His assumption is invalid.
There are many cul-de-sacs around here.
But some subdivisions still have good access to the surrounding streets, and some are hard to get in and out of, both seem to have about the same number of cul-de-sacs.
The Great Cul-De-Sac Problem And How To Alleviate It.
101–110 of 138 posts
Re: The Great Cul-De-Sac Problem And How To Alleviate It.
#102I've lived on a dead-end street (but not a cul-de-sac), and I've lived on a regular traffic street. I definitely preferred the dead-end with the lack of traffic and noise, and ability for kids to play in the street without fear of a car going 50 down it. And people did socialize with neighbors on the dead-end street (although maybe not as much as the regular street).
I've never lived in a cul-de-sac (which btw is french for a dead-end street), but spent my childhood playing outside all the same. Narrow, one-way streets, with plenty of speed bumps. I walked to school. Currently I reside downtown, overlooking rails (the trains go quite slowly and make a noise far more agreeable than that of cars). There's a market under the rails, fruit vegtables and other foodstuffs at daytime, sm…
>I will never understand the attraction of suburbs. The distances. The architecture. The boredom.
Affordable family formation. It's far cheaper to start a family in the 'burbs. Housing is cheaper, daycare is cheaper, and the housing premium on good public schools is far lower. The cost of driving doesn't scale with the size of your family, but the cost of public transportation does.
If you're not interested in a family you don't care, but having one is a much bigger sacrifice in a high-density area.
Re: The Great Cul-De-Sac Problem And How To Alleviate It.
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It's pretty obvious that a lot of people want density—if they didn't, housing prices in NYC, DC, Seattle, San Francisco, and others wouldn't be so high. You're making the assumption people want to live there because of the density and not because there are certain types of jobs that pay more in big cities. I could make twenty or thirty percent more if I moved to NYC, but that's something I'll never do.
You're making the assumption people want to live there because of the density and not because there are certain types of jobs that pay more in big cities. Glaeser's book and a lot of the other work on economic geography make it clear that the two are inherently related and evolve together; density promotes knowledge spillover effects, dense markets, and various other Good Things. See also some of Richard Florida's wo…
Well, we're not in disagreement, then. But saying you want to do such and such a job doesn't necessarily imply you're interested in living on top of ten million other people. Everyone makes tradeoffs - for a lot of people the density is a big negative, but it's outweighed by employment opportunities.
Re: The Great Cul-De-Sac Problem And How To Alleviate It.
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's interesting that suburb dwellers never complain about other people's living choices. No, they just vote against spending any public money on things like public transit, or against raising car and gas taxes. If suburbians paid their own way I wouldn't mind them either.
Why would anyone want to vote to spend money on anything that will be a net loss? Subsidizing public transportation is an economic drain on society. The correct answer is to have self-sustaining, profitable public transportation. This can only happen in cities with sufficient population density, such as NYC. Car and gas taxes? Tax the hell out of them, since the costs right now are so over-externalized. Eventually, t…
It's strange to argue against government spending on infrastructure on the premise that infrastructure should be profitable. Unless you have similar feelings about tolling the city street or privatizing the sidewalk, this isn't a consistent argument.
Subsidizing alternatives to car usage reduces the externalities of car usage. You can't effectively disincent car usage in the absence of alternatives.
Re: The Great Cul-De-Sac Problem And How To Alleviate It.
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
If your kid goes to the public school he will be beat up by black or hispanic gang members That's a very alarmist statement that I'm afraid has no relationship with the experience of my friends who went to inner city schools with diverse populations (and yes, a number of gang members). It's true that many inner city schools were defunded by capital flight to the suburbs. But the notion that they're all active warzone…
They're not all that way, to be sure, but there's enough truth in the stereotype that neighborhoods with known good schools have insane housing costs.
Bad schools have unmotivated teachers. They operate more on discipline than inspiration. They have poor infrastructure and outdated books. They're understaffed, poorly managed, and some even have lead paint in the walls. There are a good amount of schools that have these problems, and since school funding is tied to property values, then we have an idea why housing costs around the good schools are high.
Bad schools are not a high school zombie apocalypse of having to fight for your life against "black and hispanic gang members". That's the stereotype that needs to end already.
