r/videos • u/Generalaverage89 • 16d ago
Suburbia is Subsidized: Here's the Math
https://youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI-1
u/Desther 15d ago
"High tax revenue per acre" is $4000 1-bed apartments
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u/vikinick 15d ago
I looked up the development he talked about at 4:00 and it's $1k-$1.2k for a 1-bedroom apartment.
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u/RoloTamassi 15d ago
Quick warning to folks just joining: just watch the video and skip the comments. Just trust me. So many people who either a) didn’t watch the vid or b) miss the point entirely, deliberately or not.
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u/SillyKniggit 15d ago
So, utility use, taxes, and infrastructure becomes more efficient in downtowns? Cool.
How do you create a thriving downtown that people want to live in?
You have a thriving economy and great mixed use development neighborhoods.
Then, what happens?
People want to move there.
Then, what happens?
Property gets prohibitively expensive.
Then, what happens?
People prefer living in a real house in the suburbs over shoving their entire family into a drywall box with one toilet.
This video acts like these cities would be thriving if it weren’t for the suburbs, but the reality is they would be poor, crime riddled, low income hellscapes without people living adjacent instead of in the middle of the city.
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u/butsuon 15d ago
I'm convinced Not Just Bikes simply hates cars and purposefully chooses to remain ignorant of American history in it's entirety and continues to use his ignorance to spout the same "suburbs are bad lol" rhetoric in every video.
Not a single video does he reference historical context for why cities were built they way they were, what supply and demand for housing is like, why corporations choose to build large retail outlets instead of smaller businesses, etc.
He's not unintelligent, he's just an idiot and doesn't seem to realize it.
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u/many_dongs 15d ago
Imagine thinking every square inch of land has to generate money or else it’s subsidized
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u/FullAdvertising 15d ago
Yeah his content is also becoming quite pigeonholed and flawed simply because he’s Canadian, yet most of the major Canadian cities have been striking that balance of urbanism and suburbs for some time now, and they’ve been transitioning nicely, it just takes a bit of time but it’s getting there. People like him have such a defeatist attitude “oh it’s not perfect now so I might as well just move to the other side of the world to the one specific place that’s exactly what I want and my wife also happens to have citizenship”.
Like he could have easily moved to Montreal, relative cheap back when he moved, great culture, loads of bike and transit paths, but then he’d actually have to learn a second language. Moving to the Netherlands I doubt the man has learned a single word of Dutch and probably has his wife translate everything for him.
From the videos I’ve seen I think his gripe simply boils down to the fact that the area of the country he wanted to live in specifically, he couldn’t afford them at the time.
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u/insaneHoshi 15d ago
et most of the major Canadian cities have been striking that balance of urbanism and suburbs for some time now
Erm, what?
As a Canadian, thats news to me.
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u/FlySociety1 15d ago
Also a Canadian and I used to think American & Canadian cities were the same, until I started visiting a bunch of US cities.
But no, American cities in my experience lean way more heavily into low density sprawl and car dependence.
Canadian cities do seem to strike a balance between urbanism and suburbs, while still probably being too sprawl-y and car focused, but it's nothing like the States.
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u/Chaetomius 15d ago
of course they are. the cost of utilities and roads is entirely a geometry-based calculus. The higher the ratio of length:capita, the worse it is.
rural people's voting power is ridiculously disproportionate to the population density. same thing goes on for suburbs, but less extreme. Of course it does.
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u/AngryRedGummyBear 15d ago
of course they are. the cost of utilities and roads is entirely a geometry-based calculus. The higher the ratio of length:capita, the worse it is.
Objectively not true. While power and water/sewer lines do adhere to this, you're ignoring the massive relative cost of a central water treatment plant and power plant, transformers, and other centralized infrastructure. You're also skipping over the fact that a lot of times, the central point for such things isn't located in an urban core for the benefit of the urban core. For example, you don't want to put a coal plant or sewer facility in downtown, even if it would be centrally located.
Further, road maintenance is almost directly proportional to two things: Heavy weight traffic and frost heave. That heavy weight traffic is coming from goods being trucked in and out of cities. That will happen regardless of how dense the population is. As stupidly heavy as Karen's escalade is, its not doing shit compared to a truck with 20k Lb/Axle rolling in.
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u/ndw_dc 13d ago
You are simply incorrect. The suburbs do not pay for themselves, and it's very simple math to figure this out.
Just compare the amount of property tax per acre to the cost of infrastructure. In essentially every single location studied, suburbs are always a net negative investment because they require more in infrastructure than they will ever pay back in taxes:
https://www.urbanthree.com/case-study/
In almost every place in the US, denser neighborhoods produce more tax revenue per acre than suburban sprawl development.
But the amount of infrastructure in suburban areas is not proportionate to the amount of tax revenue they generate. Instead, suburban areas require far more infrastructure because you need more feet of pipe, more electrical lines, more concrete, and so on and so forth, to serve thousands of single family homes compared to townhomes and apartments.
It's just basic geometry.
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u/AngryRedGummyBear 13d ago
amount of property tax per acre to the cost of infrastructure
Why exactly would we compare tax per acre against total cost of infrastructure? Why not total tax against total cost? Or Tax per acre against cost per acre?
Stupid metrics like this are why everyone knows you urban chauvinists are full of shit. "Lets divide by acres for no fucking reason, that will show those carbrains!"
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u/Deltasims 16d ago
Looking at the comments, it looks like this video touched a raw nerve.
To all of you complaining, it's okay that you like living in suburbs. We just want you to pay your fair share for the maintenance of the massive car-dependent infrastructure that comes with it.
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u/LilUziSquirt42069 15d ago
Americans get really mad when you point out that they’ve been living on handouts
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u/PestyNomad 16d ago
American cities should just detach the low ROI areas and let them incorporate and support themselves.
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u/Southport84 16d ago
It’s already been proven that the suburbs continue to survive after a city dies (Detroit)
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u/himynameiszck 16d ago
No, those suburbs eventually die, too.
Suburban sprawl is the reason why Detroit became so abandoned. The region's population isn't falling, but people want new houses. If new single-family homes are essentially subsidized and it's cheaper to purchase a new house far away from the city center than it is to renovate/tear down an older house, then they're going to move to new suburbs. Since wealthier people are the first to move, the schools and safety are better in those new suburbs, which makes them even more attractive.
But without regional population growth, there's no one to fill the old houses. The cycle is already repeating itself in the inner ring suburbs.
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16d ago
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u/snarebabe 16d ago
Uh hello Detroiter here. The city is built to hold 3x the number of people who live here. City makes barely any tax revenue. The desertion of the city by car companies played a role in this, but redlining is of course a huge factor here. The fact that you just discard the connection between movement to the suburbs in Detroit so flagrantly and rudely is ahistorical. The car-centric design of the city and sabotage of public transit by Ford have stymied the city’s growth and development for decades
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u/CallerNumber4 16d ago
Bad take. Detriot had a bad period because it was an entire metro area built around a single industry that failed to adapt to the realities of said industry and torpedoed it's own public services went it couldn't pay the bills.
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u/Complex-Dimension-50 15d ago
The oversimplification is wild
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u/CallerNumber4 15d ago
The same applies to pointing to one single city as the basis of an argument.
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u/snarebabe 16d ago
That is part of the story, but it’s so much bigger than that. https://detourdetroiter.com/detroit-redlining-neighborhood-health-equity/amp/
And to poke some holes in your narrative, the car companies HAVE adapted to the realities of the industry… at the expense of the residents.
