How can the government make people move back to cities from the suburbs? (metro, versus)

[JKFire108]

I was thinking about how the government can move back from the cities from the suburbs. I know that government is not perfect, but given that Obama and much of his cabinet comes from an urban background, maybe they could do some things to help cause people to move to the city from the suburbs and undo the social experiment of the 1950s.

One reason why I think people move to the suburbs is that the cost of living in many cities is too high.
The Cost of Living Project
This website tries to tell the reasons why NYC has way too high of a cost of living, and why even work class families who have been there many generations are being forced out by higher costs and gentrification. On this website I found some things.
It says that NYC (and probably many cities in general I presume) have too much regulation and their tax and regulation structure is very anti-business. That is why Texas is growing because many companies are moving there. If all American cities restructured their regulations and got rid of a lot of it, as well as a lot of taxes it would help bring more businesses into cities. The regulations are probably worse than the taxes because it makes it very hard to comply with that no one wants to do business and it drives up cost of living. Another example on the site it talks about school districts and how New York spends a lot per student, yet another state where it spends less per student yet their test scores are higher than NY. Now some regulations are needed, such as enviornmental protection and labor. I am not saying get rid of regulations, but change them so that it isn't so hard and costly to comply with them.

Long story short cities in general need to redo both their taxes and their regulation to make regulations easier to comply with and reduce their taxes by slashing programs that don't help give a good cost-benefit. That would reduce the cost of living in cities.

Another reason I think is schools in terms of funding. While I did say that schools in general need to reduce funding only until the point where they recieve the best return-on-investment, the federal government can really help if they allow or force local suburban governments to tax their people to help fund schools in the city. Thus the city people will be taxed less for the schools their children use in the city, and the suburbs pay for them. This would be very unpopular I know, but I can't think of any other way. Hopefully the suburbanites will escape the higher taxes by moving to the cty, where by that time hopefully schools will have improved enough that they can lift that tax and see the suburbs more depopulated. If they move back, put the tax back again then they will move back to the city again.

Another idea I had is to have the federal government to issue a mandate to all states that they must put very strict urban growth boundaries in their state or risk losing all federal funding. The urban growth boundaries in this case, should be very strict in that it should be extremely hard to get it to be grown. No development except for certain cases such as needed military bases or Indian reservations should be allowed outside the growth boundaries.

Also pass a federal law that allows many places to be put under non-profit land trusts, especially many densified urban areas. If it is put under a land trust, it allows those seeking homeownership to get their house in an urban area at an affordable cost. As I said, one of the reasons suburbanites go to the suburbs is the cost of living is so high. The land trust would prevent someone from selling their home at very high prices, yet give people the rights and responsibilities of home ownership versus renting. When they leave, they can only sell at a specified affordable price to keep urban neighborhoods permanently affordable and prevent gentrification which drives up costs of living and housing prices and pushes out middle class working families. Land trusts should NOT be HOAs in and of themselves, they should simply be there to lease the land for 99 years to a homeowner but not impose HOA-style rules. HOAs are not good because they in and of themselves raise the cost of living in that house, or house prices thus making it less affordable. I think many sensible people would be willing to buy a $150,000 new brick rowhouse in an urban area and have the benefit of homeownership now for an affordable price rather than trying to sell their previously $250,000 McMansion for $800,000 later.

A strange idea that I've also seen is that government should also allow transfer of development rights. An owner of a property could either voluntarily or be made by law to transfer their development rights from one place to another. From a suburban area to a densification urban area, but he'd own that plot of land where his development rights were put on. Either the land trust or a government agency would then take the land where the landowner was transferred from and restore it to nature.

What do you think? Do you think the government should do these and other ideas proactively to make people move back from the cities to the suburbs?

[imperialmog]

I don't think it is possible since constitutional questions would erupt in a number of cases. It also would recieve voter backlash causing anyone who proposes it to lose the next election. You could very well have someone who has policies that radically swing the opposite way.

The unintened consequences of such policies could also be extremely severe to the point of potentially causing the breakup of the United States. A number of places would start threatening sucession and racial tensions would likely take a nosedive to the point of places basically trying to go back to Jim Crow as a means of forcing certain groups out.

[wburg]

Trying to make it into a super totalitarian thing is ridiculous and will never work. The idea is to create a movement and promote the advantages. The "free market" isn't really free, it is subject to rules of the "game" that governments create. The "game" over the past century has been tilted very much in favor of public-subsidized suburban growth. If we change the rules to favor infill and reasonably limit exurban growth, the game changes without having to forcibly displace anyone.

The idea is not to get rid of the suburbs, as much as some conspiracy theorists might push the idea. The idea is to create a multitude of options--and to allow the suburbs to pay for themselves, instead of being economic parasites of their urban cores. This means having to deal with certain realities that suburbs traditionally aren't good at dealing with, which is kind of the hard part.

[davidv]

I don't know about where you are, but in Denver, some of the things you mention are not true, including:

Denver has a lower property tax rate than the suburbs, and a comparable sales tax rate with the suburbs. Taxes are not driving businesses away, rather the desire to locate near the workers (most of whom live in the suburbs), have better access to transportation (especially truck and car transportation), lower land rent in suburbs (resulting in lower building costs and free parking), and an increase in suburban amenities (shops, restaurants, etc) have attracted business to the suburbs.

