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Comment by bazooka_penguin | Hacker News Reader

I'm inclined to think a lot of people only live near cities because 1) they work in it and have no choice but to live nearby, otherwise suffer a nightmarish commute and 2) it's the only city near them. Why isn't building new, smaller cities a viable option? Surely building something from scratch also comes with advantages, like being able to plan and build infrastructure optimally from the start, rather than trying to retroactively update ancient infrastructure piecemeal. If we're going to go with a state or federal level approach anyway why funnel the money into existing cities?

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> why funnel the money into existing cities?

Among other reasons, we should because the existing cities are the most resource-efficient and lowest-environmental-impact living places we have at scale, and typically subsidize the infrastructure of other places.

Cities are resource efficient and low environmental impact only if you count the tight core/downtown and exclude all of the suburbs and sprawl surrounding nearly every big city in the US. Everyone driving an hour to get to everywhere is not resource efficient or low environmental impact.

Small cities/large towns are actually more efficient on average in the US since everyone is a 10-15 minute drive of everything.

Rural areas can be very inefficient.

When people say cities, they talk about them in the global context with functioning metro systems, not the sprawling monster american 'suburities' that require you to drive everywhere. If you want less suburities with their shit traffic, you'd support getting rid of zoning laws that force this form of city.

I don't like US 'cities'. I do like cities elsewhere in the world.

More about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxykI30fS54

I agree, and I've loved the European cities I've visited, but this is an article about US housing prices and the parent was talking about "existing cities" and how they "are the most resource efficient we have", which is plain wrong. I am all for making them more resource efficient by making them more like cities in other parts of the world.

Sure, but based on how it’s current done it’s a huge drag on the economy when people pay $1.5M go houses that are worth $300k in other cities.

Seems like taking a short term hit in resource efficient and environmental impact in order to have people live elsewhere would be overall positive.

This. It seems like cities in America now are a great dumping ground and tax shelter for offshore wealth, but virtually useless for actual Americans to work, live or play.

Eventually, even American multi-millionaires will get bored of buying $7M houses in LA and go fuck off to Phoenix, so who needs to live there and service them?

Cities or suburbs?

I believe a majority in the US lives in a metro area of at least 100,000 people, but only about 30% appear to live in a city of at least 100,000 people.

I think the difference is the suburbs, and I don't think that is a recent thing.

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

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

These is no definition of "suburb" just as there is no definition of "downtown". A suburb is just a part a city with less dense housing.

You have:

1. Legal boundaries of cities, which are dependent on the state. Each state has a constitution that determines what the requirements are to be a city. Maybe it's only 10 signatures and filing fee. Maybe it's much more. There is also a well defined process for extending the boundaries. Outside the city you have unincorporated areas, but that's like places where you have to get water from a well and use a septic tank. That's not suburbs, it's country.

2. Because 1) is so random, government statistics office come up with their own definition of "statistical areas". There are metro-statistical area, and micro-statistical areas, and even these depend on which agency made the list.

3. Realtors keep their own definitions.

4. Things like advertisers and business have their own definitions depending on industry (e.g. media markets)

5. locals have their own definition.

At the end of the day, you have to pick a list and work with it, knowing the pros and cons and how that affects your methodology.

Also, in New York State, it seems like places outside cities are generally part of "towns" which are corporations?

I think it's easy to overestimate how much you know about other states.

I can tell you first hand well water and septic tanks do not always go together in my part of the US. Nor do natural gas service and cable TV lines.

I'm from LA. We refer to the entire metro area as "LA" or the "city"; basically, from Six Flags in the north to the Orange Curtain in the south, and from the beach to Pomona. And that whole area has been ballooned with speculation to the point where no one can buy a house on a normal salary. I still see no reason anyone needs to live there at the current prices. I encourage everyone I know who still lives there to just get out.

In the US almost all residential areas count as cities. For example there are tens of cities in just the Bay Area alone.

Right... we call these little suburbs "cities". City of Palo Alto. City of Berkeley. But we also pretty much consider the Bay Area as one big city, or maybe 3 if we're old school. If you say "Bay Area" anywhere, everyone knows you mean that giant beard that runs all over the bay.

Lol Berkeley is a suburb? It contains 120k people in only 10 square miles. It is twice as densely settled as San Jose.

Agreed, but that’s more a legal definition of a city. What most people think of as “living in a city” they don’t think of places like Belmont.

The US is not California. Have you ever been to New Jersey or New York?

