealed preference for suburbs

#99

Post by tokyodude »

jacobolus wrote: post #94
squirrelicus wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 My favorite part of the suburbs is that my kids are physically incapable of walking or biking to an urban area. When they have grown to acquire the sense to look out for themselves, then they coincidentally will have the freedom (e.g. drivers license) to go to an urban place. Until then, I love that I can let them just go outside without supervision and dick around. American urbanity is just not for families.

I grew up in a suburb and I am sure glad my kid will be growing up in the city with access to transit and a wide range of amenities within walking distance, and streets/neighborhoods actually designed for walking around. American suburbs are awful for anyone under the age of 16 or anyone without a car. Kids can't do anything without being babied around by a parent.

I grew up in the suburbs. I guess I don't know what I was missing. There were parks, hobby stores, shopping centers, open lots where people made bike ramps and burms, we launched model rockets, went to arcades, raced slot cars, flew RC planes. Would also semi regularly ride bikes 2-4 miles away from home and sometimes 6 or 7.

My impression of most high density cities would be that my options would be more limited as a kid. Sure there's a lots of shopping, restaurants, and bars but what is there for kids?

Of course I only have the places I've experienced to go on.

Re: The myth of revealed preference for suburbs

#100

Post by notahacker »

so33 wrote: post #50
notahacker wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that planning and zoning boards making it illegal to build anything other than low density suburbs are elected officials, their actions are pretty good evidence of preferences...

>Given that planning and zoning boards making it illegal to build anything other than low density suburbs are elected officials, their actions are pretty good evidence of preferences... ... of the voting population, whose demographics unfortunately don’t match up with the population at large. There’s also a vested self-interest for property owners to vote in such a way that preserves their property values. And what b…

Sure, voters' demographics don't match up with the population as a whole, but they're certainly not more skewed against the tastes of the poor than an idealised free market. (I don't think they're likely to be well represented in Levine's survey or the central San Francisco housing debate either)

Your linked homevoter article underlines the point by suggesting that low density housing areas are more likely to be downzoned than zoned for higher density, which is odd if a majority of their population has an unexpressed desire to live in a less suburban area, especially since it's most likely to happen where residents are homeowners and wealthy and white enough to be an influential voting bloc.

Restricting supply is itself a perfectly valid reason for actually preferring lower density housing, but it's only part of that equation. It turns out that many people who might answer survey questions saying that they ideally want a walkable neighbourhood with better transit actually end up obstructing plans to put a train line through their leafy suburb and a mixed-use development towers a few blocks away from their house.

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