End of suburban sprawl? (Dallas, Fort Worth: apartment complexes, loft, credit)

[GripeWater]

I consider my West Plano location a good compromise between city and suburb. We are practically attached to Dallas and Plano itself is a sizeable town with whole lot to offer though my home is tucked in a small, peaceful and green neighborhood. I can walk or bike to most things I need. There is nothing one cant find in Preston/ Park area. We have big lots and good schools at rather affordable prices. Its best of both worlds for us.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by kidicarus89

There's actually a happy medium between exurban tract housing and 100 story high rises, believe it or not. Smart Growth doesn't mean everyone lives in soulless lofts like West Village. Even single family homes can be built using more intelligent land-use principles.

Sure but do you want the .gov to decide how land is used?

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by RayStokes

I lived in the UK for a while and I like how a lot of their towns and villages are set up. It's not urban, but it's more walkable than Texas cities and there's not tons of space wasted on huge parking lots, 8 lane roads and freeways, oversized lots, etc.

Most people live in duplexes or rowhouses with smaller yards. There is commercial property such as grocery stores, pubs, churches, and restaurants that blends in seamlessly with residential property -- meaning there aren't a bunch of isolated subdivisions far out to where you need a car just to get in and out of your neighborhood to get anything.

I much prefer this style of development over what we do here in Texas and the southern United States. People don't need to live in skyscraper/highrises and lofts for an area to be sustainable and walkable.

Wait you are comparing villages and towns in The UK with suburbs and cities in Texas?

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by EDS_

Wait you are comparing villages and towns in The UK with suburbs and cities in Texas?

I don't think he's comparing them as much as he's stating a preference.

FWIW, I have also lived in the UK and I agree 100% with what he said. I wouldn't live in the UK again but they definitely do some things better, specifically designing sustainable, walkable communities. I realize that most of these cities were built centuries before the car was invented but even relatively modern housing estates aren't nearly as barren or car-dependent as ours are.

I lived in a semi-detached house (called a duplex here) in the UK, and there is no stigma associated with living in a semi unless you're really snotty. My house there was a 4-2 but was under 1000 sq ft not including the staircase and landing. Detached houses do exist but they're unusual and expensive. My housing estate was built in the early 1960s and nearly every home looked alike; on some streets you'd have to look at the house number to tell them apart. This is common in the UK, though. Most post-Victorian housing stock in the north of England is built with red brick and has orangey-red tile roofs. You make your house yours by what you do with the front garden. Since there are no HOAs, some front gardens are barren dryscapes of gravel and dying potted plants. Others are a thicket of romping lupins and delphiniums. (Ours had a neat yellow-green hedge and a crabapple tree.)

What I loved about my area in the UK was I rarely needed the car. My ex and I could go weeks without using it, though if we didn't use the car at all during the week we'd take it for a drive on Saturday or Sunday just to keep it lubed up. If we wanted to go out to the country to a pick-your-own farm or to a garden center...or to a DIY center in town...we had to use the car. Note I said "the car"...singular. We had only one for the two of us. We didn't need two, and we didn't have space to park more than one anyway without tearing up the front yard.

We didn't need the car to get to work and if we needed groceries in the middle of the week, we'd hop on our bikes or walk to the supermarket. It was about a mile and a half away and there was a bike path close to us that went straight there. It was designed specifically to do that, and the bike path also cut through fields to a park and ride bus station, then jagged left to get to the shopping center (called an "industrial estate" in the UK). This shopping center, like many others on the outskirts of English cities, was built in a U-shape around a massive parking lot and is a scaled-down version of its American cousins. However, it had a lane cutting all the way around it for buses only and there were several bus routes serving it. You certainly did not need a car to reach it. It also had as many bike racks as it had parking spaces, and those bike racks were never empty. Neither were the bus shelters; there were always people getting off a bus or waiting for one.

I miss not having to use my car. I miss being able to run all of my errands on foot in 30 minutes because everything is right next to each other and you don't have to walk across acres of hot, flat parking lots or dodge 4-5 lanes of traffic going in either direction to cross a street. I miss that a lot.

[TX75007]

Dallas has just 1.2 million people. The DFW MSA has 6.4 million people. That means the inner core cities of Dallas and Fort Worth are increasingly irrelevant to the area.

If the inner core were socially and economically "sustainable" then the suburbs never would have gotten traction.

If Dallas were functional compared to other regions, then we would have all the major sports teams still in Dallas.

If Dallas was responsive, then the Trinity project would be done.

If Dallas was supportive, then you would see major industrial plants still downtown and along the river, rather than moved to the suburbs.

I could go on and on.

