Why do people like the Suburbs?

[hym 358]

Most individuals do not commute that long. Less than 0.5% of Americans commute 3 hours per day or more. Among that less than 0.5 percent, the majority are only doing this temporarily or are working in incredibly high value jobs that make the commute worth it.

[hamsterTK 93]

I guess because my brain is permanently wired to doing things with GIS and mapping technology and thinking analytically about the spatial environment, I can't help but say it's actually kind of complicated to ask how open the suburbs, the city, or the countryside really is.

 

Imagine if you were a robot with robot vision. The spaces you are allowed to inhabit, because either it is your own house or yard, or a public park, are shaded green. The spaces you are "invited" to but have limited freedom in, such as a friends house or a shopping center, are shaded yellow. The spaces which are off limits, like your neighbor's backyard, are shaded red. The colors gradually fade in a radius of how far you can travel in 10 minutes on foot.

 

Based on where you are standing right now, how much green, yellow, and red would a map show? What would it look like in a city? A suburb? A rural area?

 

I stand by my theory that if you lived in a friendly, low crime medium-density inner suburb where you had your own backyard but were within walking or convenient driving distance of parks and retail and public amenities, your amount of "freedom" is maximized.

[Meg 368]

 

I stand by my theory that if you lived in a friendly, low crime medium-density inner suburb where you had your own backyard but were within walking or convenient driving distance of parks and retail and public amenities, your amount of "freedom" is maximized.

 

Not a bad theory but the mere existence of backyards means there isn't as much within walking distance.   Backyards take up a lot of space.

 

And there is a problem with "retail".    A lot of retail these days involves the so-called big box stores.   They tend to cluster together but are rarely within walking distance.     and the residential areas within walking distance rarely have backyards.

 

Of course, there are smaller retail stores.  I live within walking distance of a neighborhood shopping center that has a grocery store, several restaurants, dry cleaner, hair salon, bank, etc.

 

I'm still working on having "friendly, low crime" and "inner" in the same sentence.   Much of the reason to move to the outer suburbs is to get away from the crime.

 

On a somewhat different note, some people are upset that our neighborhood recently acquired a bus route.  Buses allow "bad elements" to travel to the neighborhood.   There is also the point of view that, if an area needs a bus route, it's too congested to live in.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

The idea that an area is too congested to live in if it has a bus route is antiquated and depending on the situation could even be dangerous. I have yet to state this here but suburban sprawl is bad for the environment and should be replaced with a combination of medium density mixed use urban areas (with grocers, retailers, services, schools, and government buildings available to walk to) and agriculture and parks. Low density bedroom communities far away from any major sources of employment should be razed and replaced with (state) parks, wilderness, or productive agricultural areas, depending. Low density inner suburbs close enough to shopping, schools, and employers should be redeveloped to eliminate the need for cars. This means putting places to shop and places to work closer to places to live.

I also think that new, clean industry and new, clean energy production facilities (such as Gen IV Nuclear Power Plants, Wind Farms and Solar Farms) should also be placed in areas where there is currently unsustainable suburban sprawl. I also think that building and developing in unstable land (such as those prone to flooding, mudslides, etc) should be prohibited and things built there should be razed in order to prevent such disasters as the giant mudslide near Arlington, WA. I think that certain suburban cities/jurisdictions should be eliminated (replaced with parks/wilderness). Lastly, I think that the state lines should be redrawn to remove Wyoming (so that there will be Yellowstone Territory for where Yellowstone National Park is and everything else will join the neighboring states) because it gets far too much representation in the Senate and Electoral College.

Suburban sprawl is a relic of the World Wars, when people fled the cities to the countryside to protect themselves from bombs. This was an era before environmentalism existed and few people knew that fuel would be running out shortly.

--Ocram

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

There is no public transit of any kind in this area.  I have a permanent arrangement with a Seniors' (subsidized) transportation group that supplies volunteer drivers for which I pay nominal fees for certain things like doctor's appointments and limited shopping trips to the next town.  The nearest big city is London, Ontario and it cost me around fifty bucks for a return trip to a doctor's appointment there which are few and far between.  My personal physician is in the next town and I get there for about eight dollars.  Because weekly shopping trips are in a shared vehicle, I get charged only five dollars for that.  This whole arrangement, by the way, works out to less than the insurance premium on the car I don't own any more.

[flatron 83]

There is no public transit of any kind in this area.

Not even a bus? Oh.

