There's a lot of anger in the comments on the posts that suggest that
a) I don't see the benefits of a gigantic lawn
b) DC should build some good parks if it wants to keep families with children
Apparently, this was somehow interpreted as advocating that everyone in the country who does not currently live in northwest DC should be herded up at gunpoint and forced to buy a condo here.
I was very careful about how I phrased that first post. I don't get the attraction of a big lawn. I've never had one, and havng grown up in Manhattan, I don't find it restful to be permanently ensconced somewhere where I have few near neighbors; it gives me that kind of eerie feeling you get in the horror movie right before the villain attacks. I spent six months living in the suburbs when I first moved to DC, and this was enough to convince me that, barring the sudden and unexpected production of three small children, I will probably not return there.
But I did not state that no one actually enjoys having a large lawn, or that there was anything wrong with people who want one. Differences of opinion, as Grandma used to say, are what makes marriages and horse racing.
There does not need to be this hostile contest between urbanites and suburbanites/exurbanites/rural people, where each claims that theirs is the only worthwhile way of life. Developing better rail networks to allow DC to enjoy higher, more productive population densities does not mean that the Thought Police will be sweeping house to house in Peoria to grab the family minivan. Having parks to allow families with children to stay longer--and anchor the kind of civic improvements that make cities thrive--will not actually magnetically suck all the families out of Tyson's Corner into the whirling vortex of Northwest.
I understand that there are urbanites who contemptuously declare that everyone in the country needs to get out of their car, like, RIGHT NOW. Those people are wrong, and pretty damn obnoxious. But so are the people who react to a post about building parks in DC with vicious diatribes about how horrible cities are and how he wouldn't live in one if you paid him a million dollars. It's exactly the same kind of lifestyle totalitarianism. And it's really, really unnecessary. Proving that there is nothing wrong with your lifestyle does not require you to angrily trash mine.
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Go back to the doggie posts and let these people stew in obnoxiousness :)
I agree about failing to share the enthusiasm for large lawns, but that's because I want to garden. I want to have beds full of bulbs and shrubs, and others with vegetables. And a huge hedgerow of raspberries.
Eventually much of the grass in my equally arguably urban or suburban yard will be beds instead of lawn. (It's equally arguable because although I live in a walkable neighborhood only 3 miles from downtown in a city of half a million, it is a former trolley suburb developed between 1905 and 1915; about half the lots have a driveway and a garage tucked somewhere in the back or under the front porch.)
The people who like really really big lawns resent the fact that other people understand the purpose of the really really big lawn is so they can turn the kids out to play and then never have to deal with them for the next ten hours.
Oddly enough, the people who like really really big lawns so that they never have to see their neighbors don't seem to resent being called out on this.
I suppose it is easier to admit that you don't like your neighbors than to admit you don't like your kids.
But that's what it boils down to, isn't it?
I enjoy having space between my house and that of my neighbours. Having lived in apartments through a succession of neighbours varying from antisocial music-at-3am types to people who appear to have an elephant or two in the family tree, I very much enjoy not hearing the sounds of my neighbours' everyday living.
I'm not overly enamoured of having a big yard, but something has to fill the space between our houses...
Heh. When I saw the title I thought it had something to do with my fetish, ahem, preference regarding women's grooming.
There does not need to be this hostile contest between urbanites and suburbanites/exurbanites/rural people, where each claims that theirs is the only worthwhile way of life. Developing better rail networks to allow DC to enjoy higher, more productive population densities does not mean that the Thought Police will be sweeping house to house in Peoria to grab the family minivan.
There may be a good case for some expansion of rail transit in DC (stress on the word "may"), but in general urban rail transit is a hugely expensive boondoggle. It provides small benefits at great cost. The benefits are concentrated in a relatively small segment of the population, while the costs are shared by many people who will derive little or no benefit from the system.
I've still yet to see anyone present a serious case for the massively greater subsidies provided to transit compared to cars and highways. Rail subsidies are especially obscene, because rail systems are so expensive to build.
The people who like really really big lawns resent the fact that other people understand the purpose of the really really big lawn is so they can turn the kids out to play and then never have to deal with them for the next ten hours.
[...]
I suppose it is easier to admit that you don't like your neighbors than to admit you don't like your kids.
Really? Thinking kids need independence to develop into normally functioning adults = don't like your kids?
Saying "get out of your car" and "I'd never live in a city" are not equivalent; one of them interferes with another's life, the other does not.
And thank you, Diana, for your adorably judgmental approach to people who like the idea of their children playing outside.
I live in the District and work in Tysons Corner. Tysons is far more urban.
I don't recall too many or maybe any people angrily trashing your lifestyle. But I did see your previous writing subtlety implying that the preferred lifestyle of millions of families is unnecessary and now implying that the defenders of that lifestyle are raving lunatics.
Have you tried living in the suburbs where you weren't, like, 5 minutes away from one of the worst crime centers in America?
It totally changes the experience of feeling like you're in a slasher movie.
"There does not need to be this hostile contest between urbanites and suburbanites/exurbanites/rural people, where each claims that theirs is the only worthwhile way of life. Developing better rail networks to allow DC to enjoy higher, more productive population densities does not mean that the Thought Police will be sweeping house to house in Peoria to grab the family minivan."
They won't come for their minivans Megan, they will come for their bankaccounts. Mass transit is woefully unprofitable even in places like Washington.
That said, it seems to me that if you want to be a political journalist or writer, which you seem to be, you ought to have some understanding of the country West of the Hudson. You really seem to have very little understanding of what life outside of the NE corridor is like. New York and Washington are probably the most a-typical cities in America along with New Orleans and Miami. They are great places. I am happy to live in Washington and have no plans to move. But, Washington is not typical of the rest of the country. Not to pick on you, but I think every journalist in Washington ought to have to spend at least three years living in working outside of the coasts to get some perspective on things.
DC should build some good parks if it wants to keep families with children
I know that it's not your argument, Megan, but I think if DC (or most major cities) wants to keep families with children, they need to build better schools first. I lived in the city until I had kids, then it was out to the 'burbs for better schools. I now have a larger yard than I want, but the school thing trumps a lot of other concerns.
Are you joking? Highway and car subsidies dwarf spending on transit.
Bill,
You are exactly right. It is about schools not parks. The exodus of the middle class from the center cities and inner suburbs started in the late 60s and 70s when the inner city schools went to hell. Yes, a lot of that flight was due to racism and white people's objection to sending their kids to schools with poor black children after desegregation. But God how much better we would have been if they had just fixed the black schools rather than trying to forcibly de segregate the white schools.
Further, I am really not sure what on earth Megan is talking about when she talks about parks. You would be hard pressed to find people raising children over the age of three in condos or apartments even in Washington DC. Most people want a yard not a park. There are tons of single family homes with yards in the District. People leave the District not because of the lack of parks but because they cannot afford to send their kids to private school. Also, there is a lot of flight for parents who have kids leaving grade school. The grade schools in the good neighborhoods in Washington are actually quite good. It is the middle schools and high schools that are bad. People will live in the District, no parks and all, until their kids are old enough to go to middle school and then leave.
"Are you joking? Highway and car subsidies dwarf spending on transit."
And how many of those highway subsidies come from gas taxes which amount to user fees on roads? Most. Further, you are right the government has to subsidize some kind of transportation. Building roads, rails and bridges is a core government function. Only a radical libertarian would argue that all such things should be left to private industry. The question is where should the money go? I think the money should go to roads. Mass transit is much less efficient and convienent in all but the most congested areas and I don't think making things more congested is a very good answer.
Highway and car subsidies dwarf spending on transit.
According to the figures provided by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, transit is subsidized by around $400 per thousand passenger-miles, while highways are subsidized by only around $10 per thousand passenger-miles. What is the justification for the hugely disproportionate subsidies provided to transit? Why shouldn't transit users pay a larger share of the cost of building and operating the systems they use?
I'm probably atypical in that I find a lot of appeal in urban and a lot of appeal in rural. Not a whole lot in suburban. As a couple of people have noted, a lot of the appeal is separation from neighbors--not lawns per se. (In fact, I keep a fairly small lawn around my house and let most of the property grow as meadow. Doubtless wouldn't cut it in most suburbs but I'm more rural.)
Oh yes there does, Megan! Don't you understand that they are right, and therefore anyone who believes differently is fucking wrong!!!????!!!
When demonstrate that behavior in terms of national policy (elections, etc) it make sense. They are wrong because if they get their way it will influence my life. But in something like this where both sides of the fence can easily have their way without impacting each other?
Us it as a tool to tell great depths about that person's personality. Other than that, it matters naught.
"I'm probably atypical in that I find a lot of appeal in urban and a lot of appeal in rural. Not a whole lot in suburban. As a couple of people have noted, a lot of the appeal is separation from neighbors--not lawns per se. (In fact, I keep a fairly small lawn around my house and let most of the property grow as meadow. Doubtless wouldn't cut it in most suburbs but I'm more rural.)"
I am with you on that. I either want to live in a really big city or in the middle West Texas where no one will bother me. It is when you get degrees in the middle that you get into trouble. The suburbs generally offer the worst of both worlds rather than the best.
Sam says: "[Megan implied that the]...preferred lifestyle of millions of families is unnecessary and ... that the defenders of that lifestyle are raving lunatics."
Yes, that's called an opinion. Feel free to dissent.
John
I'm not sure Megan's ever actually been to Tysons Corner, she must have just heard about it somewhere. Very few people actually live there, and very few of those very few are families. (I did actually live there for a few years, when single and then for a short while after getting married.) Tysons is a gigantic mass of office buildings, shopping centers, and narrow roads. The actual people are found elsewhere.
"I'm probably atypical in that I find a lot of appeal in urban and a lot of appeal in rural. Not a whole lot in suburban. As a couple of people have noted, a lot of the appeal is separation from neighbors--not lawns per se. (In fact, I keep a fairly small lawn around my house and let most of the property grow as meadow. Doubtless wouldn't cut it in most suburbs but I'm more rural.)"
I am with you on that. I either want to live in a really big city or in the middle West Texas where no one will bother me. It is when you get degrees in the middle that you get into trouble. The suburbs generally offer the worst of both worlds rather than the best.
Actually, on a per-mile basis, railroads are far cheaper to build than roads, and the associated engineering works are cheaper, too. That I-395 mixing bowl in Springfield, VA cost about $676 million - that's $111 million more than the government gave Amtrak for capital appropriations in FY 08.
http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/FY09GrantLegislativeRequest.pdf
I wouldn't take your commentors' reactions too seriously - I don't think your remarks justified the reactions, but a lot of commentators really ARE anti-suburban, and I think people are just touchy about it, since so many advocates of density are strident and preachy. I read Ryan Avent's blog a lot and there's more than a touch of the "I don't care whether you like it or not, you MUST increase density NOW" over there - the comments his posts on the Brookland controversy draw from his readers are a good example.
