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Why American cities are weirdly shaped

economist.com

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Re: Why American cities are weirdly shaped

#151

Post by [deleted] »

quanticle wrote: post #150
lsc wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if you look at how states are generally organized in the old world, its generally by ethnicity, language or some other very strong form of strong shared identity. While true, it is important to remember that this is a 19th/20th century type thing. Germany became unified around cultural/ethnic lines in 1871 (in France! so much of world war one was about the fallout from the wars of german unification, just like so mu…

I would also point out that, in the US, the idea that American identity trumps state identity is something that really only came into its own after the Civil War. When the Civil War broke out, a large number of the United States' senior officers chose to put state identity ahead of national identity and fight with the Confederate States of America, knowing full well that doing so would cause them to break their vow t…

[deleted]

Re: Why American cities are weirdly shaped

#152

Post by masonic »

daveFNbuck wrote: post #74
mikestew wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that a city boundary in the US is a big deal. I’d be hard-pressed to think of a time it made a lick of difference to me, having lived in the U. S. my entire life. “Don’t carry a handgun to Chicago”, okay, file that one away. “If you’re black”, and I’m not, “don’t stop for gas in Martinsville, IN”. Though that one might not still be true, I’d still stay away from Elwood, my Afro-American friend. Ot…

Where I live in California, the sales tax is different between cities. Leading up to July 4, fireworks are not legal to sell in every city, so you can tell city boundaries by where the booths selling them are set up. Which city you're in is also important if you want to set them off legally. Local laws and regulations also have much subtler effects that help shape which cities are desirable to live in, but those aren…

   Where I live in California, the sales tax is different between cities.
What city?

Supplemental sales taxes vary by county in almost all circumstances. Generally, people can't really be sure what city they are in (if any) when away from home.

Street address "city" has no legal meaning except for the convenience of the Post Office. A Saratoga address might actually be in Los Gatos, or vice-versa, or outside all city limits. The atomic unit us the parcel; the parcel distinguishes the city (if any).

There are islands of unincorporated land all over San Jose.

Re: Why American cities are weirdly shaped

#153

Post by xte »

scarejunba wrote: post #124
xte wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was for a very short period of time in London and I do not see anything can be dreamed, starting for super-poor quality of ANY buildings... Mean quality I see resemble eastern-Europe ex-communist buildings of the poorer quality, just covered with moquette to hide the disaster... Without speaking, of course, about pollution, traffic, noise etc. Perhaps for someone who have always live in a big town the level of serv…

Hmm, how interesting. It looks like you mostly encountered social housing. Where did you stay and go?

Islington (live) to Fitzrovia (work), I see wood slabs covered with lean cement and moquette, buildings with only reinforced concrete directly painted or naked instead of proper well-finished plaster, panels and furnishings used as a quick way to cover unfinished/dirty things, moquette everywhere obviously dirty and crumpled... And no, they aren't social houses.

Of course MANY countries, highly developed included, have poor buildings quality and poor cleanliness in general, France where I live now is one of these for my Italian eyes, Sweden is worse than France etc but worse than London/Newbury/Carlisle (parts of UK a have visited a little bit more than a touristic trip) mean building I only see few Easter European buildings...

Oh, I do not like Paris or Berlin anything more eh! They are not a place to live IMO, however they have a less medium bad quality.

Re: Why American cities are weirdly shaped

#154

Post by AdrianB1 »

jganetsk wrote: post #139
AdrianB1 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's sometimes useful for non-Americans to think of the U.S. like a federation of weak semi-autonomous countries." That would be helpful if it would be true. In old' Europe a the equivalent of a county or city does not have any power to enact and enforce legislation, all the laws are country-wide and enforced by the national police; the only local law enforcement is for parking and minor (no criminal record) misdeme…

I think the post was referring to states, not counties, when referring to "countries".

Yes, it was about states, but these states are not equivalent to European states, but with counties because in Europe the lowest level to adopt a law is the state, in US is the county.

Re: Why American cities are weirdly shaped

#156

Post by pard68 »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #154
jganetsk wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the post was referring to states, not counties, when referring to "countries".

Yes, it was about states, but these states are not equivalent to European states, but with counties because in Europe the lowest level to adopt a law is the state, in US is the county.

Even this rule isn't always true. In Virginia a city can be independent, which means the city and county are the same government.

It New England, where counties don't really have much power and the towns have the power that counties generally have in other States.