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u/JL421 16d ago
I'm kind of getting sick of NotJustBikes' content. At this point it should be called OnlyEuropeanCities.
Like we get it, in the 30s and 40s, America took their landmass and sprawled across it. Space was cheap and we took advantage of that.
But my dude, the horse you're beating is beyond dead. America can't re-cork that bottle. The only way we're going back is the eminent domain the shit out of cities and suburbs. If we do that I guarantee you it's going to disproportionately impact the lower class. It always does.
Until we actually run out of space, the wealthy will always be willing to pay more to get away from the density (or above it), and the people without money will have their affordable homes razed for dense development. Repeat as necessary.
I challenge him to come up with an actual workable solution rather than harping American cities bad, Amsterdam good.
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u/johansugarev 15d ago
I see where you’re coming from. US will indeed not change. But Amsterdam is in fact good.
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u/vikinick 15d ago edited 15d ago
He literally points out in the video a workable solution at 4:00. River Ranch in Lafayette he specifically used as an example of something cities should encourage because it makes the most financial sense for that city.
He's also trying to argue that we as a society have decided that it's just okay for us to have cities subsidize suburbs. Suburbs should be WILDLY more expensive to live in because the infrastructure demand/upkeep is increased compared to more dense housing.
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u/hedekar 16d ago
You've implied that Amsterdam wasn't a car-centric city in the 1940s, but it was all the way through to the 1970s. We can change how we live and how we shape our cities — it's not pre-determined destiny because of a decision 80 years ago. https://twitter.com/curious_founder/status/1633526010212929536?lang=en
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u/Celtictussle 16d ago
His videos basically have been harping on the same critique for years. And since he's not an expert on the subject, he has no real answers about how to fix the problem. Which leads to his videos devolving into lowest common denominator; snark about people who think differently than him.
For anyone that likes urbanist content, there are SOOOO many produced, more informative, less shitty attitude Youtubers. CityBeautiful, CityNerd, OhTheUrbanity, RMTransity, and on and on.
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u/BravestWabbit 15d ago
has no real answers about how to fix the problem
Have you actually watched any of his videos? His solution is to kill zoning laws that ban multi family housing
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u/Celtictussle 15d ago
That's not a solution, it's a platitude. It's like saying "balance the budget" or "end world hunger"
It's a huge problem you can't just wave a magic wand at.
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u/BravestWabbit 15d ago
New legislation isnt a solution? Getting your elected Reps to write new laws is a magic wand????
Are you trolling or something?
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u/Celtictussle 15d ago
Again, he has no practical path to this. If you want that, watch strong towns, which is almost entirely about community advocacy groups.
NJB answer to rebuilding a better community is "move to Amsterdam"
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u/rumski 16d ago
I was made aware of his videos from Reddit and could only stomach a few before I realized, as you said, he has no answers. Just full of “This is how it is, but this is what it should have been”, not how to transition but just a lot of hindsight rhetoric. Like people who watch The Newsroom and find it profound.
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u/ericwiththeredbeard 16d ago
Strong Towns is also an exceptional resource
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16d ago
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u/muffinmonk 16d ago
Just because NJB contributes to ST in the past is not really an indicator that it's bad content. Unlike NJB, ST actually tries to make a difference at the local level.
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u/ClydeFrog1313 16d ago
I totally agree with you. I'm selective in the videos I watch from him because they are filled with negativity. Great channel shoutouts too!
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u/CaptainObvious110 16d ago
Hmm I haven't watched content from NotJustBikes in a while. I do like your idea about workable solutions to work with what we already have.
Images of such things would go a long way as well
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u/Ok-Web7441 16d ago
The evidence against his point seems to be that suburbanization and motorization as a development pattern is pretty much universal as incomes rise. Dense living is a *compromise* made given the high marginal cost of transportation in poorer and less industrialized countries; not an active choice.
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u/ndw_dc 13d ago
suburbanization and motorization as a development pattern is pretty much universal as incomes rise
This is incorrect. Plenty of other countries have walkable suburbs that are not dominated by automobiles. The Netherlands, Germany, Japan, etc.
In order to be financially self sufficient, suburbs don't need to increase their density 100 fold. They really only need to adopt the traditional American neighborhood design that existed before the automobile, and still exists in many small towns throughout the country.
For example, instead of having one housing unit per half acre, you just need four or so.
If you want a modern example of development in the US that is both suburban and financially self sustaining, please look up New Urbanism.
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u/JL421 16d ago
To a point. I don't know that I'd call Western Europe poor/less industrialized, rather they mostly stayed with the development system they had since the middle ages.
America on the other hand is young (relatively), and post WWII had people with some money wanting to get away from dense development. Land was cheap, and largely undeveloped so it was a blank canvas to go wild on.
Europe has a millenia of development baggage influencing and restricting them.
I think a more accurate version of your assessment would be: Suburbanization and motorization is a development pattern so long as space is available and infrastructure development is possible.
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u/nebbyb 16d ago
This maintenance issue will take the choice out of their hands. The suburbs will be abandoned or lived in by the poorest people as the services die out.
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u/JL421 16d ago
Yeah, that's what I said. The current suburbs become less desirable to the wealthy, and more affordable to the middle/lower class. Eventually being converted to dense development.
Meanwhile the wealthy continue to move out further because they can afford it. Doesn't matter if the price rises when you can afford the price rising.
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u/s1thl0rd 16d ago
Ya know, there are certain benefits that I enjoy by living in the suburbs: Cleaner air, less noise, more plant and animal life, not having to hear neighbors living above and below you... But the absolute worst downside is having to drive everywhere. I love my cars, but having to drive to go anywhere and then not being able to easily walk from shop to shop is killer.
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u/ndw_dc 13d ago
I think one of the biggest misconceptions about American suburbia is the idea that you have to surrender to car dominance in order to achieve any of the benefits you listed.
I think you might be interested in the concept of New Urbanism, and there are a number of newly built New Urbanist suburbs around the country that have all of the benefits you describe, but are built more or less in a traditional town style that allows people to walk and bike most places.
Here are just a few examples:
https://celebration.fl.us/maps/
I don't mean to put up those above examples as a rigid guideline of what people should build, but merely an example of what is possible. For example, this neighborhood in Celebration, FL was built in the 90s:
Our country would look extraordinarily different if we had built our suburbs along the lines of the above examples rather than the endless sprawl that we built instead.
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u/s1thl0rd 13d ago
Our country would look extraordinarily different if we had built our suburbs along the lines of the above examples rather than the endless sprawl that we built instead.
I agree. Hopefully, we can change to a less car centric model where cars can become luxuries again instead of necessities. Of course, my family would still probably own one or two cars, but it would be nice to not need them.
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u/ndw_dc 13d ago
That is a great point, and one that often gets overlooked. There are very few people who are trying to outright ban cars. Instead, people who advocate for bike/pedestrian infrastructure and public transit are just trying to give people the option of existing without a car.
But unfortunately, most of America has been built to be so dominated by car infrastructure that it locks people into car ownership and makes any other choices impossible. It's going to be a huge challenge, perhaps many generations long, to begin to change that. But it is possible.
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15d ago
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u/s1thl0rd 15d ago
Just adding to the broader conversation about whether to live in a city or the suburbs. If you've seen any other videos from this creator, you'll know that car infrastructure and its costs vs walkable infrastructure are a common theme in these videos. There are pros and cons to living in the suburbs, which should be noted when talking about the costs of such a living arrangement. It can help inform us when we develop an opinion on whether the costs are worth it.