John,
As I and others did. And am now scratching my head at how she is taking the moral high ground as someone who just posted a casual opinion and is confused that so many lunatics popped out of the wood work. I didn't read everything comment in the previous thread, but from what I saw most people on either side weren't the foaming at the mouth potrayal her latest post seems to give.
It's -almost- like someone threw a rock at the beehive, and then said, "what are all those bees getting upset about, I was just casually stating my dislike for honey?"
"I'm probably atypical in that I find a lot of appeal in urban and a lot of appeal in rural. Not a whole lot in suburban. As a couple of people have noted, a lot of the appeal is separation from neighbors--not lawns per se. (In fact, I keep a fairly small lawn around my house and let most of the property grow as meadow. Doubtless wouldn't cut it in most suburbs but I'm more rural.)"
I am with you on that. I either want to live in a really big city or in the middle West Texas where no one will bother me. It is when you get degrees in the middle that you get into trouble. The suburbs generally offer the worst of both worlds rather than the best.
"I'm probably atypical in that I find a lot of appeal in urban and a lot of appeal in rural. Not a whole lot in suburban. As a couple of people have noted, a lot of the appeal is separation from neighbors--not lawns per se. (In fact, I keep a fairly small lawn around my house and let most of the property grow as meadow. Doubtless wouldn't cut it in most suburbs but I'm more rural.)"
I am with you on that. I either want to live in a really big city or in the middle West Texas where no one will bother me. It is when you get degrees in the middle that you get into trouble. The suburbs generally offer the worst of both worlds rather than the best.
Sam,
The problem is that Megan honestly believes that the lack of parks is the reason why or even a significant reason why middle class people with families don't live in DC. To anyone who has ever lived in the burbs for any period of time, that is bunk. People live in the burbs because they don't want to live in the city parks are no. It is not like there are 1000s of people just dying to have a two bedroom condo to raise their kids but are not doing so because of the lack of parks. I think Megan might actually believe that. As I said above, she needs to get out more.
Actually, on a per-mile basis, railroads are far cheaper to build than roads, and the associated engineering works are cheaper, too.
Pretty meaningless. Obviously, the per-mile cost of building roads varies dramatically. An 8-lane interstate is probably going to cost far more per mile than a 2-lane state highway. And the per-mile cost of roads and rail tracks isn't a terribly useful measure of the economic efficiency of transportation spending, anyway, because it doesn't reflect actual usage. That's why transportation mode costs and benefits are generally measured in passenger-miles.
I grew up in metro-NYC, a 1.5 hour car/train/tube commute to NYC. I spent most of my adult life in suburban central Ohio, a 0.5 hour car commute to Columbus. I spent my final working years in suburban DC, a 2 hour car/train commute to DC.
Neither NYC or DC could function without public transit - there aren't enough roads & bridges and there aren't enough parking spaces. DC Metro, VRE and MARC trains are frequently SRO during rush hours. I66 is a veritable 50 mile long parking lot during rush hours. DC started a firestorm when it tried to interfere with the "slugs" who fill seats in commuter vehicles to permit travel in the HOV lanes during rush hours.
Many in suburban DC communities in MD and VA complain about urban sprawl, but fail to realize that the only way to stop urban sprawl in metro-DC would be to stop the growth of the federal government. I plan not to hold my breath waiting for that eventuality.
"DC started a firestorm when it tried to interfere with the "slugs" who fill seats in commuter vehicles to permit travel in the HOV lanes during rush hours."
How and why did they do that? Are they insane? Don't answer it is the DC government so I know the answer. But seriously, I have never heard that before. What did they try to do?
"DC started a firestorm when it tried to interfere with the "slugs" who fill seats in commuter vehicles to permit travel in the HOV lanes during rush hours."
How and why did they do that? Are they insane? Don't answer it is the DC government so I know the answer. But seriously, I have never heard that before. What did they try to do?
DC attempted to prevent the "slugs" from "assembling" at the sites at which they typically wait for rides, on the grounds that the vehicles stopping to pick them up were interfering with the flow of traffic.
It's true the discussion doesn't have to be hostile, but that is the dominant attitude among urban advocates. It's rarely a story of these are the benefits of living without a car or a detached house, rather a vitriolic holding-forth on why cars and detached houses are evil. And though it may be uncivil or impolite, hostility offered often equals hostility received.
For my part I don't find either option particularly desirable aesthetically, because they both rest on illegitimate application of violence (i.e., the state). In suburbia that means heavy-handed zoning and NIMBY-ism, and in the cities it means public transportation and regulation of taxis. Of the two though, I put suburban living closer to "free".
This is why libertarianism is valuable. It reminds us that we can each live our own lives as we please. The problem of course is that some libertarians spend all their time dismissing externalities like Global Warming or pretending that governments don't sometimes have to actually make decisions about what kind of society we are going to have. Cities do have to decide whether they want to have dense populations and mass transit or whether they want to be like Boise Idaho and just be one gigantic suburb. Libertarians should say that if we have carbon tax that reflects the true costs of energy consumption then some cities will make other choices than other cities and if we have liberal captial and labor markets then people will vote with their feet.
I'm not sure Megan's ever actually been to Tysons Corner, she must have just heard about it somewhere. Very few people actually live there, and very few of those very few are families.... Tysons is a gigantic mass of office buildings, shopping centers, and narrow roads. The actual people are found elsewhere.
For real. Tysons is neither fish nor fowl and I can't imagine masses of anyone would find it an appealing place to live, regardless of where they align on the urban/suburban or kids/no-kids axis.
"Libertarians should say that if we have carbon tax that reflects the true costs of energy consumption then some cities will make other choices than other cities and if we have liberal captial and labor markets then people will vote with their feet."
No. Libertarians should have a healthy skepticism about basing policy decisions on fadish science promulgated by leftists with an almost cult like devotion. When science becomes about "consensus" rather than results and testible hypothosis and a contest between believers and deniers, we are all in a lot of trouble.
Every morning I bicycle to work in DC. I cross North Capital Street on my commute and am often stopped at a traffic light there. This is a major route into DC and one thing that always strikes me is on most days, the only cars I see with more than one person in them have out of area license plates on them, which makes me think they are tourists.
I think it says a lot about our commuting habits, and I doubt that this is just a DC issue. At least the slug lines help address the issue, even if their creation wasn't altruistic in nature.
I wonder if sometimes urbanism-proponents seem a bit touchy is because they are tired of hearing sob stories about how rising energy prices are making it impossible for suburbanites both to heat/cool their large houses and to drive to their jobs. Urbanites are much less affected by these things and you rarely hear them complain about the inherent problems of their lifestyle ("It was slightly cold on my two minute walk from the grocery store").
It is interesting to see the lack of communicative ability displayed when discussing subjective values like this. If you read the previous thread, several early comments by suburbanites snarked on the urbanism idea by questioning what planet Megan lives on and suggesting that everyone, if given the opportunity, would prefer to live in a cul-de-sac. And yet these same people are suggesting that the vitriol and lack of understanding comes from urbanites. I think I am beginning to see the problem here.
"Urbanites are much less affected by these things and you rarely hear them complain about the inherent problems of their lifestyle ("It was slightly cold on my two minute walk from the grocery store")."
What a load of crap that is. I have lived in both and there is almost never a "two minute walk to the grocery store". Moreover, it sucks going to the grocery store without a car. I don't care how close you are to the store, lugging bags for blocks or fighting a granny cart is not fun.
Living in the city is a pain in the neck. Things are not always convienently located and wonderfully useful stores like big grocery stores or Targets or (gasp) Wall Marts are not there. Moreover, the prices in center city stores tend to be higher.
There was a time when there was no such thing as suburbs. Most people lived in either the farm or in apartment houses in big cities. When World War II ended people send to hell with that and left the cities. They didn't leave the cities only because of schools and crime. The schools were still good and the crime hadn't gotten bad yet. They left the cities because it is really hard to raise a family in a compact apartment or row house. For a family, life is just easier in teh burbs. That is why people moved there in late 40s and early 50s. Living in the city is great if you are single or incredibly wealthy and even then it has its drawbacks. But if you have a family, the city sucks. The best bet is an older inner suburb like Bethesda or The Palisades. But those places are incredibly expensive. For people with more normal incomes, the outer burbs are the easiest and most efficient place to live even if you love the city letalone if you can't stand the place.
"I don't find it restful to be permanently ensconced somewhere where I have few near neighbors; it gives me that kind of eerie feeling you get in the horror movie right before the villain attacks."
I recall a WSJ article from, oh, long ago, in the lat '90s, when the dot com bubble had lots of Manhattanites buying their first vacation houses. They interviewed a bunch of local sherrifs from towns seeing a lot of second home buying. The sherrifs basically were complaining that they were getting a huge volume of calls from New Yorkers and 3 in the morning insisting that there were burglars or prowlers or escaped lunatics looking in their windows. (As non-urbanites can guess, the miscreants were generally squirrels, deer, rabbits and raccoons.) The locals weren't nasty about it, just bemused and of the opinion that New Yorkers see too many slasher flicks and never experienced actual privacy before.
"If you read the previous thread, several early comments by suburbanites snarked on the urbanism idea by questioning what planet Megan lives on and suggesting that everyone, if given the opportunity, would prefer to live in a cul-de-sac."
No not everyone, just most. The arguments you are referring to started when people started asserting that everyone would prefer to live in the city and are just being prevented from doing so by evil car subsidies, the NeoCons or whatever other nonsense. The fact is that most people who have children don't want to live in the center city or in high density areas. Some do, but most don't. Why that fact bothers so many people is really a question of those people's nuerosises than anything else.
"If you read the previous thread, several early comments by suburbanites snarked on the urbanism idea by questioning what planet Megan lives on and suggesting that everyone, if given the opportunity, would prefer to live in a cul-de-sac."
No not everyone, just most. The arguments you are referring to started when people started asserting that everyone would prefer to live in the city and are just being prevented from doing so by evil car subsidies, the NeoCons or whatever other nonsense. The fact is that most people who have children don't want to live in the center city or in high density areas. Some do, but most don't. Why that fact bothers so many people is really a question of those people's nuerosises than anything else.
"If you read the previous thread, several early comments by suburbanites snarked on the urbanism idea by questioning what planet Megan lives on and suggesting that everyone, if given the opportunity, would prefer to live in a cul-de-sac."
No not everyone, just most. The arguments you are referring to started when people started asserting that everyone would prefer to live in the city and are just being prevented from doing so by evil car subsidies, the NeoCons or whatever other nonsense. The fact is that most people who have children don't want to live in the center city or in high density areas. Some do, but most don't. Why that fact bothers so many people is really a question of those people's nuerosises than anything else.
"If you read the previous thread, several early comments by suburbanites snarked on the urbanism idea by questioning what planet Megan lives on and suggesting that everyone, if given the opportunity, would prefer to live in a cul-de-sac."