That's really bad, I mean, I love driving, and it is fun(especially doing 200km/h), but it's also stressy and if you come to a certain age, it becomes even more dangerous for the other people on the road(No offense to you, but there are old people "senior citizens" that drive 60km/h out of town (100 allowed) and 70 in town(50 allowed). Additionally, they tend to drive like sleepwalkers, doing what they've always done, even though the intersection where they'd always turn left is now grade separated and they end up driving in the wrong direction on an expressway)

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

's OK.  I haven't driven since I lost my right eye more than 30 years ago.  I live in a farming area and population of my town is less than 1200.

[flatron 83]

's OK.  I haven't driven since I lost my right eye more than 30 years ago.  I live in a farming area and population of my town is less than 1200.

I know villages with 6 inhabitants that get a bus service

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Some states are richer than others.

[flatron 83]

I wouldn't call Germany richer than Canada or the US of A. It's just a matter of how you spend your money. The beautiful country I call home doesn't spend enough on transport and infrastructure, though. Instead of building even more Autobahns, the state should finally invest more in repairing the existing ones and upgrading the rail infrastructure.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I displayed a general garment and you immediately put it on?

[flatron 83]

It looked like it was fitting.

 

[hym 358]

The idea that an area is too congested to live in if it has a bus route is antiquated and depending on the situation could even be dangerous. I have yet to state this here but suburban sprawl is bad for the environment and should be replaced with a combination of medium density mixed use urban areas (with grocers, retailers, services, schools, and government buildings available to walk to) and agriculture and parks. Low density bedroom communities far away from any major sources of employment should be razed and replaced with (state) parks, wilderness, or productive agricultural areas, depending. Low density inner suburbs close enough to shopping, schools, and employers should be redeveloped to eliminate the need for cars. This means putting places to shop and places to work closer to places to live.

 

There are a couple of problems with this.

 

First, if you start needlessly restricting the real estate that can be developed for residential purposes, you start artificially increasing the cost of living.  Considering living accommodations are often an individual's/family's most significant expense, most can ill afford for their government to start instituting policies that drive those costs higher.  In general, it is better for individuals for land to be as dirt cheap as possible, as it allows them to acquire the living space they need for minimum cost.

 

Second, it becomes logistically challenging to cluster everyone together when one considers certain critical assets necessary for maintenance of modern society.  Your food is grown using fertilizers that generate cyanide during their production.  Many of your consumer products are made with plastics that require chlorine while others require feeding the intermediates at near Mach 1 velocities into explosion chambers.  Your car is built using plastics that require the creation of chemical warfare agents.  The gasoline you put in your vehicle requires the production of suffocating agents and utilizes high strength acids, both of which are capable of going airborne during production upsets.

 

There is absolutely no way that we are going to accept a world where we don't have the luxuries that are permitted by these processes.  At the same time, there is nearly universal agreement that these facilities need to be located away from major development areas to minimize the possibility of incidents endangering a lot of people.  At the same time, one cannot expect these workers to drive ridiculous distances to get to their jobs (and these facilities are often some of the country's most valuable employers).  That means low density cities will have to be built around these facilities, which means pockets of sprawl here, there, and everywhere that one of these facilities exists.  Add in necessary support infrastructure and economies of scale favoring placing many of these facilities in close proximity, and we start returning to the current state of people being sprawled out everywhere.

[flatron 83]

I don't get why low density and public transport are always seen as incompatible. It is no problem for a normal person to walk or bike a kilometre or two. As we all know, driving makes you fat and ugly.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Depends on what you are driving.  I've yet to see a fat, lazy plain person.  They do drive horse and buggy, however.

[hamsterTK 93]

It's uncommon for there to be a lot of master planning and top-down control. Especially not in the USA.

 

I would say each level of government also has different abilities for creating policy tools. Zoning, eminent domain, and what constitutes a taking is determined by the outcome of historic supreme court cases. All urban planning policies are evolved from this

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:United_States_land_use_case_law

 

On the other hand, the relationship between municipalities and states is called "Dillons Rule", the state has the power over cities; it is NOT like the 10th amendment. So I think a state could in theory have a statewide planning initiative influencing only incorporated areas...also some states enable the creation of special districts through an act of legislature- everything from transit to a municipal utility district. Sometimes the latter is a kind of "city-lite" here in unincorporated suburban Texas...

 

Also from the other perspective development is done from the top-down, where a new subdivision is located is decided on by a builder who is using money from a big investment fund(like teacher retirement) and promising a profit. Developers don't really think about "hmm what would be a good spot that doesn't ruin the environment or overwhelm roads" and then ask for the money later, and if your zoning is too strict that goes into their calculations as another cost and a parcel of land may sit unbuilt.

