19 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

For places like NYC, this topic of the costs of cars and whether going without one frees up a significant amount of budget to live in high-cost, high-density areas is one thing.

 

In most Ohio cities, though, even people who live in the heart of the urban cores cannot realistically go car-free.  Yes, some can.  But it's a sliver of the population and not easy for others to duplicate; the "low-hanging fruit" in terms of people who can live like that in Ohio cities probably already do.  My confident guess is that even most people living in downtown Cleveland own (or lease) cars.  Car ownership is not just for sprawlburbs in Ohio.

 

Going car-lite does save you money on gas, fluid changes, filters, brakes and depreciation (somewhat since miles stay low) but tires are pretty much no good after 5 years despite mileage. Batteries and brake fluid also have a time limit. Don't let people tell you that the fluids are trash after a few months due to water absorption -- that takes years.

10 hours ago, DEPACincy said:

cities that continue to sprawl will face a reckoning

 

 

31 minutes ago, GCrites80s said:

 

Going car-lite

 

Bicycles + bus fares can get fairly expensive.  If you already own a car, riding a bike to work doesn't save you much money. 

 

If you don't own a car you need two bikes so that you have one working bike while the opposite is in the shop. 

 

 

Working on bikes is way easier than cars. I've been working on bikes even longer than cars. Eff working on derailleurs though.

13 hours ago, DEPACincy said:

 

What are you even arguing? Who here said that any new growth is sprawl? Sprawl is low density, auto-oriented growth at the edge of a city or metro. New, mixed use, dense development is not sprawl. TOD is not sprawl. When your geographic footprint is increasing rapidly while population is growing more slowly or not at all, that's sprawl.

What I'm arguing, which I have been from the beginning, and that you originally responded to, is that population growth is pretty much the most important thing for a city.  You are always going to have low density edge development because there will always be a market for it.  Believe it or not, not all humans are the same, and some have different preferences than you.  While I enjoy city living, I understand that some prefer not to live on top of other people and want space.  That will never stop being a thing.  I have friends living in Chicago that now want to move to Columbus for more space because of the pandemic lockdown making them realize how little they actually like their small condo in Wrigleyville.  As long as you have the associated population growth, the density and infrastructure will work itself out.  You run into major problems when you have stagnation and decline and this applies to dense city infrastructure as well.

10 hours ago, DEPACincy said:

 

Yes my friend lives in an apartment and I have more space.

You're proving my original point that in order to live a comparable life, you would need to be rich.  If I want to move to Manhattan, I would need to downsize considerably.  The whole "getting to live in Manhattan" argument is a different debate entirely.  That's just a matter of preference on whether that downsize is worth it.

9 hours ago, Gramarye said:

For places like NYC, this topic of the costs of cars and whether going without one frees up a significant amount of budget to live in high-cost, high-density areas is one thing.

 

In most Ohio cities, though, even people who live in the heart of the urban cores cannot realistically go car-free.  Yes, some can.  But it's a sliver of the population and not easy for others to duplicate; the "low-hanging fruit" in terms of people who can live like that in Ohio cities probably already do.  My confident guess is that even most people living in downtown Cleveland own (or lease) cars.  Car ownership is not just for sprawlburbs in Ohio.

 

Many of them keep a car parked somewhere outside of downtown, usually near the Rapid or a bus line for use on weekends. But the person who uses their car every day spends less per mile on all the costs of car ownership/leasing and operations than the person who uses their car only on weekends. Granted, a person who uses their car only on weekends spends less in total. I know of some people who rent cars on weekends because of the good rates but they don't own their own car.

1 hour ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

You're proving my original point that in order to live a comparable life, you would need to be rich.  If I want to move to Manhattan, I would need to downsize considerably.  The whole "getting to live in Manhattan" argument is a different debate entirely.  That's just a matter of preference on whether that downsize is worth it.

 

My life is not different in any meaningful way now that I own a house in Cincinnati than it was when I lived in an apartment in Philly. Except now I have rooms I don't use and I have to drive places instead of taking a train. I also walk less, which sucks. 

 

But you didn't say "comparable life" whatever that means.  You said only ultra rich can afford to live in those places. Which is news to all of the very happy, not-ultra rich people who live in big cities. 

1 hour ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

What I'm arguing, which I have been from the beginning, and that you originally responded to, is that population growth is pretty much the most important thing for a city.  You are always going to have low density edge development because there will always be a market for it.  Believe it or not, not all humans are the same, and some have different preferences than you.  While I enjoy city living, I understand that some prefer not to live on top of other people and want space.  That will never stop being a thing.  I have friends living in Chicago that now want to move to Columbus for more space because of the pandemic lockdown making them realize how little they actually like their small condo in Wrigleyville.  As long as you have the associated population growth, the density and infrastructure will work itself out.  You run into major problems when you have stagnation and decline and this applies to dense city infrastructure as well.

