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The Conservative Case Against the Suburbs

Living in the suburbs has little or nothing to do with "upward mobility" as stated in the article. High costs of healthcare (a fully privatized system will always cost more), high cost of public and private higher education and other factors are greater than living farther from cities. also talking about how cities created wealth 50, 100, 150 years ago made sense. Today, physical location is as important.

There needs to be more sensible growth patterns, but it isn't an all or nothing proposition.
 
Have you not ever witnessed the redevelopment of a block with ten story buildings into a high rise tower with street level retail and a parking deck underneath? Of course cities are expensive. But the cost of maintaining suburbs is not low and is extremely inefficient and unsustainable. And that doesn't even begin to address the social costs and environmental cost of devouring land to fuel the economy.

If suburban developers had to pay the true costs of sprawl (extending roads, water and sewer, schools), you'd see a lot more (even more) interest in medium density infill projects in desirable close-in locations.

There are over 200,000 people in HB. Currently there is a development that will add over 1100 apartments and dozens of businesses on what used to be a mall and multi-use space. The traffic it create is almost unthinkable. In spite of the apartments not being in a truly prime location, they are more expensive than similarly sized units in the area.

We need more public transportation and to lessen sprawl, but these are not the simplistic issues many of you think they are.
 
There are over 200,000 people in HB. Currently there is a development that will add over 1100 apartments and dozens of businesses on what used to be a mall and multi-use space. The traffic it create is almost unthinkable. In spite of the apartments not being in a truly prime location, they are more expensive than similarly sized units in the area.

We need more public transportation and to lessen sprawl, but these are not the simplistic issues many of you think they are.

LA and San Fran are just fucked beyond belief and shouldn't be used as a comparison to most US cities when discussing sprawl.
 
There are over 200,000 people in HB. Currently there is a development that will add over 1100 apartments and dozens of businesses on what used to be a mall and multi-use space. The traffic it create is almost unthinkable. In spite of the apartments not being in a truly prime location, they are more expensive than similarly sized units in the area.

We need more public transportation and to lessen sprawl, but these are not the simplistic issues many of you think they are.

Right. And it's a hell of a lot easier (less costly in the long run) to build the necessary heavy duty infrastructure necessary for a city on the front end than to go back and retrofit it later after the sprawl has already occurred.
 
Is your argument, rj, that adding high priced housing to LA via Huntingdon Beach will increase crime and poverty?

Increasing density in cities, will push the poor out of the cities. Where will they go since you want to minimize suburbs? It can't be both ways in major cities. You can't just build up without buying property to build the new buildings on. Since most of the land that can be bought in cities is in lower income areas, where will the displaced people go?
 
Increasing density in cities, will push the poor out of the cities. Where will they go since you want to minimize suburbs? It can't be both ways in major cities. You can't just build up without buying property to build the new buildings on. Since most of the land that can be bought in cities is in lower income areas, where will the displaced people go?

I don't even know where to start, so fuck it.
 
Right. And it's a hell of a lot easier (less costly in the long run) to build the necessary heavy duty infrastructure necessary for a city on the front end than to go back and retrofit it later after the sprawl has already occurred.

Again READ what I have posted. I have said I would dissuade further sprawl. It's not "building on the front end" as in cities the land to do is rare and the water/sewer and electrical systems already exist. They would have to be completely renovated.

Of course we probably agree that the feds should immediately start building a brand new and state-of-the-art electrical grid. It would be cheaper and safer to do it now and nationally.
 
Wait, here's the world's tallest residential structure at 432 Park Avenue in NYC. Did some poor family have to move out of their home? Did the developer find land? Are there other new buildings in NYC where a family who lived on Park Avenue can go and live?

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Again READ what I have posted. I have said I would dissuade further sprawl. It's not "building on the front end" as in cities the land to do is rare and the water/sewer and electrical systems already exist. They would have to be completely renovated.

Of course we probably agree that the feds should immediately start building a brand new and state-of-the-art electrical grid. It would be cheaper and safer to do it now and nationally.

So you want the higher density to occur somewhere other than where you live. Okay. Got it.
 
Wait, here's the world's tallest residential structure at 432 Park Avenue in NYC. Did some poor family have to move out of their home? Did the developer find land? Are there other new buildings in NYC where a family who lived on Park Avenue can go and live?

i heard they actually used the tears of people to reinforce the foundation concrete
 
Wait, here's the world's tallest residential structure at 432 Park Avenue in NYC. Did some poor family have to move out of their home? Did the developer find land? Are there other new buildings in NYC where a family who lived on Park Avenue can go and live?

1413327591271_Image_galleryImage__MUST_LINK_IN_COPY_www_43.JPG

Yep lots of people can afford $16.95M - $82.5M for a condo in that building.

The cost of building such tall buildings makes the price high.
 
Total NIMBYism from rj here. And a national grid would be even cheaper if people lived closer together.

I wouldn't want it in your backyard either. Again, it's not either or. There has to be a sensible melding of both.

Building up is very expensive. I wonder if those (especially the conservatives) would support the new regulations that would be necessary to ensure the safety of these tall buildings.

Our nation is going to be spread out no matter what. The electrical grid has to serve those in Montana just as well as those at 12th and Spruce. We'll always need farmers and ranchers and those who live in other places. Building a new grid, even one that is spread out would save people hundreds of billions due to new technology.
 
Then developers would build more apartments to suit the demand and prices would come down.

Population density is better in almost every single measure than spread out suburbs.
Pretty much all of the social research that I've seen supports this post.
 
I wouldn't want it in your backyard either. Again, it's not either or. There has to be a sensible melding of both.

Building up is very expensive. I wonder if those (especially the conservatives) would support the new regulations that would be necessary to ensure the safety of these tall buildings.

Our nation is going to be spread out no matter what. The electrical grid has to serve those in Montana just as well as those at 12th and Spruce. We'll always need farmers and ranchers and those who live in other places. Building a new grid, even one that is spread out would save people hundreds of billions due to new technology.

Are bayou saying that the tall buildings we've built are all unsafe?
 
I have not said that, but we would be building more and higher buildings. Most places wouldn't have multi-million dollar homes and thus these costs would be tougher to pass on to consumers.

I realize it's much easier not read that I said multiple times that we need to have new plan which limits extended sprawl. There's lots of space in closer in suburbs.

One thing people haven't talked about as to why European and other cities are more dense is the dramatically higher price of gas in the UK, France, Tokyo, etc. Those governments have no problems with having $7-10/gallon gas.
 
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That's why precisely why density and infrastructural improvement have to go hand in hand.
 
Without reading the article RJ, the point is that we artificially sprawled unnecessarily for the short-term gain without a view for the long term expense of maintaining the massive infrastructure apparatus we created. Now we don't have the wealth to do so effectively.

No one is saying we would have never expanded large population centers horizontally somewhat, but just not to the degree we have. I think you are fighting a fight that you need not.
 
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