No not everyone, just most. The arguments you are referring to started when people started asserting that everyone would prefer to live in the city and are just being prevented from doing so by evil car subsidies, the NeoCons or whatever other nonsense. The fact is that most people who have children don't want to live in the center city or in high density areas. Some do, but most don't. Why that fact bothers so many people is really a question of those people's nuerosises than anything else.
If you read the previous thread, several early comments by suburbanites snarked on the urbanism idea by questioning what planet Megan lives on and suggesting that everyone, if given the opportunity, would prefer to live in a cul-de-sac. And yet these same people are suggesting that the vitriol and lack of understanding comes from urbanites. I think I am beginning to see the problem here.
Yup. There's a non-trivial cohort of suburbanites to whom even hinting at terms like "moderate density" and "walkable" constitute an almost Belgian attack on the 'Merican Way of Life.
When in fact, no one's even suggesting that you won't be able to live in your congested exurban slum 10-20 years from now. Who would want to take that away from you?
Just more room in the nice urban schools and trendy gastropubs for the rest of us.
ibc,
I will assume that, in mentioning "nice urban schools", you are not talking about the government schools in the District of Comedy.
"Just more room in the nice urban schools and trendy gastropubs for the rest of us."
Did you really just say that? First, find me a nice urban school that goes for under 20K a year? In DC you won't, unless you are in the under 10 set and live in an expensive neighborhood.
A "trendy gastropub"? Come on you can't be serious. No one really talks like that do they? Please tell me you are just sock puppeting to make fun of urbanites?
"Just more room in the nice urban schools and trendy gastropubs for the rest of us."
Did you really just say that? First, find me a nice urban school that goes for under 20K a year? In DC you won't, unless you are in the under 10 set and live in an expensive neighborhood.
A "trendy gastropub"? Come on you can't be serious. No one really talks like that do they? Please tell me you are just sock puppeting to make fun of urbanites?
Megan, you might not have argued that nobody should have a lawn, but you quoted Ryan Avent as saying:
Those sounded a lot less like innocent inquiries and more like rhetorical questions.So glad to hear that Megan no longer lives in Manhattan. This island isn't big enough for two, obnoxious, boring, Irish-Americans.
"Just more room in the nice urban schools and trendy gastropubs for the rest of us."
Did you really just say that? First, find me a nice urban school that goes for under 20K a year? In DC you won't, unless you are in the under 10 set and live in an expensive neighborhood.
We'll talk in 10 years, and sort it out then.
Please tell me you are just sock puppeting to make fun of urbanites?
What, you don't like tasty gastropub fare? Next you'll be denigrating arugala...
John,
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I read Ryan Avent's blog a lot and there's more than a touch of the "I don't care whether you like it or not, you MUST increase density NOW" over there -
Ryan Avent is a particularly addle-brained proponent of urbanism and density.
De gustibus non disputandum
George Orwell's main character in Down and Out in London and Paris has a job, for a while, as a schoolteacher, in an English school where parents pay tuition. The character offers that the school is really no better than the state supported schools, but it makes the parents and students like the rich kids in the arrangement; so they do it. I think suburbs ape the country estates of the rich past the point where what you buy is worthwhile. As a kid I enjoyed Army apartments next to a parade ground. The 'new urbanism' offers change away from the suburban ways but, like the Roman suggested, quarreling over matters of taste quickly gets to the point of diminishing returns.
Sorry for the double post IBC. I didn't realize that did that.
The neighborhood I grew up in, we all had huge back yards. Most of the families didn't have fences, so all us kids could go back and forth and play in one anothers yards. I suppose it was kind of like our own neighborhood park, except our parents didn't have too worry about the drug dealers taking over after dark, or the city deciding to take down the swings because someone might get hurt.
The 'new urbanism' offers change away from the suburban ways but, like the Roman suggested, quarreling over matters of taste quickly gets to the point of diminishing returns.
Right, but given that the "new urbanist" developments always carry a price premium over similarly located developments based on tht traditional sprawl model, at some point you have to realize we're not comparing Big Macs to truffles, but to Chipotle Burritos.
I read the previous two threads, and there really wasn't a lot of anger that I could identify. This thread has much more of that.
There are some real misunderstandings within these threads:
(1) When we talk about "walkable communities", we are talking about such commumities within, or very near, the urban cores, are we not? If suburbs and exurbs, and all such future commnuities want such walkability, they can zone/rezone for it. They can invest their tax dollars in things like parks that Megan wants (and her complaints and desires should be made known to her local representatives- Megan, you have a measure of control on this issue).
(2) Urbanites complaining about little walkability in suburbs and exurbs get no sympathy from me- they don't live there, and their opinions are of no weight. Suburbanites and exurbanites that complain about this have three options- either mass in political movements to get zoning/public building changed, move, or shut up.
(3) The high cost of urban property is not a result solely of demand- it is also a result of supply- something that cannot be changed in a fair manner since it is a function of high population density. What I sense from some of the urban supporters of "walkability" is a desire for subsidies that make their desired communities more affordable, but those subsidies have to come from someone's hide, and one can certainly understand a certain amount of defensiveness on behalf of sub/ex-urbanites.
My opinion on the future is that the trend towards sub/ex-urbanation will not reverse. The cost of energy in the future may take up more of one's income (it may not, the trend is still in favor of declining fraction of income devoted to energy). Higher gas prices will lead to people buying more fuel efficient cars. In addition, employment itself will move to where the people are living (this is already the trend as urban centers are increasingly losing out to suburban locations for employers), or those who can will telecommute more. Americans have already voted on what they want- they want more living space. They tell you this in a multitude of different ways, including through their solid political support for road building/expansion.
However, as I wrote on the other thread- you can find any kind of community you want in the US, just move to one that suits you. Complaints that that you can't afford the one you want are pretty silly, in my opinion.
If no one has already pointed this out, rail is a horribly expensive and inefficient way to move people about. Better rail would mean almost no rail.
Families will not move into cities with horrible public schools and high violent crime rates. There are few urban amenities that would provide them with a trade off on this issues.
given that the "new urbanist" developments always carry a price premium over similarly located developments based on tht traditional sprawl model
You're going to have to name names here. You have repeatedly cited examples of "old urbanist" neighborhoods like Capitol Hill and Alexandria, for which no "similarly located" sprawl exists.
Thanks, Megan, for trying to dial it down. It's astounding how some people feel personally attacked by a discussion of the relative merits or urban vs. suburban life. I detect insecurity behind the zeal with which they defend their housing preferences as universal. I love cities, you don't. So what?
BTW - social networks are generally stronger and friendlier in the suburbs than in the city.
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/8656
And I am not a suburban chauvinist. I prefer an urban lifestyle in my present personal situation. I do actually live in the suburbs of New Orleans, because the city is still a political, economic, and social disaster and now a relatively expensive one.
In addition, employment itself will move to where the people are living .
You hear this a lot, but it's just silly. What do you mean "Where the people are living?" Already suburb-to-suburb commuting comprises most of the congestion in the DC metropolitan area.
Employees are scattered across the region, and there's no "there" to build at.
And the telecommuting option is always just over the horizon. Nice for white collar thinky-types who spend all day chatting on public policy blogs--not such a great option for the vast majority of those folks you see clogging 66 every morning, though.
Families will not move into cities with horrible public schools and high violent crime rates. There are few urban amenities that would provide them with a trade off on this issues.
Let's turn this around: Would families move into exurban developments with horrible public schools and high violent crime rates?
Obviously your implied argument is that schools in high to moderate dense areas will always be worse than in low density areas. I'm sure you have a reason for believing that--other than "that's the way it is."
If you suddenly and unexpectedly produced three small children a suburban setting would be the least of your concerns. Most people have the problem of suddenly and unexpectedly producing babies, producing children would put you in the national spotlight as a modern miracle, besides putting you in a coma.
Final comment:
Older cities in America were essentially built out by 1945 when the population was 140 million. (this does not include the newer suburban type cities like Dallas, Houston, etc.)
It took the USA 400 years to reach that 140 million mark. It took us about 50 to add another 140 million and we will add another 100 million in 30 to 40 years.
You can't cram those people into the cities. Even people in most cities don't live in the same densities that they did in 1940.
The only real question about continued suburban growth is what form it will take, and the trends are to a somewhat more "urban like" land use.
BTW - social networks are generally stronger and friendlier in the suburbs than in the city.
That's just, like, your opinion, maaan.
It's been argued that the study you linked to shows just the opposite...
"Social Interaction and Urban Sprawl," by Jan Brueckner and Ann Largey, finds that people talk to their neighbors and hang out with friends more in cities than in suburbs on a per capita basis. They found no statistically significant difference in other observed social activity, such as the number of friends and confidants, based on density.
http://www.planetizen.com/node/34075
The only real question about continued suburban growth is what form it will take, and the trends are to a somewhat more "urban like" land use.
And that's where all the tension in this thread comes from--on one side you've got folks talking about what form suburban development is going to take as these numbers ramp up. On the other, you've got folks *hearing* that the commies are going to box them up and ship them into a 1-bedroom tenement in Greenwich Village.
ibc,
You hear this a lot, but it's just silly. What do you mean "Where the people are living?"
The meaning of the phrase seems pretty clear to me. Employment centers are decentralizing. Jobs, along with people, are moving away from high-density urban areas and into low-density suburbs and exurbs. The old commuting model, in which lots of workers who live in the suburbs surrounding a dense urban core travel into and out of that core for work each day is giving way to a more dispersed, decentralized model in which commuting means travel within suburbs or between suburbs. Mass transit is far more suited to the suburb-to-urban-core model than the suburb-to-suburb model, which is one reason why transit has been losing market share to automobiles.
And the telecommuting option is always just over the horizon. Nice for white collar thinky-types who spend all day chatting on public policy blogs--not such a great option for the vast majority of those folks you see clogging 66 every morning, though.
Higher energy costs, increasingly sophisticated and inexpensive communications technology, and the growing share of knowledge-based jobs, all suggest that telecommuting will become increasingly important and widespread in the future. Even just a modest increase in the rate of telecommuting could have a significant impact on road congestion and work-related travel costs.
The only real question about continued suburban growth is what form it will take, and the trends are to a somewhat more "urban like" land use.
I don't think it's even becoming more "urban-like." There's nothing much urban-like about most of the new development in the fast-growing cities of the south and west. It's mainly mile after mile of low-density, single-family-home housing developments and mall-like shopping/dining/entertainment facilities far from urban cores. Public transportation in these areas, such as it is, is limited and inconvenient (almost exclusively buses). A car is pretty much a necessity. Yes, the recent increase in gas prices and the collapse of the housing bubble have slowed the pace of suburban development somewhat in recent years, but the long-term trend remains the same.
I don't think it's even becoming more "urban-like."