 

Most people actually do not prefer "low density edge development." If you look at Pew and Gallup surveys, most people want walkable communities close to amenities and the urban core. But we're not building those communities quickly enough to accommodate demand. We provide all kinds of market distorting incentives for new development on the periphery and make it extremely hard to allow new development near downtown. I live in a single family detached house in a neighborhood with lots that average about 2,000 square feet. It is mostly single family houses but there are apartment buildings sprinkled throughout. However, the current zoning only allows single-family detached houses and has a MINIMUM of 2,000 square feet. So many of the houses, and all of the apartments, could not be replicated under today's zoning. If we rolled back zoning regulations we could allow two or three times more density (or more!) in most cities and slow edge development considerably. The market would take care of it because the distortion would be lessened. And it would be way more sustainable. Building lots of new housing where infrastructure already exists, and where demand is high, would save us tons in the long run, and it would help keep housing prices in check. 

10 hours ago, Gramarye said:

 

In most Ohio cities, though, even people who live in the heart of the urban cores cannot realistically go car-free.  Yes, some can.  But it's a sliver of the population and not easy for others to duplicate; the "low-hanging fruit" in terms of people who can live like that in Ohio cities probably already do.  My confident guess is that even most people living in downtown Cleveland own (or lease) cars.  Car ownership is not just for sprawlburbs in Ohio.

 

Right. Which is the problem. I live a couple miles from downtown, in a very walkable neighborhood. But going car-free would be impossible. However, if you reduced zoning regulations, provided better public transit, and focused on non-car road improvements (bike lanes, bus lanes, pedestrian improvements) my neighborhood is exactly the type of place that would allow someone to become car-free.

36 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

 

Most people actually do not prefer "low density edge development."

 

A lot of people simply default to it since they haven't thought about these sorts of things.

2 minutes ago, GCrites80s said:

 

A lot of people simply default to it since they haven't thought about these sorts of things.

 

Yes, and for @TH3BUDDHA and @Gramarye, to be 100% clear. I'm not arguing everyone should live in Manhattan, or even in Downtown Cleveland. What I'm arguing is that our markets are distorted to favor sprawl, so people who want to live closer to the city are often deprived of the opportunity. We're massively subsidizing new edge development, while preventing infill development with stringent zoning requirements. I agree that Manhattan is expensive! But it's not because there isn't enough sprawl in the NYC area (there's lots of sprawl! Visit NJ!). It's because a lot of people want to live in Manhattan, but we've made it very difficult to build there.

46 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

My life is not different in any meaningful way now that I own a house in Cincinnati than it was when I lived in an apartment in Philly. Except now I have rooms I don't use and I have to drive places instead of taking a train. I also walk less, which sucks

Like I said, this is an entirely different debate and is completely subjective based on your personal preferences.  Some people enjoy a yard.  Others don't.  Some people enjoy riding a train.  Others hate it.  Things like that.

 

49 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

But you didn't say "comparable life" whatever that means.

When comparing cost of living, you need to compare apples to apples.  Sure, your friend may pay the same as you.  But once again, this is a pretty pointless comparison if you have a 2500 sq ft home with 1 acre of land and your friend sleeps on a cot in a 500 sq ft studio.  I'm not sure what's hard to understand about that.  Hell, you can see the same things in Ohio cities.  You don't even need to go to New York.  Many people pay a lot of money to live in the Short North or Italian Village, but others decide to move to the burbs to get a lot more for less. But once again, some people don't enjoy the burb living and would never do that.  But, that's ok.  See the first part of my comment.

2 minutes ago, GCrites80s said:

 

A lot of people simply default to it since they haven't thought about these sorts of things.

It is difficult to gauge. I think it really depends on who you ask. I do think that the majority of people who live in the burbs want to be there, especially at various points in their life. They want the space it offers and don't necessarily desire the benefits that make urban living great. It certainly depends on your life cycle too.

For me, 10 years ago, my wife and I could never dream about leaving the city. It's vibrancy and the benefits of being able to walk everywhere were great. Plus we had cars when needed to get where we needed to go. Today, now that we have kids, we would dread being in a city center or even inner ring burb with no space (dread is probably too harsh of a word, but regardless). With the young kiddos, it is great to have a yard and the cul-de-sac works for them to ride their bikes and play with friends.  The city was just not overly practical in our case at our live stage.

 

Now, while I have no idea if we will get back there, I certainly would love to have a chance to go back to the urban living if the time were right and situation were right. .My point is, i think there are a lot of calculations and both city and burbs work for people depending on life stages. Both areas can successfully feed off of each other and benefit each other. IMO

37 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

I'm not arguing everyone should live in Manhattan, or even in Downtown Cleveland. What I'm arguing is that our markets are distorted to favor sprawl, so people who want to live closer to the city are often deprived of the opportunity. We're massively subsidizing new edge development, while preventing infill development with stringent zoning requirements.

