That's the point of Strong Towns: not that there's anything wrong with single family houses in and of themselves, but that the way our economy is structured right now, they usually don't pay for themselves.
My apologies to the OP.
Btw, one little-understood aspect of this is how much of the problem is created by upvoters. A comment like the GP reads very differently when it is upvoted to the top of the thread than when it's floating somewhere in the middle. I've occasionally had this happen to my own posts in the past (not so much with the dang account, but an older one) and was shocked to see how my own comment came across in a way that I hadn't intended.
The onus is still on commenters to omit things that can come across that way, but the problems in threads are at least as much caused by upvoters. It's a co-creation, and the worse outcomes are usually not one that any individual intends.
> That's the point of Strong Towns: not that there's anything wrong with single family houses in and of themselves, but that the way our economy is structured right now, they usually don't pay for themselves.
You know what else is subsidized? Farms. Should we stop paying for them?
Sports facilities, community centers for youth and elderly, hospitals, homeless shelters. Lots of subsidization to go around.
There are 50 states, and most of them have single family dwellings. Some not even near a city. It turns out a lot of people like to live this way. They're not leeching off of the economy - they're contributing to it.
Single family homes are a pattern of American life. They're not going away anytime soon.
Don't force everyone to live in a city. It's not unlike the bicyclists trying to tell everyone they should bike instead of drive, which simply isn't going to work for most of the people in this country.
Edit: I was downvoted faster than it was even possible to read my comment. I spotted a typo as I submitted and immediately went to edit it,
"0 points by echelon 0 minutes ago"
Wow, HN.
Nevermind the shirk for the value of diversity—both geographically and functionally—they've optimized the life out of life and gosh darn it, so can you.
Sure, subsidize things they like—green tech, social reeducation, space travel, even their subscription streaming movie platforms—but those backwards folks out in the boondocks really gotta go.
All 125 million of em.
I'll be honest, I've lived all over the country in some of the most diverse, varied places. And despite the trope of the knuckle dragging country folk, I've never met a more bigoted bunch than city dwellers.
You know something I really like? Lobster. You know what would be great for me? If the government made a program to subsidize lobster farming and distribution, so that lobster cost $3/meal instead of $20. If it cost that I would probably have Lobster 5 times a week!
But, it doesn't, so... I don't eat that much Lobster. I still love it though, and there's nothing wrong with that! Nobody should force me to stop eating Lobster.
Like, what is your "I don't care for subsidies" threshold?
I think that your justification is lacking, however. As though there are no positive externalities for suburban living (there are), or even negative externalities for the other items (there are).
I'm not sure I trust your assessment when you identify only negative externalities to suburban living, frankly.
When the thing being subsidized has no benefit to society.
'Subsidizing' the impoverished is helping another human being, and is always worthwhile. Healthcare for all is enlightened self-interest because I do not know what future illnesses I may have, and what they may cost, so I'd rather have everyone subsidized than risk myself not having access to future treatments.
Education and the public fire departments help build better societies.
But what benefit do car-based suburbs give to society as a whole? Can you least three benefits that we can discuss?
- suburban areas largely "subsidize" the cost of education, which far exceeds the cost of roads and utility infrastructure subsidized by the cities. The quality of schools in suburban areas is also largely higher than in cities.
- suburban areas have anywhere from 1/7 - 1/3 the crime rates of cities—even accounting for socioeconomic factors—which reduces personal and social harm. There is also vastly faster emergency response in suburban areas which save lives and stop culprits.
- mood disorders (anxiety, depression, etc) are about 40% more common in city dwellers then suburbanites, and that's strongly linked to the differing environments.
If the cost and quality of education, reduction of crime, and mental health aren't benefits to society as a whole, I don't know what is.
Please understand, I do not suggest that city living is "bad". I do, however, suggest that diversity of living environments is good, for the individual and for society as a whole.
* https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/08/the-ur...
I live in Toronto, Canada, and we probably have as much variation with-in the city as between the suburban and urban areas given that different neighbourhoods with-in the city have different average incomes.
