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The problem isn't your preferences, but rather that so many people like you (I won't guess at your exact situation) express the same preferences only because so many of the significant downsides have been hidden by government funding models. That, and so many municipalities refuse to do the accrual accounting that would demonstrate just how quickly the suburban model bankrupts them.

Suburbs receive a level of service from public entities that is far in excess of that justified by the private investment there. They receive bus funding from State government that doesn't count against their school budgets. The roads and pipes reliably cost more than the houses they service.

There's nothing wrong with living in a rural house. But as long as money gets funneled disproportionately into these places, you should expect to have that decision second guessed. Plus, when all the suburbs finally have to face facts, delivering services to the suffering poor people left behind there will be an absolute disaster.

Of course, our laws regarding financing and building anything that increases density in suburban areas are hopelessly awful too. We have a sort of donut hole, if you will: cheap financing for suburban houses, and for large apartment blocks. But the logical increment of a 2-3 story building with first floor commercial is left out. Ask for a loan on that, and you'll be laughed out the door for your silly request for a non-conforming mortgage.

City people use, and work at, the malls and airports and office parks and industrial parks and colleges and universities that exist in their suburbs. So the bus lines serve them as well. And it's to the city's benefit that suburban people can easily get into the city to spend their money at city businesses. So, while they may have some merit, I don't think your points are as cut and dried as you think they are.

If suburbs weren't subsidized, these people and businesses would reside closer to the city centre. This wouldn't impair city's functions in any way, but would save lots of money for the taxpayers.

I think a lot of that would happen. The would also be a lot of people who would reconfigure themselves as spokes about the hub of a rail or Transit stop. And my experience with places like that suggests to me that the net effect for everyone in the city is that it would be easier to get out into the countryside, despite there being less road capacity and more people. Anyone who's spent time in DC can probably attest to what a pilgrimage it can seem just to escape.

I'm in the same boat as OP, and I think it's reasonable that our preferences should come with the appropriate price tag, such that there are no hidden subsidies.

Then let the market figure it out.

I'm not sure how more concentration of people in cities is such a good thing when so many already can't afford it. It seems like what you suggest would make a significant portion people go from living comfortably I'm the suburbs to being homeless in the city. Being homeless has a cost too.

From the way you describe it, it seems to me that the suburbs are/were an effective social program to reduce homelessness.

And that's perfectly fine. The only question is who should pay for the externalities of your lifestyle? Now that point is contentious, how much exactly does that amount to? Regulation distorts competition towards your lifestyle, by mandating large amounts of parking, for instance, or by letting cities bear the cost of what suburban dwellers simply do not want to see in their backyard, or by subsidizing your mortgage.

As for 'human feces', it's not a problem of cities so much as lack of safety net. It's not because of cities that people are homeless, it's because we removed the infrastructure that prevented them to go homeless in the first place (social support networks, mental health support...). They are more tolerated in cities and cities typically invest in basic services for them, so that's where they congregate. Your ability to not step in human feces in your suburb is directly dependent on cities' willingness to provide services for this population (or they'll simply die).

>Your ability to not step in human feces in your suburb is directly dependent on cities' willingness to provide services for this population (or they'll simply die)

So is this an argument not to provide services for the homeless? If the result of providing support in the city is human shit everywhere, then maybe the homeless services should be moved outside the center of the city.

Basic support to prevent people to go homeless is not only more moral and more humane, it's also cheaper. In California, I'd start by rebuilding mental health support. The State should do it.

I live in a dense little pre-zoing code neighborhood full of tiny lots and no setbacks. I don't have a problem with people like you preferring big lots and setbacks. I have a huge problem with the fact that people like you have made neighborhoods like mine illegal.

So when you meet all those preferences, how long a commute do you end up with?

If you get enough snow that digging your car out might be a concern, isn't the street going to be snowed in as well?

(I'm not sure why you're equating urban=ancient and suburb=1950s, that's got to be specific to certain places surely?)

I don't have a good feeling for how much space an acre is or what it would cost, so I went googling: high £1.7m in London suburbs, http://www.uklanddirectory.org.uk/land-for-sale.asp?id=72226 versus £55k http://www.uklanddirectory.org.uk/land-for-sale.asp?id=73298 remote Scottish island.

If someone wants a house that doesn't have one of those things - one with a smaller lot, or less setback, or a smaller driveway, or no garage, etc. - and starts to build one, do you think they should be arrested and hauled off to jail? If so, why? If not, then please join us in voting for land use reform in local elections, since that's how things currently are in 99.9% of the US.

I don't know what you mean by "land use reform", but I'm a reluctant supporter of zoning laws. One of their redeeming features is that they tend to be enacted at the most local level. So the people affected by them are in a better position to change them if they don't like them, or they don't have to move far if they can't tolerate them and absolutely have to get out from under them.

