Why suburbia sucks (Atlanta: shopper, bill, racist)

[abalashov]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Right, I don't think density and car dependence are necessarily related.

Take areas like Virginia Highland or little Five Points. They're fairly low density but are regarded as walkable.

There are other ingredients to walkability, of course.

VH and L5P are somewhat walkable, but really just their party districts of a few blocks. The moment you need to go do anything, you need to get in your car. That said, they are more compact and closer to other stuff than would be the case OTP, of course.

This goes back to the regional planning issue. Individual pockets of self-contained walkability, particularly strictly to dining/bars/entertainment, aren't very useful, though of course, in strictly relative terms, an improvement over not even having that. Still, talking about the walkability of particular neighbourhoods in a hermetic, acontextual way doesn't make much sense. What do they plug into? Where are the transit connections, and do they meaningfully, usefully and efficiently connect the neighbourhood to other places people need to go, at the very least for everyday needs? Walkability and transit go hand in hand, in the sense that the latter cannot be had without the other at both ends.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by abalashov

There are other ingredients to walkability, of course.

VH and L5P are somewhat walkable, but really just their party districts of a few blocks. The moment you need to go do anything, you need to get in your car. That said, they are more compact and closer to other stuff than would be the case OTP, of course.

This goes back to the regional planning issue. Individual pockets of self-contained walkability aren't very useful.

True. I was just trying to tease out the issue of density, which I don't think is necessary to walkability. In my opinion it has more to do with proximity and a mix of uses.

Case in point is many small towns, which don't need large populations or high density.

[abalashov]

Originally Posted by arjay57

True. I was just trying to tease out the issue of density, which I don't think is necessary to walkability. In my opinion it has more to do with proximity and a mix of uses.

Case in point is many small towns, which don't need large populations or high density.

Fair. But small towns are reasonably complete communities in their own right. Or at least, they're supposed to be, when they're not bedroom communities.

[abalashov]

And by sheer coincidence, just ran across this:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...a-big-problem/

[evannole]

Originally Posted by abalashov

And by sheer coincidence, just ran across this:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...a-big-problem/

Interesting thoughts, and I agree with some of them, but the column is a bit simplistic in its focus. There are many things for which we all pay that we don't directly use but from which we benefit all the same. I have paid tens of thousands of dollars over the years in school taxes even though I don't have kids and probably won't at this point. I will keep paying school taxes for at least another 20 years, and probably longer, and you know what? I am glad to do it, and it benefits me as well. I benefit from having as educated a society as possible. I benefit from good schools by seeing them attract more residents, which in turn attract more desirable amenities, making my neighborhood a more pleasant place in which to live, not to mention increasing my property values.

Every morning at work, I buy a bowl of oatmeal and fresh fruit, and since my office is in Fulton County, I pay the MARTA sales tax on that oatmeal and fruit, and on many of my lunches. Even though I do not live in Fulton County and rarely take MARTA myself, I don't mind paying this tax, as I know it benefits the community as a whole and therefore benefits me as well, even if it's a bit less directly. It gets more cars off the road, so that those of us who do need to drive can do so just a bit more easily; certainly there are many other benefits as well.

I agree that parking minimums have some downsides, including increased scarcity of land for other development, and less visually appealing, walkable environments in some cases, but parking also has benefits even for those who do not own cars. It enables retailers (in this case, grocery stores) to efficiently serve a much larger, broader clientele (particularly in a metro area like ATL) than they otherwise would be able to, thereby selling a much greater volume of groceries than would otherwise be possible. In a business like groceries, where margins are razor thin, this is not trivial. Without parking and the volume of customers that it allows, grocery prices would be much higher for everyone, including those who don't have or use cars.

I am sympathetic to the author's point of view, but I think it's entirely too simplistic.

[abalashov]

I agree that it's simplistic, precisely because we pay for all kinds of things we don't ourselves personally want or need, as you say.

However, I think the intended message, which is definitely not actually stated in the article, is that parking is far too pervasive and the unit economics of it far too expensive to just be considered statistical background noise of varying individual preferences, like in the way that you pay for national parks you don't visit. Considering the cost of developing a parking space, that stands to reason. $10k - $30k is a lot to price in.

[Saintmarks]

Still trying to grasp how suburbia is subsidized even after contemplating all the arguments for those who say it is. I think the real argument is that the urban concept that many want requires far, far more in the form of subsidies to make it work and our society does not want to foot that bill.

[abalashov]

Your question is predicated on the implicit assumption that the suburban sprawl is the cheapest, most economical and affordable model, and hence an expected default where the objective is affordable housing and comfortable lifestyles for as many people as possible. From that vantage point, it's easy to cast urbanisation as a quixotic and expensive project, particularly since it requires retrofitting what already exists.

Except it's just not true. If suburban sprawl were the economy version and did not require humongous subsidies to sustain, why doesn't most of the rest of the world overwhelmingly default to it? In even strictly thermodynamic terms, that makes no sense. Are you really suggesting that 2000+ ft^2 houses for everyone and personal automobiles for everyone--mandatorily driven everywhere--represent naturally the cheapest option for all?

As for your failure to grasp the subsidies that have been elucidated, what part needs further explanation? What specifically are you missing from what was outlined?

[J2rescue]

Originally Posted by Saintmarks

Maybe it's because the majority of humans elsewhere could never dream of owning a single family home on a decent plot of land and a car to get to and from until they came to the US?

I've often wondered about the differences between US cities and cities in other wealthy, "new world" countries, specifically Canada and Australia. To be honest I've never actually thought about this in terms of what is being discussed here. People in these countries have ability to "dream of" owning a piece of land yet the cities do not have a similar sprawl pattern and they have wonderful cities with a high quality of life.

As an example, Toronto is almost identical to Atlanta's population but of course in a much smaller area. I would love to see an analysis on the difference in the cost of delivering basic services and infrastructure between the two. Our model just seems incredibly inefficient in comparison.

Toronto: Urban Area population - 5,132,794; land area - 676 sq mi
Atlanta: Urban Area population - 4,975,300; land area - 1,963 sq mi

Toronto: Metro population - 5,583,064; land area - 2,280 sq mi
Atlanta: Metro population - 5,522,942; land area - 8,376 sq mi

[Saintmarks]

Originally Posted by J2rescue

I've often wondered about the differences between US cities and cities in other wealthy, "new world" countries, specifically Canada and Australia. To be honest I've never actually thought about this in terms of what is being discussed here. People in these countries have ability to "dream of" owning a piece of land yet the cities do not have a similar sprawl pattern and they have wonderful cities with a high quality of life.

As an example, Toronto is almost identical to Atlanta's population but of course in a much smaller area. I would love to see an analysis on the difference in the cost of delivering basic services and infrastructure between the two. Our model just seems incredibly inefficient in comparison.

Toronto: Urban Area population - 5,132,794; land area - 676 sq mi
Atlanta: Urban Area population - 4,975,300; land area - 1,963 sq mi

Toronto: Metro population - 5,583,064; land area - 2,280 sq mi
Atlanta: Metro population - 5,522,942; land area - 8,376 sq mi

Watching HGTV a lot and with a lot of their shows being imports from the CBC, and many of those originating in Toronto, and seeing how much housing is in much of Toronto for much less house than Atlanta, I would not call it an apples to apples comparison. Not even apples to peaches. Maybe apples to peanuts.