There are a LOT of luxury high-rise condos going up in Portland, and a bunch in the close-in Seattle suburb of Bellevue (which, given the office towers, is now more of a city in its own right, minus the bums). Of course, the housing collapse is hurting them pretty badly, which suggests that maybe people aren't as eager to live in a box as some assume.
Mass transit is far more suited to the suburb-to-urban-core model than the suburb-to-suburb model, which is one reason why transit has been losing market share to automobiles.
Which is why we've experienced crushing growth in congestion around pretty much every major population center in the US.
High-rise luxury condos are a niche market and tend to be located in or close to urban cores, not in the suburbs where most new development is occurring. But as you say, the luxury condo market has also been hit hard by the housing bubble collapse. I've seen countless articles over the past couple of years about people who bought a luxury condo in a new high-rise building in places like Miami and Las Vegas and Scottsdale, Arizona hoping to flip it for a quick profit, and instead being bankrupted after the market collapsed and they were unable to keep up the mortgage payments.
ibc,
Which is why we've experienced crushing growth in congestion around pretty much every major population center in the US.
We haven't been experiencing crushing growth in congestion. Congestion is a function of size and density. Sprawl tends to reduce congestion. Density tends to increase it. Density also tends to increase commute times, because it reduces the accessibility of workplaces by car. The average commute time by public transportation is almost twice the average commute time by car. New York, which has the most extensive mass transit system in the country and the highest job density (thanks to all those high-rise office buildings in Manhattan), also has the longest average commute time in the country. New York also has the highest rate of "extreme commutes," defined by the Census Bureau as commutes taking 90 minutes or more each way.
We haven't been experiencing crushing growth in congestion. Sprawl tends to reduce congestion. Density tends to increase it.
Well, I think anyone who lives in the greater Washington region and has to leave the house in the morning knows that the roads are more congested, and that average commute times have increased over the last couple decades.
As to the general topic of commutes, transit, density, etc...:
http://www.ryanavent.com/blog/?p=717
The idea that we can make things better by "making things less dense" (i.e. spreading folks out as thinly as possible in an exurban model), and then "putting the jobs where the people live" seems pretty nonsensical to me, but there y'go.
ibc,
Well, I think anyone who lives in the greater Washington region and has to leave the house in the morning knows that the roads are more congested, and that average commute times have increased over the last couple decades.
As I said, congestion is a matter of size and density. If Washington had done more to decentralize its workplaces, so that fewer people needed to converge on a small geographical area every morning to get to work, there would be less congestion.
As to the general topic of commutes, transit, density, etc...:http://www.ryanavent.com/blog/?p=717
As I said before, Ryan Avent is one of the most addle-brained proponents of urbanism and density I have come across. He claims and arguments tend to be wrong, misleading and/or irrelevant. The post you link to here provides an example of his irrelevant claims. In response to the observation that commutes by transit take longer than commutes by car, he asserts that transit is more "efficient" at moving people than cars. Whether or not that's true, it doesn't alter the fact that commuting by transit tends to take much longer than commuting by car. That time penalty is a strong incentive to commute by car instead of commuting by transit, and a strong incentive to build new development and locate employment centers in such a way as to allow people to commute by car instead of having to rely on transit.
Seeming to recognize the irrelevance of his response, Avent goes on to engage in various speculations, claiming that the higher density of transit-oriented cities "probably cancels out the additional slowness" of commutes by transit. As usual, Avent provides not a shred of evidence to support his wishful thinking.
I don't think it's even becoming more "urban-like." There's nothing much urban-like about most of the new development in the fast-growing cities of the south and west. It's mainly mile after mile of low-density, single-family-home housing developments and mall-like shopping/dining/entertainment facilities far from urban cores.
There is a change taking place right now with more PUDs, Planned Unit Developments, and TNDs, Traditional Neighborhood Development, taking place. These are two side of the mixed use coin. My original post said somewhat more urban-like and I will stick with that. That does not mean that every development is mixed use or new urban, far from it, but the trend is there.
I believe in 10 or 20 years, suburban development will be more village like. It is still suburbia and it will still require auto travel.
As I said, congestion is a matter of size and density. If Washington had done more to decentralize its workplaces, so that fewer people needed to converge on a small geographical area every morning to get to work, there would be less congestion.
Excellent advice. Then all we would need to do is assign housing for the workers based on the corporations they work for. Otherwise they'd buy houses willy-nilly across the region--as they do--and you'd get the kind of suburb-to-suburb commuting that cripples Washington suburban traffic every morning.
Better yet, we could just move all government functions to South Dakota, and spread the various offices as far afield as possible, achieving minimum density.
As for the private sector, I guess we'll just have to deal with human behavior, messy as it is.
"Washington! Decentralize your workplaces!"
ibc,
...and you'd get the kind of suburb-to-suburb commuting that cripples Washington suburban traffic every morning...
There is no "suburb-to-suburb commuting that cripples Washington suburban traffic every morning."
You really ought to try actually learning something about land-use and transportation issues, ibc. Then maybe you wouldn't keep making so many false claims and specious arguments. The relationship between employment density and congestion has been studied extensively. There is no serious dispute that a more decentralized employment base is associated with lower congestion. This really isn't hard to understand. In a high-density employment model, in which large numbers of workers from outlying suburbs must converge on a small urban core to get to work (the clearest example being midtown and lower Manhattan in New York) traffic density close to the urban core becomes very high and the result is massive congestion. In contrast, when workplaces are decentralized, so that fewer workers need to converge on a given geographical area to get to their place of employment, traffic densities and thus congestion are reduced. As Edward Glaeser puts it in his paper Sprawl and Urban Growth:
And it's not just higher employment density that causes longer commutes, but higher residential density also:
In my experience commuting into the District of Comedy from Northern Virginia, the only ways to beat a mass transit commute time-wise were in a hybrid vehicle (which could use HOV lanes with a single occupant), or with 1 or 2 others in the vehicle (slugs or otherwise), depending on whether you were using I66 (HOV2) or I95 (HOV3).
From my perspective, the 1.5 hour portion of my 2 hour commute on VRE allowed me to read or work, rather than focus on driving in heavy, stop and go traffic, completely unproductively, surrounded by aggressive drivers fighting for a 1-2 car length advantage. That was about a "no brain-er". My 12 hour day was all productive, with the exception of the two half hour drives on back roads to and from the VRE station.
Compared to that, retirement is a major improvement.
Greg,
Future development may become more village like if there is a significant demand for such communities, or it may not. One of the problems with the walkable village model is the necessity for small businesses to locate within to serve it-small grocery stores, etc. Unless zoning is used to bar larger stores in the areas around these villages, like you see in many of the older urban cores, such stores will find it difficult to compete due to economies of scale. Outside the urban cores, I believe you can get the walkable village, but it will be minus the businesses to serve it- you will still need a car.
ibc,
I have read your comments on this and the previous threads, and you are seriously misinformed on so many different issues that it is impossible to know where to begin with you. Mixner is much more patient than I am. There is literally no evidence of any kind that people will abandon the suburbs/exurbs for the urban cores. Many other commenters have pointed out why Americans do and can choose to live in these communities. Even with much higher gas prices, the still higher costs of living within the cities still mitigate against such a return.
It's odd that these arguments often center on the DC suburbs. Most of them have higher population densities than many cities. My own sprawling, big-lawned burb has a population density higher than Houston, Dallas, San Diego, Portland or Denver. The last DC suburb I lived in would be the 22nd densest city in the country, if it were a city.
Personally, I've found grocery shopping in cities with good public transportation to be no problem. Not all of us can afford cars.
When you get right down to it, greater suburanization and exburbanization based on the old models just isn't sustainable with higher energy prices and global warming. In addition, you probably need some population density to have the teachers for schools to teach kids how to compete in the new global economy. How many teachers teaching Chinese are going to be living in the middle of nowhere?
Telecommuting probably isn't an answer because it drives down morale because as social animals, we crave human contact.
Mixner's emphasis on public transportation being too expensive would carry more weight if he didn't support expensive ventures like the Iraq War or colonizing space.
Reality Man,
Personally, I've found grocery shopping in cities with good public transportation to be no problem.
Maybe for a single person who buys few groceries because he mostly eats out or orders in, it wouldn't be much of a problem. But if you seriously think that public transportation is a remotely problem-free alternative to a car for a typical American working mother buying groceries to feed a family of four, you really are utterly clueless. Even just a few days' worth of groceries for the average American family would fill several shopping bags, and include lots of heavy and bulky items. A gallon or more of milk. Bottles or cans of soda. Loaves of bread. Boxes of cereal. Bags of chips. Ice cream. Produce. Lots of bulky packaged foods. Schlepping them from store to home by bus or train would be a major hassle, even in the unlikely event that the bus stops or train stations were conveniently located right next to grocery store and home. Once again, I am struck by the irony of your handle. You really seem to have a very poor grasp of REALITY.
When you get right down to it, greater suburanization and exburbanization based on the old models just isn't sustainable with higher energy prices and global warming.
Another ridiculous assertion, without a shred of evidence to support it. Do you have, you know, anything resembling an actual argument to support this silly claim?
One of the problems with the walkable village model is the necessity for small businesses to locate within to serve it-small grocery stores, etc. Unless zoning is used to bar larger stores in the areas around these villages, like you see in many of the older urban cores, such stores will find it difficult to compete due to economies of scale.
But that shouldn't be the model. In the village (or neighborhood) center go the bars, restaurants, and specialty shops. The supermarket and discount stores go on the outskirts. You walk to the pub, but drive for groceries. That's the way it has evolved here (Ann Arbor) anyway, and we like it a lot. I like to be able to walk and bike downtown from my WWII-era suburban style neighborhood in the city, but we have no desire to try to lug groceries home on foot or bike. An urban planning student at the University here made this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsrqBHEOT0k
Nicely done -- except realize his shot of the 'sterile strip center' is also from Ann Arbor (and only a couple of miles from the main street core with all of the cafes). The strip on the outskirts should be seen as a complement to, rather than a competitor with, the downtown. People want to buy groceries at a supermarket, but who wants a huge supermarket, Linens & Things or Office Max on Main Street next to the outdoor cafes? We have urban activist types trying to figure out how to get these things downtown. I hope they won't succeed (and they probably won't -- preferences, habits, and economics are all working against them).
Mixner, at density this just isn't a big deal--I grew up carrying groceries two or four blocks home. Good for the arms.
More broadly, whatever the benefits of sprawl for congestion, it is not going to work at $4 a gallon gas, much less the higher levels prices will probably hit, particularly not with dual-income couples who can't just move every time one of them gets a new job. Core commuting works for the same reason that airlines use hub-and-spoke systems instead of point-to-point.