Ok.  And I have never refuted that point.  We're only debating because you replied to my comment on population growth.  Somebody else in the thread acted like sprawl is what has led to the death of many cities over the past 70ish years.  I don't agree with that because many well performing cities in the south and west are all sprawling.   Sprawl doesn't cause the death of a city.  Population stagnation and decline does.  That's been my point.  Detroit didn't fail because it sprawled.  It failed because it relied too heavily on one industry and when that industry went away, so did hundreds of thousands of people over the decades.  When I see new development up in Delaware north of Columbus, I don't hate it because I know it means more people to the region.  More people lead to more jobs ultimately attracting even more people.  And many of those new people are eventually going to fill in the existing core.  I think it's more valuable to spend time implementing policies that create jobs and an attract people than it is to fight sprawl because sprawl will exist regardless.

2 minutes ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

  I think it's more valuable to spend time implementing policies that create jobs and an attract people than it is to fight sprawl because sprawl will exist regardless.

 

Sprawl is massively subsidized. It costs us all. And it is unsustainable. That is the point. If you wanna live on an acre of land in a cornfield that is fine. But if it's coming at the cost of everyone else who is suffering with sub par infrastructure and services that's the problem. No other developed country has a sprawl problem like we do. That's very intentional. We have decided to subsidize it and to massively limit the amount of development in areas that already have infrastructure. That's bad policy. You cannot widen highways forever.

56 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

It is difficult to gauge. I think it really depends on who you ask. I do think that the majority of people who live in the burbs want to be there, especially at various points in their life. They want the space it offers and don't necessarily desire the benefits that make urban living great. It certainly depends on your life cycle too.

 

 

I worked with a guy 20 years ago who grew up on the near-west side of Cleveland (Detroit-Shoreway area) when it was fading fast in the 1960s-70s. He moved to Parma. Then moved to a mcmansion with a big yard near Oberlin. He always talked about how much he like living in his old neighborhood in Cleveland, being close to everything, and then living in Parma where he had so little yard and thus so little yardwork to do. I asked him "Why don't you move back to Parma or Cleveland? I hear things are improving in Detroit-Shoreway."

 

His reply.... "I'd move back to Parma but all of the houses in my neighborhood were too small. I'd never move back to Cleveland because of all of the 'thugs' that live there now."

 

So he stayed in Oberlin until he died because Parma's housing stock needs updating and he refused to move to Cleveland because of his racism.

1 hour ago, DEPACincy said:

 

Yes, and for @TH3BUDDHA and @Gramarye, to be 100% clear. I'm not arguing everyone should live in Manhattan, or even in Downtown Cleveland. What I'm arguing is that our markets are distorted to favor sprawl, so people who want to live closer to the city are often deprived of the opportunity. We're massively subsidizing new edge development, while preventing infill development with stringent zoning requirements. I agree that Manhattan is expensive! But it's not because there isn't enough sprawl in the NYC area (there's lots of sprawl! Visit NJ!). It's because a lot of people want to live in Manhattan, but we've made it very difficult to build there.

 

Definitely agreed there (and, in fact, I'd wager, sight unseen but just based on what I know about our politics, I would probably actually repeal more of most cities' zoning codes than you would, including everything you'd repeal and a good deal more).

18 minutes ago, KJP said:

 

I worked with a guy 20 years ago who grew up on the near-west side of Cleveland (Detroit-Shoreway area) when it was fading fast in the 1960s-70s. He moved to Parma. Then moved to a mcmansion with a big yard near Oberlin. He always talked about how much he like living in his old neighborhood in Cleveland, being close to everything, and then living in Parma where he had so little yard and thus so little yardwork to do. I asked him "Why don't you move back to Parma or Cleveland? I hear things are improving in Detroit-Shoreway."

 

His reply.... "I'd move back to Parma but all of the houses in my neighborhood were too small. I'd never move back to Cleveland because of all of the 'thugs' that live there now."

 

So he stayed in Oberlin until he died because Parma's housing stock needs updating and he refused to move to Cleveland because of his racism.

 

I think I know 10 versions of this same guy.    

 

And even on the east side where I grew up, the guys I went to high school with are moving FURTHER east out into Perry, Thompson etc.   I asked one of them and he told me he started to see too many black folks around Eastlake, Willowick, etc. 

16 minutes ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

Detroit didn't fail because it sprawled.  It failed because it relied too heavily on one industry and when that industry went away, so did hundreds of thousands of people over the decades.

 

The Detroit metro area grew from 2.7 million in 1950 to 3.5 million in 2020 while the city went from 1.8 million to 670,000.  So not only have a million people left the city proper, nearly a million MORE have moved to the suburbs from elsewhere.  In 1950 the city proper had 2/3 of the metro population, if that was still the case today with sprawl under control, the city would have 2.3 million people. 

