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I suppose that you could include a large park, a small school, and a small library in every little square-mile neighborhood, but that would still only come to a fraction of those 640 acres. If all of that takes up half, that leaves 320 acres for households; you could fit 1280 households in that square mile using 1/4 acre lots, or 640 households using 1/2 acre lots. Either would fall in the range of 1500-3000 people per square mile, which is on the light side of normal range for suburban census tracts.
and room for roads.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Patricius Maximus
Voila! You have a city that functions the same as a current city economically but where the bulk of the residents live in a country environment - urban in function but rural in form, "this penurbian city". It's not too difficult to do at all, and the only two ingredients that are keeping this from happening now is greater per capita wealth and political will. By the end of the century those two problems will likely be overcome, leaving us free to build such a city if we want to, a capability we do not have at the moment.
You also need folks that aren't praying to the densification religion. Shouldn't be hard to find though.
Not necessarily "very small lot sizes," though I'm making assumptions about what you mean by that. I've brought up specific figures before to hold as examples for what certain density values actually translate in to as neighborhoods. At 7k ppsm, we're talking suburbia in California. Yes, you have neighbors, but it's by no means "crammed" in.
Well assuming 2.5 people per household that works out to 0.23 acres per household. But I have no doubt you will lose 30% or more to parks, "open space", roads, etc. so more like 0.16 acres per lot or less effective lot size and that is getting small.
Quote:
Originally Posted by darkeconomist
Houses have been getting bigger for at least 40 years, so I'm not sure where that line of argument comes from. Maybe you mean infill projects? Many of those are "townhomes" and, yes, land pressure has shrunk the individual lot, but, again, the house has more square feet, so it's all a wash.
It's not a wash if you want to have a backyard of your own.
Well assuming 2.5 people per household that works out to 0.23 acres per household. But I have no doubt you will lose 30% or more to parks, "open space", roads, etc. so more like 0.16 acres per lot or less effective lot size and that is getting small.
It's not a wash if you want to have a backyard of your own.
A 50x140 lot is small?
The following photos are from a neighborhood with lot sizes that are about that size, if not a little smaller:
These homes actually have 55 foot frontages.
These homes have 40 foot wide frontages.
I'd hardly call this packed in like sardines, but to each his own, I guess.
It's not a wash if you want to have a backyard of your own.
That's personal preference, and up to the consumer. But it is certainly inaccurate to say that houses are getting smaller.
Your statement is accurate IF, and only IF, we're talking about infill and specifically in reference to the footprint of the house.
Edge city tracts have given rise to the McMansion (think of it what you will, that's a discussion for another thread), and the trend only continues toward growth.
That's personal preference, and up to the consumer. But it is certainly inaccurate to say that houses are getting smaller.
Your statement is accurate IF, and only IF, we're talking about infill and specifically in reference to the footprint of the house.
Edge city tracts have given rise to the McMansion (think of it what you will, that's a discussion for another thread), and the trend only continues toward growth.
You are imagining "statements" that I did not make.
I said lots were getting smaller. That's not the same as claiming houses were getting smaller.
Well.. if urban sprawl continues and more and more rural land becomes gobbled up and transformed into housing developments... businesses will come. And when businesses come, jobs are created. More and more businesses, more and more job, and eventually: More urban sprawl.
]ust my opinion.
People have to live somewhere and they make the choice of where. Urban cities are becoming too expensive to run without massive industrial or commercial taxes .It much more costly to run a massive system especially to replace things built over centuries. With the deficit the federal dollars are not going to be their for cities in coming years.
I'm becoming more and more curious-how much longer can urban sprawl continue before it can stretch out no further? As suburbs are built further and further out, commutes will get longer and longer. The distance that this continuous urban land can spread increases as more and more jobs spread further out, and as highways are upgraded, but how much further can it go before it reaches critical mass? Eventually sprawl will have to reach a point where parts of the metro are so far from one another that they can no longer be considered suburbs or even exurbs. So how will urban sprawl play out once this "critical mass" is reached?
Suburb-to-suburb commutes seem to be the rule today, not the traditional suburb-core patterns that existed in the 1950s. Who works at those far-flung office parks? Ever notice the sprouting up of suburban clinics? What about the low-wage house cleaners, fast food jobs, etc.? All those jobs aren't being created in the central city.
You are imagining "statements" that I did not make.
I said lots were getting smaller. That's not the same as claiming houses were getting smaller.
It's easy to miss the fine detail that one can be talking about lot sizes getting smaller without consideration of the increase in house size. I think it's hard to pick those apart when I mention PPSM (here) and you respond with a comment about lot sizes and we end up conversing like they're the same thing.
Fortunately, now were speaking the same language.
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