For example the New Jersey has 52 cities - in a state with a population of just 8.8 million, so each 'city' only has on average 170k people - and that's if they all lived in a city! Many have populations in the low four-figures.

I'm not an expert on New Jersey, but there are signs everywhere for "Twps" which I guess are "townships". I'm guessing probably a lot of people live in them.

In New York State, a "town" seems to be not exactly a town, like a stereotypical "small town".

I've lived here most of my life and never really realized, but according to Wikipedia, a "town" in NY is more or less the equivalent to a "township" and within it are "villages".

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

"every piece of land in the State is part of a city or town, which, with the exception of the city of Geneva, is part of one and only one county. Not every piece is in a village or city. A village is part of a town; cities are not part of towns, but have the powers of towns. A village can be a part of more than one town. A village cannot be part of a city."

So more like a division of a county that's not part of a city than an actual town.

And where this is going, is that I think this is where a lot of people live, rather than cities per se.

An administrative division, where a lot of people live, that's neither a city nor a village, but has water and sewer and so on, sounds to me like almost a definition of suburbs.

The reason people want the $1.5M houses rather than the $300k houses is likely because they're nicer places to live (ameneties, greenspaces, schools). If you build a new nice city 30 minutes from San Jose (apologies but I don't know how far you need to go out of SJ to have more space to build) you don't inteoduxe 300k housing, you just introduce more $1.5m housing.

I think it's more a lack of imagination. I gave up renting in LA and moved to a place where I could afford a great house with great local amenities for under $400k. I tried to convince my brother and his wife to move here but, although they can barely afford their condo fees, they're stuck in the mindset that anywhere outside LA is the "sticks". So it would mean losing their big shot at bigger career opportunities... even though they really only want to raise their kids and have no serious ambitions about that. Meanwhile they're in a tiny place while everything around them falls apart. It's frankly incomprehensible to me that people can't adjust to changing circumstances and re-evaluate their situation, and tack a different course. But my point is, you have to credit a lot of inertia to the reasons why people continue to live in places that are not affordable. Given the choice and if they knew they had job security elsewhere, I think most people would spread out to smaller towns, $300k houses and build the communities they want. They're just paralyzed by having to break with familiarity.

LA is, however, building more condos than most other areas. They tear down an old 1950s or early single family and put in four ~$1m units... that's better than the Bay area that refuses to do that. This is of course neighborhood by neighborhood so it may not be at the necessary scale to provide relief.

I love LA though but the housing situation really does suck.

It’s $1.5M because of limited supply, not because it has to be that expensive.

You’re ignoring two things: 1) many people don’t care about city living just access to jobs, thus a cheaper city with jobs is a good substitute and 2) sure there is a price premium, but $600k seems more reasonable than $1.5M.

And you're ignoring that many people _do_ care about city living.

> sure there is a price premium, but $600k seems more reasonable than $1.5M.

So now you've built $600k houses, not $300k houses. And if there are desireable jobs in the area, that pushes the demand for thouse $600k houses up to the amount that is paid in the area.

And you also need to bear in mind that a 2x increase in house price means much more than a 2x decrease in the number of people who can afford it.

I lived in San Jose from 2015 to 2020 and I can't possibly fathom how anyone would consider it "nice". It's extremely crowded, traffic is a nightmare. You can't actually enjoy any of the amenities because they are always jam packed. I think the real reason someone buys a $1.5m house in the San Jose area is because it enables them to take a very high paying job.

No teacher can afford to live in the neighborhood if the house prices are that high. Why would the schools be better?

All else being equal, if you have two neighboring school districts, one with good schools and one with bad schools, people will be willing to pay more for houses in the good school district.

So higher house prices will tend to correlate with better schools.

The causation will be more like if you have two neighboring school districts, the one with higher house prices will tend to be the good school district because the kids’ will be coming from houses with educated and financially successful parents like doctors, engineers, lawyers, business owners, etc.

The secret about good school districts is it's mostly about good student & parent populations. It makes people angry when you say that out loud.

It's a highly cyclical thing. Schools that perform well are generally in rich areas, because that's how they're funded. Well funded schools have better facilities, more programs, and can hire more teachers, so have better student to teacher ratios. People want to send their kids to those schools, but need to live in those districts, so move there. The property value of those areas go up, which leads to more funding to the schools, etc.