 

Or look at Buffalo.  The metro population is the same today as it was in 1950, but the city proper has lost more than half its population while the metro area has grown to occupy more than 2x as much land.  If the population had simply stayed put instead of moving further outwards, Buffalo would be described as "stable" and Detroit would be "growing slowly."  Instead, suburbanization has severely damaged the cities for the benefit of unsustainable peripheral growth. 

25 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

 

Sprawl is massively subsidized. It costs us all. And it is unsustainable. That is the point. If you wanna live on an acre of land in a cornfield that is fine. But if it's coming at the cost of everyone else who is suffering with sub par infrastructure and services that's the problem. No other developed country has a sprawl problem like we do. That's very intentional. We have decided to subsidize it and to massively limit the amount of development in areas that already have infrastructure. That's bad policy. You cannot widen highways forever.

Ok.  We're going in circles here.  We're not even arguing the same thing.  The points that you are trying to make to me, I agree with.  I also like urban density and hate what suburban sprawl did to cities.  I've only ever been arguing the importance of population growth to a city.  You originally tried to downplay that importance in your first reply to me.  That is all I've been arguing.  I think I hate sprawl less than you because I'd rather have sprawl and a growing region than tons of urban development and a shrinking region.  The latter will still have problems as we see in other cities in our region.  You keep pretending that urban density is some magical entity immune to the problems of infrastructure decline.  This is not true and you have ignored my comments about major cities in this country also struggling to maintain their infrastructure.  The reality is that ALL infrastructure is unsustainable if there is stagnation or decline in population.

10 minutes ago, jjakucyk said:

 

The Detroit metro area grew from 2.7 million in 1950 to 3.5 million in 2020 while the city went from 1.8 million to 670,000.  So not only have a million people left the city proper, nearly a million MORE have moved to the suburbs from elsewhere.  In 1950 the city proper had 2/3 of the metro population, if that was still the case today with sprawl under control, the city would have 2.3 million people. 

 

Or look at Buffalo.  The metro population is the same today as it was in 1950, but the city proper has lost more than half its population while the metro area has grown to occupy more than 2x as much land.  If the population had simply stayed put instead of moving further outwards, Buffalo would be described as "stable" and Detroit would be "growing slowly."  Instead, suburbanization has severely damaged the cities for the benefit of unsustainable peripheral growth. 

You cherry picked your date there for Detroit metro growth.  Detroit exploded from 2,769,000 in 1950 to 3,966,000 in 1970.  It has since shrunk to 3,548,000 currently since then and this is when Detroit has experienced it's problems.  This coincides with what I said about the decline in hundreds of thousands of people over the past few decades.  That population boom followed by decades of decline in Detroit is what has caused all kinds of blight and problems.  It's literally the same exact thing that happened in Cleveland.

Edited July 9, 20204 yr by TH3BUDDHA

17 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

 

Definitely agreed there (and, in fact, I'd wager, sight unseen but just based on what I know about our politics, I would probably actually repeal more of most cities' zoning codes than you would, including everything you'd repeal and a good deal more).

 

That's an interesting wager. Because land use regulation is the one area where I'm for full on deregulation. I believe that there need to be stormwater requirements, and limitation of certain noxious uses (think, no abattoirs in residential areas) and I can be okay with minimal setback and height limitations (VERY minimal), but build as many dwelling units on your lot as you wish and build a mix of uses.

15 minutes ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

Ok.  We're going in circles here.  We're not even arguing the same thing.  The points that you are trying to make to me, I agree with.  I also like urban density and hate what suburban sprawl did to cities.  I've only ever been arguing the importance of population growth to a city.

 

And I pointed out that population growth isn't everything. There are other important factors. Something I thought was non-controversial, but then you accused me of hating poor people. I'd also point out that the per capita income data I gave you was for metro area, not just the central city. But even so, we somehow got into a silly argument about how Manhattan is too expensive. The fact of the matter is that most people in the NYC or Boston or Philly or DC metros live in single family homes with 3+ bedrooms, not studio apartments. 

 

17 minutes ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

I think I hate sprawl less than you because I'd rather have sprawl and a growing region than tons of urban development and a shrinking region. 

 

You wouldn't have a shrinking region with "tons of urban development" so this point is kind of moot. 

 

18 minutes ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

The latter will still have problems as we see in other cities in our region. 

 

Which cities? We only have sprawling cities in our region. 

 

18 minutes ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

ou keep pretending that urban density is some magical entity immune to the problems of infrastructure decline.

 

I'm only making the simple point that it takes LESS infrastructure to serve the same amount of people in urban areas. Again, pretty non-controversial. 

 

19 minutes ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

This is not true and you have ignored my comments about major cities in this country also struggling to maintain their infrastructure

 

What was I suppose to address? You made an offhand stab at NYC and Chicago but provided no evidence for your claim. There's nothing for me to rebut. 

 

19 minutes ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

The reality is that ALL infrastructure is unsustainable if there is stagnation or decline in population.