Many of the sprawling urban aggregations named in this thread are southwestern cities living on borrowed time, which is to say irreplaceable aquifers that they are rapidly drawing down. The only place you can build that kind of extremely low-density sprawl is the places where absolutely no one previously wanted to live, mostly because before air-conditioning and deep water drilling, they weren't particularly liveable. And even in those places, I'm willing to bet that you'll start running up against natural limits--companies don't really want to send their folks three hours across town to take a meeting. In DC we can mitigate the gridlock with rail and other strategies. But if Phoenix ends up 120 miles across, it's going to take a couple of hours to get from end to end no matter what you do.
Moreover, there are substantial business benefits from industry concentrations, which is why Wall Street hasn't left New York for South Dakota. That's why exurban jobs tend to be commodity manufacturing and services, with the specialty work in the centers; it turns out that concentrations of people in the same field make each other vastly more productive.
DC highways are pretty much maxed out, there is nowhere to put new ones within the core, and the Federal government isn't going to relocate to South Dakota for cheaper land. Given that, we need rail development to move workers in and out of the city. The highways are almost literally a parking lot.
Finally, in defense of your lifestyle, you're radically discounting the fact that many other people want to live close to DC, even if they don't work here. They like the amenities that you really only can get from a big city--things like opera, professional theater, museums, and so forth. That is going to dictate housing choices too.
Megan,
I love how you wax philosophical about places you have never been to. You point about sustainability may be true for Pheonix or Las Vegas but is other bunk when talking about Houston or Dallas or nearly anywhere else. You also might want to read your own blog before talking about how those areas are not sustainable with $4 gas. You quite rightly have pointed out how oil is in a bubble. Oil dropped below $115 yesterday. It is the $4 gas that is not sustainable.
Do everyone a favor Megan. STOP WRITING ABOUT URBAN ISSUES. You really don't know a lot about them. I really enjoy your blog until you get into these issues. Until you have actually lived somewhere out in one of the unsustainable hinterlands of America or put more thought into the issue beyond, "it really scares me to stay in the suburbs and I wish they would stop driving cars so fast in my neighborhood", you really won't have much to say. You just annoy your readers.
"The strip on the outskirts should be seen as a complement to, rather than a competitor with, the downtown."
Amen.
"Mixner, at density this just isn't a big deal--I grew up carrying groceries two or four blocks home. Good for the arms."
Gallon milk, 64 oz. container juice, bag of apples, strawberries, bag of bananas, bag of grapes, juice boxes, popsicles, yogurts, several frozen dinners, medium watermelon, bottled water (yes, I'm a bad person), two loaves of bread, baby carrots, two boxes of cereal, peanut butter, jam, granola bars, package diapers, large box baby wipes, shampoo, soap, cream cheese, eggs, deli, sliced cheese, large box trash bags, large container ziplocs. That's a very normal weekly shopping for my family, and we don't eat dinner at home much. You can just barely budge a grocery store cart with that kind of load.
In DC we did Peapod for several years, Safeway being about 25 minutes away uphill. It was convenient to do Peapod, but the fruit was pretty expensive and not really worth it. $200 was not unusual as a Peapod tab. I'd make at least one run to CVS every week, and a run to Costco for fruit, prepared food, diapers, and baby wipes about once a month. We'd also mail order some items, like Indian sauces. I don't even want to think what I was spending those days. We're in Texas now in a college town, and we do basically all our grocery shopping at the grocery store nine blocks away by car once a week. It saves time, it saves energy, and I can get a mountain of groceries for $100 bucks.
In my city days, I used the basket of a large stroller as my shopping cart. It was fine for small emergency shopping trips, but totally inadequate for a major grocery shopping.
I've been reading these threads with interest, but I wasn't really moved to comment until I saw this remark about Boise:
Cities do have to decide whether they want to have dense populations and mass transit or whether they want to be like Boise Idaho and just be one gigantic suburb.
Since Boise happens to be where I live, I need to get on my soapbox for a moment and say that, save for the atrocious traffic on the parking lot known as Interstate 84, Boise is a pretty ideal city to live in, and shouldn't be dismissed as "one gigantic suburb." Any neighborhood you're looking for here, you can find. There are downtown condos for the urban types, suburbs for the suburban types, traditional grid-pattern neighborhoods for the traditional types, sprawling rural neighborhoods with huge yards for the rural types -- old neighborhoods, new neighborhoods, and everything in between. My neighborhood is built up along the parkland running beside the Boise River; it is a neighborhood full of trees, parks, streams, and ponds. It is rather like living in a forest. I live on one of the ponds. I see geese and ducks, herons, eagles, deer, foxes, beavers, raccoons, and other wild animals every day. I get my daily exercise by running on the greenbelt by the river, not by going to a gym. I love the outdoors, and I also like cities, so this is the perfect neighborhood for me. I live only two minutes away from downtown. My neighborhood is not the kind of neighborhood that is possible in a high-density place.
[ / soapbox ]
Now a comment about the topic in general. This topic seems to be a slice of a much bigger conflict between rural dwellers and urban dwellers. I'm 27 years old. I've lived in South Dakota, Idaho, and New York (born in South Dakota, lived there for four years, grew up in Idaho, interned in New York City, attended college at Cornell, attended law school in Idaho, now practice in Idaho). I've been in every state but Alaska. I've seen things to like in every place I've been to, and I've liked the people in every place I've been to. That being said -- in my travels, my experience has been that urban dwellers who consider themselves cosmopolitan tend to be more dismissive of rural lifestyles (which idealize big houses with big yards) than the other way around. I don't think this is purposeful, I don't think people mean to do it, but they do, and I have a theory about why they do it.
Most rural dwellers (and I'm including the residents of small rural towns and cities in that) have a motivation to see the "outside world." We hear about the glories of cities from an early age. We hear about all the culture in the big cities, culture that our small economies can't afford. In the West, especially, young eyes turn eastward -- not as a longed-for permanent place of abode, but as a place to see. We realize that our homes don't have everything there is to see, and our elders encourage us to travel and see what's out there.
Big city dwellers don't have that same realization, at least not until much later in life. They've grown up surrounded by the trappings of urban culture, and if they're encouraged to see anything, it's to see other urban cultures -- to see Paris, London, Rome, places like that. If their eyes turn westward at all, it is to see the California coast. The "states in the middle," like Idaho, if good for anything at all (besides being the butt of jokes), are only good for the ski resorts where the rich and famous keep holiday homes. In my experience, big city dwellers learn nothing about rural places; they are never taught that there is anything to see here, and I think our desire to see their homes, coupled with their complete ignorance about our homes, has given them a contempt for the rural that comes out in all their dealings with us, even if they're unaware of it. I got so many ignorant, officious comments and questions about Idaho at Cornell that I finally stopped responding to them sincerely. (I had one fellow convinced that Idaho was a Hawaiian island.) I also heard plenty of assertions about rural ignorance and the failings of rural education that I just had to shake my head at, because my rural public education taught me more about the world than my peers' top-notch private schools did. Among the many subjects I was required to take were American geography and world geography. Give me a blank map, and I can identify every state in the country and every state's capital, every country in the world and every country's capital. I learned about those places and their cultures and, most importantly, their histories. My peers knew nothing of most of their own country, let alone about the world. They thought visiting Europe was the same as knowing something about Europe, and it's not. It's not at all.
When I was in ninth grade, my classmates and I went on the American Heritage Tour, a tour of notable places in the Northeast. I've never heard of an equivalent journey for students in the East to tour the West; the assumption seems to be that there's nothing of value to see or learn out here. That's a pity, because there's a lot Easterners should know about their own country, and they don't. Every election year, when their ambitions have been upset by the barbaric red-staters, they throw up their hands and wonder at our "stupidity"; if they bother to ask why we are the way we are, they try to answer their questions sitting in the comfort of their New York or Washington offices and apartments. That's a poor way to get answers -- theorizing about people and places that you don't even know.
I don't think Megan was contemptuous in her original post; on the other hand, I don't really see that the responses were angry. These threads have been downright polite compared to some of the arguments I got into at Cornell and in New York City. To me, Megan seemed genuinely curious. So here is my own answer to the question about "why big yards?"
1) I grew up in a family of seven children. We needed someplace to play. We lived in a big, old house in a neighborhood of big, old houses. Most of the houses had big yards, but ours had the biggest yard, including a magnificent side lawn that was perfect for games like kickball, football, and Steal the Flag. Every day, the neighborhood kids, ranging from teenagers to very young children, converged in our yard, and we would play until nightfall -- or, during the summer, well into the night. Our parents were able to have time to themselves and keep their sanity because we had someplace big and safe to play together where they could easily check on us if they needed to. The same is not true of a public park; parks tend to be havens for drug dealers and other people looking for trouble. (And when they started taking the swings out of the parks, where the heck was the fun?)
2) My mom liked to garden -- vegetables and flowers. You need a big yard for the gardens she liked. She would grow lots of things -- corn, squash, zucchini, tomatoes, pumpkins, various types of peppers, etc. She enjoyed doing it, and the food was amazing. Much, much better than the waxy vegetables you get in stores. And the flowers smelled heavenly during the spring and summer and into the fall.
3) A big yard allows for various types of outdoor areas. We had informal ones and formal ones. We had the side lawn to play, the front lawn to look pretty, a courtyard and a patio for privacy and parties (my parents did a lot of entertaining as part of my dad's job), space for gardens, lots of trees. There's nothing like a big old tree to climb.
4) Green spaces are pretty. I've never looked at a big lawn in front of a house and thought, "Waste." I look at it and think, "Pretty." Houses that hug the street look strange to me. I like houses that are set back on lawns; I don't much like concrete jungles. It's a matter of preferences, of course, but some people like big, open green spaces, even if they don't have kids. To them, those lawns aren't a waste, any more than a famous painting by a brilliant painter would be a waste to someone who loves art.
I don't need a big house and a big yard right now, but as soon as I have children, I want to move to the kind of neighborhood I grew up in, with big yards and lots of children. I don't want my kids to have the kind of childhood that my peers at Cornell had -- closed-off, filled with lessons and practices and an all-consuming obsession to get into an Ivy League school. I want my kids to have the kind of childhood I had -- open and free, full of adventures, not an organization kid in sight, with parents who understood that kids should not be stifled with constant supervision. We were able to give our imaginations free rein. I think there's a lot more value in that than in all the lessons in the world.
By the way, though we had all the bogeyman of modern culture -- video games and movies and TV and such -- none of the kids in my neighborhood were obese. I don't think that's a coincidence.
I -- me, the individual -- found the lifestyle in Idaho suited my needs far more than the lifestyle in New York. I don't like feeling closed in, I don't like living on top of other people, I really didn't like the lack of fresh air and open spaces. I didn't like the lack of sky, or the lack of stars at night, not when I was used to a place where I could watch meteor showers from my back yard. The "culture" that cities offer is something I can take in small doses. I'm not big on concerts, museums, plays. I've always preferred the page to the stage, and books are something I can get anywhere. When I want culture, I can travel. What I want and need on a daily basis, I can get much easier in Idaho than in New York. That's why I live where I do.
