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Comment by theandrewbailey | Hacker News Reader

> About three-quarters of Americans who describe their own communities as rural (74%) say they would prefer to live in places where houses are larger and farther apart, but also farther from schools, stores and restaurants. A narrower majority of suburban Americans (56%) also say they would prefer places with larger houses.

> In contrast, more Americans who currently live in urban areas (57%) say they would prefer a community with smaller houses that are within walking distance of schools, stores and restaurants.

Breaking news: most people prefer to live where they live.

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My takeaway from those stats is that it highlights how the suburbs are the worst of both worlds. I live in an apartment in the city, if I were to leave having a bigger house would be the primary reason. The fact that 44% of people already in the suburbs would prefer to move somewhere with bigger houses suggests that for a lot of people the suburbs aren't fulfilling their promise.

> that 44% of people already in the suburbs would prefer to move somewhere with bigger houses suggests that for a lot of people the suburbs aren't fulfilling their promise.

Once you start playing the space game, particularly if you're in a location where you tend to get guests, it's always appealing to have another room.

Or more likely it just shows that if you ask someone "hey would you like a bigger house?" they're very likely to say yes. I don't think it's some profound statement on the promise of suburban living.

Well there are two halves to the question. "Would you like a bigger house even if it means amenities are further away?". So to me the 44% suggests that for a lot of people suburban amenity proximity is not worth the smaller home size.

And I'm not that surprised. Not to over generalize but very few suburbs are walkable. Once you're in the car what's an extra 10 minutes on your drive? As a person sitting in the city pondering a life outside of it I can't see the point in the suburbs if I'm going to be driving and stuck in traffic anyway. I'd rather go whole hog and live rurally.

> As a person sitting in the city pondering a life outside of it I can't see the point in the suburbs if I'm going to be driving and stuck in traffic anyway. I'd rather go whole hog and live rurally.

I've though this way too for a long time, both now and when I lived in a city. Having thought about it often, I think the two things driving suburbs are those with daily commutes (that 15 extra minutes twice every day adds up), and many people are not well off enough to live in the denser city to begin with (as things stand). Cities are economic attractors, and suburbs are basically less concentrated instances (or addons) of that.

Also note that the question specifically says "amenities". Likely most people aren't thinking about commuting while answering the question.

As a suburbanite, I think my current tradeoff is just right. I have a big enough house for my needs and wants. But if I wish, a major city is just the right distance away and not too far. Also, the place is not overly crowded but it is neither desolate like the rural areas I have visited. I can go to the "main street" and have enough people. Finally, all the amenities I want for a comfortable life (restaurants, bars, hospitals, schools, sports facilities, airports, supermarkets, specialty stores..) are 20-25 min radius.

Rural setting doesn't have anything like that.

> The fact that 44% of people already in the suburbs would prefer to move somewhere with bigger houses

I think you are reading it backwards. 44% suburbanites would prefer to live in communities with smaller houses.

After a few miserable years in the city, I moved to the suburbs - the place I consider the best of all worlds. I lived in the suburbs when single and bought a bigger house when I started a family.

The reason people in the suburbs are moving to even bigger houses is because they are getting older and richer, or their families are growing.

That's not my takeaway at all. Can you please elaborate?

From a 1960's screed about cars 'An automobile is a great thing when you're the only one that has one. And a terrible thing when everyone else does'

Same can be said for large suburban houses.

I must disagree. Having resided in the residential districts of a large city for nearly 15 years, I relocated to the city center, drawn by the promise of better balance and easier accessibility. However, I found myself discontented with the experience and opted to purchase a small detached house in a suburb, a decision I've come to love even if amenities are somewhat further away. If the opportunity arose to move into a larger house that's even more distant from the city, I would certainly seize it. It's not that suburbs are unfulfilling, but rather that once you've tasted the pleasures they have to offer, you may find yourself longing to immerse even more deeply in nature.

You're making it sound like this is the headline, but it is not. The national average is also 57%, and there are a number of other statistics broken down by partisanship, education, age, etc.

From my ~YIMBY bubble it's a bit surprising, though I guess it shouldn't be, that the majority of Americans want to live in exactly the kind of neighborhood I despise.

Based on this data I am seeing tens of millions of people who don't prefer where they live. It's illegal to build a walkable neighborhood in most of the country.

It is quite weird how few walkable neighborhoods exist. That and some other properties of modern USA life almost make it seem like someone is trying to prevent community formation. Who would have an incentive to do that?

> Who would have an incentive to do that?

People already live in their car-centric houses. Creating walkable cores means pitching folks who can park outside their favorite restaurant on walking from a parking lot. It's easier to sell the concept to new folks, who will live within walking or biking distance of the new core, than gaining buy-in from incumbents. That, in turn, creates the opposition we observe.

Most Americans are sort of afraid of walking.

Not afraid. Disgusted.

> It's illegal to build a walkable neighborhood in most of the country.

What laws make it illegal to have walkable neighborhoods in the US?

Zoning laws.

Zoning laws

I might be wrong but the OP might be referring to ordinances forbidding the building of dense housing. Walkable neighborhoods require a certain level of density to be feasible (e.g. grocery store needs X potential customers within a ten minute walk or it's not going to be profitable) and a lot of towns disallow the building of apartment buildings instead of detached homes.

The grocery store doesn't have to have every customer walk to it for the homes around it to have people walk to it. There are plenty of homes near good shopping, schools and other services. If that's important to you then you can buy a home near them. Having dense housing doesn't mean anything about walkability. After all, you aren't walking to all of the other homes.

> The grocery store doesn't have to have every customer walk to it

Depends how much space you’re dedicating to car parking. Once the grocery store has a giant parking lot it’s swallowed up a lot of land that could have been housing.

The more the store depends on car traffic the bigger the parking lot. The bigger the parking lot the less housing it’ll have in proximity, the longer everyone will have to walk. A successful walkable neighborhood has to balance allocated space with thought.

No, it doesn't really matter. You personally don't need everyone in your neighborhood to walk. Buy a home that is close and you have a walkable home. There are plenty to choose from. Someone lives close to the stores.

> Buy a home that is close and you have a walkable home.

That is not a walkable neighborhood. When people are talking about this stuff they're talking about an actual defined concept:

https://www.walkscore.com/walkable-neighborhoods.shtml

A home next to a strip mall might be close to a grocery store, it is not a walkable neighborhood.

Do you buy a neighborhood? You need a home that is walkable. Your neighbors will figure out what they need on their own.

That isn’t how neighborhoods work? The entire point of a neighborhood is that it’s a community with shared goals. If everyone wants to work out their own goals they live rurally.

zoning laws

Mostly a combination of single-family zoning (illegal to build a duplex, let alone an apartment/condo building, in huge areas of many cities), minimum square footage requirements for new buildings and lots, and parking minimums (new development, often including renovations of existing buildings, required to have X number of parking spaces per Y residents/occupants).

And what is your read about number of people who prefer where they live? If two groups of people have contradictory desires, then elections are the best way to sort out the differences and reach a compromise.

> It's illegal to build a walkable neighborhood

Big cities like NYC or Chicago are already walkable.

> in most of the country.

I am sure you can go build a walkable city in the middle of Nevada or Nebraska. Your problem is something else - nobody wants to go there yet so it is a bootstrapping problem. What you are essentially saying is "a lot of neighborhoods where the jobs are are controlled by NIMBYs and they are not letting us convert those to walkable areas"

Generalizing a bit more:

Breaking News: Most people would like someone to do something about the environment. Not me. Someone else.

Also if that someone could subsidize my forest fire insurance, that’d be great. Kthxbai.

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