 

Right. But it is more expensive PER PERSON to maintain 1 mile sewer line serving 10 houses than it is to maintain 1 mile of sewer line serving 100 houses. Again, pretty non-controversial statement of fact.

11 hours ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

Just looking at the average doesn't take into account that many people make irresponsible choices in their pick of car, which is my main point.  Just because that is the average doesn't mean it NEEDS to be the average.  Many people live above their means.

 

Yeah, that was my point in my post above - my costs, all in, are around $1700/year (and that assumes my car stops working right now - the cost continues to go down the longer it lasts, and with 115k miles it probably has quite a bit longer to go). You certainly can spend significantly more than I do, but that's a personal choice. The average cost is really just driven up because so many people value having a "nice" car, SUV or truck and drop $30k+ on a new one every few years.

 

14 hours ago, GCrites80s said:

I've been working on cars all my life, and most people aren't really suited to fixing their own car even with liberal amounts of YouTube, Chilton, Haynes and advice from the parts store. I have a hard enough time with it even with my own garage, decades of experience on a hobbyist level, thousands of dollars in tools, three years on a local NASCAR team and membership on 5 automotive forums.

 

I think you're thinking of more complex work than I am, and I'd agree with that. But there's no reason to pay a mechanic to do something like change a headlight bulb or replace your air filters, yet I know plenty of people who do. In the last two years or so I've replaced things like a door lock actuator, power window switch, hatch support, O2 sensors, gas cap door (half the Celicas still on the road seem to be missing these - I can't unsee it now). These are the easy fixes I'm talking about. A shop would have charged me several hours of labor for each of those, and they would have charged 3X for their parts versus what I bought at a junkyard or off Amazon. These sorts of things are fixes that almost anyone can do, even if you've never worked on a car before. And doing them drives down the cost of ownership significantly. We're way off topic here, but the overarching point I'm making is that the "average cost of car ownership" numbers often quoted here are driven up significantly by personal decisions. You can save hundreds, or even thousands per year by doing the easy things on your own time. People in the burbs aren't spending $10,000 a year on their cars because they have to, they're doing it because they want to.

6 minutes ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

You cherry picked your date there for Detroit metro growth.  Detroit exploded from 2,769,000 in 1950 to 3,966,000 in 1970.  It has since shrunk to 3,548,000 currently since then and this is when Detroit has experienced it's problems.  This coincides with what I said about the decline in hundreds of thousands of people over the past few decades.  That population boom followed by decades of decline in Detroit is what has caused all kinds of blight and problems.  It's literally the same exact thing that happened in Cleveland.

 

That's just an 11% drop in metro population, you can't really believe that's caused all of Detroit's problems. 

 

This idea that growth is the only metric of prosperity is a very American/capitalist notion.  Sprawling cities have to maintain growth to pay back the ponzi scheme they're built on.  That's not the case for stable urban cities, but so many have been decanted to the point that they're barely as dense as their suburbs anymore, while still having infrastructure for many more people that still needs to be maintained, all while taxes are spent on the periphery.  So they have to play the same twisted game. 

10 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

You wouldn't have a shrinking region with "tons of urban development" so this point is kind of moot.

See Cleveland.  Tons of development in the trendy parts of town.  Metro population is still losing people.

 

10 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

Which cities?

See Cleveland.

 

10 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

What was I suppose to address? You made an offhand stab at NYC and Chicago but provided no evidence for your claim. There's nothing for me to rebut.

A 5 second google search will give you countless articles on the struggles of the MTA.

 

10 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

Right. But it is more expensive PER PERSON to maintain 1 mile sewer line serving 10 houses than it is to maintain 1 mile of sewer line serving 100 houses. Again, pretty non-controversial statement of fact.

Is it, though?  The OARS project in Columbus was 4 miles and a tunnel boring machine needed to go hundreds of feet under the city and was the most expensive capital project in city history.  The second most expensive project in city history will be the Lower Olentangy Tunnel System.  Seems much cheaper to have a backhoe dig a trench to lay some pipe than it is to have a tunnel boring machine go hundreds of feet underground, even when taking into account the per capita cost  I'm not engineering expert, though and am not claiming to be.

Edited July 9, 20204 yr by TH3BUDDHA

6 minutes ago, jjakucyk said:

 

That's just an 11% drop in metro population, you can't really believe that's caused all of Detroit's problems. 

 

This idea that growth is the only metric of prosperity is a very American/capitalist notion.  Sprawling cities have to maintain growth to pay back the ponzi scheme they're built on.  That's not the case for stable urban cities, but so many have been decanted to the point that they're barely as dense as their suburbs anymore, while still having infrastructure for many more people that still needs to be maintained, all while taxes are spent on the periphery.  So they have to play the same twisted game. 

I mean, I guess it depends on how you define "Detroit's problems."  When I personally mention the problems in Detroit, I am talking about blighted, struggling neighborhoods that give the negative perception of the city.  This was definitely caused by the loss of manufacturing and hundreds of thousands of people leaving.