We all have our preferences, and there's not much point in acting like one is superior to the other, because we're all individuals who need and want different things. It's where people try to force their lifestyles on others where the problems begin -- and I see that from the people who attack "sprawl," suburbs, exurbs a lot more than from people who don't much like cities. The people who attack sprawl often do so in the name of nature and the environment. It's always amused me how many environmental activists live in cities and have absolutely nothing to do with nature.
"Maybe for a single person who buys few groceries because he mostly eats out or orders in, it wouldn't be much of a problem. But if you seriously think that public transportation is a remotely problem-free alternative to a car for a typical American working mother buying groceries to feed a family of four, you really are utterly clueless. Even just a few days' worth of groceries for the average American family would fill several shopping bags, and include lots of heavy and bulky items. A gallon or more of milk. Bottles or cans of soda. Loaves of bread. Boxes of cereal. Bags of chips. Ice cream. Produce. Lots of bulky packaged foods. Schlepping them from store to home by bus or train would be a major hassle, even in the unlikely event that the bus stops or train stations were conveniently located right next to grocery store and home. Once again, I am struck by the irony of your handle. You really seem to have a very poor grasp of REALITY."
You know the thing about families is that kids also have arms. I was very young when I reached my mom's height (her being a short Indian woman and all) and so even before that I was helping her carry groceries. There's a reason why farmers have often tended to have lots of kids: they are also farmhands. In addition, families in places like Europe and Japan somehow get by and shopping at grocery stores and end up having healthier diets and lifestyles. Walking and carrying decent-sized bags on a regular basis helps Europeans overall stay in better shape. We don't need to buy the massive amounts of snacks we eat and make us fat, which means that we don't need to buy as much groceries as we do.
You claim my claims about global warming are BS, but then you want to colonize space and see this as cost-effective, yet you claim I'm out of touch with reality? You support the expensive Iraq War, which cost just about enough to buy everyone in America a Prius, yet you think public transportation is too expensive?
Megan, you don't get it because you're not a man. The appeal of the golf course is very similar.
Mein Fuhrer writes:
"The current theory for why golf courses are so attractive to millions (mostly men), perhaps first put forward in John Strawn's book Driving the Green: The Making of a Golf Course, is that they look like happy hunting grounds—a Disney-version of the primordial East African grasslands. Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson, author of the landmark 1975 book Sociobiology, once told me, "I believe that the reason that people find well-landscaped golf courses 'beautiful' is that they look like savannas, down to the scattered trees, copses, and lakes, and most especially if they have vistas of the sea."
Edgewood Tahoe golf course, Nevada, par-5 16th hole, designed by George and Tom FazioTasty hoofed animals would graze on the savanna's grass, while the nearby woods could provide shade and cover for hunters. Our ancestors would study the direction of the wind and the slopes of the land in order to approach their prey from the best angles. Any resemblance to a rolling golf fairway running between trees is not coincidental.
In 1975, geographer Jay Appleton advanced the similar theory that what people like is a combination of a sense of "refuge," such as the ability to hide in the woods, and of "prospect" across open country. Both theories make the prediction that human beings, especially males, will spend enormous amounts of money to fashion golf courses.
Generally, men (the hunters) tend to prefer sweeping vistas, while women (the gatherers) prefer enclosed verdant refuges. Perhaps it's no accident that a longtime favorite book among little girls is called "The Secret Garden." Similarly, women make up a sizable majority of gardeners while men often obsess over lawn care."
Sincerely,
An urbanite _with_ a sizeable lawn.
Reality Man:
Unhealthy snacks (chips, Cheetos, etc.) are generally light. It's veggies and milk and fruit (like that watermelon I was talking about) that are heavy, being mostly water.
I'm a big fan of walkable neighborhoods, but I can't help but notice that our family grocery and sundries bill was eye-wateringly expensive in DC. (It's gone down quite a bit in Texas, although I admit that part of that decrease is due to cutting down on luxury items. No more smoked salmon or brie, except maybe for special occasions.) Keeping costs down is important to families. Likewise, neighborhood amenities like restaurants and bars are less interesting to parents who a) don't have the money to go there regularly and b) don't like having strangers pee on their front steps. My husband and I and our kids had a four year stretch in a very pleasant DC neighborhood and I enjoyed it thoroughly, but we were living rent-free, so we had extra money for restaurants and movies and babysitters. If you don't have money for that stuff, you might as well live la vida suburban--it comes to the same thing in the end. Also, our kids were little, so we didn't have to agonize about schools.
My joking above aside...
Megan writes:
"That's why exurban jobs tend to be commodity manufacturing and services, with the specialty work in the centers"
You're just speculating here, but you're presenting this statement as though it's some kind of well-established fact; I'm sure Matthew Yglesias whould be proud to know that _someone_ here is upholding his fine tradition of
writing in an authoritative tone on a topic way outside one's areas of expertise...
"...you're radically discounting the fact that many other people want to live close to DC, even if they don't work here..."
Very funny.
There does not need to be this hostile contest between urbanites and suburbanites/exurbanites/rural people, where each claims that theirs is the only worthwhile way of life.
Couldn't agree more. But the way I saw it, the comments in the previous posts ended up being separated into two categories of distaste and hostility:
Country Mouse: Ugh, I hate the city and I think it's filthy and disgusting. I don't understand how anybody could live there.
City Mouse: That's because you're ignorant, uneducated, resentful and full of envy. Ha!
Maybe it's just me, but I see expressing distaste and hostility toward the city to be a different beast entirely from distaste and hostility toward the people I'm disagreeing with. It wasn't us country folk who were saying there was something wrong with you if you disagreed.
Megan,
Mixner, at density this just isn't a big deal--I grew up carrying groceries two or four blocks home. Good for the arms.
The vast majority of Americans do not live 2 to 4 blocks from a grocery store, and the idea that the typical American working mother could carry even a few days' worth of groceries home for her family is completely unrealistic. See Amy P's post for some elaboration on this point.
More broadly, whatever the benefits of sprawl for congestion, it is not going to work at $4 a gallon gas, much less the higher levels prices will probably hit, particularly not with dual-income couples who can't just move every time one of them gets a new job.
You offer no facts or argument to justify this claim. Even with gas at $4/gallon, the costs of driving are at most only slightly higher in real terms than they have been for most of the post-war era, during which time sprawl has boomed. In fact, given the decline in the real costs of automobile purchase and maintenance, the total real cost of buying and running a car may now be even lower than it was in previous decades.
And upcoming advances in automobile fuel-efficiency and engine technology are likely to more than offset any future increases in oil prices. Already, you can buy a Toyota Prius or any of a large number of small conventional vehicles that get around 50 mpg. More than twice the national average. Plug-in hybrids, which are expected to be commercially available in large numbers within 5 years, are likely to get the equivalent of 100 mpg or more. That's five times the current average fuel efficiency of the nation's auto fleet. The typical car of 10 or 20 years from now will almost certainly be much, much more fuel-efficient than today's models, and the use of hybrid-electric technology and alternate fuels will greatly reduce our dependence on oil to power our cars.
Many of the sprawling urban aggregations named in this thread are southwestern cities living on borrowed time, which is to say irreplaceable aquifers that they are rapidly drawing down.
This is just not true. Phoenix, for example, has multiple independent sources of water, including groundwater, surface water acquired from runoff during the rainy season, and canals that bring water to the city from the Colorado river. And something like 85% of the water consumed in Arizona is used for agriculture rather than residential and business purposes. Phoenix could support many times its current population simply by acquiring a fraction of the water currently used for agriculture, without building a single new canal or reservoir.
In DC we can mitigate the gridlock with rail and other strategies. But if Phoenix ends up 120 miles across, it's going to take a couple of hours to get from end to end no matter what you do.
Phoenix isn't going to end up 120 miles across, and as I have already pointed out cars are much faster than transit. Gridlock is much less of a problem in cities like Phoenix than in cities like DC precisely because Phoenix has been built around car travel and DC has not.
Moreover, there are substantial business benefits from industry concentrations, which is why Wall Street hasn't left New York for South Dakota.
What benefits?
DC highways are pretty much maxed out, there is nowhere to put new ones within the core, and the Federal government isn't going to relocate to South Dakota for cheaper land.
It wouldn't have to "relocate to South Dakota." Road congestion in DC would be significantly reduced if even just a fraction of the current offices and other workplaces in the city were relocated to nearby suburban communities in Virginia and Maryland. Just as certain government functions already are. There are vast areas of low-density and relatively undeveloped land surrounding DC. The increased use of telecommuting, compressed work weeks, flexible working hours, and other such techniques could also greatly relieve traffic congestion in DC.
Finally, in defense of your lifestyle, you're radically discounting the fact that many other people want to live close to DC, even if they don't work here. They like the amenities that you really only can get from a big city--things like opera, professional theater, museums, and so forth.
I'm not radically discounting anything. I'm saying that the overwhelming preference of Americans for the past 50 years or more has been for low-density, bigger-housing, car-based suburban lifestyles over high-density, transit-based urban ones. "Big city" living is attractive mainly to small niche markets, including unmarried, childless young professionals such as yourself. I suspect that if you get married and have kids you will probably find yourself moving out to the suburbs too, just like countless millions of other former city-dwellers.
Mixner writes:
"It wouldn't have to "relocate to South Dakota." Road congestion in DC would be significantly reduced if even just a fraction of the current offices and other workplaces in the city were relocated to nearby suburban communities in Virginia and Maryland."
Hence the "office park", a concept which Megan doesn't seem to be familiar with...
Mass transit is woefully unprofitable even in places like Washington.
Unlike those established moneymakers, interstate highways and city streets?
I'd wager that every government in the U.S. -- from the tiniest municipality to the feds -- chips into roadbuilding, traffic policing, and road maintenance from their general funds: license fees and gas taxes be damned. And every government BUT the Feds begs its way up the federalist food chain for road money.
If public roads were "profitable" the roads would pay for them own damn selves, wouldn't they?
But I guess since we don't to buy a ticket to drive on a public road, we think somehow it's free? We never think about the expense of roadbuilding and maintenance because its subsidies are so massive and all consuming. Fish don't notice when they're wet.
There does not need to be this hostile contest between urbanites and suburbanites/exurbanites/rural people, where each claims that theirs is the only worthwhile way of life.
This is dead on. I think the whole "urban/suburban" thing is another phony dichotomy ala the "culture wars." Mostly: there's no dichotomy. Most of America isn't built like either NYC or outer Atlanta.
I have a yard and a garden and a lawn for the dog and kid and a modicum of privacy. In other words, a suburban house just like everyone else. It just happens to be close to a few things that aren't other houses.
It's entirely possible to live with density AND privacy. We used to call these places "residential neighborhoods." They feature modest houses on modest lots with a small clutch of shops at a near remove. They were, for the first 60 years of the last century, the defining pattern of American cities and towns.
