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The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

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Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#281

Post by tsotha »

nmrm2 wrote: post #274
tsotha wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They just can't afford to raise a family as easily as their parents and grandparents could, so many choose not to, not because they legitimately have no interest but because they don't see the numbers adding up. That's the conventional wisdom, but I don't buy it. Raising a family was always tough - when I was young my parents scrimped and saved in a way that I've never seen among millennials. Everybody did, and it w…

>...in a way that it isn't today. I submit that you're comparing unmarried and childless people of today with married and child-bearing people of yesteryear. Do the other comparisons and you'll find that you are off base -- people today do make enormous sacrifices to start families at a young age, and people in the 50s to 80s who were single with no children did live lavish lifestyles. To the extent that there are di…

>Do the other comparisons and you'll find that you are off base -- people today do make enormous sacrifices to start families at a young age, and people in the 50s to 80s who were single with no children did live lavish lifestyles.

... which was my point. People in their 20s today have it no harder than their parents and grandparents. They're simply choosing not to have families in larger numbers.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#282

Post by rhinoceraptor »

dripton wrote: post #276
rhinoceraptor wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try going to the grocery store in the suburbs on a bike. Sidewalks are great for walking your dog. But in the suburbs, you are trapped to your car. You can't walk, take the bus, or ride a bike anywhere. Not only because it's 10 miles away, but because there simply is no safe way to get there without a car.

I live in the suburbs. I ride my bike to work. It's safe enough. People are just scared.

If you're young and reasonably fit, you can pretty much get anywhere. But most people would never consider riding on high speed roads or where there isn't a bike lane.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#283

Post by cortesoft »

nmrm2 wrote: post #274
tsotha wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They just can't afford to raise a family as easily as their parents and grandparents could, so many choose not to, not because they legitimately have no interest but because they don't see the numbers adding up. That's the conventional wisdom, but I don't buy it. Raising a family was always tough - when I was young my parents scrimped and saved in a way that I've never seen among millennials. Everybody did, and it w…

>...in a way that it isn't today. I submit that you're comparing unmarried and childless people of today with married and child-bearing people of yesteryear. Do the other comparisons and you'll find that you are off base -- people today do make enormous sacrifices to start families at a young age, and people in the 50s to 80s who were single with no children did live lavish lifestyles. To the extent that there are di…

I think a lot of people are REALLY underestimating the 'access to birth control' part of the equation. People wait longer today to have kids because they can CHOOSE to wait.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#284

Post by analog31 »

marincounty wrote: post #257
djrogers wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people do that type of thing here too, but un-permitted. If you wanted to be really particular, you could probably get a permit for the work itself (plumbing, kitchen, etc) as long as it wasn't specified as residential. This is what we've come to though - the government has taken away our rights and sell them back to us with permits.

It's called a Variance, and in my county(Marin county) they are never issued anymore. They used to be issued to "good ole boys", but those days are even over.(I'm glad that's the case. Why should just rich boys, or networked boys get what they want?) If you are living a commercial zoned space; realize that the government can come into your building(at anytime), slap a red tag on it, and the tenant is out. (My father…

It's called a Variance, and in my county(Marin county) they are never issued anymore. They used to be issued to "good ole boys", but those days are even over.(I'm glad that's the case. Why should just rich boys, or networked boys get what they want?)

My dad was on his city's zoning board for a few years. What he learned was that a variance was only supposed to be used in cases where the intent of the zoning ordinance was inapplicable, such as some physical obstacle in your property, or as an extreme case, a person who had no back yard and wanted a fenced-in place for his toddler to play.

But "hardship" cases were supposed to be rejected. What really happened was that the board approved every case, and my dad quit the board after that became apparent.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#285

Post by _dps »

jbooth wrote: post #45
dade_ wrote: post #5

Thomas Jefferson is to blame and not one mention of taxes? I would be really surprised that some research wouldn't find that many of these office parks are built outside of the borders of major cities to avoid paying taxes, or were provided incentives by neighbouring municipalities to build further out and pay lower tax. The lower cost is attractive and allows the company to operate in a big shiny building that immed…

"I would be really surprised that some research wouldn't find that many of these office parks are built outside of the borders of major cities to avoid paying taxes" If you were gonna throw out a spitball estimate for the 3 numbers: 1) Tax impact in city vs burbs 2) Cost of land / lease in city vs burbs 3) Company payroll/benefits What would you guess the ratio of #1 to #2 + #3 is?

Their total value is irrelevant; what matters is the ROI you get from increasing or reducing each of them. I submit that taxes offer the lowest ROI of the three from the perspective of most businesses (but I admit that paying taxes to be in a good location can deliver ROI).

So as a business manager you ask: what do we lose by exiting this tax jurisdiction and what do we gain? And most importantly, what's the ROI? If my margins are tiny (say, most retail and restaurants) then saving 2% of my budget per year on taxes can mean the difference between a 4% and 6% ROI if the other factors remain equal.

