Interesting Article: RIP Suburbs (leases, how much, home)

[nightbird47]

Originally Posted by krudmonk

So maintaining two-lanes highways and the dirt roads which feed them is the same maintaining 8-lane freeways and the 6-lane bouelvards that feed those?

People travel. The size of the roads is a function of population. In Oklahoma the main road to OKC is two lanes, but the population of the entire state is less than that of Los Angeles. So thats fine. And most roads feeding them are not dirt if your talking towns.

For California with its population you have wide highways. Not only is it a heavily populated state, but a frequently visited one. Those highways are also part of a federal system. If the 91 freeway had four lanes total can you imagine the nightmare? Its already a nightmare.

And remember, these are citiies in their own right. Not just suburbs like those swallowed up by LA many years ago. My mom grew up in North Hollywood when it was its own town. All the areas that are now a polyglot of houses in the San Fernando valley were their own towns then. There the funds collected now all go to the whole city and if you don't think the cities need the suburbs consider the San Fernando Valley. Most of the tax base is there but only a fraction of the money goes back. There have been several major attempts to create their own city and run their own affairs, but the LA city groups heavily oppose it because of all the $$$ from property taxes, most of which dissapear into the city area itself.

So when you have a city which may function in some ways as a suburb but IS a city, it has its own financing and needs. So the downtown of a place like LA takes nothing and pays nothing for it.

Considering the general decay and the way I was told to take a cab from the train station to the bus station in a misguided attempt to get back to my relatives house from there after a convention (never ever ever ever ever use Greyhound) because the two or three blocks was not safe the money that goes to the city isn't being all that well used.

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by bhcompy

Which is the beauty of America. You can change this through democracy. Want to better public transit? Put up an initiative in your city to develop new public transit capability. If your city doesn't support it, there are cities that will, which is where you can move. Rather than making an area that doesn't want it to adapt it, move to an area that does want it and/or have it already.

We all move to the suburbs because that's where we want to be. You can move to the urban centers to be where you want to be. Not too difficult

You're whole premise is somewhat of a joke. The current suburban sprawl we have was not determined by the democratic process but by the oil companies and by the auto companies. Ford had a big show at the world's fair in 1940 showing how America was going to have highways coast to coast, and that's what we got.

And once that system is in place, it takes decades to change it. But, humans being what they are, they resist change, even good changes.

So, most people go with the auto dependent system we have because it's what they're used to, not necessarily because it's better.

High density housing is cheaply build. Quality construction and better planning could reduce many of the objections people have to high density housing.

I'm not saying we should eliminate suburbs, but they are way overdone.

[EscapeCalifornia]

People vote with their feet and dollars. As long as people want a little slice of land and a house on it to call their own, builders will build it. Affordability is a big reason suburbs exist. You can get all high and mighty and tell people they should live within 5 miles of the city center, but if doing so costs twice what living 20 miles out costs, I don't see any of you offering to pay the difference.

If masses of people wanted to live in high rises in downtowns, that's what would get built. And in times of high fuel costs and bubble prices, that's what gets built to some extent. But then the economy changes, fuel prices go down, and people with families decide they'd rather have a single family home on a cul-de-sac instead of a yardless box on the 15th floor after all.

[MIKEETC]

Originally Posted by krudmonk

LA's taxes go to the state. Are none distributed to huge roads in IE that feed back to LA?

So do taxes on income, property, gasoline, retail sales, etc. paid by the residents of Riverside, Temecula, Santa Clarita, Palmdale, Victorville, and all of the other suburban cities surrounding Los Angeles.

Originally Posted by krudmonk

So they pay for freeway widenings and such? The wealth of industry in these exurbs is funding their glut of twelve-lane boulevards?

Yes. And where the wealth does not exist to pay for it, and/or there is a lack of the political or community desire to do so, then you will see no 12-lane boulevards.

[FresnoFacts]

Originally Posted by nmnita

good points, two things I think we have already seen more of and will in the future: many companies no longer have their corporate headquarters in a downtown location and telecommting is the trend of the future..

Our daughter and son in law work for a major corporation that is not headquartered in a city but in the burbs, near the city. Our son in law telecommutes 2 days a week and our daughter does the same, depending on how busy her schedule is..Before she got a recent promotion, even at the level of director she actually shared a cubical, not even an office. 10 years ago and a couple of levels ago, she had a huge private office. By telecommuting sharing became much easier...

Very true, I've known some telecommuters also who love it.

There are also plans to put more emphasis on telecommuters in future suburban settings.

One example in the planning stages is a new master planned community north of Fresno. It would be located across the San Joaquin River in Madera County, stretching along the river, Millerton Lake, and Highway 41 north and east to the foothills.

It would contain 30,000 residential units designed for home offices with high speed internet. The community would be self-contained for services and have trails, other recreation opportunities, etc.

