February 7, 20232 yr Most people don't want "idyllic college towns" anymore anyway since the towns don't have enough jobs. How many of those schools does it take to match the enrollment of our urban schools in Ohio?
February 8, 20232 yr 17 hours ago, GCrites80s said: Most people don't want "idyllic college towns" anymore anyway since the towns don't have enough jobs. How many of those schools does it take to match the enrollment of our urban schools in Ohio? Yep. They might go to school in Oxford, but they don't stay there when they graduate. They go to Cincinnati, Columbus or Cleveland.
February 8, 20232 yr 20 hours ago, Brutus_buckeye said: No, because for those fortunate enough to go away to college in an idyllic college town, it is the time in their life where they have the freedom they desire with limited responsibility and they are contained in a sterile environment (their college town). It is like going away to camp for many All this, they don't necessarily have the money to have a car, and perhaps most importantly they don't have kids. "There's a time and a place for everything. It's called 'college'". - Chef
February 8, 20232 yr 26 minutes ago, jonoh81 said: Yep. They might go to school in Oxford, but they don't stay there when they graduate. They go to Cincinnati, Columbus or Cleveland. Or they go to Kent and the sprawl meets them partway.
February 8, 20232 yr On the college topic, it was my experience that a lot of, if not most people tend to move off campus to a generally much less walkable area Junior/Senior year, very often with the prime motivator being money. Money is a big part in the decision after college as well, suburban living is often just an economic decision. Particularly for people for whom being carefree (edit: car free) isn't possible or desirable. Edited February 8, 20232 yr by Ethan Good catch Foraker!
February 8, 20232 yr 3 hours ago, Ethan said: Particularly for people for whom being carefree isn't possible or desirable. I have to agree -- I can never manage to feel carefree in a must-have-car community either. 😁 Just imagine the stress of poverty and a minimum wage job in a must-drive community -- one breakdown and you're out of work and on your way to eviction. The must-have-a-car requirement to live in a community is a huge burden on the lower end of the economic spectrum. https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/auto-loans/total-cost-owning-car
February 8, 20232 yr I always think about trailer parks. Most of them are located in places where nobody can walk to anything. Or even bike.
February 9, 20232 yr On 2/7/2023 at 6:39 PM, GCrites80s said: Most people don't want "idyllic college towns" anymore anyway since the towns don't have enough jobs. How many of those schools does it take to match the enrollment of our urban schools in Ohio? I think that is a false premise. I would also not look at it as people leaving because of jobs. People were never intending to stay in college towns long term anyway. It was a place to be at a point in their lives, then it is on to something else, oftentimes, a city where the jobs are. The same applies to city schools. There are a lot of people who go to school in an urban environment who choose to leave when they graduate. Look at all the OSU or Cincinnati alums in Chicago, New York, LA, or various other places. Students are just as likely to spread out in urban schools as they are in college towns.
February 9, 20232 yr ^That's kind of old-fashioned. Post-2008, in non-technical fields you have to be networked within the city in which you want to live. A degree can't take you everywhere like it used to. People even discount you as eccentric if you go to the idyllic towns. Not Miami or OU (at least within the region) since those schools are big enough to have large alumni networks but rather the sub 6-8K ones. If you frame the only way to be a "real adult" is to drive a bunch and eat outerbelt food and that people only enjoy walkability in order to shirk responsibility you're patting yourself on the back too much for doing those things. Edited February 9, 20232 yr by GCrites80s
February 10, 20232 yr I had a discussion with a colleague about urban sprawl and zoning recently. The specifics of the discussion aren't important, but my colleague's sentiments echoed similar critiques of urban density I hear like "it's unnatural for so many people to live close together" or "being that close to too many other humans is dehumanizing and makes people angry all the time" etc. He specifically brought up the example of San Francisco as a place that (in his judgment) simply has too many people. It caused me to do some thinking and research, and I retrieved some statistics that are very interesting. With the advent of skyscrapers and the high populations of modern cities, people just assume that we live at a level of urban density today that is unprecedented throughout history. But the statistics about ancient cities are actually pretty shocking. Ancient Rome, in its heyday had roughly a million people who (according to the census) lived within its city walls. If you take the dimensions of the city and the estimate of inhabitants you can do the math and find that ancient Rome, if those figures are to be believed, the density of ancient Rome was more than 180,000 people per square mile. This would mean ancient Rome was more densely populated than any major city on earth today--nearly 2.5 times the population density of Manhattan. Now, did all of those people actually live in the city wall? Maybe not, but if even half of them did you still get a density figure significantly higher than Manhattan. Surveys of Pompeii and other well-preserved Roman cities also give quite high estimates for their density as well, not estimates as high as Rome, but still in the range of 20,000 people or more per sq. mile. The same patterns hold true when you look at even older cities. Uruk, the ancient Samarian capital which reached its apex over 5,000 years ago, had a population estimated at 50,000-80,000. That sounds tiny compared to the size of modern cities. But the walls of Uruk encompassed an area of only about 1.7 square miles. This gives a density estimate of anywhere from 30,000 to nearly 50,000 people per square mile. For comparison, San Francisco's density is 18,000 people per square mile. I think the above is underappreciated and worth considering. While the modern metropolis and the modern suburb are creatures of the industrial revolution, the dense urban core is not. For thousands of years, people have been living in walled cities and many (if not most) of those walled cities were more dense than the cities of today.
