People _have_ to move into denser cities, because they are the only places with jobs. This in turn results in more and more jobs moving into denser cities.
And people have to live in ever-smaller apartments.
I'm writing a book about it :) I've argued a lot about it on the Internet, and people periodically tell: "but Tokyo!"
So I studied the situation there.
It's a great example of generational shittification: your grandparents live in a nice separate house, your parents live in an apartment, and you are forced to live in a "microapartment" because you can't afford anything else.
> To deliver services to a given population, it is easier, faster, & cheaper if they are in more dense metropolitan areas (up to a certain point).
That's incorrect. If you use the number of municipal workers per capita as a proxy, the most efficient cities are around 50-200k in population. After that, you're starting to need transit, zoning, and all other stuff.
For example, NYC has around 200000 municipal employees (excluding schools) for the population of 8 million (2.5%). Boise, ID has the population of 240000 and 2100 employees (0.9%).
That doesn't answer the question... what makes it thoughtless? For that matter, what makes a small urban apartment worse (or better) than a home in an abandoned village? I was certainly happier and had a better time balancing my budget living in a small apartment in Japan than trying to find out how to budget to live in north america.
> > (up to a certain point)
> That's incorrect [...] the most efficient cities are around 50-200k in population
So we agree on the fundamental, you just define the turnover point as 50-200k. I think it is inseparably tied with density - a city of 2million might be the turning point in a land constrained country like Japan, but I wouldn't be surprised in the breakeven in a suburban sprawly north american city is in the 100-200k range you mention.
> If you use the number of municipal workers per capita as a proxy,
This is a poor proxy. Capital budgets might be better, or ratio between median taxation and median income.
> After that, you're starting to need transit, zoning, and all other stuff.
Without breaking down what categories the employees work in, that's a poor comparison. Boise and NYC both have transit, zoning, etc so that alone doesn't make any difference. But for example car ownership rates are dramatically lower in NYC. If it's $2000 extra in taxes to pay for the transit drivers in NYC, but a household has an average 1 car instead of 3, then the NYC residents come out way ahead in terms of budget.
Additionally, you mention zoning - most of the smallest municipalities in the US have much more restrictive zoning than cities in Japan.
> For example, NYC [...] Boise [...]
Can you provide some Japanese examples, since we're talking about Japan?
Have you ever heard anybody discussing the downsides of densification? Pretty much _everything_ has upsides and downsides (yes, including sparse cities).
But if you listen to "urbanists", then it will seem like humans should be sliced, diced, and restacked into a Human Cube. While wild animals will frolic and dance outside the walls of the Dense City. With absolutely no downsides whatsoever.
This is what makes it "thoughtless".
> I was certainly happier and had a better time balancing my budget living in a small apartment in Japan than trying to find out how to budget to live in north america.
Now imagine living in a small apartment in a suburban location. For about 1/5-th of the price of a Tokyo apartment.
> I think it is inseparably tied with density - a city of 2million might be the turning point in a land constrained country like Japan
We're seeing that Japan is not so land-constrained, as it literally has houses sitting empty.
> This is a poor proxy. Capital budgets might be better, or ratio between median taxation and median income.
I tried that, but I gave up. First, the data is a mess. Second, even for several cities where I decided to dig in, it gives even _worse_ results. Third, a lot of capital funding happens through the Federal grants in larger cities, and it's not clear how to account for it.
> Boise and NYC both have transit, zoning, etc so that alone doesn't make any difference
Boise barely has zoning and transit, so it doesn't need a lot of employees. It doesn't have (or need) a subway. And to give you a perspective, one mile of Manhattan subway costs about as much as 1000 miles of a modern 6-lane freeway.
> Additionally, you mention zoning - most of the smallest municipalities in the US have much more restrictive zoning than cities in Japan.
Ironically, the only large metro location without zoning in the USA is the Greater Houston Area. The lack of zoning allowed it to build an extremely successful car-oriented city, that has commutes that are FASTER than in any large European city (or Tokyo, for that matter).
Work from home and cars enable that.
Then there's the maintenance costs for all the roadways needed to support all these cars, all the parking lots to park them in, etc. All that comes out of either direct taxes on people, or an indirect tax in the form of higher prices.
Finally, this doesn't even consider the climate consequences of everyone driving around in a 6000-pound SUV; all these cars spewing emissions are turning those suburbs into very *un*comfortable locations with deadly heat waves.
But good luck getting any Americans like the OP to understand any of this.
Wait until you hear how much public transit infrastructure costs. You'll faint from shock!
> Finally, this doesn't even consider the climate consequences of everyone driving around in a 6000-pound SUV
What if you drive a small EV instead?
