Comment by cjf4 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cjf4 | Hacker News Reader

I get frustrated reading Marohn sometimes because he describes American development and it's impact extremely well, but generally avoids the number one factor driving this development, which is middle class likes suburbs and continues to demand them.

Sure, suburban development was facilitated and accelerated by the portfolio of government initiatives (highways and home loan programs), but at the core is that people were dying to get out of cities, buy a car, and have their own serene little castle with a lawn and driveway and no shared wall.

And this appetite continues to be the dominant one. While Americans seem to be rediscovering the value of human oriented streets that Marohn champions, they aren't willing to turn away from the suburbs, the way they did cities 80 years ago.

Perhaps Marohn's predictions regarding government financial collapse will come true soon, or perhaps traffic congestion reaches a breaking point that forces a change. But until then, and as long as they can afford them, Americans still want spaced out single family houses that spread out across the fruited plain.

> but generally avoids the number one factor driving this development, which is middle class likes suburbs and continues to demand them.

The middle class can have suburbs, if they want, but they have to pay for them. Marohn's whole point is that cash accounting, federal grants, and other tricks are hiding the true costs of suburbs and keeping the price artificially (and unsustainably) low. And when prices are kept artificially low, of course there's lots of demand; that's a basic principle of economics.

But would the middle class still demand suburbs if they had to stomach the higher taxes to honestly pay for them? That is the open question.

>But would the middle class still demand suburbs if they had to stomach the higher taxes to honestly pay for them? That is the open question.

A huge challenge here is that no one ever has to actually face that, because they can just move to the next growing town/city/state. Depending on the area, you can either create another ring surrounding the metro, or leave the state entirely and move to the sunbelt.

In either case, the legacy cities or inner ring towns are left with the bill, and no one left to pay it. To Marohn's point, we've already seen this happen all over (particularly the rustbelt).

But my point is there's nothing to stop that pattern from continuing, as long as there's another town in the rockies or south or wherever with low taxes and plenty of land. There's just not really an impediment short of people's preferences dramatically changing, and the evidence shows that suburbs are growing.

I disagree that the suburbs are the only thing that people want. The decision was made for people, not by them. Existing development patterns reflect the regulatory restrictions, as it's illegal to deviate from the way that things have been built. Want a walkable neighborhood with a corner store, parks, and transit? Good luck, because way more people want that than what has been allowed to be built, so prices have gone through the roof on the very few locations that have that.

that suburbanites like suburbs is so obvious to not need stating.

the more pertinent question is, do suburbanites like suburbs enough to pay the lion's ahare of their cost rather than being subsidized?

the answer is no, as implied in the cumulative critique.

>that suburbanites like suburbs is so obvious to not need stating.

That's not what I said.

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