Touristic Bias: Why Americans Overrate Europe, and Europeans Underrate America
econlog.econlib.org
econlog.econlib.org
2. Most of the Europeans who are lucky enough to live in the premiere cities can't afford to frequently eat in the nice restaurants that delight foreign visitors.
Proof?
3. "Efficient public transportation" and bicycles may seem great to a tourist who eats in restaurants. They're not so great if you're a local who needs to get groceries home to make dinner. In bad weather, subways and bikes are downright awful.
Absolutely wrong. In bad weather subways are great. Public transportation works great in European cities because of their layout where the grocery store is always just a short walk away. Yes, even locals prefer public transportation, in Europe and NYC.
2. However, very few Americans live in such cities
Actually A LOT of Americans live in such cities. Perhaps the author is thinking about how the electoral college in the US works.
But almost no one in Europe lives in places as comfortable and convenient as American suburbs
The reason rents in down town are high is because there's high demand to live there, because it's so convenient, again both in Europe and NYC.
As for suburbs: "places as comfortable and convenient as American suburbs: The houses are spacious, the cars are huge, cheap Big Box stores and chain restaurants are nearby, and (to quote South Park) there's "ample parking day or night." - none of these things seem very desirable, except maybe for the spacious houses.
"none of these things seem very desirable to Tichy, except maybe for the spacious houses."
I've lived in cities. I've lived in suburbs. I'll take the suburbs near a city by a mile. I won't pretend this isn't a subjective judgment, because it is. But so is the "I'd prefer a city by a mile" view, and being all mystified (or in some cases, angry) at the people who choose differently than you is not sophistication, it is simply provincialism.
The evidence abundantly suggests I am not alone, either. Given the choice, a lot of people prefer suburbs, or suburbs wouldn't even have come into existence.
I think in Europe most people move outside the city when they have children and want them to play in the garden. It is easier to afford a house in the suburbs. If they could afford houses in the city, I suspect more people would stay.
I'm not entirely sure that's the case. You certainly can't reach a simple conclusion, because living in the city is more expensive than living in the suburbs. One might equally well argue that most people would prefer to live in the city, otherwise it would not command a price premium.
This is the most nauseating sort of exceptionalism. It belies the following facts:
1. In most American cities, it is actually illegal to build European-style cities. American consumers literally have no choice but to live in suburbs.
2. Public subsidies overwhelmingly support suburban development - highways, road "improvements", low-density public infrastructure, property tax rebates, and so on. That's a huge artificial incentive to buy suburban.
3. The most valuable places in the USA are those dense, mixed-use, walkable neighbourhoods that most resemble European cities - think Beacon Hill in Boston, a collection of tall, narrow, three-storey brownstones on tiny lots that would be illegal to build today (see #1, above).
4. Those American cities that have lost the least value during the economic downturn are those places that are the most urban in design: dense, walkable, bicycle-friendly, transit-friendly, and so on. The American cities that have had the sharpest drops in property value and the highest rates of jeopardies and foreclosures: those places that are the most suburban in design.
5. Whenever a city builds good urban places (as opposed to shitty urban places like most American cities), Americans move to those places in droves. Think Portland OR, which has developed according to clear principles of density, diversity, and sustainability for the past few decades and has enjoyed very strong population growth. (Aside: for the past several years, Portland has had an unemployment rate higher than the national average. That's because so many people move there without actually having a job waiting for them. A huge proportion of those people end up starting their own businesses - so much for the idea that liberals are anti-business.)
Its kind of crazy. The zoning laws were put into place around here to "curb density" which is the exact reason people love living in the little village I live in.
The tide is changing though - we are starting to see more and more "New Urbanist" developments in the states (but not around here). Basically replicating a dense communal shopping area with 2nd floor housing and nearby single family houses. They feel a little serile however.
This is good if you're a city planner allocating parking meters. This is bad if you'd like to live in an apartment that has convenient walking access to some shops, restaurants, and public transit.
1. They (Europeans) usually visit the most European places in the U.S. - especially New York City and San Francisco. Since NYC and SF are basically uglier, scarier versions of the premiere European cities, it's natural for tourists to go home with a negative impression.
New York may be scary. I don't think it's ugly, I personally find the skyline surrounding central park to be both thrilling and beautiful, but I suppose that's just a matter of taste. But New York definitely isn't a "version" of any European city. American cities pioneered the skyscraper (they weren't alone, London and a few other cities outside the US did this in parallel). I've lived in Paris and New York, and they are utterly unalike. Europeans visit New York to experience something different, not a version of home, and they get it. Some love it, some hate it, but I'd be amazed if they came home saying "yeah, Mahnattan is just another version of Copenhagen."
2. However, very few Americans live in such cities - even if they can easily afford to. Why not? Because the natural habitat of the American - including most affluent Americans - is the suburb.
Dude, stop, just stop. No, Americans can not easily afford to live in Manhattan or San Francisco. I had to stretch incredibly hard to afford a small 2 bedroom house in an unfashionable corner of SF. I could have afforded a nice, spacious 3br in a distant suburb much more easily. I'm just amazed by this claim. Every month there's another article in the SF Chronicle about another family that wanted to stay in SF but moved out to the suburbs for financial reasons.
- It has one of the lowest crime rates of large cities in the USA.
- It has wonderfully documented public transportation (hell, even your iPhone can give you subway/bus directions now)
- OK, so the drivers suck. And the cabbies yell at each other all the time.
- Well, on second thought, the hipsters make the city pretty scary...
- And I suppose it'd be scary if you're afraid of people and traffic.
(I say this as a short white dude living in what was, up until about 5 years ago, the most dangerous neighborhood in Brooklyn - and about 3 blocks away from a stretch along Knickerbocker Ave that, similarly up until about 5 years ago, had the highest murder rate in the city.. and while I'm not stupid enough to walk around with my beyerdynamics on and my head in the clouds... been there two years and haven't been mugged)
As one who has both lived and travelled in both Europe and America, I have to say, this guy is talking out of his ass. It's true that "Europeans can learn a lot more about the American psyche with a visit to a random CostCo than a visit to the Guggenheim," but this hardly backs up his thesis that America is a "better place to live."
Americans are impressed by European cities, because we don't live in cities in general. And Europeans aren't impressed by American cities, because even a good city is par for the course in Europe; hardly deserving of a transcontinental flight.
But I'm not seeing anything to justify his "Suburbia, Fuck Yeah!" conclusion. The author's celebration of the suburbs ignores every cost to living there. Easiest example: you have to drive everywhere. That is a huge cost in and of itself, primarily to the lower to middle class people he figures are so much better off in the suburbs. And the lack of sane zoning in the suburbs also winds up ghetto-izing lower income neighborhoods, multiplying their social problems.
I advise them to go to Las Vegas because there's nothing like that anywhere. I advise them to go to Napa, which I'm told is still distinctly original though has closer comparisons in Europe than Vegas does. Some of our National Parks are incredible.
Ironically I guess Americans coming to Europe tend to marvel at the long time spans things have been built in ;-)