People Who Live In Suburbs: Classy, Icky, or Dudes?

and I am using manhattan as a reference point for urbanity, not because manhattan is a particularly special place. there's no reason why there can't be a dense city w/ good transit in iowa.

but you still don't account for Americans who will pay any price not to raise their children in the city.

no, I do account for it by saying "they should pay that price"

or who live in suburbs precisely because they want a clear division between work and play.

what this all seems to keep coming back to, iatee, is that you simply value urban living more than non-urban living. which is fine! but covering it up with a bunch of hype about how its unfair that everyone cant live in the city on the cheap because politics and subsidies and transportation and stimulus package and whatever fits at the moment is where yer argument is kind of coming unglued.

xposts

yes...we shouldn't be spending massive amounts of government money on freeways to that lakeshore property.

― iatee, Thursday, June 10, 2010 3:24 PM (48 seconds ago)

see this is what im talking about. Why? How is that different than subsidizing urban living?

so you want people in the suburbs to be poorer across the board, got it.

yeah I don't think that 'politics and subsidies and transportation and stimulus package' is 'a bunch of hype'

i mean 1st they'll be poor, but then they'll all flee to the city cause it'll be cheaper. but all the rich people will stay behind and you'll have that super affluent suburban ring.

Why? How is that different than subsidizing urban living?

because

a. urban living is inherently cheaper on a per capita basis
b. big cities are (usually) not being subsidized on the macro level - nyc pays more in taxes than it receives in services

option b there is generally what right wing suburban nutjobs in my neck of the woods use to vote against school referendums, its basically a sour grapes argument that holds no water in my book.

well you asked "how the subsidies were different" - the difference is that, on the macro level urban life is *not being subsidized*

so what? why should it be?

yeah I don't think that 'politics and subsidies and transportation and stimulus package' is 'a bunch of hype'

― iatee, Thursday, June 10, 2010 3:31 PM (8 minutes ago)

neither do i, but when you use it as disposable coin for an unfocused argument, it is hype

once again - I was just responding to you and "how the subsidies were different"

my 'focused argument', that I've repeated a dozen times - suburbs are artificially cheap, urban areas are artificially expensive. if we were to change government policies that make this so, fewer people would live in the suburbs and fewer people would want to live in the suburbs.

and again - why does that matter? outside of the "wahhh i paid my taxes and they fixed that guys street instead of the one in front of my house" sour grapes approach, this is how things work. the reason for this is population density - more people in close proximity = higher tax base. i mean, good for NYC in being a self-sustaining economy on the taxation level, but why does that imply anything beyond that?

xpost - BUT the main problem is I have yet to hear why urban areas are "artificially" expensive. in fact your supply/demand argument (which i dont actually agree with but whatever) is kind of a total counterpoint to what you are saying.

note: the idea that money spent on outside the city infrastructure is not benefiting the city in an equal and possibly more significant way than it is the rural folks is also just so off the mark that i cant understand why you are even attempting it.

so right, overcrowded city with super affluent suburbs...

i'm not going to try to speak for iatee, but i think the sensible policy is to first remove the policies in place that overencourage suburban growth. you might: eliminate tax credits for home ownership, use congestion pricing and/or gas taxes, relax zoning restrictions to encourage mixed-use development, remove rent controls (these last two can help increase the supply of urban housing to meet the demand that sends the current supply's prices soaring), decouple housing and school assignment (this one is politically a pipe dream, tho).

i don't think you necessarily (at least immediately) go from subsidizing one paradigm to the other. i would much rather see government incentives removed first and see where the "natural" level of suburban growth would be with carbon priced for its externalities (my guess: suburbia would still be the preference for a lot if not most families! but the marginal difference might be enough to make for good policy without resorting to dramatic favoring of urban centers which may (or will) prove to have its own set of unintended consequences).

thanks to massive psychological warfare

We do lots of things thanks to massive psychological warfare. It's called advertising, on the simplest level. On a bigger plane, it's also the reason the govt has gone through so many waves of pushing Americans to spend and want bigger and better lives instead of using things up or fixing them -- not-so-coincidentally pushed on us at times when the economy needed a boost for whatever reason. The level of indebtedness that resulted certainly isn't in individuals' best interests, but they/I/we follow/ed along anyway and thought we were lucky to have "made it" enough to have that big TV or new car or whatever. You can't say Americans don't know how to drink their Kool-Aid(tm).

suburbs are artificially cheap, urban areas are artificially expensive. if we were to change government policies that make this so, fewer people would live in the suburbs and fewer people would want to live in the suburbs.

That's assuming that people's decisions on where to live are driven purely by economic factors and remain the same regardless of age, size of household, etc.

I went to my 10-year high-school reunion and talked to a couple people* who said that they tried living in Chicago for a while but it wasn't really for them and so moved back to the suburbs. I couldn't really comprehend this, but you know, people have different priorities and values. To me, the cultural aspects of urban life -- bars, restaurants, music venues, theaters, etc. -- are more than enough reason to live in a city, but some people could care less about that stuff.

*The one I remember in particular (if you're wondering, Granny Dainger) was Eug3n3 Y@u.

lots and lots of americans want to live a manhattan-type-urban lifestyle and cannot because demand for this lifestyle

Guys, this is where he actually, really said "lots and lots of americans", I wasn't making that up.

