Many suburban cities in Canada like Mississauga are also experiencing this. They've finally ran out of land to sell so they started raising property taxes and instituted levies
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-mississauga-a...
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-mississauga-a...
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.5675623,-79.740886,916m/data=...
That isn't apartment building density, but that's about as dense as single family homes can get.
Mississauga had to raise property taxes somewhat -- still extremely competitive -- as a revenue source dried up. But those new neighbourhoods all easily pay for themselves in property taxes. Nonetheless, loads of really silly narrative comes out of Toronto writers, still foreboding this dire scenario that they've been pitching for well over a decade. It's a bit farcical at this point.
You can get a little bit denser by going full street grid--Chicago's single family home districts look to mostly be rocking ~6-9k people/km².
I grew up in Chicago on a perfect grid. Now I live on a street that I picked precisely because you only drive down it if you live there. I don't like the sound of cars driving past. That's a personal preference that seems pretty generalized, even among people without kids.
And on a street like that, you don't need speed bumps, because people aren't speeding down the street.
Now, I think almost everyone would prefer if their one street were not integrated into the grid. That would be the ideal. You live in a grid, but with none of the downsides. But failing that, many people opt to live in denser areas rather than the burbs, even if the cost is that folks sometimes drive down their street who are going someplace else..
I’m not a libertarian, I think it’s fine for government to tap rich people to provide nice things for everyone, but this particular nice thing (way more roadway than you pay for) has a pretty bad cost:benefit, and its beneficiaries are not exactly the neediest or most deserving of aid.
We’re talking about pretty different things, though. Suburbs of ultra high-cost-of-living cities have their taxes buoyed up their proximity to the big economic engines, while small towns like Galesburg have to figure out how to be self-sufficient without that constant influx of wealth.
Makes sense for a declining city in far-out rural Illinois.
Some will farm or extract natural resources, but these operations require fewer people than they used to, so fewer towns. Some will be holiday destinations for city-dwellers. But we will probably sustain far fewer of these towns than we have historically.
Software? Sure there are software developers living out in small towns, but obviously not many in this town.
A positive counter-example would be Houten. Winding street layout that's not good for through traffic, but very nice for walking and especially biking: https://www.google.com/maps/@52.033207,5.1474598,3a,75y,4.09...
Not too bad in you car but it means that you can't walk or bike anywhere unless they have put in paths between blocks. Means that if a 15-year-old kids wants an ice-cream their parent has to drive them to the corner store.
Well, you could still get this, more or less, with a grid, like Barcelona's superblocks.
I hate it, because if you miss a turn, you basically have to go another full mile to hit another 'cross street'.
These traditional north american houses are still not very space efficient at all (large unused garden + lawn + double parking spot + garage).
“Suburban” neighborhoods in Europe easily have double or triple the density of this. I also see zero townhouses or anything with 2+ floors in that area.
Maybe you meant 2+ units? 'Cause almost all of them have 2+ floors, and many will have livable basements as well.
I don't know about you, but I actively use and enjoy every one of those things.
Perhaps you enjoy apartment living and consider anything not active indoors a waste.
If so, good for you, I wouldn't want to impose a garden or a parking spot on you. By the same token, calling these out as if they could possibly not be useful, simply because you do not think them useful, is at best, a fallacy.
You can have nice gardens, double parking spots & a garage without the same designed towns and neighborhoods. Most often is done by limiting street parking, narrower streets, and using the rear-entrance drives and lots as done in many cities.
Those designs also enable more pedestrian friendliness vs. the suburban sprawl that is effectively carpeting the U.S. and Canada since the 40's.
>>Most often is done by limiting street parking, narrower streets, and using the rear-entrance drives and lots as done in many cities.
YES, limiting on-street parking is huge.
It’s just not really necessary for every single house to have these amenities. You can have parks, public parking, and a decent sized backyard in a townhouse / attached buildings. The space gained can then be used to sustain actual life in the neighborhood such as stores, restaurants, schools, libraries and small businesses. Once you have this, you don’t need two cars, or to drive everywhere, you don’t need a large private garden to enjoy the outdoors.
Of course I’d love to live in a huge house surrounded by green. But it’s not a sustainable model for urban development.
That's fine, as long as you pay the costs associated with those things. However, in most cities suburbs are revenue negative, and subsidized by the dense downtown areas (that don't have these).
> I wouldn't want to impose a garden or a parking spot on you.
The entire problem is that this is exactly what is done though. Zoning forces a very specific type of housing in most of the city (single family house with large lot size, garage, driveway and backyard), even for those who would be okay with or prefer something else.
Are you conflating city and suburbs here? While this is obviously dependent on each city/town which has their own zoning rules, most of the locales with which I'm familiar have quite the dense-pack throughout the city, and the suburbs are out in separate towns.
>>However, in most cities suburbs are revenue negative. Again, if the suburbs are separate towns, I don't see how this affects the city budget. If the suburbs are within the city and on the same budget, I'd look at the balance of costs and revenue, and if a particular zoning district is substantially more costly, i.e., being subsidized, then it seems a rate adjustment for that zoning type would be in order...
As it is, for where I live, the town is essentially all rural/residential, with 2-acre minimums (some exceptions), 35mi from the major city, and I can say that yes, we REALLY do pay for those associated things - one of the highest tax rates in the state, and increased ~50% since moving in 15 years ago. Yes, we occasionally grumble, but I am much more happy to pay for the zoning rules that maintain an healthy ecosystem where I can see over a dozen types of birds out the window at breakfast and many other healthy populations, than I'd be even slightly interested to see densepack developments reducing my rates (I can find densepack & lower rates elsewhere, and if I wanted it, I'd have gone there)
This is grossly out of touch with how most of these features end up existing. Most of the time, there's a minimum setback for the front yard, minimum parking, etc. specified by local zoning ordinances.
This isn't bottom-up market-driven demand, it's top-down requirements specified by the local government for that area. So they are, in fact, imposed on whoever wants to live there.
Wrong. Of course it is always implemented by a local govt, but it is very much a result of demand.
I very well understand how such regs end up existing, and changing. It is very much related to demand. People are generally against zoning until they realize what it is like to live without zoning, and then it is DEMANDED by the people, and of course implemented by the govt. I've lived in a locale where zoning was first brought in, then developers managed to build a coalition against it and it was abolished, then people realized that that was shi*y, and now it is zoned again.
I've also seen and helped organize opposition to new development that would trash both neighborhoods and wetlands and endangered species habitat - when 100 neighbors come out to oppose the proposed variance, that is not some govt imposing it, it is the residents supporting their own zoning.
It may be different in larger cities with heavier corporate development influence, but I doubt it, since e.g., I'm sure there are plenty of developers who'd love to develop in San Francisco, but all I hear about is NIMBY opposition to changing neighborhood zoning holding it back. Guess what? That's not some top-down govt, it's locals supporting their own zoning.
What is out of touch is your comment inaccurately characterizing it as some faceless govt imposition.
Roughly the equivalent of pointing to IBM as the most high paying and prestigious tech companies can get.
It would be trivial to increase the density there by reducing setback requirements, narrowing the roads, removing minimum parking requirements.