3 hours ago, DEPACincy said:

 

Most people actually do not prefer "low density edge development." If you look at Pew and Gallup surveys, most people want walkable communities close to amenities and the urban core. But we're not building those communities quickly enough to accommodate demand. 

 

Right. Where millenials want to live is quite often not where they end up living. 

52 minutes ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

I mean, I guess it depends on how you define "Detroit's problems."  When I personally mention the problems in Detroit, I am talking about blighted, struggling neighborhoods that give the negative perception of the city.  This was definitely caused by the loss of manufacturing and hundreds of thousands of people leaving.

 

Now wait a sec. Metro Detroit had 4,163,517 people in 1970 per the 1970 metro area population report on the Census Bureau's website. Today it has 4,319,629. During that time Detroit city proper went from 1,514,063 to 670,031. The region GREW by over 150k people but the city SHRANK by over 800k! That's the sprawl! That's the cause of the problems!

 

1 hour ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

I mean, I guess it depends on how you define "Detroit's problems."  When I personally mention the problems in Detroit, I am talking about blighted, struggling neighborhoods that give the negative perception of the city.  This was definitely caused by the loss of manufacturing and hundreds of thousands of people leaving.

 

And my point is that there'd be way fewer of those blighted, struggling neighborhoods, or even none of them, if the metro wasn't sprawling into the hinterlands. 

1 hour ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

See Cleveland.  Tons of development in the trendy parts of town.  Metro population is still losing people.

 

Whoa now. Cleveland is seeing some development in a few neighborhoods over the past few years. In no way can it be used as an example here. 

 

Now again, Cleveland MSA had 2,043,389 people in 1970, according to the Census Bureau. In 2019 it has 2,048,449. Again, the MSA GREW. Barely, but it grew. Cleveland proper went from 750,903 to 381,009! Again, that's SPRAWL. Whatever small amount of development Cleveland has seen this decade does not account for the hundreds of thousands of people that have decamped to the suburbs because of massive subsidization of suburban sprawl.

 

EDIT: I forgot the 1970 number didn't include Loraine County. So the region had about 2.3 million. But the point still stands. The region lost 150k, but the City of Cleveland lost over 350k! 

 

EDIT 2: I would challenge you to find a single metro area in the country where the central city has grown since 1970, while the metro area has lost population. It does not exist. Your hypothetical "growing city with stagnating region" is a myth.

Edited July 9, 20204 yr by DEPACincy

Just to FURTHER add to this, here are maps of Cuyahoga County in 1948 and 2002. In both years the population was 1.39 million. Which is more sustainable? Why did we spend so much money on new infrastructure over that 54 year period just to spread people out? 

Edited July 9, 20204 yr by DEPACincy

9 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

Why did we spend so much money on new infrastructure over that 54 year period just to spread people out?

Because, as I said, people have different interests and some people preferred living further from the core.  Unfortunately, Cleveland didn't have the population growth to sustain it.  Without the option to move to those suburbs, they probably would have left the region entirely, a much worse outcome.

Edited July 9, 20204 yr by TH3BUDDHA

1 hour ago, surfohio said:

 

Right. Where millenials want to live is quite often not where they end up living. 

 

Yes, buying in the Cool Crescent costs at least 3X as the Uncool Crescent for a comparable property.

13 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

Just to FURTHER add to this, here are maps of Cuyahoga County in 1948 and 2002. In both years the population was 1.39 million. Which is more sustainable? Why did we spend so much money on new infrastructure over that 54 year period just to spread people out? 

Columbus followed the same patterns of sprawl that all of these cities did and experienced the same core decline around the same time.  What is your explanation for the success of Columbus if all cities that experience sprawl fail?

2 minutes ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

Columbus followed the same patterns of sprawl that all of these cities did and experienced the same core decline around the same time.  What is your explanation for the success of Columbus if all cities that experience sprawl fail?

 

Sprawl is unsustainable in the long run. Period. As long as you're seeing growth, that fact is masked. Columbus, despite its growth, has many of the same sprawl-induced problems. There are entire city neighborhoods that are blighted and neglected. It'll only worsen if, and when, growth slows down.

15 minutes ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

Because, as I said, people have different interests and some people preferred living further from the core.  Unfortunately, Cleveland didn't have the population growth to sustain it.  Without the option to move to those suburbs, they probably would have left the region entirely, a much worse outcome.

 

A claim with zero evidence to support it. People didn't leave regions that sprawled less, in fact, many of those cities are some of the most "successful" in terms of retaining residents in the country. Why are NYC, San Fran, Boston, etc. so expensive? Because people want to live there! They are a high demand commodity!

 

And again, not wanting to live near the core is a fine preference, but it is not fiscally responsible to subsidize those people massively and ignore the urban core--which is what most American cities have done over the past half century plus.

