have you guys never run into the term externality before?
― goole, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:23 (fourteen years ago) link
I have but only sort of recently in reading a book about reducing waste.
This thread needs more JBR.
― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:24 (fourteen years ago) link
Apparently you live in a world that "prioritizes" urban life. Cities are loud, dirty, and frantic (especially if you've ever visited a city that isn't in the US or Europe).
Although I don't believe people get better, I really thought we'd progressed to the point where indefensible dichotomies like cities = grate suburbs = boring, pre-fab no longer existed.
right, except I don't dislike suburbs for being boring or pre-fab or for not having enough bars or brown people or whatever. read what I wrote, this is basically 100% about transportation.
iatee, i asked you this upthread yesterday, but please define what you mean by externalities
when someone drives to work, they create large amounts of pollution, depend on a highly subsidized street and road system and they take up a large % of the urban environment w/ a single of metal. these are all (among the) externalities they create. there are environmental, urban and social 'costs' of this lifestyle, and this person isn't actually expected to pay them. in fact, driving might be cheaper than taking public transportation, when the environmental/urban/social 'costs' of public transportation are significantly lower. there is no logical reason for this to case.
― iatee, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:26 (fourteen years ago) link
no no, i get what externalities are, i just feel like the vagaries about what the "costs" of these imaginary suburbs iatee keeps talking about are make it impossible to do anything other than shrug in response xxpost
― Adolf Hipster (jjjusten), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:26 (fourteen years ago) link
what is the best kind of community
living in a van moving around the country solving mysteries. #2 probably minimum security prisons
― Lamp, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:27 (fourteen years ago) link
What are some major directions for "humanizing" suburban/bedroom town-type residential areas?
Not really sure about the more sprawly type of existing suburbs - other than improving bus services possibly
As for newer suburbs what does everyone think about retrofitting of existing satellite towns (I'm kinda thinking about Pittsburgh here - as a city I guess its still losing population but as an urbanized area?)
― cherry blossom, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:27 (fourteen years ago) link
pollution, congestion, space, government $. what's vague about these costs?
xp
― iatee, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:27 (fourteen years ago) link
but dude, like rev and i have both said repeatedly, your idea that suburbs are 100% city commuters is not borne out by reality xxxpost
― Adolf Hipster (jjjusten), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:28 (fourteen years ago) link
in fact the majority of my city dwelling friends commute out TO the fucking suburbs which is where all the office parks etc are.
― Adolf Hipster (jjjusten), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:29 (fourteen years ago) link
please give example of where I said something contrary to that? a large % of suburbans commute to other suburbs.
― iatee, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:30 (fourteen years ago) link
Adding sidewalks to areas that have none, bike lanes, creating mass transit, increasing density in areas with access to nearby amenities, I'm sure other stuff I'm not thinking of.
― fuck being hard, suburbs are complicated (The Reverend), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:30 (fourteen years ago) link
or the same suburb even! it doesn't matter. what matters is that they take a car and for a large % of people their only viable option is a car.
i might be wrong here but i am kind of thinking that you live in one of the gargantua cities in the us and are taking that experience and extrapolating it to the rest of the country, which is just not accurate. xpost
DUDE, I just said that URBAN residents I know predominately commute TO the suburbs. are you even reading anything I write?
― Adolf Hipster (jjjusten), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:32 (fourteen years ago) link
yes and I wasn't disagreeing with that either?
― iatee, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:32 (fourteen years ago) link
A lot of people in cities drive cars, too.
― fuck being hard, suburbs are complicated (The Reverend), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:32 (fourteen years ago) link
yes and I am even more so opposed to those people!
― iatee, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:33 (fourteen years ago) link
In other words according to your model in my circle of peeps, people in the city should be penalized for the externalities of commuting to the suburbs because they could choose to live there thus cutting their transportation costs.
― Adolf Hipster (jjjusten), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:33 (fourteen years ago) link
yes
― iatee, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:34 (fourteen years ago) link
why not
i mean if you want to fix this obv dealing with ways to increase the cost of car ownership is the answer, not some bizarre suburb sin tax.