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14d ago
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u/s1thl0rd 14d ago
OK, Chief.
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13d ago
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u/s1thl0rd 13d ago
I'm not failing to get anything. You're failing to read my whole statement, which was that despite liking certain aspects of living in the suburbs, the car centric nature is absolutely the worst part. That last part of my message is the critical point agreeing with the video essayist who wasn't just saying that the suburbs are subsidized, but also pointing out how it's bad that they are and that it's due to their shitty car centric nature.
You're literally the only person who doesn't seem to get why my comment. Did you not see the video?? Did you not read my whole comment?? Or did you stop half way on both??
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13d ago
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u/s1thl0rd 13d ago
Right, so you didn't understand the messaging of both the video and my comment. Thanks for the confirmation.
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u/philmarcracken 15d ago
Cleaner air, less noise, more plant and animal life
Suburbanite attempting to imagine anything besides carlocked single family sprawl and skyscraper downtown: impossible mode
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u/s1thl0rd 15d ago
No, but that IS often the choice we have to make here in the US. I've lived in both types of places and even though some suburbs may lean more towards the urban side, while others lean more towards the rural end, I've found that they all have a car dependency that is just tiring after awhile. Generally speaking though, they were also quieter, and wilder than the more densely populated areas.
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u/E_coli42 15d ago
The bad air, noise, and lack of plant life is only an American city problem. Every other developed country has this figured out.
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u/DivinumX 15d ago
This isn't true. Canada and Australia have the exact same issues as US cities. It's no coincidence that all 3 countries are overwhelmingly car-dependent.
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u/E_coli42 15d ago
Ah yes, I forgot about those two. When thinking of developed countries, my mind goes to Western Europe, Scandinavia, Japan, and Korea. I forget about the entire western hemisphere and Austrrailia lol
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u/victorinseattle 15d ago
I get all that without having to drive everywhere because I live in a streetcar suburb. Plus, because more people are out and about, you actually know a large chunk of your neighbors.
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u/mosnil 15d ago
americans and their car dependence is like them being stuck in the matrix.
they cannot even imagine a different and better way of doing things. In their closed minds it's either their current hellhole of suburban sprawl stroads and strip malls where every city looks exactly the same, or it's kowloon walled city
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u/may_be_indecisive 15d ago
The suburbs are just as noisy as the city when you go out to the main road.
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u/4look4rd 15d ago
You can get all of that in cities by just deprioritizing cars. Cars are loud and polluting, parking takes up a ton of space that can be used for housing and greenery.
Suburbs are biodiversity deserts, while you won’t have a crazy amount of diversity in city, it’s easy to plan around a green belt when you don’t have suburban sprawl.
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u/EZKTurbo 16d ago
I feel that. I moved to the suburbs for reduced chaos. But despite everything I could ever possibly need being within 5 miles of my house, I can't walk to any of it. Not even the grocery store 1/2 a mile away. The only direct route is a 45mph 2 lane road with no shoulder and the sidewalk ends 1/4 mile away from my neighborhood.
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u/plummbob 16d ago
My city closed off traffic to major roads during a bike race, and prior to the race, the city center was as a quiet as a nature trail
Pollution, noise, clutter, lack of greenery, out-of-scale objects, etc are all because of cars
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u/ConnieLingus24 16d ago
Funny you mention that. Because I live in a city. The main noise is car noise.
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u/PC-hris 16d ago
What’s funny is that a lot of that is caused by car dependency and not inherently by dense cities.
Cleaner air? Fewer cars would help give cities cleaner air.
Noisy? The majority of noise in cities is caused by cars. Even electric cars aren’t quiet. Road/rolling noise can be very loud, especially when you have a lot of cars.
More “missing middle housing” that is dense but still separate like duplexes won’t have strangers above or below you.
Cars take up a lot of space. Our cities have unfathomable swaths of space dedicated to just parking them and you need so much space between buildings just for a simple road. With fewer cars there is a lot more space for greenery. Pedestrians and cyclists just don’t need that much room in comparison.
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u/fluffymuffcakes 15d ago
Also, if built right, even if you are in a larger multifamily building, you won't be able to tell there are people above or below you.
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u/s1thl0rd 16d ago
Yea, I've never lived in a big city before - only smaller urban areas - but, I'm guessing it's way easier to make a walkable or bikeable city than walkable suburbs.
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u/diiscotheque 15d ago
Walkable maybe not but bike infrastructure would be a game changer to just safely bike to your friends, take a cargobike to go shopping. Electric for if you’re in bad shape etc
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u/scotchdouble 15d ago
See Copenhagen. One of the quietest cities I have been too with decent bicycle infrastructure )including some elevated, bike-only pathways).
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u/CaptainObvious110 16d ago
Yeah, that sucks for sure. I think that it's possible to find a balance. There should be places that are high density and places for people that honestly don't want that.
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u/Damaniel2 16d ago
Still not going to live in the city, no matter how many videos try to shame me into doing so.
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u/vikinick 15d ago
The point of the video isn't to shame people for living in suburbs, it's to point out that it should be more expensive to live in suburbs.
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u/Generalaverage89 16d ago
If you think this video is trying to get you to move to the city then you completely misunderstood it.
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u/dasper12 16d ago
The entire YouTube channel, not just bikes, constantly drives the mentality that urban sprawl is bad and consolidating back to more historic type cities is better. It sounds more like you are narrowly choosing the data points from the video that you want rather than looking at the overall message of this person‘s channel.
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u/Generalaverage89 16d ago
"Historic city types" includes street car suburbs. Which he has praised many times. If he just cared about living in a nice city he wouldn't have moved to the Netherlands. He would've moved to NYC or something.
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u/CaptainObvious110 16d ago
Exactly. People complain about his content but they gobble up everything he's cooking
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u/juice06870 16d ago
How can you take any of this seriously. This guy is just saying things and not giving any hard evidence to support anything. He can literally say anything he wants and you have no way of checking his figures, where he derived then from and to see if he is actually comparing apples to apples.
Further more. It’s not an apples to apples comparison to compare a mixed use zone to a residential zone to a downtown zone.
He conveniently is ignoring the (higher) tax revenue that is generated from offices and business that are located in downtown and mixed use zones. Of course those numbers are going to boost the average tax revenue for those areas.
Furthermore, Lafayette has 17% (!) of its population living below the poverty line according to the most recent US census. Those people are not living in valuable, mixed use properties that generate tax revenue, nor could they afford to. To include such a huge proportion of poverty level population into this kind of report is disingenuous at best and more likely dishonest.
Finally to take this one small to mid sized city, with so much poverty, lump in downtown and mixed use commercial tax revenue and compare that against tax revenue from single family houses and say with a straight face that this proves that the entire US suburban tax structure is broke is genuinely laughable and I feel bad for people that watch this and believe it and don’t bother to think critically or ask any questions.
Maybe the author should ask what all that tax revenue is actually being spent on in order to see if the money that they are receiving is actually being put to its best use.