 

So really taken all together to make a big difference in how our communities are built requires a big complicated assemblage of laws. Or something really cunningly creative, like a law to protect groundwater by limiting pervious cover...you could effectively stop sprawl with that I think, but only in limited cases.

 

Personally I wish the US at the federal level had a national urban policy imperative, since demographically and economically we are an urban country.We do have Community Development Block Grants. Of course our entire political system gives a big advantage to rural areas because of the way we elect our senate, and how big each congressional district is. It's hard to imagine this being a reality.

 

On the other hand, big cities have had success by going it alone. Even individual neighborhoods using Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones(TIRZs) can do projects. In Kansas City there is an urban streetcar/light rail project which will be paid entirely by a coalition of downtown property owners who voted to tax themselves.

[Duke87 1,070]

Imagine if you were a robot with robot vision. The spaces you are allowed to inhabit, because either it is your own house or yard, or a public park, are shaded green. The spaces you are "invited" to but have limited freedom in, such as a friends house or a shopping center, are shaded yellow. The spaces which are off limits, like your neighbor's backyard, are shaded red. The colors gradually fade in a radius of how far you can travel in 10 minutes on foot.

 

Based on where you are standing right now, how much green, yellow, and red would a map show? What would it look like in a city? A suburb? A rural area?

 

It seems to me this would largely be dictated by the number and size of streets nearby, since streets are by far the biggest use of public real estate by area in any city.

 

But then, I also don't think it's really fair to measure by area, since area does not correlate to opportunity. Think about it this way: what offers you more variety, one big store occupying 10,000 square feet, or ten different stores occupying 1,000 square feet each? It's not so much how much space is available that matters as it is how the available space is used.

 

Personally I wish the US at the federal level had a national urban policy imperative, since demographically and economically we are an urban country.We do have Community Development Block Grants. Of course our entire political system gives a big advantage to rural areas because of the way we elect our senate, and how big each congressional district is. It's hard to imagine this being a reality.

 

This desire ignores the fact that different cities want some very different things and some of them would really not appreciate any unnecessary federal meddling in their affairs.

Indeed, the fact that different cities in the US are so different is a feature, not a bug. Don't mess with it. Variety is the spice of life and all.

 

On the other hand, big cities have had success by going it alone. Even individual neighborhoods using Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones(TIRZs) can do projects. In Kansas City there is an urban streetcar/light rail project which will be paid entirely by a coalition of downtown property owners who voted to tax themselves.

 

It always amazes me how in some parts of the country, cities and metro areas will voluntarily accept a local tax hike to help pay for local infrastructure. New York has a payroll tax on the metro NYC area within the state to help fund public transit operating costs, and while people in the city don't terribly mind, the suburban counties hate it and keep trying to get it done away with.

 

Of course, residents of New York City also pay a higher income tax than residents of the rest of the state, for the purpose of funding... nothing in particular. It's just a source of general revenue. We also pay higher sales tax for the same reason. Tough to raise taxes on a city to fund infrastructure when the city is already paying higher taxes, eh?

 

As for the question of where all that money is going, well... consider that New York City is home to more people than most states. So, perhaps appropriately, the city government in New York is locally responsible for many things that would otherwise be handled by the state. Of course, we pay the same taxes to the state despite receiving less money back from Albany than the rest of the state does.

[hamsterTK 93]

But then, I also don't think it's really fair to measure by area, since area does not correlate to opportunity. Think about it this way: what offers you more variety, one big store occupying 10,000 square feet, or ten different stores occupying 1,000 square feet each? It's not so much how much space is available that matters as it is how the available space is used.

 

 

I guess my thought exercise was mainly intended as a counter-point to the argument that the physical urban environment is less "open" than a rural environment or suburban environment.

 

People in urban or rural areas are more or less free to do different things based on what opportunities their environment provides.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

I live on the edge of two townships. i prefer smaller quiet cities rather than big noisy cities.

[Mr Saturn64 742]

So I went into Philadelphia today.  I'd like to tell of what I observed.  I drove down Chestnut Street through West Philadelphia, which is the most underrated place on the planet.    There were plenty of people.  Diversity.  People were walking down the streets conversing, riding skateboards (whoever danced on their skateboard; you are awesome), and the kids were playing baseball in a sandlot.  Sadly, there were some black marks.  There were people doing drugs in the side streets (a simple glance out the window shows this), and there's this abandoned church there that breaks my heart to see.  I visited Center City's Rodin Museum, where there was all sorts of diversity, in the people and Rodin's work.  I went to the massive, lovely Cathedral Basilica of Ss. Peter and Paul, which had many different people in there.  Out in the burbs.... vacant yards, no lights on.  Yeah.