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Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

economist.com

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Re: Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

#31

Post by SilasX »

melling wrote: post #21
rhino369 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also the entire cause of the "gentrification" problem many are so pissed off about. Nobody wants to move into a poor area, they are forced into it because you can't build skyscraper high rises in the good areas.

No, they are forced to move to these areas because they want to have a bearable commute. Your solution is to jam everyone into a more confined area. Another solution is to make commuting from a "long distance" (e.g. 60-120 miles) more bearable. In NYC, for instance, subways could be built to NJ. Faster trains (low-speed maglevs) could be built like what's being done in China ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_S1,_BC…

The train part itself is 46 minutes if you take a bullet (red columns): http://www.caltrain.com/schedules/weekdaytimetable.html

That would only be your full commute, though, if you were doing deep SoMa to downtown Mountain View.

Re: Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

#32

Post by drak0n1c »

gdilla wrote: post #23
lisper wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can in Manhattan. The tallest residential structure in the U.S. is going up within a few blocks of Central Park. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/432_Park_Avenue

But it's already unaffordable for the average NYer before it's even ready. If wealthy foreigners can park their money in manhattan, they will, without living there. That doesn't help scarcity for actual residents.

I don't see why that's an argument against. If they are going to plow their money into a city it's better if it's into 1 or 2 units in a dense skyscraper rather than buying entire mid and low rise buildings. Residential skyscrapers are strictly better at reducing price pressures.

Re: Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

#33

Post by j_baker »

> Land taxes are efficient. They are difficult to dodge; you cannot stuff land into a bank-vault in Luxembourg. Whereas a high tax on property can discourage investment, a high tax on land creates an incentive to develop unused sites. Land-value taxes can also help cater for newcomers. New infrastructure raises the value of nearby land, automatically feeding through into revenues—which helps to pay for the improvements.

+1000

Living in West Oakland next to a vacant lot, I think there's a lot of merit to this idea. As it stands right now, there's no harm to the owner of that lot to just let it lay vacant for a decade. If it cost the owner some money, people might actually do something with these kinds of lots.

Re: Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

#34

Post by melling »

SilasX wrote: post #31
melling wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they are forced to move to these areas because they want to have a bearable commute. Your solution is to jam everyone into a more confined area. Another solution is to make commuting from a "long distance" (e.g. 60-120 miles) more bearable. In NYC, for instance, subways could be built to NJ. Faster trains (low-speed maglevs) could be built like what's being done in China ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_S1,_BC…

The train part itself is 46 minutes if you take a bullet (red columns): http://www.caltrain.com/schedules/weekdaytimetable.html That would only be your full commute, though, if you were doing deep SoMa to downtown Mountain View.

Yes, this seems to be very successful.

http://www.mercurynews.com/scott-herhold/ci_26809055/herhold...

We need more of this. I don't know where the low-hanging fruit is in mass transit, but a lot more could be done.

Re: Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

#35

Post by nerfhammer »

melling wrote: post #21
rhino369 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also the entire cause of the "gentrification" problem many are so pissed off about. Nobody wants to move into a poor area, they are forced into it because you can't build skyscraper high rises in the good areas.

No, they are forced to move to these areas because they want to have a bearable commute. Your solution is to jam everyone into a more confined area. Another solution is to make commuting from a "long distance" (e.g. 60-120 miles) more bearable. In NYC, for instance, subways could be built to NJ. Faster trains (low-speed maglevs) could be built like what's being done in China ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_S1,_BC…

> In NYC, for instance, subways could be built to NJ.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_%28rail_system%29

Re: Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

#36

Post by ctdonath »

happyscrappy wrote: post #26
ctdonath wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously cutting one's energy footprint is not free, it comes with serious cost increases elsewhere. The average American can't afford to live in NYC without curtailing much of what constitutes average living conditions.

Not only that. Suburban has more emissions per person but the city has far more emissions per square foot, meaning air quality is far worse and consequent health problems.

Do any such studies address sequestration (or other suitable term) of emissions? I may produce more emissions, but I also maintain near an acre (and aspiring to much more) of CO2/etc-absorbing forest & other foliage. Not sure how it all actually balances out, but I never see reported studies addressing suburban/rural foliage conservation impact vs urban bulldozing & paving every square foot for miles.

Re: Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

#37

Post by carapat_virulat »

This seems like a very interesting subject but the analysis seems very one-handed. You can't just project like that, remove current regulations and expect the city to remain the same except for all the economical growth. Would people with money actually stay there or would those cities turn into a unbreathable bee-hives from which people would flee as soon as they had any money to do it?

It would be interesting to see comparison inside the same country of cities with harsher versus lighter regulations and how they actually evolve economically and socially. Maybe it's not even possible to remove certain regulations in western cities without committing political suicide and having them removed once the next major comes to power.

Re: Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

#38

Post by ef4 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #30
smutticus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Per-capital carbon production is lowest in dense urban environments. Suburbia and low density rural areas are the real carbon pigs on a per-capita basis. We need to change the wrong headed notion that dense urbanity is somehow bad for the environment. On the contrary, it's how we need to build in order to save the earth.

> We need to change the wrong headed notion that dense urbanity is somehow bad for the environment. Dense urbanity is bad for the local environment and, particularly, for human health in it. That's the cost of the lower per-capita impact on the global environment that it provides. We need to learn from what works (and what doesn't) in both dense and sparse environments to build lower-global-impact environments that r…

> for human health in it.

In the US, life expectancy is higher for people in urban areas than rural areas. Urban areas have less obesity, lower rates of suicide, lower rates of accidental death, higher quality of life for the elderly, and higher rates of healthy exercise.

It's true that some studies have shown higher rates of asthma and allergies in cities, but there are also contradictory studies saying that those things are just identified and treated more aggressively in cities -- because they tend to have much better access to healthcare services.

Re: Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

#39

Post by toomuchtodo »

smutticus wrote: post #19
rayiner wrote: post #2

> Lifting all the barriers to urban growth in America could raise the country’s GDP by between 6.5% and 13.5%, or by about $1 trillion-2 trillion. It is difficult to think of many other policies that would yield anything like that. And it would also reduce the real but unaccounted-for environmental and social externalities of our sprawling homogenous suburbs. Someone living in New York has half the energy footprint o…

Yes. Per-capital carbon production is lowest in dense urban environments. Suburbia and low density rural areas are the real carbon pigs on a per-capita basis. We need to change the wrong headed notion that dense urbanity is somehow bad for the environment. On the contrary, it's how we need to build in order to save the earth.

> We need to change the wrong headed notion that dense urbanity is somehow bad for the environment. On the contrary, it's how we need to build in order to save the earth.

I'd like to see the capital/environmental costs of heavy urban development compared to electric cars in the suburbs and rural areas.

I'll drive a Nissan Leaf ($199/month) if it means I don't have to live in an urban area (I work from home).

Re: Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

#40

Post by cauterized »

santaclaus wrote: post #8
sbov wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only find stats on carbon footprints. Somewhat surprisingly, California does very well on this statistic, despite its suburbs: it's just behind New York. So at least for carbon footprints, those don't necessarily seem to be linked to density. I couldn't find anything on energy footprint though.

Kind of interesting, the first link [1] that I found ranked Honolulu, Portland OR, and LA above the Tri-state area (which came in forth), in terms of per-capita carbon footprint. [1] http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/Reports/2008...

The tri-state area includes a LOT of suburbs. Carbon footprint in NYC proper is far lower.
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