There would also be shared work centers where residents could go to use a cubicle if they don't want to work at home alone that day. Some of the work centers would be next to schools so that parents could take a break from work and visit with with their children say for lunch or classroom volunteering.

The thought is that the community would attract telecommuters from Silicon Valley companies, Southern California, etc. CalTrans, Nortel Networks, and others have been in on the planning.

The developers and planners have been dealing with environmental issues such as identifying water sources, getting land rezoned, etc. But in the next couple of years as the economy improves some construction will start.

Add in High Speed Rail with a 1 hour Fresno to San Jose trip for those few days you are needed for a face-to-face and it becomes an interesting concept.

[hsw]

An absurd article by someone who doesn't understand where jobs are based...and prob is an inept driver (like most journalists and liberal arts academics), thus the mass transit fetish

Most of the >>$200K/yr jobs in SF region are in SiliconValley, sprawled across a bunch of suburbs, not in City of SF (or San Jose)....most executives and engineers live in suburbs near their suburban offices

And even in "old" cities like NYC or Chicago, many major cos.' HQs are based in distant suburbs; hell, nearly 50% of the hedge funds in NYC region are in suburban Greenwich, not Manhattan

Suburbs are near where most workers (and executives) w/families prefer to reside in single-family houses on spacious lots, near decent schools and away from crime epicenters...nightlife and fancy restaurants and bars aren't much of a priority to most families

Cities like SF and Manhattan are essentially playgrounds for rather affluent yuppies w/o kids (or ultra-wealthy families)....many of whom drive to jobs 35+ mis away in SiliconValley or Greenwich, respectively...so much for "convenience" of the congested city

[CaliDude1]

Granted I have not taken the time to read the entire article referenced, but I have a request. Can someone define "urban" and "suburban" as they relate to the Los Angeles basin? That is always my issue when the whole suburban/urban debate comes up regarding L.A. The city of Los Angeles does not have the authentically urban character of, say, New York City or Chicago. So by extension it is more difficult to define our suburbs.

If you tell me Chino is a suburb I'll agree. If you say Reseda is one I will disagree. Why? They just don't feel the same. Reseda has a higher population density and is a lot closer to the core of Los Angeles. However, thirty years ago Reseda was defintely considered a suburb. Technically, Inglewood is a suburb of Los Angeles. However, there are probably very few people on this board (myself included) who would consider Inglewood to be the bastion of suburbia.

I am always interested in these kinds of discussions. However, we have to remember Los Angeles/Orange County does not fit neatly into nice little demographic concepts like "urban" and "suburban".

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by CaliDude1

Granted I have not taken the time to read the entire article referenced, but I have a request. Can someone define "urban" and "suburban" as they relate to the Los Angeles basin? That is always my issue when the whole suburban/urban debate comes up regarding L.A. The city of Los Angeles does not have the authentically urban character of, say, New York City or Chicago. So by extension it is more difficult to define our suburbs.

If you tell me Chino is a suburb I'll agree. If you say Reseda is one I will disagree. Why? They just don't feel the same. Reseda has a higher population density and is a lot closer to the core of Los Angeles. However, thirty years ago Reseda was defintely considered a suburb. Technically, Inglewood is a suburb of Los Angeles. However, there are probably very few people on this board (myself included) who would consider Inglewood to be the bastion of suburbia.

I am always interested in these kinds of discussions. However, we have to remember Los Angeles/Orange County does not fit neatly into nice little demographic concepts like "urban" and "suburban".

this is what makes these types of articles totally non related to some areas. Calif period is nothing like the east coast or Chicago for that matter. Look at the size of Los Angeles and the sprawl, this goes for OC as well. When I think of burbs of L.A. I think of East San Gabriel Valley or maybe the West S.F. valley. Maybe La Canada, La Crescenta, etc. I am not sure anyplace less than 20 miles from L.A. could be really considered the suburbs..Just my opinion.

Nita

[LivingLikeAGradStudent]

It's not high-rises vs. manicured cul-de-sacs in California. There are a lot of lightly urban places and neighborhoods that use up a lot fewer resources and leave a smaller footprint than bland tracts an hour from substantial jobs (and working from home will not become a viable trend in most of our lifetimes). It's kind of selfish in 2009 to think of one's ability to drink on the back patio as a land-use perspective.

[the city]

I think those studies are a bit far fetched. 22 million large housings lot un-occupied?

This is a recession, not a dang depression. Too many people are making our economy look worse than it really is. In late 2010 I am still placing my bets that are economy will be stable again.

More people may be in the urban areas right now, but when the economy is back together more people will move to the suburbs and settle down where they want to.

Won't what happen is major urban sprawl in rural and suburbs. After the economy heals all those empty houses will be occupied, and everyone will not be moving as much anymore and staying where they want to be.

Urban, ex-urban and urban-rural fringe, suburbs and boom-burbs, rural and semi-rural communties are all staying. People's living patterns haven't changed for decades, and this recession isn't going to change it.