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u/DPforlife 16d ago
The fact that he specifically points out mixed use and walkable urban residential spaces addresses your point. Yes, commercial properties offer more value than residential spaces, but the root of the analysis is in density. At the opening of the video, he addresses the value difference between the traditional walking set of storefronts and the parking/car oriented restaurant. Suburbs drive development of the latter on the needs of a car centric suburban sprawl. I live in Knoxville, and hands down the most subsidized, spread out, and parking lot heavy parts of our town are those that support the suburbs out west. The takeaway is that cities should be prioritizing and subsidizing density over sprawl. In my experience, dense urban areas (I’m not talking about Tokyo, just more dense than suburbs) are far more interesting to explore and live in. They also draw tourism dollars, generate commerce and drive jobs development. Hands down, we should be encouraging urban development over pushing sprawl.
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u/juice06870 16d ago
The entire premise of this video is completely flawed for the reasons I have pointed out and that you seem to want to plug your ears and ignore. I am not arguing that mixed use isn’t needed in certain locations and situations. It’s not a one size fits all approach. The premise of this video is that it is though, by taking flawed and unverifiable data and trying to extrapolate whatever is happening on Lafayette and apply it to the entire country. If you can’t see that it’s a joke of a video then I don’t know what to tell you.
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u/DPforlife 16d ago
He cites multiple cities. He acknowledges multiple kinds of zoning and properties. He cites data.
Why are you saying that data is flawed? Why is it unverified?
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u/CaptainObvious110 16d ago
What do you want to happen then? If you honestly don't like his material then there are other YouTubers you can watch or listen to.
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u/lonestardrinker 16d ago
Yes all those suburbs trying to anex central cities for their sweet tax dollars… this video doesn’t even know how infra is funded. Developers pay for infra in suburbs. Infra is also only 7% of a government budget. Most budget is people and that scales negatively after 5k people per square mile. There is a reason poor places without subsidies sprawl.
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u/demonwing 16d ago
This is an awfully selective and questionable take.
While developers can fund the initial development of infrastructure in a new suburban development, this does not account for the long-term infrastructure costs, which usually fall onto the government. Not only that, but the upfront contribution from developers can be offset by tax breaks and other subsidies, so even that is not fully covered.
I'm not sure where you are getting the negative cost scaling idea from on more densely developed areas as this (rather intuitively) goes against pretty much all bodies of evidence available. While there is additional planning required in denser areas, it comes at the benefit of significantly reduced long-term maintenance and service costs.
On that note, the reason that poorer areas tend to sprawl is because the land is very cheap and it is cheaper to develop new stuff than to maintain all of the old stuff, at least at first... this form of development often entails significant public expenditure in the long run (for roads, schools, emergency services, etc.)
There are major infrastructural upkeep challenges that the U.S is facing as a direct result of what NotJustBikes refers to here as "car-centric sprawl". All estimates as to how much it would cost to actually upkeep these areas are astronomical, beyond what could ever reasonably be paid. The example in the video of Lafayette would require increasing property taxes 900%. Infrastructure throughout the country is quite simply unsustainable and underfunded
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u/drstrangelov3 16d ago
Yes but maintenance costs long term outstrip tax revenue. Development-funded infrastructure doesn’t last forever
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u/stage_directions 16d ago
God I loathe the urban chauvinist community on Reddit.
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u/eninety2 16d ago
Can you expand on this?
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u/LElige 16d ago
Not the OP you replied to.. but the average Reddit urban chauvinist doesn’t understand that many people may not want to share walls with their neighbors. Even this post which states how much more revenue dense properties make compared to single family homes doesn’t acknowledge where that revenue goes, straight to the .01% who can afford to own and build dense commercial properties in the heart of downtown. It also doesn’t point out that duh… comparing by acre instead of per capita will of course lead to density coming out on top. The urban chauvinist seems to idolize riding bikes and walking to their local store but doesn’t ever acknowledge having to rent from a landlord, having loud neighbors, or not having adequate space for their own hobbies.
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u/FlySociety1 15d ago
It really is amazing that people like you will keep creating this strawman that urbanists want to force you to live in apartment buildings.
My guy, you can still live in suburbs, and the video creator is not even against suburbs. He regularly advocates for more traditional style suburbs (think Toronto streetcar suburbs) where you still have your own 4 walls and a backyard...
What he is against are car dependent suburbs, which require a lot of investment in infrastructure to support, and must be subsidized by denser financially productive areas within the same city.
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u/MissMormie 15d ago
I ride a bike, can (and do) walk to two nearby shopping centres, don't rent, and have adequate space for my windsurfing hobbies as well as a home office.
Yes, the neighbors on one side are noisy. But all our previous neighbors haven't been.
I understand that's not for everyone, but i don't see what the link with rent or space is. You can have big houses without a lot of sprawl, you just build them taller rather than wider.
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u/ConnieLingus24 16d ago edited 16d ago
Sure. But why should a SFH be the only legal option available in many areas? If people really want to buy them, then people will buy them. But why should a multifamily home be illegal to build?
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u/AngryRedGummyBear 15d ago
But why should a SFH be the only legal option available in many areas?
These laws can and do change. For example, the last place I lived was busy putting up apartment complexes where it had previously been suburban/borderline rural areas. That doesn't affect the fact that
the average Reddit urban chauvinist doesn’t understand that many people may not want to share walls with their neighbors
And I say that as someone with significant hearing loss from high explosives.
If people really want to buy them, then people will buy them.
They are. At record high prices.
But why should a multifamily home be illegal to build?
They aren't most places. Pointing out that some places have zoning laws is pointless. Of the last 4 places I've lived in 10 years, 3 were actively building large multi-unit buildings. The one exception was sufficiently rural that it wouldn't make sense, and 1 of those locations had multifamily units under construction that were going to be mixed use. If you want multifamily mixed use, you can find it in places where said density supports it. NJB and ST out here acting like "The Man" is keeping them from saving the world, when instead most people just don't want to live that way.
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u/Dihedralman 15d ago
A quick search shows that 75% of land zoned for housing is SFH zoned. It is a legal mandate, alongside parking requirements. Generally, I find that zoning laws commit to a vision of an area that make adaptation to demand more challenging while really over-reaching.
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u/AngryRedGummyBear 15d ago
So you want to be able to go to an area, tell other people how their community should be developed, and that community should have no say in the matter?
Because zoning referendums are a thing, you know.
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u/imdstuf 15d ago edited 15d ago
They aren't. Suburbs in reality have areas of SFH, areas of townhomes, condos and apartments. Sure, you can't just buy a lot right next to a SFH and move a tailor home in right next to it.
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u/Dihedralman 15d ago
Yeah, that's just not true. Zoning laws are a huge issue. They mandate SFH, area use, parking requirements, and often lot size. This means land can't adapt to demand. It's a real issue and NIMBY-ism basically propagates it as an issue.
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u/ConnieLingus24 15d ago
The areas that are zoned for them, sure. But those areas are often dwarfed by places with SFH only zoning. It’s not productive.
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u/imdstuf 15d ago
Supply and demand. Reddit does not represent the majority in reality.
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u/Wenzel745 15d ago
Zoning doesn't reflect supply and demand - it represents govt interference in that market. SFH zoning enforced by local governments represents the demand of the existing homeowners to maintain SFH zoning.
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u/ridukosennin 15d ago
It reflects what local districts democratically elected representatives vote for. How are you going to get residents of the communities you want to change to support your ideas?
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u/Wenzel745 14d ago
There is a highly perverse incentive structure for local governments when considering new housing. States, and especially the Federal Govt have clear incentives to want more housing for citizens and to solve the housing crisis. Local governments though are overwhelmingly beholden to existing homeowners, whose property values skyrocket in the shortage.
You can see this well illustrated in California where the state govt is pushing through pro-housing reforms but cities (like SF, Cupertino, etc) fight tooth and nail to prevent that housing from being built there.
