It bodes poorly for the environment if people are increasingly moving from denser cities to sprawling suburbs. This is in many ways a self-inflicted problem of high-cost cities, but it should be a national priority to reverse this trend.
Car centric suburbs aren't just terrible for the environment, terrible for safety and terrible for transportation; they're also incredibly costly.
Having 24/7 access to their own vehicle sounds like the opposite of being locked inside.
In my 50's it's the reverse. I know who I am and what I like and the things that make me get up and be excited about the new day are now mostly internal. Being around a lot of people drains me. I've spent decades figuring out what I love and my home contains the stuff that makes me happier than anything outside (with the exception of really great restaurants).
I hate saying it because I know it was really hard on a lot of people, but during the COVID lockdown days, I was happier than I've been for a long time.
Personally, I very much prefer country living where I can go to many hiking trails and campsites, have clean air, a quiet environment, and not be beholden to my neighbours for enjoyment of my own property.
Can you elaborate on the subsidisation of suburbia? Are there tax provisions that advantage them?
So the town slowly dies, and another municipality starts to raise a bond issue ...
The town was subsidised by a bond issue against National creditworthiness, against a building project with no long term revenue plan and the people living there did not pay for full long term cost of utilities (although to be fair that's the case for most utilities as they all chronically under invest)
Is this less likely to happen in smaller towns?
Maintaining your own home ain't trivial, cheap, quick thing
It's often illegal, through zoning or otherwise, to build those kinds of places.
Low supply due to underbuilding.
High costs due to difficulty in getting housing approved and forced BMR units.
More expensive land price.
Not needing to own a car saves you money.
And, most importantly, proximity to jobs and services. Living in a dense urban area saves you the time of driving and commuting, and has more amenities, restaurants, and things to do within a given X minutes. Buying time is expensive and a luxury good. This is where a lot of the demand comes from.
The problem is not just subsidization. Urban (especially “ultra-urban” in dense areas like Manhattan, non-suburban SF, central Boston or DC, Brickell, etc) residences have low supply and high demand.
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/one-way-...
I think the discrepancy between this and what I said is that I was mentioning extremely dense areas and this probably has a much broader criteria for what constitutes as urban. For example the city of Houston may be urban but there is nothing walkable about it. There are markedly few areas in the US that are mega-dense. Check out the individual places I mentioned
Man I really hope EVs keep dropping in price because they still seem like a virtue signal for the wealthy at their current prices.
A lot of the prices in the suburbs near me seem to depend on how good the schools are supposed to be, what types are jobs are nearby, and, maybe ironically given the discussion, how easy it is to access the city.
This is a myth espoused by cityfolk. Oregon trail settlers didn't need subways. Those in Alaska and that live in the woods do just fine without your "help".
Many people have ranches, like to hunt, and enjoy nature.
Some city thinkers like to prescribe ways for others to live, but these people should look inwardly first. City air is toxic and is killing your pulmonary system. Zoning is NIMBY and school funding shows even the most liberal prefer to protect their own.
Live your life and stop telling others they are wrong in their lifestyle. It's like nails on a chalkboard. Elitist, and will contribute to a Republican win in 2022 and 2024.
(I'm a social liberal, fwiw. I think most of us are doing this wrong and are increasing polarization.)
With globalization and automation, the US pretty quickly turned into a mostly-service economy and shed tons of manufacturing and agriculture jobs. Service and other white-collar jobs mean working either for or with others, so they concentrate in cities. Manufacturing and ag jobs are where the raw materials, shipping, or farmland is, so tend to be more spread out.
The result is that jobs in small towns and cities evaporated and most opportunity became concentrated in large metro areas. People go where the jobs are, but the cities couldn't grow fast enough to keep up.
So, yes, even though cities are more economically efficient, they are still more expensive simply because the demand grew much faster than the supply.
Not really. Firstly, it costs a lot more per square foot to build a high rise than a single family home. Secondly, it costs a lot more to maintain it (elevators need constant maintenance, you can't just run to Home Depot to get replacement drain parts, etc.).
And the infrastructure costs more to maintain -- running power to a high rise requires a lot of specialized commercial electric equipment that can handle the high loads and variability. Same with water -- you need special pumps and extra big boilers. Sure you can gain some efficiency by sharing those resources, but at the end of the day the costs per person are roughly the same.
The main impact comes from needing less transport of goods and people, which is an environmental plus, but not something priced into the cost of living.
Wouldn't this be addressed by economies of scale? If you have 400 people living in a building, even if the complexity of the infrastructure is greater, isn't it more efficient than having 400 single family homes? Not that one can directly replace another, but I'm talking about the number of people being the constant.
> The main impact comes from needing less transport of goods and people, which is an environmental plus, but not something priced into the cost of living.
Transportation I think is especially huge, but I imagine there are other efficiencies of living in a dense urban area. And I think that regardless of whether or not external costs are priced in, they should be counted towards efficiency of infrastructure.
It would seem not. It's hard to find data, but a good proxy is condo fees for high rise condos vs low rise condos. Typically the high rise condo fees are higher than the low rise condos in similar areas, when the offer similar amenities. And usually condo fees are true cost representations, because the residents control the spending of their own money, so it's not a profit area for the owner, like the rent is.
Which means by proxy it's more expensive to maintain a high rise than a low rise complex.
Just to clarify: High density doesn't mean high rises. It means traditional developments at 2-5 stories. No elevator, water pump, special power, etc. These places are significantly cheaper than single family homes and provide dense walkable living.
In a city, that would be $100k / 10 city blocks, probably 100 parcels with 100-1000 low-to-mid rise housing units. In a rural area it might be just 10 housing units, at the cost of $10k/yr/parcel. And productivity in rural areas is 2-3x lower, so it's even higher as a percentage of per-capita GDP.
Add on top of that electric grids, water supply, sewage, emergency services, hospitals, etc. Bottom line: rural areas only survive due to subsidies from productive and overtaxed urban Americans.
Do you have a cite for that? I believe that figure for new roads, but you generally don't have to rebuild the entire road, including roadbed, after 30 years, just repave, which is a lot cheaper.
Rural areas also consume goods and services from urban areas, but nonetheless they supported the SALT rollback for "fairness."
That new suburb is of course in no way economically sustainable.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason...
When we lived in the suburbs, in an in-between space, we probably had the highest car use, and life required two vehicles.
So, it's not either-or. There's a spectrum. You can't expect to maintain the same habits and lifestyle in a rural location as you do in a dense urban environment, etc.
Expanding rural access to electric vehicle infrastructure, and re-investing in regional rail would be transformational for these communities, though.
I don't think the city is fixable for people who don't want to live in a city.