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Plug a good channel related to this called Not Just Bikes on YouTube. He does a great job tearing apart North American urban planning and housing and compares it to examples where the author currently lives in Europe. I want to be able to live in places like that but I’m stuck in the US. Here is an example where he also compares new planning to how we used to do it. These old compact suburbs that have become expensive because they’re incredibly desirable. Yet we don’t build like that now.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0

Any idea what the historical price of sidewalks was? My search engine foo isn't turning up much before 2007.

I've been wondering how the nice sidewalk / walking / biking places I've enjoyed were built.. was it super cheap in the 80s and skyrocketed since?

I've gone down the rabbit hole of semi-current pricing for sidewalks being built and road expansion in this mid-size city - and it's just dumb that a sidewalk install can easily cost a million dollars for a block or two for example.

I can't imagine building neighborhoods today that mimic what I miss from the past in another state - but there's no way it cost that much to build back then either I'm fairly certain.

On my phone so can't check but this may be covered by the aforementioned Not just bikes youtube series on Strong Towns, I strongly recommend checking it out. IIRC the initial price of building roads and sidewalks was invested by the federal government at favorable terms on the condition that maintenance was covered by the municipal government. This worked great for the first 20-30 years until maintenance costs started to increase greatly towards the end of life of the infrastructure. The central theme of this series is that municipalities and towns have entered a debt trap and are relying on future growth to cover historical infrastructure debt. My explanation may be wrong, inaccurate, or not relevant for your question so I'd recommend checking out his videos if this seems interesting.

Here in Seattle in the 2000s there was a huge push to tear down or repurpose all the motels along Aurora Avenue as they were viewed as promoting prostitution.

Now, with many fewer motels we have shrank our pool of ultras affordable, unsubsidized housing and prostitutes just take their johns to the alleyways to do the deed.

I literally just drove southbound on Aurora about an hour ago and saw three street walkers between 160th and 80th so I think it’s safe to say that effort was a total failure.

The idea that reducing low quality housing raises quality of life is the same fallacy that's behind minimum wage prohibition.

When you prohibit micro-units and other low-income/low-quality housing, you don't get more high quality housing. You get more homelessness.

When you prohibit low-wage work, you don't get more high-paying jobs. You get more unemployment.

The only process that actually increases the quantity of high quality housing and high paying jobs, is investment, and investment is motivated and sustained by investment profits, which left-wing populists demagogue so much about, and political leaders enact so many laws to inhibit (e.g. laws against price gouging, rent control, tax rates that progress with income, etc).

>When you prohibit low-wage work, you don't get more high-paying jobs. You get more unemployment.

That wasn't the experience of the UK when we introduced a minimum wage.

What was the experience in the UK?

I googled it, and seems like full time unemployment didn’t fall, but part time employment felt a little.

Additionally I don’t know (didn’t find) what was the effective minimum wage before the min wage act. If it was already almost equal to min wage, the law was effectively no op. I.e. wages didn’t went up.

I mean ceteris paribus. There are numerous other factors that can counter-act the negative impact of price floors, so introducing a price floor, especially one that only affects on the order of 4% of the merchandise, as in the case of minimum wage, does not always correspond with a rise in un-used capacity (unemployment), let alone one that is profound.

Also something you see in older cities, retail first floor, small apartments upper floors. Tended to be cheaper than all-residential buildings.

There have been experiments with some buildings without any parking being put up but it's rare. And that adds a lot of expense.

Thank you.

Parking minimums are also proven to kill old style walkable downtowns with commercial on the first floor and residential above. You can't develop those old buildings and also meet parking minimums and preserve the dense development.

In practice, you end up tearing down some of the buildings to meet those minimums and there is abundant parking that's half empty most of the time and it becomes a lot less walkable and more spread out, increasing the need for a car. It's maddening.

Jacobin's credibility is about on par with info wars.

I'm not sure why so many people in this comment section dislike cars. To most people they are a benefit, not a burden. Cars let you have fast point to point travel on your own terms, with no waiting times, no dealing with crimes/harassment, protection from weather, the ability to transport cargo/other people, and the freedom to go where you want. I personally love parking minimums and the availability of street parking spaces because they enable this system of direct travel from door to door. It means I am able to lose less time to transit and live a richer life as a result of having fast access to all those destinations. Not all cities have to be the same or follow the same urbanist dictate. People are varied, and carry different preferences. It's OK for some places to elect to have parking minimums and build infrastructure, community, and lifestyle that is car-centric.

And as for costs of living - I don't think it is fair to say that zoning is to blame. Zoning is a choice by a community to preserve the lifestyle and neighborhood character they have built, and there's nothing wrong with that. Yes it may be inconvenient for potential new residents, but so what - local government logically should serve its current residents. I don't think that's particularly selfish, since we could just as well ask those seeking out low cost living to be realistic about their options and live within their means. Why is anyone entitled to live wherever they want at whatever cost they want? If someone can't afford to live in San Francisco or other such high demand high cost location, they are just as free to seek out a lower-cost life elsewhere. America has no shortage of places where one can make a living and thrive. Sure those locations may not have the exact job someone wants or the amenities they want or whatever else - but that's life - you don't get everything you want, and expecting otherwise feels like the dictionary definition of entitlement.

I think many American cities are in a sort of local optima with regard to cars. Any change that makes walking more viable will reduce the utility of everyone using cars. Converting the freeway right-of-way to rail would take a long time and make lots of people mad in the meantime.

A car can get you places, yes. But it also requires money to purchase, maintain, insure, and fuel. Many people are not great at driving them, killing people in the process. People get fat because they never have to walk anywhere. There is a cost for this convenience.

> Zoning is a choice by a community to preserve the lifestyle and neighborhood character they have built, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Sure, in isolation it makes sense. But then almost every city says the same thing. Then sprawl is the only choice for new people. And the “neighbor character” you have preserved is “only rich people are allowed to move in here”.

Municipal government rarely serves its citizens. Instead, it bows to the will of an entrenched bureaucracy which optimizes, above all else, the form of self-continuation requiring the lowest amount of effort possible. If you have ever dealt with city government in any capacity, you know how little power the elected representatives have when compared with the lifelong bureaucrats.

Also, if you don’t think it’s a travesty when someone is forced out of their ancestral home because gentrification raises property taxes and they have a low income, you’re kind of heartless.