February 10, 20232 yr 2 minutes ago, LlamaLawyer said: I had a discussion with a colleague about urban sprawl and zoning recently. The specifics of the discussion aren't important, but my colleague's sentiments echoed similar critiques of urban density I hear like "it's unnatural for so many people to live close together" or "being that close to too many other humans is dehumanizing and makes people angry all the time" etc. He specifically brought up the example of San Francisco as a place that (in his judgment) simply has too many people. It caused me to do some thinking and research, and I retrieved some statistics that are very interesting. With the advent of skyscrapers and the high populations of modern cities, people just assume that we live at a level of urban density today that is unprecedented throughout history. But the statistics about ancient cities are actually pretty shocking. Ancient Rome, in its heyday had roughly a million people who (according to the census) lived within its city walls. If you take the dimensions of the city and the estimate of inhabitants you can do the math and find that ancient Rome, if those figures are to be believed, the density of ancient Rome was more than 180,000 people per square mile. This would mean ancient Rome was more densely populated than any major city on earth today--nearly 2.5 times the population density of Manhattan. Now, did all of those people actually live in the city wall? Maybe not, but if even half of them did you still get a density figure significantly higher than Manhattan. Surveys of Pompeii and other well-preserved Roman cities also give quite high estimates for their density as well, not estimates as high as Rome, but still in the range of 20,000 people or more per sq. mile. The same patterns hold true when you look at even older cities. Uruk, the ancient Samarian capital which reached its apex over 5,000 years ago, had a population estimated at 50,000-80,000. That sounds tiny compared to the size of modern cities. But the walls of Uruk encompassed an area of only about 1.7 square miles. This gives a density estimate of anywhere from 30,000 to nearly 50,000 people per square mile. For comparison, San Francisco's density is 18,000 people per square mile. I think the above is underappreciated and worth considering. While the modern metropolis and the modern suburb are creatures of the industrial revolution, the dense urban core is not. For thousands of years, people have been living in walled cities and many (if not most) of those walled cities were more dense than the cities of today. The Dharavi neighborhood is Mumbai has over 700,000(!!) people per square mile without any major tall buildings. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharavi But it's unfortunately a massive slum. Building up, and money more generally, is the secret sauce that allows people to enjoy the upsides of density, while minimizing its downsides. I expect most ancient cities had their share of slums and substandard housing for the poor that history has neglected to chronicle.
February 10, 20232 yr 12 minutes ago, Ethan said: The Dharavi neighborhood is Mumbai has over 700,000(!!) people per square mile without any major tall buildings. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharavi But it's unfortunately a massive slum. Building up, and money more generally, is the secret sauce that allows people to enjoy the upsides of density, while minimizing its downsides. I expect most ancient cities had their share of slums and substandard housing for the poor that history has neglected to chronicle. Oh, large parts of ancient Rome were ABSOLUTELY slums. Many of the insulae (what they called the tenement buildings) were five or more stories tall. They obviously didn't have steel beams, so collapses were (at least relatively speaking) common, and several emperors tried, not always successfully, to limit building heights as a result. Nothing else throughout history will compete with the density of this monstrosity though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City Anyhow, obviously life today is much more luxurious than life way back when, and for many different reasons. But anybody who asserts density like we have today is a modern invention is simply mistaken. We've been living in dense cities, on rural farms, and in small villages since time out of mind. The only one that's new is the bedroom-community suburb.