― Adolf Hipster (jjjusten), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:34 (fourteen years ago) link
Suggest Ban Permalink― Adolf Hipster (jjjusten), Wednesday, June 9, 2010 9:33 AM Bookmark
...but people who do live in suburbs should be penalized for their externalities whether they work near where they live or not.
― fuck being hard, suburbs are complicated (The Reverend), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:35 (fourteen years ago) link
anyone i've known who lived in the suburbs but worked in the city took the train to work. you'd be insane to drive. (haha as a kid I basically never saw my dad during the week, cause he chose to drive his 25ish mile commute to the city, but couldn't handle rush hours so worked the 3pm-11pm shift. crazy!)
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:35 (fourteen years ago) link
DUDE, I just said that URBAN residents I know predominately commute TO the suburbs.
well, this still falls under the "problem with suburbs" tbh. living in one, working in the other, driving one way or the other doesn't really matter
― goole, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:36 (fourteen years ago) link
people who live near where they work create fewer externalities...what is complicated about this idea?
― iatee, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:36 (fourteen years ago) link
increasing density in areas with access to nearby amenities
This is interesting because...it seems like another way of saying, "Make areas with access to Stuff be more like cities." Which is fine, it's great! but you're basically admitting that the high-pop-den urban model is more desirable on a human scale.
Also, a lot a lot-lot-lot of residential areas have ZERO access to amenities. You'd have to CREATE the amenities where they didn't exist before. Do you...use govt money, tax concessions, whatever, to promote developing these businesses?
― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:37 (fourteen years ago) link
^
― iatee, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:37 (fourteen years ago) link
― iatee, Wednesday, June 9, 2010 9:36 AM Bookmark
Nothing at all. You only seem to grasp it though when it applies to city dwellers.
― fuck being hard, suburbs are complicated (The Reverend), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:38 (fourteen years ago) link
^yes. Plus, mixed-use areas rather than ginormous tract of houses, then ginormous office park, then ginormous shopping complex.
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:39 (fourteen years ago) link
And jj, although your house and your nabe and your life sound perfectly charming and I pretty much want them all, you are taking the perfection of YOUR suburban-by-some-definition life and using it to defend things just as generalized as any of the champions of cities may be doing on this thread.
― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:39 (fourteen years ago) link
no, it's just much more likely to be the case with them because they live in an environment suited for it, or near public transit.
― iatee, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:41 (fourteen years ago) link
ok so at this point i think iatee is arguing that people who commute to their suburban job out of the city are in fact living in a one person suburb that orbits around them.
― Adolf Hipster (jjjusten), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:41 (fourteen years ago) link
waht
― iatee, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:42 (fourteen years ago) link
as much as i apreesh the "hey ppl in suburbs aren't JUST commuting to cities" sentiment the fact that fucktons of people do just this remains.
have there been any studies/proposals/etc. for creating environmentally sustainable models of living in outer-ring suburbs as they are understood in the u.s.? because i would like to read those.
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:42 (fourteen years ago) link
Did I ever say otherwise?
― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Wednesday, June 9, 2010 Suggest Ban Permalink9:37 AM Bookmark
It wouldn't be perfect, but a lot of this could be handled with simple zoning changes. One of the problems with suburban planning is the hard seperation of land use into seperate commercial and residential areas. Allowing some commercial or (preferably) mixed-use development into areas where only residential use exists could incrementally make those spaces more livable.
― fuck being hard, suburbs are complicated (The Reverend), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:42 (fourteen years ago) link
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/48/107880025_1a2b75d75a.jpg
reposting this because i think its an impt piece of data, it's generalizble to say that suburban space is more energy-inefficient and i think that's all iatee has been getting at
― i don't always play indie, but when i do, i prefer xx (m bison), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:43 (fourteen years ago) link
Or what Granny said.