Schools that perform poorly are usually in poor areas. They get less funding because the property is worth less in that area. They have more students, because it's cheaper to live in those areas, but have worse facilities, fewer programs, and they can't hire as many teachers, leading to even worse teacher/student ratios. People who can afford to move to better school districts do so, or find a private school they can afford.

People get angry when you say that because it's taking a complex issue and trying to simplify it in a way that's only true from a surface level.

The performance of a student is mostly dependent on the student's ability themselves, their social groups and how much their parents are able to give a shit, especially in today's age of the internet where access to information is not a limiting factor. A good school district that performs well is mostly a function of how much of the population is composed of that kind of student & parent combo and safe environment.

Beyond a bare minimum service level of functioning buildings, adequate nutrition, adequate medical care, adequate psychological testing, some basic school supplies and semi-competent, non-abusive teachers the finances do not matter.

If a classroom has a 1:10 ratio or 1:40 ratio or a 10 year old building vs a 90 year old building, big fancy gym vs an empty field, cool robotics lab or none at all, that barely matters in comparison and that what shows up as the difference in a well funded district vs a badly funded one.

A well funded good school district causes a shift in the student population, it's not the money that causes improvements in outcomes compared to population shift, so it is easy to mix the two.

Because the USA has a history of the above statement also being used for crypto-racist segregative bullshit, everyone thinks this really saying racist shit, but this applies the world over, including places without a long history of racism.

> A good school district that performs well is mostly a function of how much of the population is composed of that kind of student & parent combo and safe environment.

And that's tied to the school district, and is partially a function of how well funded the school is. People will money aren't going to send their children to poorly funded schools.

> Because the USA has a history of the above statement also being used for crypto-racist segregative bullshit, everyone thinks this really saying racist shit, but this applies the world over, including places without a long history of racism.

Outside of the US, funding for schools is often centrally planned, so most schools are relatively similar in funding, so you can't really properly compare.

Yes, this is tied to racism (white flight, segregationism/desegregationism), but this also applies to communities that are white and poor too.

Really, though, you're not very well educated on this subject. Your arguments don't reflect studies on the topic. You're making bold claims based on surface level thoughts; this is why people get angry when you say things like this.

People often don't live in the neighborhoods they work in, and people often can't afford to own in the neighborhoods they live in. A teacher who bought a house 20 years ago might still be able to live there, for example.

The quality of the schools depends more on the amount of parental support the students receive than the quality of the teachers.

I don’t understand the logic here. Schools are funded primarily through local property taxes. The town with the higher priced houses collects more property tax and can therefore allocate more funding to their school. This means they can pay higher salaries to teachers which means they can select for the best teachers. This attracts teachers that can’t afford to live in the town they teach in.

True, though US "cities" are generally asphalt hellscapes. Design something like Houten, or let Culdesac loose to build a whole city, and now you're talking.

I suppose a single example can't contradict "a lot of people," but I am one such person. I live in the city, because I like cities.

Same here. I pay a premium to live in NYC even though I work remote. I love the vibe and culture.

>Why isn't building new, smaller cities a viable option?

What's "smaller"?

It appears substantially more than half the country lives in a metro area smaller than the Columbus, OH MSA.

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

Are you making a point about Columbus (the biggest city in the 7th most populous state in the country) that I'm missing?

MSAs can sometimes be rather small in area -- for instance, the Bay Area is split into 9 MSAs, all but one of which (SF-Oakland-Berkeley) are less populous than the Columbus MSA. So, everyone in the South Bay lives in a MSA smaller than Columbus (San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara).

If instead, say, you opted to take all CSAs with > 1 million people (per the 2020 census), you'd cover just over 2/3 of the population.

(Even so, affordability isn't purely a function of city size. Chicago is eminently more affordable than DC or SF despite being larger than either, whether you consider the CSA, MSA, or just the urban core.)

>Are you making a point about Columbus

Not really, I was fishing for context, for whether someone who says we need small cities considers Columbus small, large, or negligible.

That's how White Flight happened

So to answer your question, because there's an enormous attack surface for elites to abuse the planning process to self-segregate, consume publicly funded infrastructure, and stick someone else with the responsibility for urban social problems

No need to build new. There are plenty of existing underutilized cities with infrastructure in place to handle much larger populations : St Louis, Detroit, South Bend, Decatur, Buffalo . . . the list of places large and small goes on and on.

No good jobs there, which is why it's cheap. Cities arise as socio-economic hubs, it's not just about the housing price and a place to exist and store shit. The book order without design goes into good detail about this.

What jobs are in brand new greenfield cities suggested in parent post?

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