Access to green spaces does help help in many ways, but that may be countered by the lack of activity in car-centric areas:
* https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-11/the-publi...
Further, lower density building necessities eating up more land for the same population than higher density. You're paving over the very 'green' land that is providing benefits in the first place.
And 'urban living' also exists on a spectrum: it is not necessary to design things as scrunched together as (say) Manhattan. Brooklyn and Queen's (for example) can support walkable neighbourhoods with useful public transit (and cycling), while having SFH, garages/lanes, backyards, etc.
I'm less against 'real' rural living than suburban design. The post-WW2 suburbs just seem to be the worst of both worlds.
People that have a higher standard of living than me seems to be a reasonable cutoff, why should I live in a small apartment but pay for your gluttonous lifestyle in a McMansion?
I'm all for a bit of wealth redistribution, but from poor to rich is the wrong direction.
This is a mock term from detractors.
Many large homes cost less than a condo. A mortgage on a home you own is sometimes less than rent in the city. For something you'll never own.
I don't get what your gripe is. You can even build a large home with your own hands if you have the skill and time. It's not like it's some unnatural thing that is going to lead to the collapse of civilization.
> People that have a higher standard of living than me seems to be a reasonable cutoff
> why should I live in a small apartment but pay for your gluttonous lifestyle in a McMansion
This strikes me as jealousy. I'm glad you're not making decisions for the rest of us.
This planet is a stochastic mix of people trying lots of different things. Most of it is harmless. Live and let be. You're not going to solve the world's problems by pointing fingers. Humanity isn't going anywhere.
[…]
> Don't force everyone to live in a city. It's not unlike the bicyclists trying to tell everyone they should bike instead of drive, which simply isn't going to work for most of the people in this country.
What practical benefit(s) do the suburbs bring to society? Why should society pay the costs of them when they are so wasteful from land use, health (due to all the driving), climate change, etc?
Farms have been subsidized for years, even before the modern car-based suburbs were invented: urban dwellers paid higher prices for telephones and electricity to build out the infrastructure in rural areas in the early 1900s.
But there is no practical reason to subsidize car-based suburbs when you can have (detached) single-family homes, with backyards (with garages/lanes), that are built at densities that can support walkable neighbourhoods and sustain transit. Especially since lot sizes have been shrinking for years and many modern suburban homes are no bigger many urban ones; see this 2019 Cheddar video:
It was fantastic and convenient and everyone loved it. Unfortunately, it was also wildly unprofitable so it went out of business.
Yes, it can be very nice to enjoy things that burn through more money than they generate, but those things simply are not going to last, no matter how much you like them. No matter how much they are a "pattern of life". That which cannot sustain itself, dies.
> You know what else is subsidized? Farms. Should we stop paying for them?
Not a valid comparison. Farms get subsidized to prevent supply and demand swings from creating price shocks and people starving to death. Not because growing food for people to eat is a fundamentally unprofitable endeavor.
[1] https://www.heritage.org/taxes/commentary/farm-subsidies-vs-...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_for_the_rich_and_cap...
[4] https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/12/31/790261705/fa...
Suburbs are exactly the opposite. It's not just that they're expensive, it's that everyone on planet Earth is worse off for them existing. There is absolutely no rational reason for the government to subsidize things that have negative externalities.
To me, though, that's the biggest thing that puts the lie to the suburban lifestyle thing. Most of the people who want to live there don't want any more people moving out as soon as their neighborhood is finished, because they know it'll just mean more traffic congestion, noise, pollution, etc., and the things that attracted them to the suburbs will be diminished. The suburban pattern just doesn't scale well.
Sadly that is one of the easier problems to fix. Just build on a grid of small streets (or if you don't like grids, an interconnected web of curvy streets is fine too) and don't live giant gaps and the whole thing scales a lot better. The financial and environmental impacts are harder problems to solve.
This is hyperbole.
Suburbs are not negative externalities. They work to the benefit of the massive communities living within them.
