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Here is a Canadian video about why the narrator left his suburban neighborhood in Ontario (similar to US suburbia) and would prefer to raise family in the Netherlands.
When you are a kid, which environment is more joyful:
Option A: You can’t go anywhere without a carpool ride or parents car because nothing is walkable, downtown is boring or dangerous to ever leave kids alone, car accidents are a big risk for kids failing to look both ways, kids can’t travel anywhere without mom or dad basically, childcare is very expensive with 2 parents working, kids stay inside get fat and watch YouTube and TV bored
Option B: Your home is walk/bike distance from school and items you need are storefronts blocks down the sidewalk, your friends live on the same street, kids commute to field hockey, park activities , and school by bike pedestrian-friendly paths and park bikes at school, it’s perfectly safe, perfectly normal kids can hang out with other kids and it’s high volume of people biking same paths so whereabouts of kids are consistent ….few people need a car to begin with
In US and Canada we do have sidewalk pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, but they are sooooooooooooooo expensive and unaffordable unless you are very wealthy then it’s great. Why so expensive? Because LIMITED supply of them due to legal zoning where the few exceptions are older developments. If we removed zoning restrictions you would have more of these happy affordable bike-friendly mixed use communities , no?
The closest neighborhoods we have in the US to the Amsterdam suburbs would be the outskirts of Boston, Mass (very expensive). The outlying sections of DC metro area (ultra expensive), Midwest suburbs of Chicago , Ann Arbor and Madison, some richy sections of Minneapolis, Austin, Boulder, Portland , All which are out of the average American’s price range.
Last edited by Freesponge; 06-15-2022 at 10:44 AM..
Here is a Canadian video about why the narrator left his suburban neighborhood in Ontario (similar to US suburbia) and would prefer to raise family in the Netherlands.
When you are a kid, which environment is more joyful:
Option A: You can’t go anywhere without a carpool ride, downtown is boring, kids can’t travel anywhere without mom or dad, childcare is very expensive with 2 parents working, kids stay inside get fat and watch YouTube and TV bored
Option B: Your home is walk/bike distance from school and items you need are storefronts blocks down the sidewalk, your friends live on the same street, kids commute to field hockey, park activities , and school by bike pedestrian-friendly paths and park bikes at school, it’s perfectly safe, perfectly normal kids can hang out with other kids and it’s high volume of people biking same paths so whereabouts of kids are consistent ….few people need a car to begin with
In US and Canada we do have sidewalk pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, but they are sooooooooooooooo expensive and unaffordable unless you are very wealthy then it’s great. Why so expensive? Because LIMITED supply of them due to legal zoning where the few exceptions are older developments. If we removed zoning restrictions you would have more of these happy affordable bike-friendly mixed use communities , no?
CA just did this. Now you get more Apartments, which means more crime. These things have consequences. Almost all of our local crime comes from existing Apartment buildings. Either that or the homeless. They still aren't affordable for most. But hey, you can rent a box near the beach for 2500 a month.
Here is a Canadian video about why the narrator left his suburban neighborhood in Ontario (similar to US suburbia) and would prefer to raise family in the Netherlands.
When you are a kid, which environment is more joyful:
Option A: You can’t go anywhere without a carpool ride or parents car because nothing is walkable, downtown is boring or dangerous to ever leave kids alone, car accidents are a big risk for kids failing to look both ways, kids can’t travel anywhere without mom or dad basically, childcare is very expensive with 2 parents working, kids stay inside get fat and watch YouTube and TV bored
Option B: Your home is walk/bike distance from school and items you need are storefronts blocks down the sidewalk, your friends live on the same street, kids commute to field hockey, park activities , and school by bike pedestrian-friendly paths and park bikes at school, it’s perfectly safe, perfectly normal kids can hang out with other kids and it’s high volume of people biking same paths so whereabouts of kids are consistent ….few people need a car to begin with
In US and Canada we do have sidewalk pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, but they are sooooooooooooooo expensive and unaffordable unless you are very wealthy then it’s great. Why so expensive? Because LIMITED supply of them due to legal zoning where the few exceptions are older developments. If we removed zoning restrictions you would have more of these happy affordable bike-friendly mixed use communities , no?
They are expensive to price out people that "don't belong".
as to the thread title - you come far closer to getting bipartisan opposition to removing zoning laws because you find the "progressives" are just as big of Nimby's as the evil Republicans.
CA just did this. Now you get more Apartments, which means more crime. These things have consequences. Almost all of our local crime comes from existing Apartment buildings. Either that or the homeless. They still aren't affordable for most. But hey, you can rent a box near the beach for 2500 a month.
The point is not to root people out by price. You will see more apartments more crime but with much fewer homeless. After mixed-use communities get more normalized though the crime levels will come down
I grew up in a neighborhood of all single family homes...no mixed use...and yet I still rode my bike as a kid and went to parks to play w/ friends, and rode to the local pool in the summer.
In summer time especially, we went outside after eating breakfast...may have came home for a brief lunch, then went back out and stayed out til dinner time...
Kids now days dont seem to want to stay outside...they'd rather play video games all day long...we didnt' have all the indoor entertainment options...Nintendo was fun to play but it wasn't realistic looking like video systems are now....we didn't have over protective parents then either.
If we removed zoning restrictions you would have more of these happy affordable bike-friendly mixed use communities , no?
No.
Without zoning restrictions you allow developers to do whatever they want wherever they want. And all they really want is $$$$$. They will not willingly put in "free" amenities over squeezing another buyer in.
The point is not to root people out by price. You will see more apartments more crime but with much fewer homeless. After mixed-use communities get more normalized though the crime levels will come down
The homeless, mostly drug addicts, aren't worried about an Apartment. Pipe dream. The new Apartments in PB, right next to homeless camps, are going for 3500 a month. So re-zoning did nothing.
They are expensive to price out people that "don't belong".
This is true with gated communities and country club communities where the amenities are sold as club memberships and where the club sets codes and rules and charges admin costs on annual fees. The more expensive the membership fee, the more only rich people can afford it and then the more rich people are payers the more they can keep renovating it even fancier.
But this is not the same story with outskirt sections of cities that have well designed parks and schools. And where these communities have seen housing costs skyrocket as they have high demand and limited supply due to zoning restrictions forbidding other lower volume communities from building more units. Here it’s supply/demand economics with a very low supply …. A low supply means low quantities high prices at the point where the supply curve intersects the demand curve, which I learned in undergrad economics
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