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Why wouldn't they view it as a positive thing? Outgoing active families certainly do, like us and many of our neighbors. Home-body types probably don't. The kids especially enjoyed this one this year: Porchfest 2014 | sac
There are plenty of "outgoing active families" that would not view such a thing as a positive at all. Festivals usually associated with noise, alcohol, drunks, misdemeanor criminal activity, vendors hawking crap, trash, etc. Sure you can have fun at a festival but there's a difference between going to one when you want to and having more of them than there are weekends at your doorstep regardless of whether you want them or not. No doubt many of your "outgoing" neighbors went "elsewhere".
I don't see it as restricting people's choice so much as not allowing them to make that choice at the expense of others.
There was a good local example last year where a rural/suburban edge community (Black Diamond) voted NOT to allow expansion of the suburbs in their jurisdiction. Clearly the people living there aren't "anti-suburb", they just saw the writing on the wall. Any expansion "further out" was only going to strain their infrastructure and make their existing homes even more inaccessible due to increased traffic while also making them more expensive to own since the new residents wouldn't be solely responsible for paying for the new infrastructure needed to support them.
Define "community". Are you talking about a local government with voters? Are you talking about a subdivision of real property burdened with restrictive covenants?
Your last clause cuts both ways. The "new residents" tend to get the short shrift because they end up having to pay for the existing infrastructure and the new infrastructure.
At some point it really isn't the decision of the "people that are here now" to make. They don't own the property that is the subject of the development and they have zero rights in that property.
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Transportation is the main problem with creeping edge development. At some point the existing roads hit full capacity and they can't be expanded to hold the increased traffic. At the same time, the new low density development can't support or be easily tied in to a mass transit system. Everyone is forced to pay the price of increased congestion so a few people can get their cheap shiny new suburban homes. If the new residents were forced to pay their fair share of expanding infrastructure, the houses would no longer be cheap and affordable.
Sounds like a little envy and economic protectionism. The way development ordinarily works is local government forces the developer to bear the cost of all the new infrastructure and local government may end up taking over maintenance. In reality there are often other entities used to foist off local government's obligations to the new property owners who end up paying local government for services they don't receive as well as the new layer of public or private government that no one else has to pay for. Suburban homes are not necessarily less expensive - but frequently are valued more to the owner or perhaps even necessary. Sounds like you are trying to perpetuate some kind of entitlement program for economic protection of the existing owners of the old homes who might not have a market for their homes if new homes are "allowed".
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When you put this in context of all of the decayed inner ring suburbs that *could* be reconfigured for greater density, you really have to ask why it makes sense to keep building out at the edge just so a (relatively few) people get the luxury of a cheap new house.
Because we aren't communitarians that believe you have the right to dictate how others should live in your view of what's best for everyone else. Plenty of folks don't want to live in the city nor do they subscribe to city-centric thinking.
I don't know what you mean about "taking advantage of the city", though. I have raised two kids to adulthood. I can't imagine what would be so different about raising them in "the city". It's what goes on in the home that's more important than what goes on outside.
I think it also depends a lot on the "suburb."
But as I have mentioned before, we get way to hung up in suburban/urban. Particularly when many people are using urban as a euphemism for walkable.
My own perspective, if I were to have kids, is really related to perspective they would get in school. I am a big believe in public education. In some suburbs (and some urban communities) kids can be raised in a bubble where everyone is exactly like them: same ethnicity, same social class, same education level, etc.
In my book this is bad, but the consequences are different depending on where you lie on the income scale. But no matter if your are poor, getting by, rich or comfortable, if the only people you interact with on a regular basis are people just like you, you end up with a really warped perspective. And unless you are super rich, then it isn't going to reflect reality later in life.
The biggest benefit for me, for public schools, that it kids kids an opportunity to interact with people who are not like them, if that is considered a core value of school system.
I think in many cases, many communities are really homogenous.
I think policies like urban growth boundaries are the wrong approach because they do give validity to complaints that some are trying to force cities onto others. I think the number of these policies is far smaller than the number of policies that promote suburban living over urban living, so I still find the complaint that cities are being forced onto people a bit strange. But urbanists definitely do their cause greater harm than good by promoting anti-growth policies. The demand is already there for city living as shown by the vast number of people who want to live in places like Manhattan and San Francisco but can't afford it because the housing market is too competitive.
Or fewer "eyes on the street" as in less people walking by notice a burglar. And perhaps even driving, since few non-residents would be driving on them.