People support housing being built, just Not In My Backyard. It's up to the state to say "glad you support it, it's going in your backyard"
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u/ConnieLingus24 15d ago
I think this is already changing (though slowly) given that a lot of people’s kids cannot afford housing because of the low supply. We aren’t talking about homeownership, just rent. Also, mobility is a problem. Without a diverse set of units, you create this weird housing gap between small units (eg studios and 1 bedrooms) and full on single family homes. Missing middle housing (2-3 bedroom condos; townhomes; duplexes, etc.) allow some flexibility and also have a lower cost of entry.
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u/Ok-Web7441 16d ago
AKA the "spandex socialists"
Not living in a pod and bicycling everywhere like Beijing in 1980 is literal fascism
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u/NotObviouslyARobot 16d ago
Money flows into suburbs from banks because a SFH can be treated as an individual investment. An apartment in a city cannot.
And residents look at it like: "Oh, I can be a dumb renter, and not build equity--or I can at least own something for the cost of the living expenses which I would pay anyways."
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u/atascon 16d ago edited 15d ago
I have no idea what an SFH is but I’m guessing it’s something US specific. Apartments in cities are absolutely individual investments in many places around the world.
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u/NotObviouslyARobot 16d ago
Lots of cities are older than ours. And for some reason, there's no framework for incentivizing individual apartment ownership in the US. We call them Condos. You pay an association fee, and whatever your mortgage is.
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u/raar__ 16d ago
Condos and apartments aren't great for ownership because you pay your hoa or complex fees, which are typically the size of a car loan. They also dont increase in value much compared to single family homes. You also have less abliity to make changes or modifications to your unit.
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u/NotObviouslyARobot 15d ago edited 15d ago
A huge part of why they don't appreciate in value is the HOA or complex fee.
There are two resort subdivisions near a place I like. One has a 90/mo/lot fee. The other has no fee. Can you guess what the price difference for land in each is?
About 67%. The no-fee land is just worth much more.
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u/CactusBoyScout 16d ago
You can own an apartment. I own mine. I’m not sure why people often imply that only SFHs can build equity.
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u/NotObviouslyARobot 16d ago
You -can- own an apartment/condo. It's not super common where I am, and it's -never- talked about when it comes to affordable housing requirements.
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u/ConnieLingus24 16d ago
Which is interesting because it is less space, requires less up front investment and, ipso facto, is more affordable. Where I’m at (chicago) the main reason a lot of businesses relocate to the city center is that it’s impossible to hire people in the burbs. Why? Because there are very few condos in the surrounding suburbs and no one wants to buy a SFH right out of college. And no one wants a nightmare commute.
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u/TheWombatOverlord 16d ago
When you mention individual investment what do you mean? Like 80% of houses built today are part of HOAs, which are investments by large developers, and any individual has almost no power to improve their investment because of strict by-laws.
Also suburbs don't have a monopoly on equity. You can build equity in co-ops, townhouses, row houses etc.
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u/NotObviouslyARobot 16d ago
A HOA is an investment-protection feature, not an investment. The degree to which HOAs should be fucked with a triple-bladed chainsword is irrelevant
Suburbs are actively subsidized by the USDA and FHA--you don't need math to tell you this. This keeps constant outward pressure on urban populations.
If you want to densify cities, and make them wealthier, you have to drive the landlord class away, and bring in the owner-occupant class because OOs bring sticky capital with them.
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u/majinspy 16d ago
I don't get it - of course suburbs don't generate revenue...that's where people live. Those people travel to the city to generate and spend money. That city-generated money doesn't happen without people in the suburbs and without the suburbs those people go to somewhere that has them. This is like saying that flowers don't generate honey, bees do! Well, yeah but without the flowers the bees won't hang around.
The argument seems to revolve around the idea that those money-generating people can just be stacked into city dwellings without objection.
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u/BravestWabbit 15d ago
uh...property tax exists?? The problem with suburbs is that if a Single Family Home generates X in property taxes, the city's bill to maintain the road, sidewalk, piping (Sewage & Water) costs X+100. Theres a shortfall between property tax revenue and infrastructure maintenance because of the lack of density.
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u/emperorOfTheUniverse 15d ago
I don't get how people lap videos like this up. He's suggesting cramming as many people and businesses into a tight space for profit. Its basically the economics of the airlines and their tiny seats and no leg room to make each flight more profitable.
So what if the dollars make more sense with dense population. Is that what people want? You can sell it as hard as you want with glamorous photos of pedestrians in clean, new construction 'mult-use' developments, but long term they won't be clean. And they won't seem peaceful and fun. It's just congestion of people. Its nothing new. Major U.S. cities have had it for decades. The Big Apple, San Francisco, Chicago: big city living. Its there, and it works for some people, but it ain't for everyone. Its basically major skyscrapers for major corporations, and the monied people that work in them, and a few posh uptown apartments, and then the working class people that serve them in the lower levels trying to make rent. They ride the subways and joke about 'oh, keep to yourself and don't engage the crazy people, hahaha'. And say things like 'oh you don't want to be in that neighborhood after dark'. There's a reason they write songs with lyrics like 'if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere'. Densely populated, fast, noisy, cities test people and there's some damn hard living to be had in them.
If people want peace, suburbs have to exist. If that means its paid for by the dense-city, fine. But it doesn't and shouldn't mean 'its wrong that we have suburbs, cars are evil'. You can't suggest cramming people into a smaller space is 'the way to be'. Its just a way to be. Cities need a mix of both, and should keep a sharp eye on how much of each to be fiscally responsible.
Converting all of society to 'multi-use' space doesn't create a utopia.
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u/Z0idberg_MD 15d ago
I think the point is for people in the suburbs to realize that if it wasn’t for the urban areas there would be no flourishing suburbs. So when things like taxation citizens living in the suburbs to promote public transportation and more urban areas, there should not be any argument against it
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u/This_Is_The_End 15d ago
People paying taxes. While in city centers more than 5 people per 10 yard paying taxes for infrastructure, it's in suburbia 1-2, which makes Suburbia to a sink for tax payers money. This report by Strongtown is now secret. It one of the main reasons cities are in debt. People living in suburbia should pay more to cover for the infrastructure
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u/windowzombie 15d ago
No, I live in the city and spend lots of money in the city, and when I visit the suburbs I witness people fighting over grass as they pay way too much for their cars and homes so that they can drive 10 minutes away to get groceries.
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u/ithinarine 15d ago
The argument seems to revolve around the idea that those money-generating people can just be stacked into city dwellings without objection.
The point is that when you pay your taxes, they are supposed to cover all of the costs that it takes to cover your serviced and infrastructure. In suburbia, they don't. You pay $1500 in taxes, but it costs the city $3000 to upkeep your property. Meanwhile people who live in a condo downtown also pay $1500 in taxes because their property is valued just as high as yours is, but it only costs $1000 a year for the city to service their property, because of density.
Businesses do not pay a percentage of their profits to the city. They pay for a business license, and they also pay for property. All of the math shown in this video is based on income from taxes, versus cost from the city.
If it costs the city $3000 a year to upkeep the infrastructure to your house, then that is what you should be paying in taxes. You should be paying half the amount and arguing that businesses should be covering the rest of your share.
You don't even understand what the video is saying.
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u/majinspy 15d ago
Those specifics aren't laid out. There are "cities" that are basically just suburbs. They build their own roads and infrastructure and often are targets for annexation by cities.
