Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy • Hacker News Board

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#401

Post by PeterisP » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 11:40 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #215

luckylion wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to go to the urban center for everyday things though, you go there because that's where the jobs are. When full remote becomes more wide-spread, that might change things rapidly.

It's not only jobs. Do you want to watch theater? Opera? Concerts? Major sports events? Do you want to join a club for an obscure African sport? I could go on and on. There is a reason we've been congregating in cities for millennia, despite having to overcome many diseases which are made worse by overcrowdedness.

Living in a major city, I and other people would still drive or even fly to other major cities for concerts or major sports events. That's not-that-frequent occassion, it's a bit more convenient if the event happens close to your home but living 100km from the city where it happens is not an obstacle anyway.

The location of jobs matters because many of them require daily commute. But for major entertainment events it's sufficient to be 'close enough' for the things that haven't yet been replaced with something that's accessible remotely. For example, 30 years ago living in a small town meant that your access to cinema was limited or at least delayed, so you were 'out of the loop' of the culture in some sense. That's not an issue anymore - not because there are more cinemas, because their role has decreased.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#402

Post by jcrawfordor » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 11:43 PM UTC

S_A_P wrote: post #400

jcrawfordor wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a decidedly amateur historian with interest in this area, I think that claim is true on its own but also does not tell the entire story. It is true that decentralization was viewed as a major component of nuclear survivability, particularly in the earlier part of the cold war. This was the time period during which the FEMA (today's name) crisis relocation program was being devised, for example, and the high cost a…

This is a really great response. I think there are a ton of both selfish and altruistic reasons for the urban sprawl that is Houston. I grew up here (Alief area) and that was the burbs when I was young. (It’s about 15-20 minutes drive from downtown) there was a 10 or so mile gap between where I lived and Sugarland. Now it all runs together. I now live due south of Katy in an unincorporated area about 40 miles away fr…

Right, and this is a big part of the post-war economics. After WWII a huge number of people were looking to buy homes in an unusually short span of time, and they pretty much all wanted a "typical American home" with lawn and fence. On top of this, there was a large workforce available that basically kickstarted the American homebuilding industry as we know it today, and made buying a brand-new home a very affordable and attractive option.

And what do you get when you have a huge number of people looking to buy brand-new houses? Urban sprawl, there's not really any way to avoid it.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#403

Post by romanoderoma » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 11:46 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #398

romanoderoma wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually does I cherry picked infant mortality rate because I didn't want to pick the most embarrassing US stats, like life expectancy (lowest in the west despite the highest healthcare spending per capita) and homicide rate (4 times the Nigeria, 6 times China, 10 times Europe) The fact that even little Estonia can handle infant mortality rate better than a superpower like USA it's kinda revealing I'm also quite s…

I'll repeat myself. The definition of infant mortality is not the same across all countries. For example, if a baby is born at less than 1 lb or before 21 weeks, it's a stillbirth and not counted as infant mortality in many countries (I have no idea about Estonia). In the US, is is counted . Regardless, let's get back to my original comment. GDP is important . It's what pays for government services, you may not agree…

OECDs countries use the same stats everywhere

USA ranks 34th on 36 countries

> GDP is important. It's what pays for government services

It depends on what you buy with it and how much of it goes back to society in the form of government services for the public

For rich countries in the G20 it shouldn't matter as much as how you redistribute it

I'll repeat myself, despite the highest GDP in the World USA can't even pay for the citizens' right to not be shot in the streets

What is it good for then?

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#404

Post by RobLach » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 11:49 PM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #111

> But it wasn’t strictly an “everything is bigger in Texas” ethos that caused Houston to sprawl the way that it does. Rather, Cold War–era urban design philosophy in the U.S. prioritized sprawl because older cities that had urbanized pre–World War II—New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit—were seen as being susceptible to nuclear strikes. Less-dense cities such as Los Angeles and Houston were less likely to be…

With all claims like this, it’s rarely the case that these decisions were made on the basis of a claim like that but it was used in a compendium or arguments for whatever policy. If you’re a pro-car lobbyist for example, you might as well throw something like that in as it strengthens your case.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#405

Post by jcrawfordor » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 11:51 PM UTC

js2 wrote: post #385

jcrawfordor wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a decidedly amateur historian with interest in this area, I think that claim is true on its own but also does not tell the entire story. It is true that decentralization was viewed as a major component of nuclear survivability, particularly in the earlier part of the cold war. This was the time period during which the FEMA (today's name) crisis relocation program was being devised, for example, and the high cost a…

> crisis relocation (which, in an earlier form, was a major motivation for the Eisenhower freeway system, to the extent that it's probably fair to say that it was the main motivation with materiel movement as a second) I've heard that before, but the DOT claims evacuation was a minor factor. From https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/interstatemyths.cfm#ques... President Eisenhower supported the Interstate System becau…