Paul S,
It's entirely possible to live with density AND privacy. We used to call these places "residential neighborhoods." They feature modest houses on modest lots with a small clutch of shops at a near remove. They were, for the first 60 years of the last century, the defining pattern of American cities and towns.
Americans are much richer now than they were during the first 60 years of the twentieth century. That means a much higher proportion of Americans can afford to buy and run a car. Owning a car greatly increases mobility and greatly reduces dependence on public transportation and walking to get to work, go shopping, etc. That in turn means that many more Americans can afford to live in large houses in low-density developments. Hence, the decline of what you are calling "residential neighborhoods" ("modest houses on modest lots with a small clutch of shops at a near remove"), and the rise of sprawling suburbs and exurbs.
Unlike those established moneymakers, interstate highways and city streets?
Federal subsidies per passenger-mile are vastly higher for public transportation than for roads and highways. Transit users are massively subsidized by car drivers.
Mixner:
I agree entirely with your points. They underline my general thesis, which is:
1. The highways aren't "free," their costs are just massively distributed. Ask any suburban developer how "free" the streets are ... but they pass that price onto you when you buy the house, so no one quite gets how expensive it really is. In only a few places do development fees get passed onto mass transit, which is why mass transit schemes take their begging straight to the Feds. And, as you point out, Americans are currently rich enough to not notice the cost. Your second point (that in poorer times Americans favored less sprawling development) implies that transit is in aggregate more cost-effective, a point borne out by the subways of places like Calcutta or Mexico City.
2. Residential neighborhoods were (still are) an American strategy that minimizes transit time and expense. For the last 50 years the cost of those two things hovered near "free." But now the average American commute is 24 minutes either way (100 hours/year), and gas is down to $4/gal. There may come a time when we're glad our great grandaddies worried about how much those things cost.
Americans have in place already a settlement pattern that nicely balances livability and privacy. The vast majority of us can't (perhaps never could) afford to live in either a trendy downtown loft or a wooded acreage. That's why this false dichotomy ("urban vs. sub/exurban") bugs me. Not only are those not our only choices, they aren't even the prevalent or most feasible ones.
1. The highways aren't "free," their costs are just massively distributed.
No form of transportation is "free." Obviously someone has to pay for it. The point is that transit is subsidized much, much more than highways. Drivers pay virtually all of the costs of buying and operating their cars and trucks and virtually all of the costs of building and maintaining roads and highways. Transit users, in contrast, pay only a small share of the costs of building and running transit systems. Why should transit users be given these massive subsidies? Why shouldn't transit users be required to pay a larger share of building and running the transit systems they use?
Your second point (that in poorer times Americans favored less sprawling development) implies that transit is in aggregate more cost-effective, a point borne out by the subways of places like Calcutta or Mexico City.
Transit is certainly cheaper to end-users than private autos, but transit also tends to be much slower, much less comfortable, much less convenient and much less flexible. That's why people who can afford to do so tend to drive instead of using transit. Driving to work costs me much more money than taking the bus would. But driving has so many advantages over taking the bus that it's not even a close call for me. The vast majority of other Americans seem to feel the same way. This isn't likely to change.
2. Residential neighborhoods were (still are) an American strategy that minimizes transit time and expense. For the last 50 years the cost of those two things hovered near "free." But now the average American commute is 24 minutes either way (100 hours/year), and gas is down to $4/gal. There may come a time when we're glad our great grandaddies worried about how much those things cost.
It's hard to make sense of this. "Transit time and expense" for people living in what you are calling "residential neighborhoods" is obviously not even remotely close to "free." I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "transit time" anyway. As I've mentioned before, the average commute time by mass transit is almost twice the average commute time by car. Public transportation involves a huge time penalty. Transit vehicles themselves are relatively slow, and when you add in the time required to walk (or drive) to and from the bus stop or train station at each end of the journey, plus the time spent waiting for the bus or train to arrive (possibly multiple waits, if your trip requires a transfer or is multi-modal) the total travel time is not remotely competitive with cars for the vast majority of trips for the vast majority of people.
Unlike those established moneymakers, interstate highways...
In point of fact, yes -- some of the federal gas taxes are not spent on highways but are used to cross subsidize mass transit and bike trails.
And certainly, gas taxes could be raised much higher and people who drive would still be willing (though not happy) to pay them. Transit systems, on the other hand, require massive subsidies not only to build but to operate -- if systems charged the actual cost per seat, nobody would ride them.
Megan,
One public service you've provided: all the hand-waving from folks like Mixner are going to seriously reduce my air-conditioning bill for this month.
Thanks!
Paul S,
Americans have in place already a settlement pattern that nicely balances livability and privacy. The vast majority of us can't (perhaps never could) afford to live in either a trendy downtown loft or a wooded acreage. That's why this false dichotomy ("urban vs. sub/exurban") bugs me. Not only are those not our only choices, they aren't even the prevalent or most feasible ones.
I'm assuming that by "a settlement pattern that nicely balances livability and privacy" you're referring to what you call "residential neighborhoods," which you define as "modest houses on modest lots with a small clutch of shops at a near remove."
Sorry, but you're projecting. You may believe that such neighborhoods "nicely balance livability and privacy," but apparently most other Americans don't agree with you. Or, at least, they believe that suburbs and exurbs provide a better balance and/or have other advantages that make them preferable to your "residential neighborhoods."
Critics of the low-density, big-home, car-oriented suburban/exurban lifestyle that has become so dominant in America over the past few decades need to stop pretending that there is a "correct" way to live and that they know what it is. These things are a matter of subjective preference, not objective fact.
You know the thing about families is that kids also have arms.
One of which you have to hold, and which thereby decreases the number of arms *you* have available for carrying groceries. Nor are they good for carrying much more than a few pounds at most.
Even a couple days' worth of unprocessed groceries for a family of four can top 30 lbs of meat and vegetables and dairy and fruit. That doesn't include condiments and cooking ingredients like butter, dry goods like diapers and dog food, or any manner of beverages or snacks. It's not practicable to carry that much food any distance, as much because of the bulk as the weight.
Know how European families do it? The stay-at-home-mother goes to the butcher in the morning, the grocer at lunchtime, and the farmer's market in the afternoon, and spends a couple of the remaining hours chopping and baking and cooking, *every day*. Food acquisition and preparation, under those circumstances, literally becomes a part-time job, not just an hour-long trip to Wal-Mart after work once or twice a week.
'You know the thing about families is that kids also have arms.'
"One of which you have to hold, and which thereby decreases the number of arms *you* have available for carrying groceries. Nor are they good for carrying much more than a few pounds at most."
That's right.
"Even a couple days' worth of unprocessed groceries for a family of four can top 30 lbs of meat and vegetables and dairy and fruit."
That's very true.
"Know how European families do it? The stay-at-home-mother goes to the butcher in the morning, the grocer at lunchtime, and the farmer's market in the afternoon, and spends a couple of the remaining hours chopping and baking and cooking, *every day*. Food acquisition and preparation, under those circumstances, literally becomes a part-time job, not just an hour-long trip to Wal-Mart after work once or twice a week."
Interesting. I'd add that I notice that we have yet to hear a testimonial from an urban parent who actually does this stuff and thrives on it. (I expect it's because they're too busy chopping vegetables to post a comment.) We have, however, heard from a couple of people whose mothers did urban grocery shopping, but haven't themselves grocery shopped for a family of four in an urban setting.
It's not like European families all have stay-at-home moms. After all, in many immigrant communities in the US before car ownership became popular, both parents had to work to get by and they often lived in dense urban neighborhoods. People found ways to live before cars. What happened was that since WWII we adapted our society to car ownership and thus adapted our habits. MSNBC had an article on their site a couple of weeks ago talking about how people in neighborhoods at least 50 years old tend to be healthier than those in newer neighborhoods because the former were made with pedestrians in mind and the latter were made with cars in mind. Part of the reason given that people in older neighborhoods were healthier was that they often carried groceries home (which in turn helped change their buying and eating habits, such as not buying heavy bottles of soda), which helps keep people in shape.
You don't have to carry your kid at ten. Well before that age, they can at least carry the lighter bags. Both my sister and I used to help our mom carry grocery bags when we were both rather young.
Also, if you have a family of four, there is a good chance there is also a dad there who could help pull his weight by carrying groceries.
"You offer no facts or argument to justify this claim. Even with gas at $4/gallon, the costs of driving are at most only slightly higher in real terms than they have been for most of the post-war era, during which time sprawl has boomed. In fact, given the decline in the real costs of automobile purchase and maintenance, the total real cost of buying and running a car may now be even lower than it was in previous decades.
And upcoming advances in automobile fuel-efficiency and engine technology are likely to more than offset any future increases in oil prices. Already, you can buy a Toyota Prius or any of a large number of small conventional vehicles that get around 50 mpg. More than twice the national average. Plug-in hybrids, which are expected to be commercially available in large numbers within 5 years, are likely to get the equivalent of 100 mpg or more. That's five times the current average fuel efficiency of the nation's auto fleet. The typical car of 10 or 20 years from now will almost certainly be much, much more fuel-efficient than today's models, and the use of hybrid-electric technology and alternate fuels will greatly reduce our dependence on oil to power our cars."
This doesn't take into account that India, China, Russia and other developing nations are only starting to develop car cultures. China has four times our population and around half the number of cars we do on their roads. So far it has pretty much been the rich and middle class in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou who have been able to afford cars, so once farming communities in central China reach the level where most people drive a car, oil prices are going to be even higher from high demand. India's car ownership is behind China and will only go up with time. That is over a billion future car owners between only two countries that will continue to drive up the cost of oil. Further industrialization in developing nations for a while will also drive up oil prices as factories take up a lot of oil in a nation's developing phases. Even if every car in America was a hybrid, that wouldn't do much to offset, say, five hundred million new cars hitting the road in India, China and the rest of the developing world in terms of oil prices.
Nobody here is saying that we want to destroy the suburbs, but the idea that the suburban way of life is the only way to raise a family is silly.
Reality Man,
How does the stuff you're talking about fit with previous discussions here about lack of fresh veggies and fruit in poor urban neighborhoods in the US? The traditional argument is that carlessness and the lack of good neighborhood groceries causes poor Americans to eat poorly and harms their health. I don't necessarily buy that argument, but I'm curious what your view is on the question, since it does overlap with your argument.
(For the record, I think that some US demographics just aren't used to eating fresh produce and non-deep-fried vegetables.)
I'm really enjoying the discussion. I did really want to say...
Reality Man, if you're willing to enjoy a week's worth of meals carried home by my three year old, enjoy the bruises. But don't be thinking you'll be having anything from a jar or otherwise breakable. :)
In all seriousness I live in a quasi-surburban neighbourhood with a grocery store within walking distance (15-20 min at adult speed. 40 minutes at child speed, unless a stroller is involved).