February 10, 20232 yr 2 hours ago, LlamaLawyer said: Oh, large parts of ancient Rome were ABSOLUTELY slums. Many of the insulae (what they called the tenement buildings) were five or more stories tall. They obviously didn't have steel beams, so collapses were (at least relatively speaking) common, and several emperors tried, not always successfully, to limit building heights as a result. Nothing else throughout history will compete with the density of this monstrosity though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City Anyhow, obviously life today is much more luxurious than life way back when, and for many different reasons. But anybody who asserts density like we have today is a modern invention is simply mistaken. We've been living in dense cities, on rural farms, and in small villages since time out of mind. The only one that's new is the bedroom-community suburb. In the past, transportation wasn't as quick or available. Density was often essential. While many perhaps liked it, for others it was something endured out of necessity. In America, things changed after World War II. Men went off to war, living in ships and barracks. Rural men came to the cities to work in industry, which produced machines that meant farms required less labor as well as weapons. After the war, the rural men weren't needed on the farms and many had no great desire to return in any case. The returning soldiers and sailors had had their fill of dense living conditions. By the way, many of them had experience with constructing buildings and roads, or fixing motor vehicles. Even more had experience operating same. Those motor vehicles made it easier to transport food from more distant farms, potentially freeing up land closer to the cities. It was a cultural perfect storm. Experienced construction workers could build places for people to live and ways for them to get around more quickly, and afford them themselves. The erstwhile rural folks could compromise: my paternal grandpa could move from near Portsmouth to Cleveland to work for Cleveland Pneumatic, and after the war he could keep working there and easily get there from Macedonia. My maternal grandpa could keep working at Alcoa but get there easily enough from Walton Hills, where my grandma who was raised on a farm in Poland was more comfortable. The people who were enduring density no longer had to. The people who liked it could still have it, but there was less. Some of them resented that. Yes, suburbs are new. So are air travel and instantaneous global communications. Do we want to give those up? Edited February 10, 20232 yr by E Rocc
February 10, 20232 yr 9 minutes ago, E Rocc said: Yes, suburbs are new. So are air travel and instantaneous global communications. Do we want to give those up? So your argument is that because suburbs are relatively new we should just say F it and deal with them?
February 10, 20232 yr 3 hours ago, LlamaLawyer said: Nothing else throughout history will compete with the density of this monstrosity though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City I've seen that first pic many times and wondered, "Is that a go-kart track next to it?" If you want to see some interior shots of Kowloon watch the movie Bloodsport. It didn't look like a particularly pleasant place to live either. It's quite an extreme example.
February 10, 20232 yr 56 minutes ago, E Rocc said: Yes, suburbs are new. So are air travel and instantaneous global communications. Do we want to give those up? My only point is that there’s a widely held assumption that urban living is basically unnatural or even inhuman and that the assumption is counterfactual.
February 10, 20232 yr On 2/10/2023 at 5:27 PM, E Rocc said: In the past, transportation wasn't as quick or available. Density was often essential. While many perhaps liked it, for others it was something endured out of necessity. In America, things changed after World War II. Men went off to war, living in ships and barracks. Rural men came to the cities to work in industry, which produced machines that meant farms required less labor as well as weapons. After the war, the rural men weren't needed on the farms and many had no great desire to return in any case. The returning soldiers and sailors had had their fill of dense living conditions. By the way, many of them had experience with constructing buildings and roads, or fixing motor vehicles. Even more had experience operating same. Those motor vehicles made it easier to transport food from more distant farms, potentially freeing up land closer to the cities. It was a cultural perfect storm. Experienced construction workers could build places for people to live and ways for them to get around more quickly, and afford them themselves. The erstwhile rural folks could compromise: my paternal grandpa could move from near Portsmouth to Cleveland to work for Cleveland Pneumatic, and after the war he could keep working there and easily get there from Macedonia. My maternal grandpa could keep working at Alcoa but get there easily enough from Walton Hills, where my grandma who was raised on a farm in Poland was more comfortable. The people who were enduring density no longer had to. The people who liked it could still have it, but there was less. Some of them resented that. Yes, suburbs are new. So are air travel and instantaneous global communications. Do we want to give those up? This also explains why so many of the most desirable and expensive neighborhoods in the country feature high density and great walkability. /sarcasm Seriously though, simply legalizing density by significantly reforming zoning enables more people to live in 15-minute neighborhoods. This effortlessly increases physical activity (walking/biking to get somewhere) and therefore improves health; creates a more sustainable built environment (fewer lane-miles of road to maintain); and improves social connections. Furthermore, having enough of these neighborhoods such that everyone who wants to live in them, can, ALSO makes it easier for people who prefer spread out boringness to live in those areas, because fewer people are competing for them. So many aspects of the density we’re advocating for are win/win. When is the last time I-71 turned a profit?
February 10, 20232 yr 52 minutes ago, GCrites80s said: ^Copyright 1953 General Motors Corporation Just now, LlamaLawyer said: My only point is that there’s a widely held assumption that urban living is basically unnatural or even inhuman and that the assumption is counterfactual. It's not unnatural, but for quite some time people lived in cities because they had to to access resources, and opted out when they could. That restricted access to resources shifted power towards the political class and away from the productive class, so the former would naturally resist the reduction of restrictions.
February 10, 20232 yr 55 minutes ago, GCrites80s said: ^Copyright 1953 General Motors Corporation And Ford, and American Motors, Studebaker, Nash et al. Motorized transport was critical to winning the war in Europe, it stands to reason that it would remain important and influential. Especially when so many people needed something to do and they had constructive tasks ready.
