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WOW. Somebody needs to inform our local builders that suburbs are not successful. They are building them like crazy here and people are waiting to move in as soon as they are done.
Exactly, there doing the exact same thing in North Carolina. At the height of the housing boom, you could drive down a rode and it would be new housing construction literally everywhere.
This country is going to have 400 million people within the next 50-100 years.
Millions of people will live in cities. Millions of people will live in suburbs. Both will succeed, because they have to - all those people need places to live.
Both sides arguing that the other will die off are wrong.
You are missing the point. Sprawl growth is slowing down, halted, or even receding. The suburbs that grow will be the ones embracing smart growth.
Some sprawl suburbs will also grow, but overall they are now in the process of decline.
White people fled to suburbs so they didnt have to live next to black people.
Now that white people are moving back into cities and forcing black people into suburbs, more are moving into cities.
I guess the lesson is that some people are racist?
There are cities where people fled blacks moving into their neighborhoods, but overall that's a small % of the growth of the burbs.
They mainly grew because the baby boom supplied the population of families, interstates and cheap cars supplied the transportation, WWII gave America the weath and economic power to do it all and your own house with a yard gave people the dream.
Suburbs grew just as fast in the dozens of cities that really had no black people to begin with. You only hear about the cities where that was a factor because of the controversy.
There are cities where people fled blacks moving into their neighborhoods, but overall that's a small % of the growth of the burbs.
They mainly grew because the baby boom supplied the population of families, interstates and cheap cars supplied the transportation, WWII gave America the weath and economic power to do it all and your own house with a yard gave people the dream.
Suburbs grew just as fast in the dozens of cities that really had no black people to begin with. You only hear about the cities where that was a factor because of the controversy.
It was more common than you think, but you are right that lots of families moved to suburbs because they were, and still are, subsidized by the government. Energy prices are kept artificially low, and impractical and expensive road system are built to serve suburbs, not to mention maintaining them and providing them with government services.
People in cities and rural areas basically support people in suburbs. Had the government not subsidized suburbs and made people pay the full cost of living there they would never have gotten so big.
Not to mention those who commute to the city (by no means all, or even most suburbanites; in my suburb 76% of workers work in-county) pay city taxes every day when they buy gas, eat lunch, etc. Even the occasional city visitor pays these taxes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cry_havoc
It was more common than you think, but you are right that lots of families moved to suburbs because they were, and still are, subsidized by the government. Energy prices are kept artificially low, and impractical and expensive road system are built to serve suburbs, not to mention maintaining them and providing them with government services.
People in cities and rural areas basically support people in suburbs. Had the government not subsidized suburbs and made people pay the full cost of living there they would never have gotten so big.
Another post that epitomizes “What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.â€
Good post in general, but I take exception to the use of stats like the above. Jobs are not the same thing as an economy. You can have all of an area's retail located in a few suburbs (as is sometimes the case with very blighted cities), but you still have to ask what allows that retail to exist? Whose money is being spent, and where did they get that money? And this applies to many offices as well, not just retail.
Generally there's a reason why people live in suburbs of big cities, rather than some random rural town. It may just be a historical reason (for instance, Detroit's suburbs exist mostly because of what Detroit used to be), but typically the central city continues to be somewhat foundational to the local economy, regardless of McJob distribution.
Good post in general, but I take exception to the use of stats like the above. Jobs are not the same thing as an economy. You can have all of an area's retail located in a few suburbs (as is sometimes the case with very blighted cities), but you still have to ask what allows that retail to exist? Whose money is being spent, and where did they get that money? And this applies to many offices as well, not just retail.
Generally there's a reason why people live in suburbs of big cities, rather than some random rural town. It may just be a historical reason (for instance, Detroit's suburbs exist mostly because of what Detroit used to be), but typically the central city continues to be somewhat foundational to the local economy, regardless of McJob distribution.
I was responding to a statement about commuters (implied to the city). In my suburb, people do not commute to the city that much.
Major cos. choose HQs (where many of highest-pay jobs are located) based on balance of office costs and QOL to attract their most desired workers
Workers choose where to work and live based on factors like possible jobs, income, COL and QOL
It's a free country...no one is forced to live/work anywhere
Funny enough, most of world's most valuable cos. like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Exxon, etc etc are based in various suburbs, far from any ole city....as are most of world's most innovative, valuable tech start-ups (e.g., Facebook, etc)
And most of US' highest-income taxpayers and workers choose to live in various suburbs...as do most middle-income folks as suburbs are far cheaper and often more enjoyable on a daily basis than elite towns like Manhattan or SF which merely serve as playgrounds for a few 1000 affluent yuppies (many of whom eventually also move to suburbs if they choose to have kids, etc)
If anything, over past 10yrs, far more of US' highest-income jobs are in suburbs like SiliconValley, not in ole commie welfare towns like NYC or SF which simply create far less new wealth and innovation than humble industrial suburbs like Cupertino or Mtn View or MenloPark or Redmond...
I think some are really making this a contentious topic that it really doesn't need to be.
Moving forward, it's clear that our patterns of development in terms of housing, job location and transportation (both car-based and public transit) are going to change significantly -- not just because of shifting preferences, but also out of necessity. Aside from potential issues of unaffordable housing (due to increasingly strict zoning in low-density suburbs), there are huge implications of increases in traffic congestion and funding of infrastructure repairs with a much lower population over a larger area. Although cities tend not to be as affluent, at least they have tax base density that many suburbs will have difficulty increasing at lower densities. By being forced to put more funding into infrastructure maintenance, this can have detrimental effects on other tax-funded expenditures, such as education and public safety.
Do these shifts mean that everyone is going to abandon their bucolic suburban locales for high-rise condos and apartments in the city? Absolutely not -- that would be incredibly naive to believe. However, it is absolutely true that our urban cores will see a larger portion of the "development pie" in the coming years, and that also should extend into more higher density inner-ring suburbs. These are the kinds of areas it just makes economic sense to invest in in terms of creating an environment with the right balance of multi-modal transportation, job access, housing affordability and enough resources to fund public services at a healthy level.
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