Yeah, I'm really not sure about this - stories of the strange history of the Eisenhower freeway system are extremely common and there's just a surprising amount of myth around them, like the airplane landing thing that we've seen elsewhere in the thread. It's probably unnecessarily conspiratorial to think that the motivations were anything other than what was officially said (e.g. economic advantages), but I give a certain weight to evacuation as a motive because the vast majority of the efforts made towards survivability were remarkably secretive and it was common, at the time, for the government to use cover stories as justification for survivability efforts. Consider, for example, how FEMA used the FBI as a "front" for the crisis relocation program in order to deny their involvement. It's the kind of secret-keeping that seems really pointless and strange now (how much does it even matter to anyone if it's the FBI or FEMA inventorying relocation sites?), but is an artifact of the ultra-paranoid and minimally accountable atmosphere of the time. Most of these things remain pretty secretive today, not necessarily because there's some ongoing push to keep it a secret, but through the more boring mechanism of once secret, now obscure documents being hard to get declassified.

So I sort of suspect that evacuation was a bigger factor than the government admits, but that's purely speculative. Just like suburbanization there are definitely a lot of reasons the interstates happened.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#406

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 11:55 PM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #111

> But it wasn’t strictly an “everything is bigger in Texas” ethos that caused Houston to sprawl the way that it does. Rather, Cold War–era urban design philosophy in the U.S. prioritized sprawl because older cities that had urbanized pre–World War II—New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit—were seen as being susceptible to nuclear strikes. Less-dense cities such as Los Angeles and Houston were less likely to be…

[deleted]

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#407

Post by refurb » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 11:57 PM UTC

romanoderoma wrote: post #403

refurb wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll repeat myself. The definition of infant mortality is not the same across all countries. For example, if a baby is born at less than 1 lb or before 21 weeks, it's a stillbirth and not counted as infant mortality in many countries (I have no idea about Estonia). In the US, is is counted . Regardless, let's get back to my original comment. GDP is important . It's what pays for government services, you may not agree…

OECDs countries use the same stats everywhere USA ranks 34th on 36 countries > GDP is important. It's what pays for government services It depends on what you buy with it and how much of it goes back to society in the form of government services for the public For rich countries in the G20 it shouldn't matter as much as how you redistribute it I'll repeat myself, despite the highest GDP in the World USA can't even pa…

OECDs countries use the same stats everywhere

No they don't. They collect the same stats, but they aren't necessarily comparable.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#408

Post by adrianmonk » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 12:07 AM UTC

Flobin wrote: post #336

adrianmonk wrote: post #252

One factor that hasn't been mentioned here is climate. Siena seems to have a very mild climate. Its average high temperature[1] in August is 28.3°C (82.9°F). Compare that to Houston's monthly high for August, which is 35°C (95°F). Houston is also very humid[3]. Most people don't want to take a 10-minute walk when it's 95°F and humid. You arrive at your destination panting and very sweaty. It's more comfortable to tak…

You say that as if there are no dense cities in places that have a similar climate as Houston. What about Taipei, for instance? Houston has a July average high temperature of 34,7 degrees C with an average relative humidity of 74,4. The same data for Taipei is 34,3 degrees C with a humidity of 73. Yet Houston has a population density of 1398,76/km2 whereas Taipei 9700/km2, almost 7 times as high. Data from Wikipedia.…

Arguably Taipei could have the motive, but not the opportunity, not like Houston does.

The population of Taiwan[1] is 23.78 million, and its land area is 35,808 km^2. The population of Texas[2] is 29 million, and its land area is 676,587 km^2.

So Taiwan has nearly (82%) as many people but 1/20th the land.

Also, Taipei is boxed in by large mountains and the ocean, so there are lots of natural barriers discouraging sprawl.

Houston is near the ocean, but aside from that there are no natural barriers. The land around it is super flat in every direction. The closest hill of any size is probably 150 miles away.

---

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#409

Post by jschwartzi » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 12:36 AM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #162

guyzero wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure someone discussed it once, but Pentagon war planners don't set urban planning policy. People like single family homes, people like yards, people want racist neighbourhood segregation, people really hated urban centers for a long time in the US. All much better explanations.

Also people wanted to start building equity in their home and you largely can't do that in the city because all available properties are rentals.

The notion of equity as an investment or savings is a pretty modern invention alongside the 30 year mortgage.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#410

Post by hehebbssjj » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 12:37 AM UTC

reddog wrote: post #173

dylan604 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urban sprawl happened because people were tired of living on top of each other, and cities that had the room to expand used it. There was also another name used for that sprawl, white flight. I think we're seeing some of the results of that today.

I've always thought it was funny how whites moving from the city to the suburbs is bad (white flight) and whites moving from the suburbs to the city is also bad (gentrification).

Part of the problem is that Black people never had the opportunity to buy the properties they occupied, even at depressed prices when those properties were undesireable. So when gentrification occurs, rents go up and they're shut out. If there wasn't a massive wealth gap to begin with you'd see more Black homeowners in gentrifying areas making bank on their massively appreciated houses.