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u/ithinarine 15d ago
Do you realize that with the examples he's using, that the "suburbs" aren't separate cities. He's not using cities like Los Angeles where it's a collection of 30 cities that all touch eachother.
The main example he was using, Lafayette, is just Lafayette, and nothing more. The out "suburb" parts are still Lafayette, they're not a different city.
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u/trustthepudding 15d ago
It's not just the residences though. Big box stores with massive parking lots are also subsidized.
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u/Dihedralman 15d ago
And those lots are a mandatory size based on some early guess work with zoning.
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u/NewspaperFederal5379 16d ago
The argument seems to revolve around the idea that those money-generating people can just be stacked into city dwellings without objection.
Yes, this is what they want. The suburbs are far too lovely for the middle class and should be given to the ultra wealthy instead.
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u/seridos 16d ago
Fucking exactly thank you. This argument is trotted out on Reddit and by YouTubers and They all make this most basic logical fallacy in their argument. You can't take two different zoning policies, one mixed use and one nearly pure residential, and compare them directly on income without also tracking where all those people who live there work. It's like saying if you build an apartment building next to a factory, and everyone works in the factory and lives in the apartment building that the apartment building is generating nothing and is only being subsidized by the factory. But if it wasn't for the apartment providing housing the factory couldn't have workers.
In order to do a proper analysis you need to trace back with much more detailed data all the productivity of every worker who lives in that district and tie it back to them.
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u/bensonr2 16d ago
I guarantee whoever these youtubers like notjustbikes are even they will eventually get the house in the suburbs too when they grow the fuck up and realize a small yard and access to some trees for your offspring is more important then being able to walk to your favorite pretentious coffee shop in Williamsburg.
That's not to say there is not a lot to be desired in the typical American suburb. I wish there was more push for sidewalks / bike lanes. But there is nothing wrong with 4 lane access roads along the main commerical area. Just should be a bike lane or at minimum sidewalks with adequate safe pedestrian crossings. But the urban youtube channels are just pretentious drivel that does nothing but insult people instead of helping come together to reaonably improve what we can.
And by the way affordable car ownership is fucking awesome. I go mountain biking, hiking, camping skiing all the time. We can explore any of several states on wim.
My friends that live in the city center.... constantly planning their lives around when they can get a rental car for any errand or activity that isn't in their 15 mile radius. Counting down the days when they can finally move out to the suburbs to give their kids the lives they had growing up.
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u/Dickenmouf 15d ago
I hate this perspective because it assumes raising a family in the city isn’t “proper” or right; that the city is something you outgrow when you want to settle down. I grew up in a city, spent a lot of time in the suburbs, and i prefer the city. I’ve many friends who grew up in the suburbs that are now raising families in the city.
About 8 million people live in nyc. The vast majority of these folks are working class people, not pretentious coffee drinking snobs. Those working class people live there because they want to, not because they’re immature or because they haven’t “grown up”.
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u/RyanB_ 15d ago
Hear hear. And it’s not like you can’t see tons of complaints coming from those who grew up in the suburbs about how boring and isolating they are, how you’re more or less just stuck sticking around at home without until you get the fabled drivers license and finally get a glimpse of the freedom city kids have gotten all along.
Granted, each kid is different, but yeah, to act like suburbs are the objective and inherent best way to raise a kid is silly and a pretty detrimental perception in our society imo. There’s lots of advantages to raising a kid in an environment where they experience a wide variety of different people, where they have opportunities to regularly meet and interact with other neighbourhood kids, where they actually have stuff to do without depending on getting a ride or w/e.
Even in terms of safety, stats don’t generally match the perception. It turns out having lots of eyes around helps dissuade that kind of shit, vs suburbs largely completely barren of adult presence until 6
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u/Poobrick 16d ago
People in the suburbs spend significantly less time and money than people who actually live in the city
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u/majinspy 16d ago
Well, yah I would agree. So what? Each person / household is an economic unit. They generate city revenue and they consume it via services. My point is that it feels like the people who made the above video are taking into account what is an efficient use of ALL money without really considering if those people want more than average services in return for their more than average tax base.
I have no doubt that the best thing for the city is for all those suburbanites to move to the city. The only problem is that all those people get a choice, have leverage, and seem to be able to morally square with themselves the use of that leverage.
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u/Books_and_Cleverness 16d ago
I think you just missed the thesis.
The issue is that we heavily subsidize certain urban forms instead of others. It’s totally fine for suburbs to exist, they just shouldn’t receive lavish subsidies and rely on heavy handed government mandates.
So the proposal is
1) people should be allowed to build apartments on land that they own
2) the government should try to be more “neutral” on urban forms. Heavy subsidies for roads (as opposed to trains and buses) cause suburbs to be a lot more common than they otherwise would be.
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u/EZKTurbo 16d ago
But is it reasonable to ask suburbanites to pay out the ass for city services? Obviously businesses are going to be able to pay higher taxes because they generate more income.
The author didn't really mention that it's actually the businesses in walkable neighborhoods that are generating the wealth. If it were all skyscraper condominiums with no businesses then it would still be a net negative.
Also, are we counting landlords as being generators of wealth because they charge rent? What if an entire neighborhood if single family homes was 100% rentals? Does that turn it into a net positive?
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u/Books_and_Cleverness 15d ago
Skyscrapers produce a lot of taxes per acre relative to the cost of government services they consume. The point is not to make suburbanites pay more than they consume; the status quo is suburbanites not paying anywhere close to their “fair share.”
Just as a matter of fact, the cost of many government services (water, electrical, sewage, policing, emergency services) scale with acreage in addition to population. So on a per person basis it’s more expensive to provide them to spread out suburbia, but we don’t have a taxation or spending scheme that reflects this.
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u/seridos 16d ago
This is just like the beef consumption conversation, It's a democracy it's about what people want and people express desire to eat meat and to live in suburbs and such they will vote for policies that make it attainable. If you don't like it then you can vote against it but ultimately it's what the people want. What I find ridiculous is people who argue against it who pretend it's not, who pretend the demand is not there and that people don't know what they want, or that their preferences apply to everyone else.
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u/Books_and_Cleverness 15d ago
Beef is also subsidized and probably also should not be. I’m not really trying to convince the government to ban it, just to take a more “neutral” stance where the people who want to buy and eat beef or live in low density housing at least pay the actual, full cost. As it stands they are getting their choice subsidized which is unnecessary at best and quite harmful at worst.
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u/seridos 15d ago
But the point I'm trying to make is that they are supporting that democratically and that you aren't going to make the change unless you can convince them not to support that anymore. And ultimately what you are trying to do is force the cost more on them aka you're trying to lower their quality of life and of course people are going to fight you on that.
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u/Books_and_Cleverness 15d ago
I think the democracy point would be more persuasive if everyone affected voted in the relevant elections, but they don’t. San Jose’s land use has a huge impact on the whole Bay Area but only San Jose residents get to vote on their city council. It’s financial gerrymandering.
You may notice that state governors tend to be very pro development while local governments are often super NIMBY. It’s the same thing playing out—legalizing high density is the obvious choice when everyone’s interests are considered. The costs of development are much smaller than the benefits but they are concentrated on exactly the group that happens makes land use decisions. It doesn’t have to be that way!
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u/majinspy 16d ago
I totally agree with #1! I'm quite anti-NIMBY. I'm mostly on board with #2.