Unfortunately, that is often not the case, because people who work in a place don't get a vote, even if they far outnumber the residents. The most extreme case I know of is Vernon, California, where just 112 people lived in the city (all new housing construction having been banned), while 46,000 people worked there. The city government, running unopposed, voted to pay itself luxurious salaries and benefits, with one person having an annual salary of over $1 million.

Vernon and few other California town's officials have been charged with corruption according to the City of Bell wiki page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Bell_scandal

The solution I can see for this is to reform the tax code.

Tax income tax based on where someone's office is; given them the right to vote there accordingly.

Tax someone's property where they live/own/rent it (property tax should be built in to the rent, but as this will be passed on to renters, they too deserve to vote on local issues).

> So the people affected by them are in a better position to change them if they don't like them

This is an oversimplification. If you look at the bay area for example and its housing crisis, the people who are most impacted are the people who haven't moved there yet but might do so in the future (and will pay higher future rents if housing supply does not increase). But potential residents obviously don't get to vote.

And that's how you get into a situation where people can't afford to settle down in their hometown area, even when they have good jobs.

The other thing you're missing is that you can easily end up with a tragedy of the commons type situation when local government is sufficiently fragmented. Again, this happens in the bay area: if the bay area was one city with one government, people would probably be fine voting for more housing supply across the whole area, but since it's split into dozens of cities, each one tends to suppress housing supply to boost local property values, instead arguing that some other city should be the one that provides more homes.

> I prefer a 0.5-1.0 acre lot

This is a win-win situation. The more other people live in denser urban areas, the cheaper you can get what you want, and the closer your lot can be to a city.

This post got a lot of upvotes, and a lot of downvotes. I know because I watched it fluctuate up and down. Everything I wrote was merely my personal preferences. I wonder why so many people were upset by it enough to downvote it.

Lots of people consider use upvote to signal agreement and a downvote to signal disagreement.

>Lots of people consider use upvote to signal agreement and a downvote to signal disagreement.

That's true, but unfortunate, because a lot of non-inflammatory posts made in good faith get downvoted to where they get marked [dead] simply because they express unpopular opinions.

I tend to try to counter that phenomenon through upvotes. I won't hesitate to upvote something I disagree with if it appears to be getting unfairly downvoted.

What's necessary is a downvote /placebo/ button. Make it look downvoted to the user that's downvoting.

Have a separated (UI distance is important) button for reporting abuse/too far off topic.

I've always been a fan of Slashdot's system where you place a vote and then specify a reason. It's probably too complicated for something like Facebook or Reddit, but HN should be okay with it.

You shared a valid point of view and the only way to learn is by discussing things. People shouldn't down vote a view that they do not support as it only creates an echo chamber. The best way to change someone's mind is to listen to the supporting arguments for their opinions/beliefs.

I think you have some good points, but it seems you're against a straw-man version of city life that doesn't match what most city folks experience every day:

* "a home that was built during or since the 1950s"... is supposed to be preferable? A home built in the 80s will be considered old-fashioned in places like Seoul. (Besides, what's that got to do with city-versus-rural difference?)

* "I prefer to live in an area where I can leave my doors unlocked..." Some cities have crime problem. Others don't. Also, I have the impression it's always the (Americal) rural dwellers who say "You urbanite liberals have no idea why guns are necessary!" So I'm taking your argument with a grain of salt.

* "...rather than an environment where I have to be careful not to step in human feces when I walk between two parked cars." Well... then don't live in SF, I guess?

>I think you have some good points, but it seems you're against a straw-man version of city life that doesn't match what most city folks experience every day:

> "a home that was built during or since the 1950s"... is supposed to be preferable? A home built in the 80s will be considered old-fashioned in places like Seoul. (Besides, what's that got to do with city-versus-rural difference?)

First, a little background. In a previous life I was a carpenter who did some new home construction, but mostly remodeling, in both cities and suburbs. So, given just about any wall in any home, I have a pretty good idea what you'll find under the paint if you take a sledgehammer to it.

In the northeastern US city I'm using as my reference point, the housing stock is on average much older than the suburbs. And to me, an old house is like a a really old car. It breaks down a lot and requires a lot of maintenance. The walls are less likely to be square and plumb. The wiring is more likely to be obsolete and insufficient for all the computers/gadgets/appliances we rely on today. I just don't care to deal with it.

Different people have different value systems. I really don't care whether or not there is excellent Thai Fusion cuisine available within walking distance, but I like a home that is reasonably up to date and low maintenance. The so-called charm of century old city houses is of no value to me. In some wealthier areas of my local city, most of the houses have been gutted and refurbished down to the last piece of trim by their cardiac surgeon owners, but those houses sell for around 4X what I paid for mine and cars are still more likely to get stolen from their driveway than from mine.

So, to sum up, my preferences are based on my own set of values, which are markedly different from people who prefer to live in cities.

And one thing I've noticed, is that when I say things like this openly, for example at a dinner party attended mostly by white professional city dwellers, it invariably bothers some of them, visibly, that I have the preferences I do and I'm not embarrassed to admit them. (I'm well aware of how fashionable suburb-bashing is among fashionable people.) I always find that part amusing. They try to convince me that it's so awesome living as they do in a row house in some "up and coming" neighborhood, but it really sounds like they're trying to convince themselves.