People can raise their kids with large, private lawns. Have pools, cook outs, outdoor activities. Lots of private space to relax.
Hasn't Covid taught us that suburbs have tremendous merit? Cities are cramped and lonely hellscapes during the pandemic.
Beyond that, the objective function for society is not to cram as many humans into a sardine can as possible. If we were trying to optimize life on earth, life would be rigid and unpalatable.
I thought we learned the opposite. With offices closed city centres weren't quite so cramped and living in the inner city during a harsh lockdown gave me quite a few more social options than those in the suburbs. I could go for a walk (leisure or shopping) and catch up with most of my social circle, we could meet in parks and at times had larger groups gathering for drinks. In the suburbs there was much less overlap between people due to the lower density.
> the objective function for society is not to cram as many humans into a sardine can as possible
One of the major points Strong Towns tries to get across is about zoning, there's no need to be crammed in like sardines, this is just an artifact of strange zoning laws that don't allow much more ideal densities like 3-6 story brick buildings that are reasonably spacious.
Everyone on planet Earth who doesn't live in a suburb, plus many of those who do, except for some people who make their living servicing the inefficiencies of suburbs, is worse off for suburbs existing.
Better?
Further, Education and it’s associated pension and healthcare costs are by far local governments biggest expense so office buildings are a much better deal for local governments than housing. This gets reflected in zoning where many local governments actively discourage people moving into them.
Local governments are responding to local issues. Some cities are actively zoning to discourage people living in them because they don’t want to fund more schools. Office buildings are in effect more profitable than condos when a state and local government is primarily funded via property taxes. And guess what Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming have no income taxes.
I believe NYC may be a partial exception to this as I know it has local income tax (which is very rare), but I'm not sure if they charge that to people who don't also live in the city.
Other exceptions are some towns that have almost no residential and a lot of commercial, and collect almost all their income from sales tax.
But, again, those are the few exceptions, not the norm.
Heavy trucks actually do the majority of damage to road infrastructure.
From the linked article: The registration fee seems steep. However,a B-Double can cause, per kilometre travelled, 20,000 times the road wear and tear that a family car does
https://theconversation.com/trucks-are-destroying-our-roads-...
2. property taxes go to fund schools/utilities/services - and it makes sense to send taxes to where you live, not work. I want to fund schools where my kids go to, this seems perfectly logical to me. It would be a huge waste of resources to do otherwise.
Income tax is typically based on both where you live and where you work. Property tax is based on where you own property. Payroll taxes (state unemployment, etc.) is mostly based on where you work. Sales/use tax is based on where you physically shop or where you live for other shopping.
If you live in NY and work in NYC you pay NY state taxes.
If you live in NJ and work in NYC you pay NY state taxes. I believe Connecticut works the same way.
NY state taxation helps out NYC.
NYC has a broad, implicit tax base well beyond the city borders in addition to their tax base inside them.
And, it’s not like the people that live in the burbs are the only ones that benefit. Those roads and highways are the same ones used to ship food to cities.
But for basic services such as schools, fire, and sewer, what matters is geographic (horizontal) compactness. The more compact the area, the better the economies of scale, reducing per capita costs. However, at some point vertical density (i.e. building up) can overcome economies of scale provided by compactness by increasing infrastructure costs. Thus the per capita cost curve can end up being U-shaped within a fixed geographic area. See https://www.cgoodman.com/files/papers/national-sprawl-expend...
Housing has a similar U-shaped cost curve: skyscrapers have very high per unit construction and maintenance costs because of the need to switch to steel and other more expensive techniques. AFAIU, the most efficient form of housing in the U.S. is mid-rise developments, approx. 3 to 6 stories, though it varies according to available materials and allowed construction techniques. See https://urbanize.city/la/post/25-solutions-builder%E2%80%99s... (EDIT: Actually, that article describes the "missing middle" as 2-3 story developments, not 3-6. 3-6 is probably closer to what older, denser cities like San Francisco need more of, as most single-family homes are already tightly spaced 2-3 story buildings.)