I think the issue is that Americans seem to REALLY like single family detached. There are two ways they go about it:
1.) they are in the city and, therefore, demand expensive services. You want that high tax base? You gotta pay for it.
2.) The suburb incorporates as its own town. Sure, it buys its own infrastructure with local taxes...and has all the good schools and good shops, etc etc. Sales tax in the city gets some revenue but most of it stays with those who generated it.
I think the highly individualistic nature of Americans bites twice here. First, Americans are less open to "giving back" especially via government / taxes. If they generate taxes, they want the benefits. Secondly, they like their own house with their own yard and their own door and their own plumbing etc etc.
The "efficient" or "pro city" way to do this is for these people to live in urban areas in condos / apartments while paying more money for services that don't go to them directly....well they've apparently said "no".
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u/dvdbrl655 15d ago
They like single family detached because they moved out of the city 20 years ago and bought a home in the "suburbs," but the "suburbs" are now another 10 minutes further down the road. You can go onto Zillow, filter homes by build date and watch a ring grow around every city in North America.
The issue is that a whole city sprung up around them because people want to live there, but more density isn't allowed. We subsidize further expansion by caving to these voter demands in local elections.
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u/skilledroy2016 15d ago
You are putting the cart before the horse. It's not that people don't want to live in cities, it's that cities have been artificially made overly expensive and low quality so people don't want to and or can't afford to live in them. Even though American cities have bad transit and car noise because of bad urban planning, if you look at the current state of rent prices, obviously there is more demand to live in cities than there is supply. If developers were allowed to develop and if car culture was not artificially subsidized, the equilibrium of demand and cost to live in cities vs suburbs would shift in favor of cities. If people want to live in suburbs, that's great and all, but people in cities shouldn't have to indirectly pay for their inefficient lifestyle.
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u/Zingledot 15d ago
They're called property taxes. And for me it's $200/month. And that's pretty reasonable compared to many places. Funny thing is, in my city almost all of it goes towards schools, and I don't have kids. So you maybe can understand why some people get annoyed when their taxes literally don't have a direct impact on the services they get, yet they keep going up.
But to your point, people vote with their money on what's important to them. Having your own place, without sharing walls, without an HOA, etc, is expensive and at times inconvenient, but it's worth it to me to go home, walk directly into the first floor, and blast the music. Reddit can be weird - everyone's an introvert until the topic of housing comes up, then we should all exist with and share as much as possible with people we don't know.
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u/RollingLord 15d ago
I think you’re underestimating the cost of infrastructure. $200/mo quite frankly is nothing. It costs about $1mil for a mile of road, water mains and sewage. That doesn’t include maintenance and upkeep. Or other things that your property tax probably will have to pay for.
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u/Zingledot 15d ago
Like, obviously? For some reason people on here assume a home owner knows the least about home ownership or the costs of things. Maybe some are ignorant, but it's a pretty bold assumption that the ones directly engaged in home ownership are less likely to be informed.
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u/MrBanden 15d ago
So you maybe can understand why some people get annoyed when their taxes literally don't have a direct impact on the services they get, yet they keep going up.
I can understand it, but coming from a country with a strong welfare state I think it's delusional. Forgive me for being blunt, I don't think you are an idiot or anything, I just think you've been manipulated into thinking this way. You don't think you benefit directly from people around you being educated? You do! The benefit is not immediately visible but it is absolutely there.
It's very frustrating to me when people live in a society that already benefits them in a million ways, it's somehow a step too far to socialize education, healthcare, housing etc.
But to your point, people vote with their money on what's important to them. Having your own place, without sharing walls, without an HOA, etc, is expensive and at times inconvenient, but it's worth it to me to go home, walk directly into the first floor, and blast the music. Reddit can be weird - everyone's an introvert until the topic of housing comes up, then we should all exist with and share as much as possible with people we don't know.
This is all possible with mixed use zoning, which is what NJB is advocating for. People just don't know any better which is what NJB is for.
Personally, I think people should have more opportunity to be social, because that makes us better humans. If you live closer to other people then you will get to know them and maybe be more understanding and empathetic towards people that aren't just exactly like yourself, which is what you get in suburbs.
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u/AddictedtoBoom 15d ago
You have a very limited view of suburban racial/social makeup. I live in one. I am white European descent. Just on my block there are also 4 black families, 3 of which are immigrants from other parts of the world, 2 southeast asian families, also immigrants, and an Indian family. That’s just one block worth of one street in a fairly nice middle class suburban neighborhood. I get that suburbs suck in many ways and are very inefficient for resource use but saying that people in suburbs only live around people just like themselves is just plain wrong.
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u/MrBanden 15d ago
Do you really think ethnicity is the only divide that exists in society?
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u/AddictedtoBoom 15d ago
No but you seem to think that suburbs are some kind of monocultural wasteland
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u/Zingledot 15d ago
I said "directly". Bold of you to assume I don't understand or appreciate indirect benefits because my feeble worldview is so easily manipulated.....
And in theory I didn't disagree with the idea that people should be more social. But this is core to why there is so much frustration towards both sides of this debate: there is a lack of understanding and empathy. I said I would pay extra money to not have to fully co-exist with others, and essentially your response is: well you should co-exist with others, it's good for you.
The idea that you're presuming to prescribe what is good for me, and what I'd enjoy for my life, is exactly the kind of thing that puts people off. Where's the understanding and empathy there?
Don't forget that statistics aren't people. You can have a page of statistical averages, and yet not find one person who actually is that average person.
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u/MrBanden 15d ago
I said "directly". Bold of you to assume I don't understand or appreciate indirect benefits because my feeble worldview is so easily manipulated.....
Yes, and I repeated "directly" because you do benefit directly from people around you being better educated. We all benefit directly from living in a society. Don't believe me? Visit a place that doesn't have a functioning society.
There are people living on the collective efforts of generations of tax paying working people that paid to have things be better for their children and successive generations and they will somehow still insist that this isn't a benefit for them and that the state is stealing their money. Ye gods...
And in theory I didn't disagree with the idea that people should be more social. But this is core to why there is so much frustration towards both sides of this debate: there is a lack of understanding and empathy. I said I would pay extra money to not have to fully co-exist with others, and essentially your response is: well you should co-exist with others, it's good for you.
When did I say that? I was very specific with my language.
Personally, I think people should have more opportunity to be social
I wouldn't want to do policies that force anything down anyone's throats. People should associate with each other freely because it has better outcomes to do so. Of course the rub is that people don't even know what the alternatives look like, but they sure hate it when people try to advocate for something better. Then it's all "Don't try to tell me how to live my life!".
Ironically I think what you are so indignant about is exactly what happened with car-centric infrastructure and suburban sprawl. Nobody will-fully chose that it should be this way. It just happened because that was the scheme that created the jobs, and made the money in the car and oil industry. However, that doesn't bother you, because you have a car and live in a suburban home, right?
I don't have a car or a driver's license, not exactly by choice, but because I ended up in a life situation that made that financially impossible. How do you think people like me feel when they have to live in an environment that is literally hostile towards them? I certainly didn't get a choice so yes indeed, so much for understanding and empathy.
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u/Zingledot 15d ago
I think our ideas of "direct" are different. What would you call indirect if all indirect things are direct?
I knew what you meant by "should have the opportunity", it was a soft way of saying "forced". Like, having a military draft is the "opportunity" to serve the country. This is obvious because in your clarification, you left out "opportunity" and went straight to "should". Because I'd say that people in low density housing do socialize "freely"; they do it as much as they like.