Cities have historically attracted immigrants and liberal thinkers. These qualities are not attractive to conservative middle class citizens. Schools in cities spend lots of money on maintaining outdated schools (many schools are older than 60 years, but the district can't afford to replace them or update them effectively). City schools spend a good portion of their budget on ESL programs to help integrate the children of immigrants. Most middle class parents do not want to live next to a gay couple or have to explain what homosexuality is to their children, nor do they want to live in an area that is filled with minorities. Thus, they escape to the refuge of the suburbs where homogeneity and conformity are encouraged (HOA covenents, strict building facade limitations, etc.)

And, even as a liberal, I can see that the land use limitations and restrictions that you propose (land trusts and price caps) is very much in line with communist ideas.

The way to get people to move back into the cities is simple (but hard to do). Make the cities attractive to those in the suburbs.

Scrape off houses in certain areas of the city that needs revitialization, and build from scratch bigger, more efficient, and more modern houses on the same size lots. Denver has not had to scrape off because its closed AFB and former airport have provided lots of land to build these new urbanist communities and has been very successful.

Provide cheap and efficient mass transit inside of the cities (not buses) that allow people to move around the city easier.

City schools should be rebuilt and offer amenities and advantages over suburban schools including: Rebuild the existing schools to meet the needs of teachers and students. Create bilingual programs for all (starting in grade 1) that allows children to be bilingual by the time they graduate. Bring back sports programs and music programs for lower grades.

Most importantly, clean up the city. From graffitti to litter to dilapidated buildings, people do not want to live in a place that looks in poor repair.

[wburg]

"Scraping off" isn't always the best policy. Houses built before 1940 are more efficient than most houses built since--repair and retrofit can make them as efficient as new housing, saving the energy and cost (and landfill use) of demolition and new construction. Same goes for old schools: old buildings need maintenance, but new buildings cost a lot and don't last as long. Old schools mostly have problems because they don't look like suburban schools--which, like everything else in the suburbs, are low-slung buildings with a huge lawn and a parking lot. A city based around transit and walkability can make better use of buildings like those old schools, built for just such a city--the kind we used to build before the primacy of the automobile. And those old buildings have their own value: as low-rent alternatives for low-margin but culturally rich uses like cafes, theaters and bookstores, as beautiful examples of architecture, or just important signifiers of the passage of time. Historic preservation is an integral part of real urban revitalization.

[samyn on the green]

The government can easily move people back to the cities since the government was the group that created the construct that moved people to the suburbs. The federal government just needs to reverse the blueprint that moved people out of the city and into suburbs. During the 20th century it was the powerful car/petrol lobby combined with the desire to Americanize "ethnics" that led to the "slaughter of Cities". Now we can "slaughter the suburbs" in an attempt to return to a more efficient society in efficient cities where long drives and millions of cars will be a thing of the past.

• redline the suburbs; limit suburban mortgages to only certain ethnic groups, this can be accomplished through existing equal opportunity laws
• use the mortgage market to mobilize blockbusting operations
• use a big name in civil rights to consistently appear in the media and make clear that urban poor's "civil right" to integrate the suburbs
• construct large housing projects in key suburban locations
• manipulate the price of gas to make long suburban commutes costly
• use the media to emphasize the rising crime in the suburbs, drill into the public's head that the suburbs equals danger
• construct new housing in the city and provide favorable mortgage terms
• funnel undocumented immigrants to the suburbs via acorn and other groups

[KC6ZLV]

Originally Posted by wburg

The idea is to create a multitude of options--and to allow the suburbs to pay for themselves, instead of being economic parasites of their urban cores. This means having to deal with certain realities that suburbs traditionally aren't good at dealing with, which is kind of the hard part.

It is the suburbs that are paying for themselves, and the inner cities in most metro areas in this country. The suburbs are where the tax revenue is generated.

Things are quite the opposite of how you see them. People have moved out of the central cities to get away from parasitic people. Often reluctantly, especially when it involves moving out of a neighbourhood several generations of your family grew up in.

[11thHour]

Why would they. Gov't needs to have less influence and power over us, not more. That's all we need is Big Bro telling us where to live. Give me friggin' break!

[JR_C]

I haven't read this thread thoroughly, but here is my suggestion for a first step. Raise the gas tax enough to fully pay for road/highway maintenance/construction. (those roads/highways that already supposed to be paid for with gas taxes) This will increase the cost of gas, and people will start to reconsider where they live. In order to save money, they may decide to move closer to where they work, and increased public transit use will make TOD look more attractive to developers.

[marmac]

Originally Posted by KC6ZLV

It is the suburbs that are paying for themselves, and the inner cities in most metro areas in this country. The suburbs are where the tax revenue is generated.

Things are quite the opposite of how you see them. People have moved out of the central cities to get away from parasitic people. Often reluctantly, especially when it involves moving out of a neighbourhood several generations of your family grew up in.

You nailed it !