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Some might value having a nicer car and smaller house, others might want more land, and then depending on how people 'vote' with those credits.
The world simply needs less people. Trying to cram more people into less space is inhumane.
I live in a two flat. When I go outside, I am greeted by squirrels and the honey bees from next door (the lady keeps them to help her garden, which is beautiful). Large, lush trees line the block from and back. The only smells that waft over are the smells from other people's cooking.
The loudest nuisances are leaf blowers, loud cars, car horns, and dirt bikes. All things that occured at the same rate, if not more, in the single-family-home-only suburb I grew up in.
The most danger in my day to day life is caused by people in cars: driving too fast, not stopping and yielding when proper and required, and generally just being shit at piloting a vehicle. This was far more pronounced in the same suburb I grew up in, to the point of being so oppressive I couldn't really go anywhere without one.
Literally nothing about my "dense" living is loud (to an unreasonable degree), smelly (unless like, other people grilling chicken is offensive to you), or dangerous (vs the baseline rates at least).
No one should be forcing you to live in a "prison" like mine (where I can walk 5 minutes to an excellent grocery store or 10 minutes to a larger supermarket, god, the horror!), but you shouldn't be forcing me to live in a "prison" like a sprawled out SFH only suburb by encoding your preferences into zoning code and law. The simple fact is that more people prefer to live like I do, given what houses are going for around here, exacerbated all the more by the fact that if my neighborhood burned down, it would be *illegal* to build it back the way it exists now.
I am happy for you that you are living in a community that sounds like it is more or less to your liking. I am not saying your lifestyle should be illegal or prohibitively expensive, which I think you are saying certain pro-SFH people with zoning/lobbying power are trying to do. I am definitely against those types of people.
I do agree as well that cars are a nuissance and a danger. My ideal view of the world involves SFH with acreage, and the banning of noisy gas cars and leafblowers. I don't even like electric cars all that much, I would prefer most people bike, and that heavy delivery trucks deliver to centralized locations instead of everywhere. I will not excuse the actions of fellow car drivers at all.
What I will vehemently defend, however, is the rational pricing and legality of single family housing with acreage. There is no possible way that I will live with people surrounding me on 6 sides, banging their feet on the ground, blasting music, cooking all their different cuisines going into a shared AC system, screaming. There is no possible way I will put myself in proximity to those, thanks to the way our world is architected, choose violent crime on random bystanders.
You cannot take that right away from me, and if you do, I will go somewhere where I still have that right. And if there is nowhere left to go, then you know what happens next, and only history can give you examples from then on, such as what happened to the Ukrainian Kulaks in the 1930s.
It would still be possible to live fairly far out in a single family home (where basically multi-unit buildings wouldn't "outbid" SFHers for the land / land rent obligation), but I suspect only the "true believers" would take this option.
To the extent one believes in markets acting fairly, this should be very fair. If people really do greatly prefer by and large SFHs, the value of land as apartments should be lower than expected: more people per land, getting value from the land, but getting less value because of the unpleasant nature of apartments.
But the amount of population decline needed to give everyone American-style suburbs that are small enough to not have horrible commutes is....a lot.
If you go to Europe, you can see ~5 story density is not loud, not smelly, and not dangerous though. It's also not dangerous in America either (but loudness and smells are problems because we're dumb as shit about these things). So I dunno, you do you, but I in the city don't wanna subsidize your coddling in the myriad ways I do today.
Then stop...? Subsidies have an expected return on investment. If that isn't being realized, there is no reason for you to continue. I bet you won't, though. It is easy to say you don't want to give when it is nothing more than talk. Acting upon it, however, necessitates giving up what you get in return, and we both know you don't actually want to give that up.
2. Taxes aren't paid to a magical deity in the sky. It is merely a pool of resources shared by a community. How the resources are used are up to the community. The community equally expects a return on subsidies.
If it is true what he is saying, that his taxes subsidize my SFH lifestyle, then he is correct to say that he is tired of being forced to coddle me.
Sure. That's a pretty good way to ensure that you don't see the benefits if you don't contribute. At a national scale it is probably the only way to ensure it as it is pretty hard to keep tabs on someone otherwise.
> that his taxes subsidize my SFH lifestyle, then he is correct to say that he is tired of being forced to coddle me.