I think Alfred was teasing you because you quoted him as saying "most Americans."

if suburuban regs were relaxed they would become more dense and more city-like in the aggregate. it's not about people "moving back into the city" proper, it's about the whole urban area (urb + suburbs) being allowed to build up instead of being forced to build only out

Okay, I did accidentally do that.

(xpost)

That's assuming that people's decisions on where to live are driven purely by economic factors and remain the same regardless of age, size of household, etc.

surely they are not driven by nothing but economic factors, but "when something is more expensive, some people will buy less of it" is not a radical idea, is it?

also m bison otm, *should* be speaking for me.

^^^^ xpost to goole
economic factors gen do not affect individuals all that dramatically, but they affect lots and lots of ppl in small ways that add up meaningfully on the whole

if suburuban regs were relaxed they would become more dense and more city-like in the aggregate. it's not about people "moving back into the city" proper, it's about the whole urban area (urb + suburbs) being allowed to build up instead of being forced to build only out

^^^^

I think Alfred was teasing you because you quoted him as saying "most Americans."

Yep.

but "when something is more expensive, some people will buy less of it" is not a radical idea, is it?

Not when you're taking your Microeconomics 101 final, no, but in the real world things are more complicated than that, especially when it comes to things like "Where should I live?" People don't buy "housing" like they do "insurance" in the Progressive commercials.

economic factors gen do not affect individuals all that dramatically, but they affect lots and lots of ppl in small ways that add up meaningfully on the whole

The phrase "lots and lots of people" is sure doing a lot of heavy lifting for you.

like, of course it's 'more complicated than that'. but price *plays a role* in anyone's decision making.

if suburuban regs were relaxed they would become more dense and more city-like in the aggregate. it's not about people "moving back into the city" proper, it's about the whole urban area (urb + suburbs) being allowed to build up instead of being forced to build only out

i can get behind that, i think. tho i think the main issue is structuring suburbs around walkable "downtowns" and public trans and then, y'know, providing that public trans. i'd def take a bus the 5 miles to my work if a) one existed and b) the nearby area was compact enough and pedestrian-friendly so there were a fair amount of walkable lunch options.

Sure, but it's more like they pick the place they want to live first, then look for the correct combination of price and other factors.

which is to say, urbanize them xp

Sure, but it's more like they pick the place they want to live first, then look for the correct combination of price and other factors.

"pick the place they want to live" - price is already playing a role in this thought process.

sure i guess, if you want to use your personal definitions of urban and suburban.

and yeah jaymc, i think a lot of people in their 20s who grew up in the burbs and hated it, couldn't wait to move to big city and were glad they did, assume all of their peers feel/felt the same way.

which ties into iatee's "lots and lots of people wanna live an urban life but can't afford it" thing

serious question for iatee - if New Richmond, WI (small town picked at random btw) fits what Granny just described up there, is that still a problem, and if so, why?

no

GD, my guess is that even some of the people who used the epithet "Boringbrook" w/r/t our hometown eventually realized that it was a decent place to raise a family or whatever.

yep! my best friend who has a kid on the way just bought a house a stone's throw from the old BHS! kinda bizarre really.

xpost to iatee: ok cool! this is kinda why i think were arguing for the same outcome but from different angles (ie my reasoning for living where i do) - i just see the behavior of peeps as the thing that needs fixing (shopping locally, diminished driving, sustainable living, etc) and think that their location doesnt preclude that happening wherever.

well, sometimes the location does preclude it! a city needs to be a certain size and be willing to attempt a certain density for that future to be possible. but again, I haven't been using 'suburbia' to mean "those houses outside of a major city" or whatever, I've been using it to mean "suburban" as an urban environment and style of development - and like I said, this describes areas inside the political boundaries of major US cities.

(and doesn't always describe areas outside of a major city)

i just see the behavior of peeps as the thing that needs fixing (shopping locally, diminished driving, sustainable living, etc) and think that their location doesnt preclude that happening wherever.

Location precludes those things happening in a lot of places without significant changes to zoning etc that have already been detailed here. Even if everyone in Suburb XYZ woke up tomorrow willing to walk 10 blocks for their groceries, they wouldn't be ABLE to, and they won't be able to for years to come unless something is changed on a city government level...?

and people are also reading things into my POV - I don't think suburbia is necessarily a bad place to live or grow up or raise a family! I don't think that people there are any more uncultured than your average person in brooklyn! I don't think that it's only white people!

I just think that it's a very economically and environmentally inefficient style of life, and it's unfortunate that we have policies in place (from fed to local level) that make it cheap and omnipresent. and as much as people talk about changing those policies, it's something that requires (what would appear to be) radical steps and real sacrifices from suburbanites.

Hell, I lived in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey at one point, and even though it was only a 10-min walk from our house to the "center" of "town" (ie the post office, a church, and a wine store), NO ONE WALKED. Everyone in town got into their leased luxury cars and drove to the coffee shop for their newspaper and joe. And this is in a place that DOES have sidewalks and one or two streets of small interesting stores and eateries and where people have enormous financial advantages over most of the rest of the country.