― fuck being hard, suburbs are complicated (The Reverend), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:43 (fourteen years ago) link
xp yeah exactly--is there any model that refutes or mitigates this?
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:43 (fourteen years ago) link
bison, I think you are saying the opposite of what you mean?
― fuck being hard, suburbs are complicated (The Reverend), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:44 (fourteen years ago) link
and nah laurel, im not generalizing at all about what other suburbs are like, and i wouldnt be caught dead living in some that are around here. i just think that it bears mentioning that the preconceptions about "suburbs" getting tossed around on this thread are a little bizarre. some suburbs suck. so do some cities. some rural areas are awesome. some are not.
― Adolf Hipster (jjjusten), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:44 (fourteen years ago) link
Re redding-up the suburbs: Sidewalks and bike lanes are USELESS in parts of the country where the temperature is below freezing for half of the year, there could be several feet of snow on the ground, and everything you might want to buy or do is 5-50 miles from home. I gotta figure this is most of the northern US, from east to west?
Rev: Good, this is what I was thinking/getting at. However, the next hurdle seems like the fact that people who live in the burbs are unlikely to vote for or allow those zoning changes because none of them want to live near business or places/services that will gather groups of (possibly undesirable, possibly noisy, etc) people together. Should the municipality make the changes over their heads? Go on a campaign to show people the benefits and hope they're open to changing their minds?
― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:45 (fourteen years ago) link
xxpost for clarity i shouldve have said less energy efficient than more inefficient?
― i don't always play indie, but when i do, i prefer xx (m bison), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:46 (fourteen years ago) link
oh never mind, I misread your post
― fuck being hard, suburbs are complicated (The Reverend), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:46 (fourteen years ago) link
think of something like the mortgage income tax deduction or 1st time home buyer credit -- there's a lot of research indicating that it doesn't really encourage more home ownership; it encourages people who already would have bought a house to buy a bigger one, and therefore encourages builders to build bigger houses.
it's a government expenditure that super-sizes houses, along with (maybe even instead of) its intended effect: easing home-ownership and allowing more people to enter the middle class.
it doesn't seem like much, but you multiply it over a whole nation and it adds up: larger houses, more heating and cooling, more upkeep roads between them, more driving between them. it's a classic case of the government paying for the "wrong" thing
i don't get a break from the gov't on my rent, so what gives? (i might from the state i live in, but my income is too high)
― goole, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:46 (fourteen years ago) link
It's a very old debate.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51lVkm%2B0uPL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
Alas, the problem was tackled much earlier:
http://www.allingtonbooks.com/allington/images/items/000028.jpg
― Do you like my indifference curves? (Sanpaku), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:48 (fourteen years ago) link
the fact that people who live in the burbs are unlikely to vote for or allow those zoning changes because none of them want to live near business or places/services that will gather groups of (possibly undesirable, possibly noisy, etc) people together.
why exactly is this an assumption? this seems like strawmanning of the highest degree
― Adolf Hipster (jjjusten), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:48 (fourteen years ago) link
I mean I think you guys are just failing to see how I'm using the word suburb, (in the suburban vs. urban sense, and not in any sense related to the size, political border or location of a city) - your examples of 'suburbs that are actually nice!' are actually just suburbs that are not very suburban by this definition, and well...are almost by definition the opposite of the things I dislike about 'suburbs'.
― iatee, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:49 (fourteen years ago) link
Uh, not exactly. It snows about 2 days a year in the PNW. I hadn't taken the less temparate climates of other parts of the country into account tho.
― fuck being hard, suburbs are complicated (The Reverend), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:49 (fourteen years ago) link
"The fact that" usually signals the unfurling of an opinion.
― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:49 (fourteen years ago) link
brian setzer has a condo by where i work in mpls. i bet that shit cost a fortune
― the dj screwtape letters (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:49 (fourteen years ago) link
I admit I only read like one-third of A Pattern Language before I gave it to my little brother for Christmas while he was in arch school. So I don't know shit about shit, obviously.
― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:50 (fourteen years ago) link