He isn't forced to. He can remove himself from the community which he does not align with. Even better, he can work to reshape the community to fit his expectations. If the subsidy isn't working, he won't be alone in wanting change. No doubt the community is simply waiting for someone to stand up and resolve the matter. Things don't get fixed by way of magic. But being part of a community that sees a need for subsidies is part of the expected return on investment. The community wouldn't be what it is without those subsidies.
But America isn't apt here anyway. In this case, it was said that it was a city that was offering the subsidy. It isn't unusual to leave a city when it isn't working for you. People leave the city they once called home every day because it no longer meets their needs.
In fact, in many circles you are considered a bit of an odd-ball if you don't leave the place you call home from time to time in recognition that it is unlikely that the community you found yourself in (e.g. because you were born there) is the community that is actually right for you.
American state and local governance is generally pretty dogshit. But this is where I am from, and this is where most of the people that I know live, so...sucks. Just because those reasons (or "frictions", if you assume I could meet other people somewhere else just fine) lead me to stay (for now) doesn't mean that there are not real problems.
Cities do often subsidize suburbs by their own choice. Absent in this thread is exactly what subsidies are being discussed, of course. But either way, moving away from the city still removes one from the situation. It was made abundantly clear that it was the city offering the subsidy. Don't like the city, don't be there. Simple as that.
> doesn't mean that there are not real problems.
"If the subsidy isn't working, he won't be alone in wanting change. No doubt the community is simply waiting for someone to stand up and resolve the matter. Things don't get fixed by way of magic."
If all of this is to say that the value you find in the subsidy is simply that it allows you to be lazy — to not have to do anything about it — that can certainly still be valuable. We're not here to judge what one finds valuable.
But what is clear is that there is some kind of value that is recognized, but withheld from the reader. "I don't want to subsidize X" is a stupid statement without also "and I am willing to give up A, B, and C" for it to go. There isn't a person on earth who wants to give something in a vacuum.
I am not currently involved with efforts to e.g. repeal the mortgage tax deduction, change highway vs public transit funding ratios, institute a land value tax and other things, but I am very involved with https://www.etany.org/ and peripherally involved with https://opennewyork.org/, which ought to change some things. This is the best I can do for now.
Regarding horrible commutes, I for one believe that it is the companies who demand in person work who are the ones who are being coddled here with transport infrastructure. In reality, we need a two speed road network-- one for seriously heavy trucking, and the other for bikes. I have no problem giving up my personal car, if that's the angle you are going to take.
Well to start with, have you heard of the Mortgage Interest Tax Deduction? I quite arguably do contribute to your mortgage!
The actual answer is far more complex. https://www.strongtowns.org/ has some info, though some of their stuff is debatable.
But frequently, those governments do not charge people who live in sparsely-populated areas enough to cover those increased costs.
For example, a mile of urban street/utilities might serve 40,000 people, while a mile of suburban street/utilities may serve 400.
There's a decent amount of writing and videos on the subject, both for[1] and against[2]. The "for" arguments have convinced me because they use data and are presented by experts in urban planning and government, while the "against" arguments rely on appealing to principles/emotion and are frequently presented by politicians who treat the suggestion as a cultural threat.
1: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason...
2: https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/do-cities-really-subsidiz...
But do not come looking to me to adopt your way of life. Furthermore, if that means that you in turn shut off my sewer and electric and police and etc, I have absolutely no problem with that.
Thanks to technology, it has never been easier for me to have my own self contained sewer, my own solar panels, my own well/water delivery.
Yes you can say these things are inefficient, but as always life is a spectrum. Does your apartment have its own heat producing unit? Why aren't you using the soviet style centralized heat system that heats the whole town? They don't even have thermostats-- just open a window!
Trust me, I don't want any of your hand outs, I'm sorry I receive them at all. And I'm sorry that SFH people mess up your zoning on purpose playing dirty politics games. I don't support any of that, and I'm happy to let my house drop in value. But my land is my land, and anything one inch outside of that is not.
I swore off renting and HOAs many years ago. But for city life, there's not much of a choice, absoulutely.
They are run by elected volunteers (from member homeowners); and approximately no one wants to volunteer. What everyone does want is lower dues. When combined with the minimal effort that goes into running most HOAs, this tends to cause them to reduce dues by neglecting maintenance and emergency reserves. Then, when the bill comes due, they need to issue a large special assessment to cover the cost.
Single stair allowing narrower buildings side by side ameliorates them problem though, in that the units of coordination are much smaller.