February 11, 20232 yr 1 hour ago, E Rocc said: In the past, transportation wasn't as quick or available. Density was often essential. While many perhaps liked it, for others it was something endured out of necessity. In America, things changed after World War II. Men went off to war, living in ships and barracks. Rural men came to the cities to work in industry, which produced machines that meant farms required less labor as well as weapons. After the war, the rural men weren't needed on the farms and many had no great desire to return in any case. The returning soldiers and sailors had had their fill of dense living conditions. By the way, many of them had experience with constructing buildings and roads, or fixing motor vehicles. Even more had experience operating same. Those motor vehicles made it easier to transport food from more distant farms, potentially freeing up land closer to the cities. It was a cultural perfect storm. Experienced construction workers could build places for people to live and ways for them to get around more quickly, and afford them themselves. The erstwhile rural folks could compromise: my paternal grandpa could move from near Portsmouth to Cleveland to work for Cleveland Pneumatic, and after the war he could keep working there and easily get there from Macedonia. My maternal grandpa could keep working at Alcoa but get there easily enough from Walton Hills, where my grandma who was raised on a farm in Poland was more comfortable. The people who were enduring density no longer had to. The people who liked it could still have it, but there was less. Some of them resented that. Yes, suburbs are new. So are air travel and instantaneous global communications. Do we want to give those up? All of this ignores the policy decisions made by elected officials to enable and incentivize suburban living.
February 11, 20232 yr We go through this dance with E Rocc every few months. It isn't worth the time arguing.
February 11, 20232 yr 19 hours ago, Luke_S said: All of this ignores the policy decisions made by elected officials to enable and incentivize suburban living. Because it was what the voters wanted and expected, and they wanted to stay in power? Or were there other reasons? Mostly the former, somewhat the latter. Public spending on welfare was considered demeaning and counterproductive, but spending on infrastructure was not. When fission bombs existed and fusion bombs did not, "sprawl" made urban areas much more durable.
February 12, 20232 yr 21 hours ago, E Rocc said: Because it was what the voters wanted and expected, and they wanted to stay in power? Or were there other reasons? Mostly the former, somewhat the latter. Public spending on welfare was considered demeaning and counterproductive, but spending on infrastructure was not. When fission bombs existed and fusion bombs did not, "sprawl" made urban areas much more durable. Were those politicians voted in specifically for that task? Was their platform "Nyah, vote for me in '48 see? I'm gonna get folks outta tenement housing and out in these clean suburbs, see? And we're gonna make it affordable, see?" or was it "Nyah, I'm gonna get ya taxes down, see?" We don't have the kind of sophisticated polling for old elections that we do for more recent ones.
February 12, 20232 yr 21 hours ago, Clefan14 said: The lack of education and self awareness is so cringe^ The smug self righteousness of those who believe that learning to agree with them constitutes "education" is causing seismic disturbances in the All Saints churchyard at Sutton Courtenay.
February 12, 20232 yr 14 minutes ago, GCrites80s said: Were those politicians voted in specifically for that task? Was their platform "Nyah, vote for me in '48 see? I'm gonna get folks outta tenement housing and out in these clean suburbs, see? And we're gonna make it affordable, see?" or was it "Nyah, I'm gonna get ya taxes down, see?" We don't have the kind of sophisticated polling for old elections that we do for more recent ones. Let's not discount the awareness of those old school politicians, and let's recall how that sophisticated polling worked out in 2016. How many of those politicians (that didn't stand to see their own power and authority lessened) argued against sprawl? It wasn't prejudice or some nefarious corporate conspiracy driving it, it was a multitude of factors.
February 12, 20232 yr 1 hour ago, E Rocc said: Let's not discount the awareness of those old school politicians, and let's recall how that sophisticated polling worked out in 2016. How many of those politicians (that didn't stand to see their own power and authority lessened) argued against sprawl? It wasn't prejudice or some nefarious corporate conspiracy driving it, it was a multitude of factors. Can we please stop using 2016 as an example of "failed" polling? The people who actually understand polling repeatedly told us that Trump had about a 1 in 3 chance of winning the electoral college - that's barely even a long shot. Same odds as getting heads twice if you were to flip a coin three times. Just because certain pundits chose to be loudly incorrect about the polls in 2016 doesn't mean the polls were wrong. It's really important to keep in mind that the human mind is always looking for black and white; yes and no; specific cause and effect; trying to apply binary principles to a random world. Statistically analysis is NOT intuitive. We have to be constantly reminding ourselves that the world is random and that our brains aren't designed to handle that. One aspect of this is claiming that a pollster who published a 65% odds of winning as being "wrong" if that candidate lost. That's not it! Rather, if there were 100 candidates running, and 65 of the candidates they said would win 65% of the time did win, and therefore 35 lost, their polling was dead on. For anyone curious about this concept, the book "Thinking: Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman is a thorough analysis of how the mind interprets the world. I highly recommend it. And back to the topic, whatever reasons one wants to ascribe to the people who carried out urban renewal and sprawl inducing highway projects, we really need to recognize them for the disastrous effects they had on society. Suburban sprawl has made us fat and unhealthy; "urban renewal" and highway projects destroyed wealthy minority communities; and segregated suburbs have exacerbated racial tensions while starving poor communities of the resources necessary to address poverty. These sprawl policies were mistakes and it is worthwhile to put government effort into correcting those mistakes and working to improve our society. When is the last time I-71 turned a profit?