And here's the CO2 footprint data for transit: https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint
> But good luck getting any Americans like the OP to understand any of this.
I guess you never even tried to question your assumptions.
Considering how cheap it is for me to take the subway anywhere I want in Tokyo every day, it's not that much. Compared to roads, highways, etc. in sufficient size for every single person in the city to drive a car everywhere, public transit infrastructure costs are cheap.
Strangely in America, though, drivers aren't required to pay every time they use those roads. Seems like socialism to me.
>And here's the CO2 footprint data for transit: https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint
Yeah, it says right in your link that transit is the greenest way to travel, other than walking or bicycling (which should be pretty obvious).
>I guess you never even tried to question your assumptions.
I guess you've never questioned yours, or ever been outside the US even.
Nope. You're just free-riding on taxes paid by other hard-working people, nothing is "free".
> Strangely in America, though, drivers aren't required to pay every time they use those roads. Seems like socialism to me.
In the state where I live, most of road maintenance is done with taxes based on road usage: https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-infrastructur...
> Yeah, it says right in your link that transit is the greenest way to travel, other than walking or bicycling (which should be pretty obvious).
Reading comprehension much?
Bus: 105g/km, small EV: 46 g/km, national rail: 41 g/km, London underground: 31 g/km.
Basically, we just need to double the average occupancy of cars (easily doable with mild carpooling and van-type self-driving taxis), and they'll be more efficient than even subways.
> I guess you've never questioned yours, or ever been outside the US even.
LOL. I speak 5 languages (Russian, Ukrainian, English, German, Mandarin Chinese) and I got my first driving license at the age of 30. Before moving to the US, I lived in several European countries.
I know exactly how much transit sucks compared to cars in well-designed cities.
Tokyo's trains are paid by user fares, not taxes. You obviously know nothing about Japan.
>In the state where I live, most of road maintenance is done with taxes based on road usage
The taxes don't come from the drivers. Try putting tolls on all the highways and see what happens.
>Basically, we just need to double the average occupancy of cars (easily doable with mild carpooling and van-type self-driving taxis), and they'll be more efficient than even subways.
This is stupid. They've tried carpooling for decades in the US and it hasn't gone anywhere. Turns out that it's just too inconvenient when everyone is so spread out.
>I know exactly how much transit sucks compared to cars in well-designed cities.
You've never lived in a well-designed city.
No, they are not: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-05-18/the-secre... - the user fees are barely a third (as usual for transit).
> The taxes don't come from the drivers. Try putting tolls on all the highways and see what happens.
The funds for road maintenance here absolutely come from drivers, in the form of fuel taxes, car tab fees, and toll lanes/bridges. See the explanation in the article.
> This is stupid. They've tried carpooling for decades in the US and it hasn't gone anywhere. Turns out that it's just too inconvenient when everyone is so spread out.
About 9% of people carpool. And this requires coordination, with driverless taxis you don't need any. Just request a "shared ride" from the app.
> You've never lived in a well-designed city.
I lived in Houston for a while. I couldn't stand the weather, but the city itself is amazingly well-designed. Nothing like miserable European cities.
You, quite clearly, have not yet dared to walk out of your assigned "15-minute neighborhood".
From your article: >That year Tokyu generated $2.63 billion in revenue en route to $587 million in profits. Rail fares brought in about a third of that figure, real estate holdings reap another third, and retail about a fifth.
Rail fares brought in 1/3 of Tokyu's entire revenue. Tokyu isn't a train company, it's a conglomerate that owns a train company, real estate, and more. The article doesn't say anything about how much of the rail operations are paid by user fares.
>You, quite clearly, have not yet dared to walk out of your assigned "15-minute neighborhood".
I grew up in the US, you moron. I've seen all types of cities. Have fun getting shot by road ragers over there.
Why? Walkability ties you down to your neighborhood by rote, it limits your economic prospects, and in general makes your life more miserable (you'll _waste_ a lot more time on chores).
At the same time, remote work and service-based economy allows people to avoid having to attend the office every day.
> (American-style) suburbs will never be the engine of anything
LOL. Sour grapes?
The US suburbs are _already_ the powerhouse of the country. People living there produce something like 85% of the wealth (using individual tax returns as a proxy).
The one-bedrooms LDKs are available in larger sizes now, and the 3-4BR LDKs are getting quite large.
Near me, they've torn down several 50-year-old 5-story apartment buildings and are replacing them with bigger 13-story buildings.
It's somewhat true. The average apartment in Tokyo is 66 square meters (with 40 square meters of living space). That's slightly up from 48 square meters total in 1990.
However, 1.5 million homes in Tokyo have living space smaller than 20 square meters. And that number is growing, because of new "microapartments" being built all the time.