Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes?

#21

Post by martythemaniak » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 8:57 AM UTC

jlmendezbonini wrote: post #10

martythemaniak wrote: post #7

The short, glib answer is "The same reason teenagers don't learn from their elders' mistakes". The longer answer is a combination of: - poor people want what rich people have. And if they can't afford the substance (private country estate), they'll still get the style (McMansion). They particularly want last generation's rich people's things, as this generation's rich people's things are have not gained widespread po…

>- suburban sprawl has low up-front costs with real costs coming in decades later, as North American suburbs are starting to experience today Would you mind elaborating more on this? More specifically about the cost the North American suburbs are starting to experience. thanks

I am talking primarily about property tax rates, though as siblings have said, there are other effects, like worse health and lifestyle outcomes which are a bit harder to quantify.

As the article mentions, suburban municipalities made money primarily by selling land, however the price almost never accounted for the true, high cost of servicing low-density communities. This is usually made much worse by developer lobbying. Eventually the land runs out and the municipality has to either stop growing and start raising property taxes to make up for lost sales, or start densifying to keep growth going, neither of which are popular with people who though were getting a certain deal. For a lot of suburbs densifying is not even an option (no one wants to go there), so sometimes they spiral downwards.

Calgary makes a good example. Prior to 2010 it had the image of "redneck sprawlville", but it elected an urbane, muslim, gay-welcoming mayor. One of his major issues was tax savings via ending public subsidies for suburbs. Turns out when you did the math, each mcmansion received a hefty public subsidy because the cost of servicing that house exceeded what developers paid the city. Similar patters can be seen throughout North America.

Re: Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes?

#22

Post by jrapdx3 » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 8:57 AM UTC

hueving wrote: post #12

jlmendezbonini wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>- suburban sprawl has low up-front costs with real costs coming in decades later, as North American suburbs are starting to experience today Would you mind elaborating more on this? More specifically about the cost the North American suburbs are starting to experience. thanks

Difficult to implement any kind of useful public transit that would obviate the need to drive everywhere.

Well, of course not. I mean public transportation couldn't cover every section of a region, but it could serve major hubs well enough to reduce automotive use and reduce its downsides.

For almost 40 years Portland Oregon has been developing light rail all over the metro region. Rail has been extended to the major districts within a 10 to 15 mile radius of downtown. (Which is a good share of the "spread" that the regional urban growth boundary allows.)

MAX and street-car lines are heavily used but there are still many cars and traffic can be terrible. So I guess light rail/public transit are never the whole solution by themselves. Then again, what single modality is ever the "magic bullet" answer to enormously complex problems?

Re: Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes?

#23

Post by jarek » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 8:58 AM UTC

jlmendezbonini wrote: post #10

martythemaniak wrote: post #7

The short, glib answer is "The same reason teenagers don't learn from their elders' mistakes". The longer answer is a combination of: - poor people want what rich people have. And if they can't afford the substance (private country estate), they'll still get the style (McMansion). They particularly want last generation's rich people's things, as this generation's rich people's things are have not gained widespread po…

>- suburban sprawl has low up-front costs with real costs coming in decades later, as North American suburbs are starting to experience today Would you mind elaborating more on this? More specifically about the cost the North American suburbs are starting to experience. thanks

> Would you mind elaborating more on this? More specifically about the cost the North American suburbs are starting to experience.

Infrastructure to serve the new developments is paid for by the developer, more or less directly ("development charges", etc). That keeps local taxes nice and low for existing residents, until 50 years down the road the watermain needs replacing, there's lots of it because of low density sprawl, it's more complex now that construction will disturb existing traffic and business, and no one wants to pay more.

As an example, here's a story about Mississauga, a green-field suburb that proudly ran a balanced budget for decades... until they ran out of empty land to build on recently. Now they're joining denser cities in asking for more money from senior governments: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/the-maturation-o...

Re: Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes?

#24

Post by reedlaw » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 9:00 AM UTC

I live in Hangzhou and they are already addressing these problems. For example, there is a network of public bike stations. To use a bike, you make a 200 yuan deposit on a public transportation card. The first hour bike rental is free. After that it starts at 1 yuan for the second hour and goes up from there. The card also works for buses (a ride costs 2-4 yuan) using your available balance. After riding a bus, the free bike period is increased to 90 minutes. It's usually easy to find a bike and they are continuing to build new stations making it even more convenient.

Cars are a problem because of the amount of traffic around the city center. To address that, the goverment mandated that private cars could only drive in the city once a week during weekday rush hour. New drivers can only get a license if they pay a hefty tax or win a lottery (only about 2% who enter win). These restrictions don't apply to electric vehicles. There is also a network of public electric cars that can be rented for personal use. They are about the size of Smart cars.

The article points at the suburban sprawl starting to spread around cities like Shanghai. But what it doesn't mention is that most of these homes are super expensive or so far away as to require a lifestyle which most Chinese couldn't afford. Those who could afford these houses are likely to also be able to afford an even better lifestyle overseas. The middle-class can scarcely afford to buy a small apartment in China's top-tier cities. So I'm not too worried about Western-style sprawl taking over all of China.

Re: Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes?