February 12, 20232 yr 47 minutes ago, Boomerang_Brian said: Can we please stop using 2016 as an example of "failed" polling? The people who actually understand polling repeatedly told us that Trump had about a 1 in 3 chance of winning the electoral college - that's barely even a long shot. Same odds as getting heads twice if you were to flip a coin three times. Just because certain pundits chose to be loudly incorrect about the polls in 2016 doesn't mean the polls were wrong. It's really important to keep in mind that the human mind is always looking for black and white; yes and no; specific cause and effect; trying to apply binary principles to a random world. Statistically analysis is NOT intuitive. We have to be constantly reminding ourselves that the world is random and that our brains aren't designed to handle that. One aspect of this is claiming that a pollster who published a 65% odds of winning as being "wrong" if that candidate lost. That's not it! Rather, if there were 100 candidates running, and 65 of the candidates they said would win 65% of the time did win, and therefore 35 lost, their polling was dead on. For anyone curious about this concept, the book "Thinking: Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman is a thorough analysis of how the mind interprets the world. I highly recommend it. And back to the topic, whatever reasons one wants to ascribe to the people who carried out urban renewal and sprawl inducing highway projects, we really need to recognize them for the disastrous effects they had on society. Suburban sprawl has made us fat and unhealthy; "urban renewal" and highway projects destroyed wealthy minority communities; and segregated suburbs have exacerbated racial tensions while starving poor communities of the resources necessary to address poverty. These sprawl policies were mistakes and it is worthwhile to put government effort into correcting those mistakes and working to improve our society. People don’t understand how polls and numbers work, especially the crowd that always brings up 2016.
February 12, 20232 yr 3 hours ago, Boomerang_Brian said: Can we please stop using 2016 as an example of "failed" polling? The people who actually understand polling repeatedly told us that Trump had about a 1 in 3 chance of winning the electoral college - that's barely even a long shot. Same odds as getting heads twice if you were to flip a coin three times. Just because certain pundits chose to be loudly incorrect about the polls in 2016 doesn't mean the polls were wrong. It's really important to keep in mind that the human mind is always looking for black and white; yes and no; specific cause and effect; trying to apply binary principles to a random world. Statistically analysis is NOT intuitive. We have to be constantly reminding ourselves that the world is random and that our brains aren't designed to handle that. One aspect of this is claiming that a pollster who published a 65% odds of winning as being "wrong" if that candidate lost. That's not it! Rather, if there were 100 candidates running, and 65 of the candidates they said would win 65% of the time did win, and therefore 35 lost, their polling was dead on. For anyone curious about this concept, the book "Thinking: Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman is a thorough analysis of how the mind interprets the world. I highly recommend it. And back to the topic, whatever reasons one wants to ascribe to the people who carried out urban renewal and sprawl inducing highway projects, we really need to recognize them for the disastrous effects they had on society. Suburban sprawl has made us fat and unhealthy; "urban renewal" and highway projects destroyed wealthy minority communities; and segregated suburbs have exacerbated racial tensions while starving poor communities of the resources necessary to address poverty. These sprawl policies were mistakes and it is worthwhile to put government effort into correcting those mistakes and working to improve our society. "Improving" is in the eye of the beholder. Still, they were not policies per se, they represented what people wanted to do. Some people like living practically on top of their neighbors, most do not. The difference is the latter has no desire to tell others how to live, the former needs other people in order to live in dense conditions, and often resents the fact that others don't wish to. I don't recall if it was here or not, but I remember someone moving to a dense area and lamenting that there was not much foot traffic going past their stoop. To me, that was more "entitled" thinking than anything any sprawl advocate ever came up with. In addition, the building of highways and suburbs put people to work at a time when agriculture needed fewer people and military personnel were coming home. The only way "sprawl" will ever be reversed is through a lot of government coercion. This ties into the idea that the problem with government is it attracts people who want to govern. To issue orders and have them obeyed. Additional, density usually does require more government regulation than sprawl. So that also attracts both those who seek to govern and those who seek to be governed.
