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Comment by maxsilver | Hacker News Reader

It's tricky too, because a lot of "low density suburban wastelands" was already significantly phased out over a decade ago, in a lot of the US anyway.

People hear "suburbs" and imagine a single-family home on 1 to 2+ acre lots -- something that looks like this -> https://st2.depositphotos.com/1658611/5485/i/950/depositphot... . And while that definitely still happens, it's really limited to the exurbs in the US these days, it's not representative of newer suburbs anymore.

The primary style of suburban development built since say 2010 in the US, has really been more like 5 single-family homes on 1 acre, or 10 townhouses on 1 acre, or equivalent. Something that looks like this -> https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/modern-suburbs-17207940.jpg or this -> https://images.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/0... -- which is anywhere from 5x to 20x higher density per acre.

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My first thought looking at that first "new suburb" photo was: where's the sidewalk? And the second photo has sidewalks but no visible amenities.

Sure they're denser, and townhouses are at least less materials-intensive to build, but I'm curious how this is otherwise an improvement on the old planning model of swathes of detached homes?

> I'm curious how this is otherwise an improvement on the old planning model of swathes of detached homes?

It's not. (Or at least, I'm not arguing it's better). My only point is that "more density" isn't the magic bullet fix people sometimes think it is -- because the US is doing a lot more density than we historically have in the past 60-ish years, and it's not meaningfully different in terms of lifestyle or planning.

If you want good alternative public transit, you have to just decide to build it first, and you kind-of have to do it almost everywhere nearby. (not just Division St, not just Woodward Ave, not just Hiawatha Ave, etc).

"Crank up density" doesn't magically result in a "car-free" city. You can't townhouse your way into having the Chicago Elevated, you have to actually decide to build the L. (similar to, say, Seattle SoundTransit)

This is what is happening in the US city I reside in. Developers are gobbling up land and putting in “high density” housing, but without building any additional amenities or restructuring roads that make the area more enjoyable to live in. And this is in a city with very libertine zoning rules, so mixed use is not restricted. The price/foot is about the same for the higher density housing as it is for a house and a yard just a 10-20 min drive further out, so given the choice between high density/no amenities/no parking/not walkable/surrounded by high speed roads vs a house with a yard and a garage (will have to drive in either scenario)…I’ll take the bigger house and the yard.

This is true, but that model of suburban development still tends to push necessities out of walking or even biking distance. I visited my folks in the Des Moines suburbs while they were out there and it was an hour's walk to almost anything bigger than a corner store. Of which I found, I think, one that was closer than that.

If we go by your parent's photos, my main beef with these neighborhoods is there's no commercial development. There should be (light) commercial development.

I am a big fan of the Asian shophouse. You can open a restaurant or a convenience store or a small clinic or whatever class of local service business isn't going to be too disruptive on the bottom floor of your residential property. You need to own and operate it, it can't be someone from outside the community. People eat, shop and live together and spend more locally. Small businesses get easier to create. Everyone has neighbors again. People walk two blocks down instead of driving 30 minutes to Walmart. Yes I'm stacking multiple social agendas here.

You probably do have to go towards medium density for this to be viable but maybe if you don't you still end up with people taking a lot of 10 minute car rides instead of 30-40 minute ones and then it's still a win in my book.

You described pretty well my almost-suburban New England spot. I walk everywhere, because there's stuff everywhere. There's a guy down the street who built an add-on to his house and his wife runs a convenience store out of it. It's great. The problem is that there are (particularly American? I don't know) pathologies around ejecting from the idea of a community that you see in even those relatively tight-packed suburbs, and what you describe, while great, flies against that.

My parents (who are themselves not really the sort of folks you'd expect in an urban core, ha) didn't last in Iowa very long. They moved back to New England and while they live on like three acres now, they're friendly with all their neighbors in a way even I'm not in my relatively approachable community.

> There should be (light) commercial development.

There is. (both example pictures above have a commercial development less than 10 minutes walk away).

The problem is that there isn't enough commercial need for every single development to have it's own commercial block -- we already have a large overabundance of commercial space in the US as it is, adding even more of it inside each residential development doesn't magically spring forth a business to fill it.

(this is true even at city-level densities -- as lots of urban 5-over-1 developments are struggling to keep their ground-level commercial/retail units sustainably filled)

And since we do need more housing, pressure builds to just convert the commercial back into residential anyway...

Some new developments in the US are "mixed use" which emulates what you described.

Those new suburbs are just as bad. They squeeze more people into less space while retaining all the issues of the original suburbs and adding a mass of people on top.

A proper suburb should be a mixed-zone small town with proper public transport and amenities you can walk to like European suburbs are.

Here's Farsta (10 km from Stockholm): https://maps.app.goo.gl/oAgBhNkvQFw5BVS16?g_st=ic

Here's Västerhaninge (30 km from Stockholm) https://maps.app.goo.gl/iGkzuzPC8y188teh8?g_st=ic

I think I have see a lot of places like this in US. The difference is most housing is apartments and rents usually are higher than mortgage payment for twice the size of house.

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