Not how it works.
Fewer eyes on the street makes it more likely the crime will be reported in reality. Of course, if there's no eyes on the street that's even better.
Fewer eyes on the street makes it more likely the crime will be reported in reality. Of course, if there's no eyes on the street that's even better.
Not exactly, fewer eyes on the street makes crimes of opportunity much easier.
The eyes on the street keeps the criminals from being bold. No eyes not he street is best for criminals, they can get in, get out and no one is any wiser.
I wish I could find the article, but for a while Stockton was having a he issue with home break-ins in all of those new developments. Since everyone was a commuter to Silicon Valley, or somewhere else far, they neighborhoods were empty during the day. Criminals just scoped and robbed and no one was even remotely around to see anything. They had hours to clean the homes out since the residents were gone from 6a to 6p or longer!
My sister's friend lives in a new home community in Antioch, and similar stuff happened in her neighborhood. Everyone got cameras and alarms, after half a dozen homes were hit over a week or 2.
Just fyi, not all suburbanites spend all their free time in their house. Maybe you do and that's why you think it's normal. No idea. I probably spend more than most since it's also my home office, but unless I'm working or sleeping I'm rarely at home. Since I do spend a lot of time at home, I can tell you the neighborhood is pretty quiet except for maybe weekends. Most people are gone. That's also why burglars like suburban neighborhoods.
I find it hard to believe that most working parents who have small children go out regularly on weekdays. I mean, we sometimes will go out on a Thursday night, but it basically always results in bedtimes being pushed back an hour.
If it were up to me, I'd be out the entire weekend. My wife is a homebody though, and I have to bow to her wishes to some degree. She feels "unsettled" if we don't spend time at the house. I feel claustrophobic with the four of us in a tiny little rowhouse. Hopefully the size upgrade will help.
I mean, as parents of small children who work full time, we just can't walk around the neighborhood that much. I get home from work with my daughter on the bike around 5:45, and have to start making dinner (my wife gets home after me). By eight we are putting the kids to bed. We might get 1-2 days per week we get to walk around our local business district if we're lucky.
Pushing for more urban living isn't the solution, not with the population increasing. Science shows that overcrowding leads to stress and violence.
And in areas like Boston and NYC, there just aren't enough affordable apartments, and what is almost affordable are really tiny units in old buildings. So to build more units, costs big bucks because of construction costs and high urban lot prices. And builders want to sell them as condo units. So what if we are saving on transportation cost if adding living spaces in the cities have such a high price tag?
Then, we also have the problem with inner city schools being awful and suburban area public schools being better. And from what I've observed over decades, is that raising children in the suburbs is better than raising them in the city. Better academic education, healthier for the fresh air and exercise (bicycling, sports), safer and they have better morals.
And public transportation will never be able to meet the needs of more congested cities, not without a huge amount of money given to it. Boston is on a very old T rail system. Every train during peak hours is crowded. And I don't think it wise to enter into another Big Dig type big budget T development, especially when the ridership doesn't want to pay very much for riding it. Public transportation runs at a loss and always will.
So I am against these pushes for people living in closer quarters. Instead, companies have to be encouraged to move their workspaces to outside the city. With the internet, no company needs to have the majority of the workers work in a city. Over time, their employees will gravitate to living closer to their suburban places of work.
Pushing for more urban living isn't the solution, not with the population increasing. Science shows that overcrowding leads to stress and violence.
What science? No, placing rats within a feet of each isn't comparable to humans in non-substandard housing. I can find lots of dense parts of New York City (some rich, some not so rich) with little violent crime and less dense areas with a high degree of violence.
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Then, we also have the problem with inner city schools being awful and suburban area public schools being better. And from what I've observed over decades, is that raising children in the suburbs is better than raising them in the city. Better academic education, healthier for the fresh air and exercise (bicycling, sports), safer and they have better morals.
Plenty of the suburbs aren't very bike friendly. A lot of Boston is rather bike friendly, and the neighborhoods aren't that polluted. City schools being worse is a combination of social and governing factors: it's a pattern that's mainly found in the US, not unique to cities or dense urban environments.
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Instead, companies have to be encouraged to move their workspaces to outside the city. With the internet, no company needs to have the majority of the workers work in a city. Over time, their employees will gravitate to living closer to their suburban places of work.
Plenty of people actually want to be in or close to the city. The majority of workplaces in Boston, like other cities are no longer in the center already.
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