February 12, 20232 yr Sprawl was incentivized by the government and had a lot to do with white Americans refusing to integrate their lives (public schools, etc). So those with resources from generational wealth were able to take advantage of moving out, therefore creating concentrated areas of poverty and wealth via self segregation. It’s the Reagan/desantis playbook. To make such a grand statement absent of this intentional or not, is concerning. Edited February 13, 20232 yr by Clefan14
February 12, 20232 yr 1 minute ago, E Rocc said: Still, they were not policies per se, they represented what people wanted to do. Some people like living practically on top of their neighbors, most do not. The difference is the latter has no desire to tell others how to live, the former needs other people in order to live in dense conditions, and often resents the fact that others don't wish to. … The only way "sprawl" will ever be reversed is through a lot of government coercion. This ties into the idea that the problem with government is it attracts people who want to govern. To issue orders and have them obeyed. Additional, density usually does require more government regulation than sprawl. So that also attracts both those who seek to govern and those who seek to be governed. THIS. IS. NOT. TRUE. No matter how many times you repeat it, it isn’t true. Bad zoning laws restricting property use to single family homes is THE primary reason, by a wide margin, why we don’t have substantially more dense, livable communities. Period. Simply redoing zoning so it doesn’t restrict use would result in increased density, because it is more desirable and more productive. Again, look at where it costs the most to live because more people want to live there - you’ll consistently find denser, mixed use neighborhoods. If it wasn’t for socialist roads, and people had to individually pay what is instead heavily subsidized by general fund taxes to build and maintain roads, most Americans wouldn’t be able to afford to live way out in the exurbs. If it wasn’t for the blatant disregard of property rights that is single-family-home-only zoning, more multi family would organically be built. If wasn’t for the failed central-government planning that is enforced parking minimums, more mixed-use projects would pencil out and get financed (and therefore be built). If it wasn’t for the government picking winners and losers in the form of building codes that are MUCH more lax for single family homes compared to multi family, the natural economies of scale would make the latter more economical and therefore more common. Time and again when we actually examine results, we see clearly that bad government policy decisions are the primary reason that sprawl is so ubiquitous in our country. When is the last time I-71 turned a profit?
February 13, 20232 yr 17 hours ago, E Rocc said: ]The only way "sprawl" will ever be reversed is through a lot of government coercion. Not necessarily. If gas prices went up to $14/gallon, the market may be very interested in high-density, centralized living. Of course here in the USA there would be a lot of political pressure to subsidize gas for the residents of sprawlburbia....
February 13, 20232 yr 57 minutes ago, Cleburger said: Not necessarily. If gas prices went up to $14/gallon, the market may be very interested in high-density, centralized living. Of course here in the USA there would be a lot of political pressure to subsidize gas for the residents of sprawlburbia.... Or there would be a boom in electric or methane vehicles. Pun not intended for the latter. Americans are not very governable. We're very resourceful about coming up with legal ways to defy the government when we so desire. For example, SUVs are so popular in large part because CAFE made larger cars unavailable. Unintended consequences that run contrary to the desires of the government aren't something many of us are indifferent to, but in fact a bonus. That said, and leaving aside that it served some of their own purposes as well, what should the politicians of that era done to inhibit "sprawl"? What could they have done, that wouldn't have resulted in them being voted out?
February 13, 20232 yr Large cars are still sold. They exist. They were not regulated out of existence. Trucks and SUVs sell because the skilled trades pay so much and have plentiful openings as compared to super selective office jobs. Large cars make you look rich and people don't want that anymore. An Accord is now a large car and easily gets 32mpg. I drive one 4X a week. But Accords mostly sell to seniors and Democrats not Boomers. And the target market for almost all vehicles is Boomers.
February 13, 20232 yr 20 hours ago, E Rocc said: The only way "sprawl" will ever be reversed is through a lot of government coercion. This ties into the idea that the problem with government is it attracts people who want to govern. To issue orders and have them obeyed. This is so demonstrably false it's funny. Sprawl only exists because of government coercion. To do away with it all you have to do is let people build housing where they want in the quantities that the free market calls for.
February 13, 20232 yr Government does something Rs like = it was the people Government does something they don't like = it was the government
February 13, 20232 yr 1 hour ago, DEPACincy said: This is so demonstrably false it's funny. Sprawl only exists because of government coercion. To do away with it all you have to do is let people build housing where they want in the quantities that the free market calls for. You're kidding, right? Hearing about my grandparents saving up money during and after the war to move out to Walton Hills and Macedonia was all completely made up? Gotchya. I can understand why some people think sprawl was a bad thing, even if I don't agree. But this is so far from real history that I can't reply as I wish without getting in trouble again.
February 13, 20232 yr That is a part of what DEPA is saying. The free market was at work. People who really want to would still be able to.