28 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

responsible to subsidize those people massively and ignore the urban core-

Can you explain to me what you mean by this?  Does tax money from one city get put towards infrastructure for another city?

13 minutes ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

Can you explain to me what you mean by this?  Does tax money from one city get put towards infrastructure for another city?

 

Absolutely. Within a region, state, and the country. Every region has an Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) which distributes federal dollars throughout. Cleveland's is called NOACA. Columbus is MORPC. Cincinnati is OKI. Each gets an allocation of federal dollars based on the total population of the region and the money is then distributed by the MPO. But rural and suburban areas are over represented on the boards of these organizations and the money is disproportionately spent in outlying areas. Other federal money also gets distributed disproportionately to rural and exurban areas. Then, at the state level, we all pay taxes that are then spent by ODOT throughout the state on projects. Those projects, you guessed it, are disproportionately located in exurban and rural areas. Transportation projects are mostly funded through state and federal dollars. Sprawl hasn't happened because the invisible hand of the market deems it worthy. It has been a deliberate policy choice to redistribute tax dollars from population centers to outlying areas.

1 hour ago, DEPACincy said:

 

Absolutely. Within a region, state, and the country. Every region has an Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) which distributes federal dollars throughout. Cleveland's is called NOACA. Columbus is MORPC. Cincinnati is OKI. Each gets an allocation of federal dollars based on the total population of the region and the money is then distributed by the MPO. But rural and suburban areas are over represented on the boards of these organizations and the money is disproportionately spent in outlying areas. Other federal money also gets distributed disproportionately to rural and exurban areas. Then, at the state level, we all pay taxes that are then spent by ODOT throughout the state on projects. Those projects, you guessed it, are disproportionately located in exurban and rural areas. Transportation projects are mostly funded through state and federal dollars. Sprawl hasn't happened because the invisible hand of the market deems it worthy. It has been a deliberate policy choice to redistribute tax dollars from population centers to outlying areas.

How is that subsidization, though?  It's just federal and state funds being allocated to areas within their jurisdictions where the majority of people live.  That's how taxes work.  As a city dweller, I have no problem with my state taxes helping other Ohioans.  I would be upset if my city taxes went to the burbs, though.

31 minutes ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

How is that subsidization, though?  It's just federal and state funds being allocated to areas within their jurisdictions where the majority of people live.  That's how taxes work.  As a city dweller, I have no problem with my state taxes helping other Ohioans.  I would be upset if my city taxes went to the burbs, though.

 

Ok, these are made up numbers to simplify it, but this is what is happening:
 

In Region One, 70% of the residents and 80% of the taxes paid are in Urban County and 30% of the residents and 20% of the taxes paid are in Rural County. 

 

The MPO for Region One gets an allocation of tax dollars and gives 60% to Rural County and 40% to Urban County. The money is disproportionately spent outside of where people actually live and pay taxes.

 

So the residents of Urban County, who could use those dollars to maintain their existing infrastructure, are sending lots of money to Rural County. Rural County, which paid much less than it is receiving, is using all those extra dollars to build new highways to attract more residents to move there from Urban County. So Urban County is subsidizing the infrastructure in Rural County, which is being used to siphon residents away from Urban County. 

 

At some point in the future, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but at some point--Rural County will now be completely developed as well. Urban County will have decaying infrastructure and a smaller tax base from years of subsidizing growth elsewhere and Rural County will have a spread out tax base and lots of infrastructure to maintain. Now, neither county will be able to afford the infrastructure they've built because we have twice as much infrastructure serving the same population.

 

EDIT: BTW, the definition of subsidy is "money or assistance granted by one government or person to another." That is, when Cuyahoga County residents pay for infrastructure in Geauga County. That is a subsidy from Cuyahoga to Geauga. 

Edited July 9, 20204 yr by DEPACincy

19 minutes ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

How is that subsidization, though?

 

If you can't understand @DEPACincy's explanation then I don't know what would work with you.  But let me try a simple example. 

 

Cincinnati gets 1/4 of its property tax revenue from downtown.  Downtown only occupies 1.3% of the land area of the city proper and has maybe 5% of the population, depending where you draw the boundaries.  While this isn't the case here, in many states, property taxes are the primary source of municipal funding.  Yes downtown services and infrastructure cost more than 1.3% of the city budget, and likely more than 5%, but they most definitely do not cost 25%.  Ergo downtown subsidizes the rest of the city.  This cascades outward as @DEPACincy and I have said before. 

 

17 hours ago, GCrites80s said:

Working on bikes is way easier than cars. I've been working on bikes even longer than cars. Eff working on derailleurs though.

 

Off-road gravel racers usually carry a spare derailleur during endurance events because one unruly piece of gravel can blow the thing.  Doing a surgical repair to a bicycle out in the middle of nowhere with no bike stand doesn't sound like my idea of a good time.  

 

Ironically, mountain biking and other nature activities like hiking require a car.  I have heard that one of the Metro North lines has a station within walking distance of the Appalachian Trail, but nobody actually does that.   