Advocates of density from industry and academia are often misunderstood as demanding the type of developments you see in the inner core of large cities, such as skyscrapers. (As opposed to cityphile advocates who want live above French bakeries and near subway stations.[1]) But small rural and suburban towns can also be dense, and historically they were dense, even in the United States. If you've traveled enough around the U.S., especially on the old U.S. Highway system and away from the U.S. Interstate system (because Interstates were built to avoid small towns and thus in the present day most any town near an Interstates was likely developed after the 1950s), you'll see that most U.S. towns were built with relatively compact neighborhoods hugging dense commercial areas. (Especially true in the Northeast, Midwest, and West. Patterns of development in the American South seemed to have been historically distinct, a direct and indirect consequence of plantation culture.) And this was the pattern even after the U.S. became a car culture, though before white flight, enabled by the Interstate system, fundamentally changed expectations regarding geographic proximity to work and commercial services.
Perhaps the better term to use when promoting more cost efficient development is "compact", not "density". Too much density isn't cheap, though often desirable nonetheless. But when it comes to RoI, the characteristic to strive for is compactness. Having two skyscrapers a quarter mile apart with nothing in between is stupid. What you want is compactness, which in addition to providing economies of scale also, politically, minimizes the ability for developers and owners to externalize inefficient infrastructure costs; and then let the market decide vertical density.
[1] OTOH, this describes Paris, a city of mostly mid-rises. I think it's just that Americans in general, even urbanites, have a skewed perception of density informed by our culture, such as the prominence of major cities like New York and Chicago, and especially their downtowns, in depicting urbanity.
Roads that serve few cars.
Electricity infrastructure from the power plant to the suburbs.
Water infrastructure (pipes need to bring clean water in and sewage out)
Not to mention the racist history of the reasons for subsidizing suburbs. White flight followed by redlining and deeds that prevented suburban housing from being sold to African-Americans. Followed by a neglect of city infrastructure as black residents moved in.
Edit: Since I’m being downvoted for daring to suggest that suburbs have a racist history, I’ll leave a recent stratchery article to explain.
But that's not what happens. Generally the town center area (which is more developed) pays quite a lot more in taxes than the outlying areas, and the surplus generated there is used to cover the cost of all the infrastructure that enables the people who live on the outskirts to have town infrastructure and town prices with a rural lifestyle. And that transfer of money to sustain the rural area is why the town doesn't have the money to build a new library or school, and needs state and federal grant programs to fix the water tower.
If you want to know why just about every American small town was building beautiful city halls, schools, libraries, etc. before WW2, and afterwards they mostly bombed out, it has a lot to do with deciding to spend their money maintaining roads to scattered residential developments on the outskirts instead of investing that money in other things. That's not the only reason, but it's a major factor.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/1/27/how-much-does-...
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/2/5/suburban-infras...
The inverse is true for dense urban units: per-unit costs for urban units are far lower than the per-unit taxes.
{1} (roads, sewers, water treatment and distribution, waste collection...)
{2} (repaving once every 20 years, repainting once a year, repairing sewer pipes every 40-60 years, water pipes every 80 (unless they were installed in the 50s-80s, in which case every 30), etc)
That almost completely destroys the small town argument because cities don’t need to pay for the education or healthcare of their suburban workers. An office building is a net gain where a the same space devoted to housing often costs the local government more in services.
Do you have some stats or links for municipal (or equivalent) tax raising/spending?
https://usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2021USbl_22bc...
Just one example.
https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2020/01/you-will-never...
Subsidized in terms of infrastructure, because running power and water and sewer and roads out to each individual house is way more expensive than doing it for condo or apartment buildings in urban centers.
Subsidized in terms of infrastructure again, because when he inevitably wants to drive into the city, there has to be parking waiting for him, which is land that could otherwise be put to better use.
Subsidized in terms of direct payments, because federal tax law provides huge benefits to homeowners via mortgage deductions and depreciation rules, which disproportionately means middle-class or higher people living in single-family homes.
Please share your superpower.