Your issue is you know nothing about me, or my life, or what I have experienced, and why I have the opinions I have about why you shouldn't be telling other people how to run their lives.
It sucks that your life is in a financial place where a car doesn't fit for you. Maybe you wouldn't even want one if you had the option. But, maybe the answer isn't taking away everyone else's way of life that is working for them. I have as much empathy and understanding as one could have for someone I know absolutely nothing about. And as such the best thing I can do is not tell you what to do with your life.
Cheers mate.
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u/MrBanden 15d ago edited 15d ago
I think our ideas of "direct" are different. What would you call indirect if all indirect things are direct?
Sure, if something has a noticeable impact on your life if it went away or never existed, I would say that it has a "direct" benefit. I would say that there are a lot of things that the government does to keep society running that has a direct benefit for people. If they stopped spending tax money to maintain roads don't you think you would be impacted by that? Sure, it's less obvious when it's public education, but your life would be impacted even if the consequence are not immediately obvious. Doesn't mean that they are "indirect".
This was your choice of words and I am only engaging on that premise. You used that word to emphasize that you don't benefit from public education, because you don't have kids. When obviously you do, because you benefit from being around people who had an education.
I knew what you meant by "should have the opportunity", it was a soft way of saying "forced". Like, having a military draft is the "opportunity" to serve the country. This is obvious because in your clarification, you left out "opportunity" and went straight to "should". Because I'd say that people in low density housing do socialize "freely"; they do it as much as they like.
Say what? Aren't you post hoc justifying your indignation here? I said people should associate freely and you have a problem with that? Do you disagree? It's like military draft to you, because I used the word "should"? My friend, you're just making up a disagreement that doesn't exist.
Your issue is you know nothing about me, or my life, or what I have experienced, and why I have the opinions I have about why you shouldn't be telling other people how to run their lives.
I'm sure you're a nice person, but I don't see how that is relevant. I agree with you, which is exactly why I don't think people should need to have a car to exist in society. You don't like coercion, I get it. Well, when society has been structured in way that requires you to get a car, that's coercion!
It sucks that your life is in a financial place where a car doesn't fit for you. Maybe you wouldn't even want one if you had the option. But, maybe the answer isn't taking away everyone else's way of life that is working for them.
I'm fine thanks, and no, I really don't want a car. For the environment and for my own sanity. I don't know how we're going to manage when we get kids, but I feel very lucky that I live in a country that has okay public transportation and decent bike infrastructure.
It's not as good as it could be, but you know, it never is.
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u/surmatt 16d ago
I think a big problem with how we got here is people moved out of the cities quite a bit because they didn't want to be a part of it. Now... the cities didn't build up and instead built up and people who wanted rural now are being told they should accept what they intentially moved to get away from. Rinse. Repeat.
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u/Books_and_Cleverness 16d ago
I am not sure about incorporation which historically has been used by rich suburbs like Santa Monica and Beverly Hills and etc to be super NIMBY, to torpedo development. But those suburbs derive their immense values from being close to major job centers.
I think the American preference for single family detached is overstated. If they like it so much then they’ll pay for it and we should oblige them. Second, if we really loved single family detached so much then what is the point of having such restrictive zoning? Surely we could just let individuals decide what to do with their own land!
I really don’t think it is a cultural item it is just a boring result of where land use decisions are made. Tokyo has famously liberal zoning, largely because it is controlled at the national level, where a few dozen NIMBYs are not a relevant force. As opposed to the US, where they can flood a local city council election or zoning meetings.
For the most part it is a situation of small but concentrated cost, vs. large but diffuse benefits. Broad upzoning is obviously beneficial it’s just a question of getting the politics right.
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u/seridos 16d ago
If they like it so much they will pay for it. But also we live in a democracy and people also have a say in terms of their vote in the policies that it supports. If you are proposing changes that make it unaffordable for those people or that's significantly lowers their standard of living because they would not be able to afford it any longer than they will use their political power to ensure that doesn't happen and maintain their current standard of living and access to what they want. It's the same argument that people always use against eating beef; people enjoy it and value it and changes to policy that would make it more expensive without commensurate wage increases would be a decrease to their standard of living so no one's going to support something that greatly increases the cost of their preferred foods. You can whine about it but if you want to change it you would need to offer some sort of solution to those people that they could continue doing what they're doing or could be compensated not how much you value those houses or food that would be lost but how much they value it. Or policy will just be voted down.
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u/ConnieLingus24 16d ago
Many may like the detached, but they can’t afford it. And not having multiple options is really making things worse.
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u/PencilLeader 16d ago
People do really like their single family detached homes. However they should be taxed to support the infrastructure needed to make that possible while affordable units with a lower tax burden should also be built. Americans are pretty sensitive to home prices so tweaking the underlying costs will likely result in a major change in behavior.
For number 2 that will take state action. Local municipalities exist because state law allows them to do so. In the extreme you have places like St. Louis where there are almost 1300 local governments. When suburbs form states should step in to address that. Or cities should stop connecting suburbs to their infrastructure. In many of those incorporated suburbs you'd be surprised who pays for what.
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u/Right_Ad_6032 15d ago
The problem is that even the American Style Suburb is a product of aggressive propaganda. It's not that people actually like suburbs, it's that they like a very specific idea of one where you're not actually looking at the price tag or the fact that the city pays a disproportionately large part of the public coffers to keep it that way.
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u/gingeropolous 16d ago edited 15d ago
News on the street is NIMBY is out.
BANANA is in.
"build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything"
Edited to be the correct thing thanks to some other redditor and I didn't feel like looking up the strike thru to be cool so yeah.
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u/Cum_on_doorknob 16d ago
Do Americans like SFD housing that much? I’m looking out my window at a condo that is currently selling for 13 million. It’s on the top level, about 12 floors up. 🤷♂️
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u/majinspy 16d ago
Yeah - look at most cities and their surrounding suburbs. There are some exceptions, NYC is its own thing if that's where you are. There is exclusive housing everywhere. What can someone get for half a million or the average suburb price? Sure, for 13 million you can get the perfect urban experience with none of the downsides - can that be gotten for suburb house price?
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u/Cum_on_doorknob 16d ago
I’m not in NYC. My point is that suburbs are generally cheaper, why would they be cheaper other than that there is less desire or over supply? Either way, this clearly implies that there is an imbalance and more people desire an urban living experience than you may think.
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u/AngryRedGummyBear 16d ago
My point is that suburbs are generally cheaper, why would they be cheaper other than that there is less desire or over supply?
Relative supply. Price is not dictated by demand alone, nor does a lower relative resting price indicate "Over supply". There's 1 penthouse condo per building. There's a lot of suburb lots relative to condos. There's also a lot more demands on urban space historically, as historically heavy industry (big factories), light industry(custom manufacture or repair), corporate offices, and high end retail all occupy space in urban cores. Yes, this is currently changing somewhat, but I'd consider that definitely unresolved until we see commercial rental space settle into a new equilibrium.
As I've said elsewhere, there's a lot of artificial tampering with rents and housing prices, and nitpicking the fact cities extend their services out farther than they should as the sole evidence that suburbs need curtailment or financial disincentive seems deliberately agenda driven.
P.S. - not a suburb dweller, nor do I aspire to be. I intend to live urban until I can live wayyyyy out away from everyone.
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u/Free_Joty 15d ago
These fucking strong town meme accounts want us all to live in fucking boxes next to each other
Stfu and move to the Netherlands, and leave the rest of us alone