Nobody is trying to convince you of anything. Some people value time more than money. Living in the burbs requires a car, sitting in traffic, etc. That's not worth it for a lot of people. I can walk outside my door and have access to 10 times the things the average suburbian does. That makes it worth it.

> Living in the burbs requires a car, sitting in traffic, etc.

FWIW, this isn't always true. I live in the suburbs about 30 miles from work, and it takes about as much time for me to drive there as it does for my friends who live 3x closer, but in the city. They get all the traffic; I can literally just set cruise control at speed limit, and coast 20 miles out of those 30 on a wide open freeway.

If your friends need a car for their daily commutes then they probably don't live in what I would consider a "city".

Then you'd probably not consider most of what is cities a city.

I live in >500k fully walkable european city with okay-ish public transit. During peak times, it's ~30 minutes to get to downtown by both public transit and car. But most of offices are located outside of downtown(=oldtown) area. One office area is 30min+ by public transit (and requires a transfer or long walk) or 10min by car, even during peak times. Office park on another side of the city would be well over 1h by public transit, but 30min by car. There're locations that take 3x longer by public transit and/or require elaborate transfer plan than driving. Difference gets even bigger if you can start a wee earlier/later.

That would be Seattle.

And do account for the relatively shitty public transit infrastructure that is the norm here in US.

And you seem to be assuming that the offices are also right there in the city. That's not the case for many people.

That's a no true scotsman argument. What the OP described matches almost every metro area of the US (except maybe Manhattan). So by your definition there are basically no cities in the US, which is pointless for this discussion.

Really? I lived in Seattle and didn't need a car for daily use. I also highly suspect you don't need one in Chicago, Washington DC, maybe Philly and Pittsburgh. And you definitely don't need one in most parts of NYC, not just Manhattan (I know plenty of people who live in Queens and commute by train).

I didn't say that you need a car to live in Seattle. I said that commute times are not necessarily shorter.

Besides, where did you work when you lived in Seattle? Plenty of people live in the city, but work across the lake in one of the offices in Eastside (Microsoft in Bellevue, Redmond or Samammish, Google in Kirkland etc).

You don't need a car in a sense that you can take a bus, or the private connector shuttle if your employer provides one. But they sit in the same traffic jams on the roads, so it's not really saving you any time (although you do get the benefit of reading or doing something else while waiting).

A huge number of jobs are not in the urban cores of cities so those who live in cities need to drive to them.

It seems to depend on stock. The best buildings I've lived in, at least in terms of apparent solidity, were built in the early 1800's. The worst in the mid-oughties. However, it might be that only the well made stuff has lasted two hundred years.

My main complaint with suburbs is the likelihood of myself or my kid getting struck and killed by a car while cycling. I can't do that in the suburbs, or at least the ones I've lived in. The drivers go 50 mph+, turn right on reds without _ever_ checking for people walking or cycling, and will blame a dead kid for cycling if they were killed while riding a bike.

Maybe that's just California though.

>Maybe that's just California though.

It's much narrower than that. It's really the culture of the particular area. I've been in some towns in California where you will get angry people if you drive like that and others where that's the norm.

This man speaks the truth, downvoters.

Anyone who has ever done any significant renovations on an old house knows the problems with aging housing stock.

I would go even further and say 1950s is still a pain in the neck.

It's really nice to work on a house built after 1985, for the simple fact you can sand door and window trim down to a nice smooth finish without having to worry about unleashing the lead kraken.

Next time I buy an old house I'm going to do a full gut renovation. Take it down to the frame and build anew. It's the only way to go in my opinion.

Drywall is very easy to repair. Old walls covered in decrepit wallpaper with who knows what underneath, not so much.

It is difficult to get insurance for a house with knob and tube wiring, and this is just the start.

Anything built in the 50's has the potential to contain asbestos as well.

In regards to density, I have found that .15-.25 acre single family lots with some three story apartment complexes sprinkled in make a very nice compromise that gives most of the benefits of suburbia while allowing for a nice walkable to bikeable town.

When did 'downvote' become 'I'm upset'? Isn't that what flagging is for?

There's a certain sense of naivete or smug entitlement with your last point: "When I can get all that affordably in the city, I'll consider moving back."

Obviously you'll never get all those things in the city, especially the ones involving lots of land. What makes a city a city is having people close together. That's what a city is.

The only way you can get density that low in a city is when zoning regulations require some area to stay that way, and its regulations like that that enforce low densities that have caused tons of problems in the US.

Sure, but you are just one data point, not changing the fact many young people prefer the trade offs offered by city living.

I mean, your argument is pretty disingenuous, given your requirement of not being physically close to your neighbors. That pretty much violates the definition of the word "city".

> I prefer a 0.5-1.0 acre lot

You could have stopped with that. You'll never move to a city.