Sustainable means self-propagating over time, renewable, revitalized. Dallas is anything but that. It IS getting better, but it is not what it used to be and a far cry from what it could be.

And don't get me going about "environmental sustainability" as the master planned suburbs are way ahead here.

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by TX75007

And don't get me going about "environmental sustainability" as the master planned suburbs are way ahead here.

How do you reckon?

[Komeht]

Originally Posted by TX75007

I disagree on both counts.

Suburbs are more sustainable than core cities. Just look at the corruption level and higher taxes of the latter. That simple measure alone shows that core cities are not sustainable.

You have this completely wrong. Setting aside the ridiculous issue of corruption (there is corruption in the suburbs every bit as hair curling) the higher taxes of the inner city are the result of higher land values. There is an order of magnitude greater value capture in the core than there is in the suburbs and since we tax by property value and not land area - the taxes are far greater.

Having all that additional revenue BTW is precisely what makes the inner city more sustainable. In fact, on their own, almost all suburbs would fail. There is simply not supportable tax base to maintain the infrastructure passed the first life-cycle. The only, and I mean, the ONLY reasons suburbs exist at all is because they are MASSIVELY subsidized by core cities.

[TX75007]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

How do you reckon?

Look at google earth sometime of the area.

Count the green pixels in each city as well as the length and width of greenbelts.

There is more open space in the suburbs on a per capita or basis than in Dallas.

The large amount of open space and greenbelts are wildlife corridors. You cannot get this low density land use in city cores.

IMHO higher density along the major roads interspersed with suburbia interlaced with greenbelts is MUCH more ecologically sound than a major city core. And there are all kinds of social reasons why suburbia, even with zero lot developments, as long as there are greenbelts and parks, is much more desirable. Every day people get to see ducks, squirrels, hear coyotes, and - as they come back in N Texas - deer. Kids can play and run around. Families can go for walks. There is space between traffic and human powered travel.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

I don't think he's comparing them as much as he's stating a preference.

FWIW, I have also lived in the UK and I agree 100% with what he said. I wouldn't live in the UK again but they definitely do some things better, specifically designing sustainable, walkable communities. I realize that most of these cities were built centuries before the car was invented but even relatively modern housing estates aren't nearly as barren or car-dependent as ours are.

I lived in a semi-detached house (called a duplex here) in the UK, and there is no stigma associated with living in a semi unless you're really snotty. My house there was a 4-2 but was under 1000 sq ft not including the staircase and landing. Detached houses do exist but they're unusual and expensive. My housing estate was built in the early 1960s and nearly every home looked alike; on some streets you'd have to look at the house number to tell them apart. This is common in the UK, though. Most post-Victorian housing stock in the north of England is built with red brick and has orangey-red tile roofs. You make your house yours by what you do with the front garden. Since there are no HOAs, some front gardens are barren dryscapes of gravel and dying potted plants. Others are a thicket of romping lupins and delphiniums. (Ours had a neat yellow-green hedge and a crabapple tree.)

What I loved about my area in the UK was I rarely needed the car. My ex and I could go weeks without using it, though if we didn't use the car at all during the week we'd take it for a drive on Saturday or Sunday just to keep it lubed up. If we wanted to go out to the country to a pick-your-own farm or to a garden center...or to a DIY center in town...we had to use the car. Note I said "the car"...singular. We had only one for the two of us. We didn't need two, and we didn't have space to park more than one anyway without tearing up the front yard.

We didn't need the car to get to work and if we needed groceries in the middle of the week, we'd hop on our bikes or walk to the supermarket. It was about a mile and a half away and there was a bike path close to us that went straight there. It was designed specifically to do that, and the bike path also cut through fields to a park and ride bus station, then jagged left to get to the shopping center (called an "industrial estate" in the UK). This shopping center, like many others on the outskirts of English cities, was built in a U-shape around a massive parking lot and is a scaled-down version of its American cousins. However, it had a lane cutting all the way around it for buses only and there were several bus routes serving it. You certainly did not need a car to reach it. It also had as many bike racks as it had parking spaces, and those bike racks were never empty. Neither were the bus shelters; there were always people getting off a bus or waiting for one.

I miss not having to use my car. I miss being able to run all of my errands on foot in 30 minutes because everything is right next to each other and you don't have to walk across acres of hot, flat parking lots or dodge 4-5 lanes of traffic going in either direction to cross a street. I miss that a lot.

I get all of that. Most little villages in England were plotted out centuries ago when cars weren't even on the radar.

Heck I'd prefer to live on Lanai but it's not in the cards.

[MckinneyOwnr]

Getting back on topic, I think we can all agree that suburban sprawl definitely isn't ending in TX, any time soon. I easily see another 20-30 years of suburban growth.