 

I have seen some hardcore environmentalists attack mountain bikers online because they put tons of miles on their vehicles getting their bikes to the trails.  Fair enough, but let's see these same people hike the 100 miles from San Francisco to Yosemite so they can camp in the Sierras.  The need to sort-of destroy the environment in order to observe pristine areas has always been a paradox and it's not going away anytime soon.  

 

 

 

@DEPACincy and @jjakucyk thank you for your explanations. Simplified or not, I think they give a fairly accurate portrayal of reality here.

 

Does anyone remember (either on here, or perhaps the general Ohio economy threat) a map/graph that showed the amount of state taxes collected and spent per county? If I remember correctly, it showed Cuyahoga, Franklin, and Hamilton subsidizing the entire rest of the state by a pretty decent margin.

2 hours ago, jmecklenborg said:

 

Off-road gravel racers usually carry a spare derailleur during endurance events because one unruly piece of gravel can blow the thing.  Doing a surgical repair to a bicycle out in the middle of nowhere with no bike stand doesn't sound like my idea of a good time.  

 

Ironically, mountain biking and other nature activities like hiking require a car.  I have heard that one of the Metro North lines has a station within walking distance of the Appalachian Trail, but nobody actually does that.   

 

I have seen some hardcore environmentalists attack mountain bikers online because they put tons of miles on their vehicles getting their bikes to the trails.  Fair enough, but let's see these same people hike the 100 miles from San Francisco to Yosemite so they can camp in the Sierras.  The need to sort-of destroy the environment in order to observe pristine areas has always been a paradox and it's not going away anytime soon.  

 

 

 

 

Well, if environmentalists in the '60s '70s and '80s focused on good urbanism, rail transit, stopping urban decline, growth boundaries and other things that prevent sprawl, people wouldn't have to drive 100 to do outdoors activities. BMX, dirt bike and auto races back in those days didn't all take place 100 miles from town (mountain bikes weren't really a thing yet). They were right next door. Almost all racing events in Southern California from back then took place in places that are sprawl now. The tracks, pristine spaces and old unmanged land are gone, replaced by malls that have already died since then and more subdivisions.

 

Nowadays, environmentalists are fully aware of how good urbanism and preventing sprawl keeps nature alive, close by and useable but back then too many of them looked at sprawl as an inevitability and cities as broken spaces so instead they focused on closing off large amounts of land due to the presence of a rare plant or bird somewhere in the vicinity. That caused more sprawl. They didn't lift a finger about rail transit or affordable housing.

 

These were the old "No!" environmentalists that did more harm to the movement than good. It's a good thing they started being phased out by the '90s and replaced with the "Yes, if we do it this way." ones. A few of the old "No!" ones are still around though. The sprawl remains and the fun got pushed out to the Inland Empire and NorCal. Or the Midwest and Texas.

Edited July 10, 20204 yr by GCrites80s

On 7/8/2020 at 10:33 AM, TH3BUDDHA said:

I mean, many of the fastest growing cities are sprawling messes in the sunbelt and the west.  Columbus is the same.

 

Columbus is arguably the most compact metro in Ohio.  More than 70% of its population resides in Franklin County, with more than 50% of that within Columbus itself.  Its urbanized area also has the highest density in Ohio.  There are at least 2 Ohio metros that have more of its srea development being low-density sprawl- Dayton and Cincinnati. No Ohio city sprawls like those in the Sun Belt, though. 

Edited July 10, 20204 yr by jonoh81

^If we want to add a third Crescent to Franklin County, there is the Underdeveloped Cresecnt running from west of Hillard all the way down to the SW portion of the county, to the south of Grove City all the way east to Canal Winchester then curving back up west of Gender Road and east of Noe-Bixby all the way to Chatterton Road. You do have to pass through some warehouse development at Rickenbacker though.

Edited July 10, 20204 yr by GCrites80s

6 hours ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

Because, as I said, people have different interests and some people preferred living further from the core.  Unfortunately, Cleveland didn't have the population growth to sustain it.  Without the option to move to those suburbs, they probably would have left the region entirely, a much worse outcome.

I would suggest that had the Cleveland area’s population declined from its original population, but did not expand from that original size, it would now be in a vastly better position to revitalize itself. 

4 hours ago, jonoh81 said:

 

Columbus is arguably the most compact metro in Ohio.  More than 70% of its population resides in Franklin County, with more than 50% of that within Columbus itself.  Its urbanized area also has the highest density in Ohio.  There are at least 2 Ohio metros that have more of its srea development being low-density sprawl- Dayton and Cincinnati. No Ohio city sprawls like those in the Sun Belt, though. 

 

If Columbus, writ large, actually sprawls less than Cincinnati, it's by total chance.  The Cincinnati metro area has significant flood plain and topographical issues that everyone who is from here is acutely aware of - far beyond any that plague Columbus.