Or Connecticut, where counties only exist because there are federal forms you cannot complete without listing a county.

I am sure there are other exceptions too, but these are the places I have lived, and thus know.

Re: Why American cities are weirdly shaped

#157

Post by bjcy »

pishpash wrote: post #148
alistproducer2 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>how American history shook out along racial lines. Your comment is contradictory. On the one hand you say that crime, who is undesirable, and culture ate incidental and have nothing to do with race and then in this sentence you acknowledge that American history was largely determined by race, although you use very passive language as though that "shaking out" was some benign, incidental process instead of the cruel…

It's not contradictory at all. I'm saying historically past racist policies created a racially correlated class system, and I'll even say that in a great deal of regressive areas the past was very recent, say up to the 70's, but within the most recent generation, many of the issues people are concerned about are genuinely class issues, and they only appear to be race issues to the extent that race is still correlated…

What thoughts do you have on whether or not it could be both classism and racism at the same time? Or is the hypothesis that on the spectrum running between a system primarily demotivated (since it's mostly behavior to avoid certain things) by race and class alone, some parts of American society post-70s have drastically shifted towards classism (and I guess by extension, racism is no longer a factor)? Trying to think through the implication of your thought.

Re: Why American cities are weirdly shaped

#158

Post by IWeldMelons »

prostoalex wrote: post #129
bobthepanda wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suburbs used to be regularly annexed into cities; in some places they still are. This stops being the norm when desegregation occurs. Now that all races must be allowed to mix in schools, businesses and housing, whites flee to the suburbs, put up giant financial barriers in the form of zoning, and refuse to be annexed. These days overt racial politics is now dogwhistled as concerns about crime or undesirables or cult…

> whites flee to the suburbs, put up giant financial barriers in the form of zoning In terms of $/sq.ft. an urban residence in the US will almost universally be priced higher than a suburban one. There are a few exceptions to the rule (Atherton might be pricier than SF, Beverly Hills pricier than LA), but in general if you have a fixed price point in mind, suburbs will get you more space for your dollar.

However, the cheapest dwellings (yet still nice and desirable) in the cities, the condos, are actually cheaper than the cheapest SFHs in the most of the suburbs.

Re: Why American cities are weirdly shaped

#159

Post by stale2002 »

EGreg wrote: post #146
stale2002 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If at any point in time a different group can force you to pay them money for the privilege of living on a plot of land, then you don't own that land. Instead, the group that is charging you rent is the one who owns the land. And this true even if they call that "rent" by a different name, such as "property taxes". Using the examples you give, Walt Disney does not own that land, as a different entity could raise rent…

If that’s how you choose to define ownership, fine. So what?

Your original argument was about libertarianism and how cities are like landlords that compete against each other.

That idea is ridiculous. This is not compatible with libertarianism, and is a bad analogy.

This is because it is not even close to a free market.

A free market would be one where people actually can truly purchase land and compete. But that's not possible. At the end of the day the land is not owned by you, it is owned by the super owner.

That's all. It is not actually compatible with libertarianism or anarchism, because there was never any choice involved in this.

Nobody can truly decide to pick up and leave, and form their own competing government. You can call this good or bad, just please don't pretend like this is a market.

This is why governments do indeed deserve special thrathing, criticism, and to be specifically singled out, where as private groups do not.

Re: Why American cities are weirdly shaped

#160

Post by EGreg »

stale2002 wrote: post #159
EGreg wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that’s how you choose to define ownership, fine. So what?

Your original argument was about libertarianism and how cities are like landlords that compete against each other. That idea is ridiculous. This is not compatible with libertarianism, and is a bad analogy. This is because it is not even close to a free market. A free market would be one where people actually can truly purchase land and compete. But that's not possible. At the end of the day the land is not owned by y…

Private groups are just smaller. Cities are larger and have more things going on.

I can go live in this building or that. I can go live in this city or that.

Can I buy an apartment in a building and own it 100% without the building having any say?

What if the building is a condo? I own the apartment, in a sense. I bought it. But I still have to abide by the rules of the building. Does this make apartment housing not a market?

You’d have to define the term “free market” before others can independently verify whether something is a “free market” or not.

It seems to me that if you rigorously defined your terms and entertained direct analogies between what privately administered jurisdictions and publicly administered ones, you’d find there isn’t anything uniquely special about a democratic city government vs disneyworld’s management.

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