#25

Post by kryptiskt » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 9:04 AM UTC

snogglethorpe wrote: post #11

doctorpangloss wrote: post #3

I think what this signals is not that there is something particularly backwards about China. Chinese suburban sprawl shows that no matter the style of governance or how markets deal with housing, it seems like people converge on the same poor urban planning practices. Or, you could interpret the similar mistakes as proof that real estate in America is dealt with in a way that's far from free. Texas, the heart of the…

If you look at Japan, which generally has much looser zoning practices, it's managed to do much, much, better. It has sprawl and excess road construction too, but the sprawl is much more transit-oriented, and Japan has generally done a far better job avoiding the worst stupidities of U.S. post-war development. I'm sure there are many interacting reason for this, e.g. Japan's poverty in the decades after the war meant…

Japan may have handled the tactics well, but their strategy sucks. Namely the "centralize ALL the things to Tokyo" idea. Like such a metropolis actually needs policy help to keep ahead of Kansai.

Re: Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes?

#26

Post by eloisant » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 9:09 AM UTC

snogglethorpe wrote: post #11

doctorpangloss wrote: post #3

I think what this signals is not that there is something particularly backwards about China. Chinese suburban sprawl shows that no matter the style of governance or how markets deal with housing, it seems like people converge on the same poor urban planning practices. Or, you could interpret the similar mistakes as proof that real estate in America is dealt with in a way that's far from free. Texas, the heart of the…

If you look at Japan, which generally has much looser zoning practices, it's managed to do much, much, better. It has sprawl and excess road construction too, but the sprawl is much more transit-oriented, and Japan has generally done a far better job avoiding the worst stupidities of U.S. post-war development. I'm sure there are many interacting reason for this, e.g. Japan's poverty in the decades after the war meant…

It may also be because in Japan space is very constrained, while China is a huge country with a lot available space - just like US.

Re: Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes?

#27

Post by sampo » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 9:10 AM UTC

sampo wrote: post #9

nichtich wrote: post #6

I've heard about failed city planning a lot, and I wonder is there a good example somewhere? like a booming city with more than 5 million population that have "good" city plan? which city is best in this regard?

> I've heard about failed city planning a lot, and I wonder is there a good example somewhere? Cities with functional public transport and walkable neighborhoods: Tokyo, Seoul, London, New York City, Paris, Berlin. Maybe also Madrid and Singapore, but I don't know much about them. Edit: Maybe Osaka and Nagoya, too (I don't know much about them either). All these have over 5 million population.

Actually, looking at the list of metropolitan areas with over 5 million population, I think if we look at the first world cities, but exclude North America, but include New York City and maybe Toronto, all of them have very usable public transport systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_by_p...

Re: Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes?

#28

Post by claudius » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 9:17 AM UTC

jrapdx3 wrote: post #17

Interesting subject. If the question is "to sprawl or not to sprawl" (that is, urban sprawl), like most truly serious questions, there's no good solution. I live in Oregon, where we have strict urban grown boundaries. Here in Portland, light rail has been developing since the 1970's and still expanding. Bicycling is pushed by city leaders. "In-fill" housing is going up in most every part of town. Utopia? Not everyone…

I think the key here would be to limit both – no buildings higher than ~6 stories (~30m) and a limit on urban boundaries, either enforced by land planning or economics.

Standard mansion blocks of six stories still have a much higher population density than suburban sprawling single-family homes while avoiding some/all of the issues with too high a population density – two-lane roads are usually quite sufficient and the sun does reach the ground from time to time.

See e.g. Berlin and Munich for (IMHO) decent examples of this.

Re: Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes?

#29

Post by winter_blue » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 9:27 AM UTC

WildUtah wrote: post #20

doctorpangloss wrote: post #3

I think what this signals is not that there is something particularly backwards about China. Chinese suburban sprawl shows that no matter the style of governance or how markets deal with housing, it seems like people converge on the same poor urban planning practices. Or, you could interpret the similar mistakes as proof that real estate in America is dealt with in a way that's far from free. Texas, the heart of the…

no matter the style of governance or how markets deal with housing, it seems like people converge on the same poor urban planning Actually, the USA is known for its soviet style command and control urban planning. China is known for direct state control as well. In either country you can expect to be told what you can build, how big it can be, setbacks, parking, street access, and lot sizes. USA cities are laid out w…

This is very enlightening indeed. Do you have sources to back them up?

Re: Why haven't China's cities learned from America's mistakes?

#30

Post by eloisant » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 9:29 AM UTC

sampo wrote: post #9

nichtich wrote: post #6

I've heard about failed city planning a lot, and I wonder is there a good example somewhere? like a booming city with more than 5 million population that have "good" city plan? which city is best in this regard?

> I've heard about failed city planning a lot, and I wonder is there a good example somewhere? Cities with functional public transport and walkable neighborhoods: Tokyo, Seoul, London, New York City, Paris, Berlin. Maybe also Madrid and Singapore, but I don't know much about them. Edit: Maybe Osaka and Nagoya, too (I don't know much about them either). All these have over 5 million population.

Paris is a bad example of functional public transport. You have intramuros Paris, which is walkable and have good transportation (metro), and you can add maybe the "petite couronne", but it's much too small to accommodate the population that revolves around the Greater Paris.

As soon as you get go outside, you have suburbs with no life and poor transportation. RER and SNCF trains are late when they're not in strike (1).

As a result, everyone wants to live in Paris or very close, so the prices of housing are very high. And even if you can afford an appartement, it's very hard to actually sign a lease because there are so many potential tenants wanting to rent it.

Add to that the fact that there are very few tall buildings in Paris because they want to keep it some kind of museum city stuck in the 19th century with Haussmanian buildings, the housing problem is not going to fix itself.

(1) In Paris suburbs, most child care provider refuse kids whose both parents use the RER. Because they will have no control on the time they'll be back to pick up their kids. Not exactly what we call "functional public transport".