That may sound like a small difference but it is not: it is as large as the spread between equities and bonds at most points in time (so if I'm only going to make 4% why be in business at all?) Why not just fire all my employees, use my budget to buy Walmart corp bonds, get 4%/year, and not have any management headaches or employer liabilities?

As economists say, most decisions are made "on the margin"; so the total amount that goes into tax is not as relevant as how much can be gained or lost by shaving off tax liability vs other kinds of costs.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#286

Post by adrusi »

gph wrote: post #279
rhinoceraptor wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government is telling you that you cannot use your own property as you see fit (with the threat of being kidnapped or stolen from). Zoning is to prevent a paper factory from opening up shop next to an elementary school, not to give themselves a job by creating arbitrary rules.

So what is it; Can I build whatever I want on any property I own, or can the government stop me from building a paper factory next to an elementary school? You've thrown out two contradictory statements. If you agree with zoning in certain circumstances then you can't hold that property is a right for use by owner as they see fit(without the threat of being kidnapped or stolen from). Just because the current zoning s…

Easy, I don't know if any jurisdictions have this notion, but most people would agree that industrial buildings are less pleasant than commercial buildings which are less pleasant than residential.

Forbid people from building factories in commercial zones, or restaurants in residential zones without permits, but don't impede the reverse. If people want to live in an industrial zone, let them.

Sure there are downsides to this, a developer could buy up part of an industrial zone and build houses on it, which might reduce the efficiency of the industry around it, and would require the residents to petition to have their area rezone to avoid someone building a paper factory next to their elementary school. But as discussed, there are downsides of the current approach.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#287

Post by turar »

potatolicious wrote: post #110
bduerst wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automated cars require less parking than the manual cars we drive now, especially since they don't require to be parked near their passengers during off hours and can spend most of their product lives on the road. I'm not saying we shouldn't develop cities with pedestrians in mind, just that it's much easier to adapt a fleet of cars than rebuild an entire city.

This seems commonly stated but not actually examined. > "especially since they don't require to be parked near their passengers during off hours and can spend most of their product lives on the road." I'd argue that both of these points aren't actually true. The nature of on-demand cars (human-driven or otherwise) is that they be quickly available. Automated cars might eliminate the need for the car to be figurativel…

I wonder if there could be optimizations built-in. If I'm on the way of several other passengers going the same direction, I can just be another passenger in a larger (van?) auto. Essentially a customized bus route every day. With Wi-Fi on board, this wouldn't be too bad of an option.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#288

Post by chongli »

tsotha wrote: post #270
Spooky23 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah sure. The real story is that the younger kids have lousier paying jobs and items like cars are prohibitively expensive. My dad had a loaded up Mustang that cost like $2500 in the late 60s, at 19 or 20, paid for by bartending. The equivalent car today is probably 2x-2.5x more in real terms. The city is coming back because it's the undervalued and people are priced out of the newer suburbs. People end up reproduci…

I remember paying over a dollar a minute in the '80s for a phone call to my sister in the same state. Air fare was crazy expensive compared to today, as was anything electronic. Some things have gotten more expensive, and other things have gotten cheaper. Overall it's a wash. If it seems like life is more expensive it's because people buy a lot of things today that we didn't have back then. Things you don't really ne…

It's not "a wash". Housing and education are dramatically more expensive than they were a few generations ago. Gone are the days of paying for your degree waiting tables with enough left over to put a down payment on a house. Now you can look forward to a mountain of debt for an education and mortgage that you might never pay off in your life time.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#289

Post by [deleted] »

panzagl wrote: post #181
ken-far wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. This quote is key: “I now say that brainy youngsters are trending urban and urbane, away from your grandfather’s office parks.” Real estate analysis is showing that for the first time since it's been measuring more people are looking for housing in denser, more urban environments than in the traditional suburbs. An enormous number of people, especially young people, are looking to avoid spending the…

People follow the jobs, jobs don't follow people. A more likely scenario is that those jobs are just gone, not that they moved downtown to catch the special snowflakes. Or downtown addresses have replaced campuses whenever executives get together to dick wave.

[deleted]

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#290

Post by Retric »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #269
Retric wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you can minimize global harm from pollution etc., but locally even something as simple as a house cat can have large scale impacts. Further, people want large changes like dams to reduce flooding, drainage etc. Aesthetically, it might seem more natural than asphalt, but lawns are a long way from ‘nature’. Realistically to have anything close to 'nature' assuming zero farming you’re looking at ~1 person per squa…

> Aesthetically, it might seem more natural than asphalt, but lawns are a long way from ‘nature’. Realistically to have anything close to 'nature' assuming zero farming you’re looking at ~1 person per square mile if that. Not sure I terribly agree with your person per square mile argument. Yes, lawns are a terrible waste (footnote: did you know that lawns trace back to medievel times? How much land you could afford t…

Roads in low population areas take up a lot of space and kill a lot of wildlife.
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