February 13, 20232 yr 1 hour ago, E Rocc said: You're kidding, right? Hearing about my grandparents saving up money during and after the war to move out to Walton Hills and Macedonia was all completely made up? Gotchya. I can understand why some people think sprawl was a bad thing, even if I don't agree. But this is so far from real history that I can't reply as I wish without getting in trouble again. Your world is not the world. Full stop. Yes white families terrified of sharing schools, neighborhoods, grocery stores, etc. moved out to further places. We get that was your story. But to say that at a large scale the US government did not incentivize this is so alarming. Many of these same families who had the means to do this was a result of being given favorable loans (or at least not being red lined), having educational/employment opportunities others didn’t, having generational wealth and stability, or having family that got legit very cheap or free land to settle upon.
February 14, 20232 yr 4 hours ago, E Rocc said: You're kidding, right? Hearing about my grandparents saving up money during and after the war to move out to Walton Hills and Macedonia was all completely made up? Gotchya. I can understand why some people think sprawl was a bad thing, even if I don't agree. But this is so far from real history that I can't reply as I wish without getting in trouble again. I am 100% sure that your grandparents did that. I am also 100% sure that their decision was HEAVILY subsidized by the government. I am also 100% sure that exclusionary zoning has forced a lot of people to live farther out than they would prefer. This isn't some radical statement.
February 14, 20232 yr 13 hours ago, GCrites80s said: That is a part of what DEPA is saying. The free market was at work. People who really want to would still be able to. Also at work was people's preferences as to how their tax dollars were spent. What some would call "subsidized".
February 14, 20232 yr 12 hours ago, Clefan14 said: Your world is not the world. Full stop. Yes white families terrified of sharing schools, neighborhoods, grocery stores, etc. moved out to further places. We get that was your story. But to say that at a large scale the US government did not incentivize this is so alarming. Many of these same families who had the means to do this was a result of being given favorable loans (or at least not being red lined), having educational/employment opportunities others didn’t, having generational wealth and stability, or having family that got legit very cheap or free land to settle upon. You saying that was "my story" really pushes the limits we have established over the years here. It's a typical tactic of the left and other worshippers of big intrusive government to ad hominem views that differ from theirs, that's all I'll say at this time.
February 14, 20232 yr 18 hours ago, E Rocc said: You're kidding, right? Hearing about my grandparents saving up money during and after the war to move out to Walton Hills and Macedonia was all completely made up? Gotchya. I can understand why some people think sprawl was a bad thing, even if I don't agree. But this is so far from real history that I can't reply as I wish without getting in trouble again. Did they move to Walton Hills or Macedonia before or after I-480 & I-271 were built? I think that's what people are driving (no pun intended) at here. As for ancient Rome's population density: If that were the experience of living in dense environments today, the political urge for sprawl would almost certainly be overwhelming. My wife finds Akron to be a little spread-out for her liking, but if I ask if she would actually want to go back to Chennai (27,000+ per square mile, above-average economically for India but definitely poor by American standards), the answer is a very clear hell no.
February 14, 20232 yr 26 minutes ago, Gramarye said: Did they move to Walton Hills or Macedonia before or after I-480 & I-271 were built? I think that's what people are driving (no pun intended) at here. As for ancient Rome's population density: If that were the experience of living in dense environments today, the political urge for sprawl would almost certainly be overwhelming. My wife finds Akron to be a little spread-out for her liking, but if I ask if she would actually want to go back to Chennai (27,000+ per square mile, above-average economically for India but definitely poor by American standards), the answer is a very clear hell no. Ok but there are Census Tracts in Philadelphia, NYC, Boston, DC, etc. that have 50k or 60k per square mile and they are wonderful. The Rittenhouse Square neighborhood of Philly is one of the most desirable in the country with 65k per square mile.
February 14, 20232 yr 4 hours ago, E Rocc said: Also at work was people's preferences as to how their tax dollars were spent. What some would call "subsidized". I find it hilarious that when government does something you personally don't like it is big government run amok. But when it does something that benefits you it is just "people's preferences as to how their tax dollars were spent."
February 14, 20232 yr 1 hour ago, DEPACincy said: Ok but there are Census Tracts in Philadelphia, NYC, Boston, DC, etc. that have 50k or 60k per square mile and they are wonderful. The Rittenhouse Square neighborhood of Philly is one of the most desirable in the country with 65k per square mile. Sure, and Chennai has areas that are that dense or more, too. I was quoting the stat for the entire city (Philadelphia would be ~12,000 by that metric). Rittenhouse Square is also among the most expensive neighborhoods in all of Pennsylvania. It's no more fair to use that as an argument for why everyone should celebrate density as it would be to use Bryn Mawr, Gladwyne, or Villanova for why everyone should seek the serene suburban life. And, of course, I fully recognize that it's just as inappropriate to conjure the vision of the slums of Chennai (or Delhi or Dhaka) as the right image for density, too; that wasn't my intent with my little anecdote. But if you're going to sell a vision of density to a wide audience, i.e., including people on blue-collar incomes and with larger families, you have to sell a vision of something more achievable for that audience than Rittenhouse Square.
