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Suburban sprawl is stifling the US economy

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Re: Suburban sprawl is stifling the US economy

#11

Post by ars »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #5

An individual with the choice of living in the city or in suburbia is faced with a conundrum. Although you would think that by living in the city the individual will save money by expending significantly less natural resources and dramatically lowering his carbon footprint, it ironically costs him less money to do the exact opposite by living in the suburbs. This is because if the individual chooses to live in the ci…

> This is the only time in human history where living farther away from the city is actually cheaper then living closer.

That is not in the slightest true. Your thing about oil is a red herring.

Urban areas (farms back then) were ALWAYS cheaper than cities.

Re: Suburban sprawl is stifling the US economy

#12

Post by enjo »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #5

An individual with the choice of living in the city or in suburbia is faced with a conundrum. Although you would think that by living in the city the individual will save money by expending significantly less natural resources and dramatically lowering his carbon footprint, it ironically costs him less money to do the exact opposite by living in the suburbs. This is because if the individual chooses to live in the ci…

I'm not following. Capital gains?

Re: Suburban sprawl is stifling the US economy

#13

Post by xigency »

This is not something I see in a city like Chicago. Even with a thinning population in the city proper, there are a wide variety of jobs reaching out from the city to the suburbs and more than adequate transportation with plenty of "walkable" neighborhoods. This is an interesting idea to explore, and I definitely have seen some more sprawling areas in this country (L.A., San Jose), but New York and Chicago don't fit under this umbrella from my point of view.

The article is also a little thin without concrete examples. Looking at other countries, parts of Japan are almost completely connected but this somehow works with the large amount of natural resources they have while also supporting a huge population. Economic measures have to look at more than just the monetary value of things. I know this looks at social and environmental factors, but there are network effects to consider too.

Re: Suburban sprawl is stifling the US economy

#14

Post by rrggrr »

Suburbs cannot compete with cities for fresh talent. Most businesses I know are opening city offices to Broaden their candidat pool. Its worth noting that sprawl legends like the Dc Metro area, San Fran and Boston lead the nation in job openings. Suburbs are demographically and geographically disadvantaged.

Re: Suburban sprawl is stifling the US economy

#15

Post by jkimmel »

acveilleux wrote: post #8
happytrails wrote: post #4

Suburbs are horribly designed, case in point Irvine CA. Worst place I have ever been too. Giant 8 lane surface streets but still endless traffic. No useful public transit so everyone is sitting in a car. The future looks bleak for socal unless population normalizes.

My favourite part of suburbs is the grid of street maximally designed to make driving over them less efficient than avoiding them. Intuitively one would think this decreases traffic but instead it turns the neighbourhood into a kind of watershed where all traffic quickly converges to the same few progressively broader street. The harder the grid planner tried to inhibit through-traffic, the worse the effect.

I live in downtown Orlando, FL.

We have a perfect (pathetic) example of this phenomenon.

Most of the older buildings in the downtown core rest along brickpave streets that are awful to drive on. Horrible for the suspension, tires, the works. I believe the insistence on keeping them is an attempt to limit through traffic from a nearby East/West interchange with the notorious Interstate-4 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_4#Orlando_area).

Through traffic is still a huge issue, and in addition, the poor brickpave road is constantly riddled with pot holes from the heavy trucks and sheer number of vehicles that detour through. I can't imagine what the maintenance must cost relative to regular asphalt.

Re: Suburban sprawl is stifling the US economy

#16

Post by hayksaakian »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #5

An individual with the choice of living in the city or in suburbia is faced with a conundrum. Although you would think that by living in the city the individual will save money by expending significantly less natural resources and dramatically lowering his carbon footprint, it ironically costs him less money to do the exact opposite by living in the suburbs. This is because if the individual chooses to live in the ci…

what if electric cars (tesla, nissan leaf, etc.) get more popular?

then you can separate the source of energy from the consumer of energy.

Re: Suburban sprawl is stifling the US economy

#17

Post by CamperBob2 »

pyre wrote: post #7
m3talridl3y wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And ironically they pay way more in taxes building excessively large public transit systems.

> excessively large public transit systems Because the "real" solution is for every single person to own and drive a car that seats 4, but 99% of the time only has 1 person in it?

People who can afford to do so usually avoid public transportation. Instead of posting a new edition of the same self-righteous HN thread bewailing other peoples' choices practically every single day of the week, it might be interesting to examine the apparent dissonance between the way amateur urban planners think things should work, and the way they actually do.

Re: Suburban sprawl is stifling the US economy

#18

Post by erispoe »

pyre wrote: post #10
tomazz wrote: post #6

I'm from Glasgow, Scotland myself and I've never been to US but I've done a fair amount of research. Our societies differ a lot if it goes to moving around. I can normally walk around the whole town(600k people). I take the public transportation when I'm lazy. I am always amazed when I hear from my US friends "you have to have a car otherwise you can't get anywhere" or "there are no sidewalks". Wow. In Europe most of…

> whole town(600k people). If you want to compare to a similar city in the US look at Portland, Oregon. The city proper has 500k ~ 600k (~2.5m if you count the 'metro area' -- for comparison Toronto Canada has ~2.7m people in the city proper).

Comparaison made on municipality size is flawed in general, because the boundaries of a specific jurisdiction depends on political circumstances, not on urban growth. Take San Francisco: it has only 800k inhabitants for 8M in the Bay Area, 10%. Whereas San Antonio TX has 1.4M. Is it bigger? Well, San Antonio metro has only 2.3M. What matters is the size of the metro area, because metro areas are a measure of job markets, not political contingencies.

Re: Suburban sprawl is stifling the US economy

#19

Post by philwelch »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #17
pyre wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> excessively large public transit systems Because the "real" solution is for every single person to own and drive a car that seats 4, but 99% of the time only has 1 person in it?

People who can afford to do so usually avoid public transportation. Instead of posting a new edition of the same self-righteous HN thread bewailing other peoples' choices practically every single day of the week, it might be interesting to examine the apparent dissonance between the way amateur urban planners think things should work, and the way they actually do.

That's a product of urban design, not a cause or a premise. Rich New York bankers don't drive cars.

Re: Suburban sprawl is stifling the US economy

#20

Post by tomazz »

erispoe wrote: post #18
pyre wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> whole town(600k people). If you want to compare to a similar city in the US look at Portland, Oregon. The city proper has 500k ~ 600k (~2.5m if you count the 'metro area' -- for comparison Toronto Canada has ~2.7m people in the city proper).

Comparaison made on municipality size is flawed in general, because the boundaries of a specific jurisdiction depends on political circumstances, not on urban growth. Take San Francisco: it has only 800k inhabitants for 8M in the Bay Area, 10%. Whereas San Antonio TX has 1.4M. Is it bigger? Well, San Antonio metro has only 2.3M. What matters is the size of the metro area, because metro areas are a measure of job mark…

Densities would probably be a decent measure in this case. Denser area == more jobs
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