Re: The Great Cul-De-Sac Problem And How To Alleviate It.
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are taxes lower in the suburbs of most American cities? I thought they'd be higher due to lower densities (more roads, sewer pipes, etc per capita to maintain). At least that's the case here in the Greater Toronto area ...
Yes, much lower. Property taxes in my suburb are around three quarters compared to the nearby city (Atlanta, GA - millage rate 44.435; Gwinnett, GA - millage rate 32.10). Couple that with the fact that houses are much much cheaper, and in practice I pay ~$2000/year property taxes on my house while my friend pays over $5000/year in property taxes for his condo in the city. Then my mortgage and insurance are also cheap…
I have no idea what benefit this extra level of government actually provides, though.
I have public infrastructure (transportation, libraries, etc) in the city of Chicago that the suburbs could only dream of.
Re: The Great Cul-De-Sac Problem And How To Alleviate It.
#107I grew up on a cul-de-sac. I knew all of my neighbors and it was a great environment for a kid to grow up in. We had a nearby woods, too. We often walked and rode bikes.
The cul-de-sac suburbia is probably pretty good for kids until they're 8-10 years old and want to do something else than ride a bike along their neighbours' yards.
Because of the cul-de-sac layout, it's nearly impossible to walk or take your bike and go somewhere, namely because: a) it's a long way because you practically have to detour towards your destination all the time; b) there's nowhere to go because it's just houses and other culs-de-sac; c) if you manage the gymnastics to find yourself out of the neighbourhood you're likely to bump into a large junction leading to an arterial road where there's no place to ride a bike; d) and if there was, you'd have to pedal for miles until you ever reached some place to go, like a mall, another suburban feature.
Re: The Great Cul-De-Sac Problem And How To Alleviate It.
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but folks living in suburbs don't stop folks who like density from having it. Yes. They do. That giant sucking sound you hear are the burbs bleeding the urban tax base dry. Further, in my area, the burb leaders cock block anything that smells like it might help the urbans. My city would be sparkling and new if we didn't have to subsidize the standard of living of all the deadbeats in the burbs.
"My city would be sparkling and new if we didn't have to subsidize the standard of living of all the deadbeats in the burbs." That is a silly notion. Are you assuming those out in the burbs don't pay property tax, vehicle related taxes, tax on purchases and every other tax in existence? I'm positive we'd all learn quite a bit if we actually dug into the numbers.
How much does it cost to draw eletricity, telephones, water lines, and plumbing into a a) new city building b) new suburban home?
Re: The Great Cul-De-Sac Problem And How To Alleviate It.
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair. I have never lived outside of a city/town (>=200k). But living in suburbs "for the kids" (a big point of yours too) does not convince me. As a kid, I had a great time. With plenty of time outdoors too.
Do you live in North America? In most American metros to live in the city with kids you have to make enough money to easily afford expensive private school tuition. If your kid goes to the public school he will be beat up by black or hispanic gang members. This is probably 80% of the reason families rarely choose cities in America.
Pure utter malarky. My urban high school in Miami was 40% white/non-hispanic, 40% hispanic, and 20% black (minus a smidgeon for the few percent Asian). It was also one of the best high schools in the county - public or private - and many of my friends' parents could not afford private school tuition. Mine sure couldn't.
Re: The Great Cul-De-Sac Problem And How To Alleviate It.
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Space. Your own greenspace. I live in the country now and it's even more remote, but when I lived in the 'burbs it was on a 1/2 acre lot behind a nature preserve. I could look out my living room windows and not see anything but trees -- not a neighbor in sight. My kid could climb trees, look for frogs, go "treasure hunting" all day long. The dogs could go outside without needing to be leashed, or walked. And we could…
> "but when I lived in the 'burbs it was on a 1/2 acre lot behind a nature preserve" If this was a typical American suburb, I'd be inclined to agree, but you have to realize that your suburb is a statistical anomaly compared to the much more urban suburb that most Americans live in. For most Americans, a suburb still means being miles from nature, it also means being jammed into row after row of houses butting should…
Original suburbs are generally now just called "the city". They are built on the city grid and generally have relatively high densities. The prototypical "street car suburbs" that surround the urban core of most cities where the first true suburbs.
Most of what we're building today are really "exurbs".