February 14, 20232 yr 1 hour ago, Gramarye said: But if you're going to sell a vision of density to a wide audience, i.e., including people on blue-collar incomes and with larger families, you have to sell a vision of something more achievable for that audience than Rittenhouse Square. Sure, but you don't have to look very far in Philly to see that vision. South Philly, Fishtown, Brewerytown, etc. are all places where a blue collar person can afford a house and live in a vibrant, walkable neighborhood. The density makes that possible. Honestly, it is interesting you brought up Bryn Mawr because it is about 5,800 people per square mile, built around a train station with regular commuter service, as well as light rail service. It's more dense than Cincinnati, Columbus, or Cleveland. If every suburb were as dense as Bryn Mawr we'd be in a better place from an environmental and economic sustainability lens. Suburb does not automatically mean sprawl.
February 14, 20232 yr 1 hour ago, DEPACincy said: Sure, but you don't have to look very far in Philly to see that vision. South Philly, Fishtown, Brewerytown, etc. are all places where a blue collar person can afford a house and live in a vibrant, walkable neighborhood. The density makes that possible. Honestly, it is interesting you brought up Bryn Mawr because it is about 5,800 people per square mile, built around a train station with regular commuter service, as well as light rail service. It's more dense than Cincinnati, Columbus, or Cleveland. If every suburb were as dense as Bryn Mawr we'd be in a better place from an environmental and economic sustainability lens. Suburb does not automatically mean sprawl. I agree that Fishtown and Brewerytown are better examples than Rittenhouse Square. But with that in mind, you have to acknowledge that a lot of blue-collar families still aren't going to want to drop $210k to live in a 1000sf townhome, and send their kids to Horatio Hackett Elementary and, worse, Penn Treaty High School. And I'm well aware that suburbs don't have to mean sprawl; my grandparents lived in Yeadon and my parents' first house was in Upper Darby. I think denser suburbs are in fact a large part of what we'd get if we did away with the kinds of exclusionary zoning discussed upthread (which, in case it needs to be repeated, I'm all for). We even see that happening in some Ohio suburbs: Dublin along the Scioto looks very different than it did when I was a kid (and of course also looks very, very different from Yeadon or Upper Darby, too--I have no idea what analogues to those I'd make in the universe of Ohio inner-ring suburbs).
February 14, 20232 yr 8 hours ago, Gramarye said: Did they move to Walton Hills or Macedonia before or after I-480 & I-271 were built? I think that's what people are driving (no pun intended) at here. As for ancient Rome's population density: If that were the experience of living in dense environments today, the political urge for sprawl would almost certainly be overwhelming. My wife finds Akron to be a little spread-out for her liking, but if I ask if she would actually want to go back to Chennai (27,000+ per square mile, above-average economically for India but definitely poor by American standards), the answer is a very clear hell no. Early to mid 50s for each. My grandpa and great uncle were the only ones who lived in the city, this was when they started working at Cleveland Pneumatic. My dad graduated from Nordonia in 1954, so we were the opposite of the "normal" flow in that regard. (Same with Holly, both her parents went to Nordonia, albeit much later, she went to Bedford). My maternal grandparents started building the house in Walton Hills sometime during the mid 50s. They predated the freeways, but they and their neighbors would certainly have favored them. While they made it easier for people to move out. they also benefitted the people who had already done so. So there was some consensus among the taxpayers that this was what they wanted to do. Government also saw benefits in maintaining a base of experienced construction workers, thinking they might need them in case of disaster or war. This remains true. There were other reasons as well, the people who assign strictly nefarious motives to sprawl are ignorant of history, perhaps willfully. As for density, as I've been saying for a long time everyone has a level of what they consider too much of it. People used to the borderlands burbs between Cleveland and Akron, where politicians pronounce "density" in the same tone some here might say "sprawl", may not be comfortable in Lakewood or some of the denser parts of Cleveland. People who thrive on the latter might be overwhelmed by Manhattan level density. New Yorkers accustomed to that might not be good with being physically packed onto subways like transit employees routinely do in Tokyo, indeed some of them might end up on the tracks. Then China and India take it to another level. It seems like the people who came to America from denser places maintained such density, to a point, along the coasts. As people moved inland, density was often necessary but was endured rather than enjoyed. Postwar, again keep in mind that there was less demand for agricultural labor, but industrial labor was still needed as the rest of the world rebuilt. So the rural men who had come to the cities had no big desire to go back, instead wanted to bring their families up. But not in tenements. Plus, soldiers and sailors were coming home. Without suburbs, density would have increased, to uncomfortable levels for many. As I've said, cultural perfect storm. I've never really even heard of any prominent political figures who actively opposed sprawl in general during that era. Specific aspects, perhaps.
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