question to those anti-suburbs people... (Pittsburgh, Lebanon: fit in, calculation, live in)

[Aqua Teen Carl]

....and this is why so many people decide to live in rural areas.

[tranceFusion]

Originally Posted by SammyKhalifa

You don't understand the efficiency in building a new house vs. using one that's already there?

Last time I checked there was an incredibly large stock of existing homes in Allegheny county that were not contained within the city limits. Suburb doesn't equal new building.

I notice that many blocks around here stand quite deteriorated and the cost of renovating a house to present standards would be great. Of course, nobody wants to do that when the rest of the houses on the block are in the same awful condition. Whose fault is this? I don't know, but clearly it takes a coordinated effort to resolve rather than standing around pointing fingers at each other.

Or are you suggesting we all just try to pack into Shadyside? Certainly the neighborhoods with well built and maintained housing, desirable location, and abundant quantities of salons and yoga studios aren't hurting for inhabitants.

[bboy36win]

Live and let live, I say.

[airwave09]

Originally Posted by tranceFusion

I also don't understand the efficient argument. Are you referring to transit? Most streets here (city or otherwise) aren't built around efficiency. They are built around minimizing build cost with challenging topography being a primary factor. There are plenty of city neighborhoods with incredibly poor public transit options and poorly planned roads. There's also lots of places (in and out of the city) where efficiency could be gained by re-routing, adding spurs, etc. and yet there is never money to be invested in these types of projects.

I think BrianTH summed up the architecture argument very well. As for the efficiency, you couldn't be more incorrect. The layout of the city is a grid wherever the topography will allow it, and then on slopes the roads usually take the easiest path that required the least amount of excavating to build. That is the definition of efficiency right there. I'm sorry it couldn't be all grid, but the topography only allows so much. The transit options are poor because urban transit funding is almost non-existent while suburban highways and roads are heavily subsidized.

[airwave09]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

Then don't ask the question, "why should I live in the city?", if you don't want an answer to that. Seems you may need a bit of help writing, if you want people to understand you. It isn't the reader.

Can you quote the post where I said that to you please? thanks!

[tranceFusion]

Originally Posted by Lobick

I could easily live in suburbia, it would probably be cheaper for my family and I and in many ways less challenging, but personally I'd feel like more a part of the problem instead of part of the solution. I guess my bottom line is that I wish the problems of the City of Pittsburgh were more commonly viewed as those of the metro area and not simply those of the fortunate few living within the city limits.

Can you please explain the "problem" and then explain exactly why living in the city is a solution?

I hear this rhetoric a lot, and don't know that I have heard the full argument.

I'm also interested in the position of many city-dwellers and their thoughts on personal choice and its indirect impact on others. For instance, clearly we would have a better public transit system if every individual was required to use it. But, I personally don't believe that overrides the right of an individual to choose not to use it. I wonder if discrepancies in these types of opinions are the source of the clash.

[BrianTH]

Incidentally, here is a discussion revolving around the observation that many cities in developed countries, including many cities in the U.S., seem to be hitting "peak car" (meaning per capita miles traveled by car in those cities is declining. The discussion is about some of the possible factors identified by the authors of the latest such study:

6 Reasons Driving Has Peaked in U.S. Cities | INFRASTRUCTURIST

The trend toward driving less is very likely to come to Pittsburgh, and have implications for local development patterns. Again, I don't think only the City will benefit, and indeed it would be bad if only the City was able to benefit, but for the suburbs to benefit they will have to shape their development patterns in certain ways.

[tranceFusion]

Originally Posted by Lobick

"Selflessness that will rarely be returned" has not been my experience at all and is a phrase pregnant with cynicism.

I see human selfishness as ingrained behavior caused by natural selection. You can call it cynical if you want, but I was thinking of it more as a fact of life.

[airwave09]

Originally Posted by tranceFusion

Can you please explain the "problem" and then explain exactly why living in the city is a solution?

I hear this rhetoric a lot, and don't know that I have heard the full argument.

I'm also interested in the position of many city-dwellers and their thoughts on personal choice and its indirect impact on others. For instance, clearly we would have a better public transit system if every individual was required to use it. But, I personally don't believe that overrides the right of an individual to choose not to use it. I wonder if discrepancies in these types of opinions are the source of the clash.

Ok listen, lets stop making this a city limits vs. suburbs debate because it is not one. Its about well designed vs. not well designed... which are basically the simplest terms I can put it in.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by airwave09

The layout of the city is a grid wherever the topography will allow it, and then on slopes the roads usually take the easiest path that required the least amount of excavating to build.

In fact lots of the city was laid out when walking was still a major way of getting around, so efficiency was a pressing issue. Cars may find some of those areas a little less accommodating, but overall I think it is correct to say the road system in the City is pretty efficient.

The problem is it doesn't have enough capacity to also allow every suburban commuter to Downtown, Oakland, and so forth to drive at the same time. But that is primarily because of the sheer volume of traffic that would mean, not because of inefficiencies in design. And public transit is the only cost-effective way to add the necessary additional capacity--something that will become regrettably clear if current trends in transit funding are not reversed.