When I was at home, it was fun to continue walking to the store to buy groceries (as I did for 12 yrs of marriage, pre-child)... when this could be timed against mastitis, stomach flu, and the nap schedule.
As a working mother there's just no way I would choose to do this.
It requires going at least twice a week just due to carrying capacity (either limited by stroller or wagon/cart carrying size; also influenced by milk consumption... by the way when you were a child was milk delivered?).
Given that I pick my son up at 5:15 and he has to be in pyjamas at 7:15 if we want life to be liveable, that extra 20 minutes (even assuming one direction, since my son's daycare is near there) is too precious to me. If it were a survival issue, fine. As a choice, I'd rather drive.
I'd wonder what your mother's memories of those idyllic trips to the store are really. :)
"How does the stuff you're talking about fit with previous discussions here about lack of fresh veggies and fruit in poor urban neighborhoods in the US? The traditional argument is that carlessness and the lack of good neighborhood groceries causes poor Americans to eat poorly and harms their health."
I agree with this as a problem, but this isn't really linked to problems in our transportation infrastructure and is more a function of urban poverty. When I lived in Baltimore, it was a bit hard to get around anywhere without a car because useful public transportation only existed in a part of town far from where I lived. Baltimore is also one of the US's poorest cities, which goes a long way to explaining why the produce is so bad.
"In all seriousness I live in a quasi-surburban neighbourhood with a grocery store within walking distance (15-20 min at adult speed. 40 minutes at child speed, unless a stroller is involved).
When I was at home, it was fun to continue walking to the store to buy groceries (as I did for 12 yrs of marriage, pre-child)... when this could be timed against mastitis, stomach flu, and the nap schedule.
As a working mother there's just no way I would choose to do this.
It requires going at least twice a week just due to carrying capacity (either limited by stroller or wagon/cart carrying size; also influenced by milk consumption... by the way when you were a child was milk delivered?)."
I definitely feel for you. However, I think we can all agree that if your neighborhood had been designed on a higher-density plan (and it could still be a suburb), then your trips would be easier because they would be shorter, with or without a car. Older generations locked a lot of suburban America into low-density models that have led to things like higher obesity and being more sensitive to rising oil prices.
Reality Man, the only way it could be "shorter" is if there were more supermarkets. And if there are more supermarkets, each serving fewer people primarily in walking distance, then they have by necessity less selection and higher prices.
That seems like a rather bad tradeoff, given that the other side of it -- walking to the grocery store -- doesn't really seem like a good thing at all. You simply haven't explained why anybody would want to walk to the grocery store.
Re: There was a time when there was no such thing as suburbs.
Yes, back in the heyday of Ur of the Chaldees. Good grief, even ancient Rome had suburbs (the word is Latin-derived after all). And, yes, there were suburbs long before the interstates, even before the automobile, albeit they were not sprawled clear out to the boondocks. Henry Ford perfected the autombile in a Detroit suburb called Dearborn.
Re: The schools were still good and the crime hadn't gotten bad yet.
Maybe, but schools and neighborhoods were being desegregated. That was the major cause for the great Suburban Exodus of the 50s and 60s. The collapse of the school systems and the rise in crime rates occured in part because of that exodus too.
Re: When we talk about "walkable communities", we are talking about such commumities within, or very near, the urban cores, are we not?
I don't think so. Walkable surburbs can and do exist. Many of the earlier suburbs (those built up through the 60s) were quite walkable.
Re: Employment centers are decentralizing. Jobs, along with people, are moving away from high-density urban areas and into low-density suburbs and exurbs.
"Low density areas" are places like west Texas or the UP of Michigan. Very few, if any, employers are moving there. Many places of employment have moved out of city centers, but they haven't gone far: generally you find them in the older or mid-aged suburbs, just off the beltways. These are fairly high density areas.
Re: Transit users are massively subsidized by car drivers.
Everyone pretty much subisdizes everyone in this regard. Gasoline taxes are not the only source of money for the highways, after all: a lot comes from general revenues. And this is, by the way, just as it should be. I do not resent subisdizing roads in places I shall never drive, nor railroads I shall never ride, nor airports I will never fly to or from. Why do you resent this so much?
Re: You may believe that such neighborhoods "nicely balance livability and privacy," but apparently most other Americans don't agree with you.
Really? Then why are many of these neighborhoods still full of people? (I am speaking of older and middle-aged suburbs, not inner city slums). Meanwhile a drive through some of the newer-built far exurbs could be enlightening: there are a lot of houses sitting empty with no takers.
JonF,
"Low density areas" are places like west Texas or the UP of Michigan. Very few, if any, employers are moving there.
Irrelevant. Obviously, not all low-density areas are gaining jobs. That doesn't alter the fact that, overall, employment is decentralizing. Jobs are moving out of dense urban cores and into suburbs and exurbs. That's why the old suburb-to-inner-city commuting model is being replaced by the new suburb-to-suburb commuting model. The new model is much more conducive to commuting by car than the old one. That's why commuting has long been shifting from transit to cars.
Everyone pretty much subisdizes everyone in this regard.
Some people are much more highly subsidized than others. In particular, transit users are subsidized by drivers. People who use transit a lot are the most highly subsidized. In general, transit users should be paying a much larger share of the costs of the services they use than they're paying now.
Really? Then why are many of these neighborhoods still full of people?
To the extent that there are "many" such neighborhoods left, it's because America is a nation of 300,000,000 people and even a small fraction of that number may still be a lot of people in absolute terms. The vast majority of Americans do not seem to want to live in "modest houses on modest lots with a small clutch of shops at a near remove." That's why there is little new construction of that type. What most Americans want is a spacious, comfortable well-appointed house, with a two-car garage and a yard, two or more bathrooms, a separate bedroom for each of their children, a decent-sized kitchen, and maybe a den or family room. And they want to be able to get around mainly by car, rather than having to rely on public transportation, because cars are so much faster, more convenient and more comfortable than transit.
Meanwhile a drive through some of the newer-built far exurbs could be enlightening: there are a lot of houses sitting empty with no takers.
A drive through any residential area of America could be enlightening. You might want to pay some attention to all those unsold high-rise downtown condos that have been sitting empty in many cities, with no takers since the housing bubble collapsed.
Why should we think it's cute for women and children to carry groceries home from a shopping trip? We are horrified when we hear about developing countries where women and children spend vast amounts of time lugging firewood and drinking water from place to place. That time could be used for education and increasing economic productivity. Same with the grocery shopping. Handling that efficiently frees up a lot of time that can be used in more productive and interesting ways.
(Some people may seem to waste the time saved, but who are we to judge? A lot of people consider reading to be a waste of time, but I'd much rather read a good book than lug shopping bags around.)
You simply haven't explained why anybody would want to walk to the grocery store.
I live in a close-in medium density neighborhood. Sometimes I walk to the grocery store, 'cause it's a nice day, and I don't have much to get. Sometimes I ride my bike. On other occasions I drive.
I find it kind of amusing to see that the exurban posters here seemed so baffled by this. ("Capitan Kirk. Tell me...What is this human thing you call, 'Love?'") It's about having choices.
Anyway, no one's questioning whether or not it's "easier" to raise kids in the 'burbs. It's also easier to feed them chicken nuggets for every meal.
"Easier" is not always synonymous with "better".
ibc,
It's about having choices.
I doubt most Americans, and certainly not most Americans with children, would place much value on the particular choice you're referring to here (choosing to walk or bike to the grocery store). Probably much less value than the additional choices they acquire from living in a car-based suburb rather than a "walkable community." If being able to walk to the grocery store is important to you, great. But it doesn't seem to be important to most people. That Star Trek alien that's mystified by human nature--it's you.
"Easier" is not always synonymous with "better".
Not synonymous, no. But why isn't easier grocery shopping better than harder grocery shopping?
Re: Jobs are moving out of dense urban cores and into suburbs and exurbs.
Agree. However suburbs are not "low density". They are in fact fairly densely populated places. Even exurbs are more dense than not on the whole scale ranging from northern Alaska and the Mohave to downtown Manhattan.
Re: What most Americans want is a spacious, comfortable well-appointed house, with a two-car garage and a yard, two or more bathrooms, a separate bedroom for each of their children, a decent-sized kitchen, and maybe a den or family room.
I've posted this many times before: you just described my childhood home, in a very walkable neighborhood, to a tee. We had three bedrooms (four if we'd needed the extra room), two bathrooms, a family room, and a yard big enough for a pool, a patio, a garden, kids to play and a dog to meander about. We did only have a one-car garage, but some houses in the neighborhood had two car garages so I assume that was by parental choice. You can have a walkable neighborhood with decent houses and yards. (Again, as I alawys insist, walkable does not mean walking everywhere or no cars; only that many useful destinations are within walking distance and most non-work driving trips can be kept short). The trick is in the area design. My neighborhood was not a true grid, but it had almost no cul-de-sacs and almost every street went somewhere. Those who lived there and knew it could easily traverse it. Also, there were schools, a park and several churches within the neighborhood itself, and various shops and small businesses on its edges. Do you really think legions of people find that objectionable? True, there are some real misanthropes that hate having a neighbor anywhere in line of sight-- and those people (when they can) will move to the far country well beyond even the exurbs. But otherwise I have never heard anyone express an abiding love for cul-de-sacs or opine that they would not be caught dead living within a mile of a store, doctor or bank.
JonF,
I'm having a hard time seeing you're point. If you think that suburbs are "fairly dense" and that the kind of spacious suburban home I described--with the two-car garage and the yard and the separate bedroom for each child and the multiple bathrooms and the family room and so on--is fine, then you're basically agreeing with me. People who keep complaining that suburbs aren't dense enough, and that Americans should shift away from living in suburban "McMansions" to living in smaller houses in "walkable communities" are wrong.
I grew up in Columbia, a planned community, and part of the plan was as many cul-de-sacs as possible. Lots of people don't like traffic.
Re: I'm having a hard time seeing you're point.
My point is that neighborhoods having these amenities can be designed to be walkable and bikable.
Re: Really? Because most people with children like cul-de-sacs, because they're safer. Kids can play in the street. (Lower crime, plus no through streets for traffic to zoom through.)
We played in the street when I was a kid-- and did not live on a cul-de-sac. And the traffic problem can be dealt with by having streets that connect but not in an obvious way so that only people who know the neighborhood will choose to navigate it (and they live there and have a right to be on its streets). If some road does start attracting "cut-through" traffic then add speed humps.
There's less property crime on cul-de-sacs too. If there is only one way out of a neighborhood, there's no way to escape if anyone figures out what you are up to. Through streets provide a choice of exits. This was very obvious where I grew up... everyone on a through street had an elaborate alarm system, and no one in a cul-de-sac neighborhood did.
Now, why are schools and churches no longer getting built in the nice, walkable neighborhoods that prosperous people really do seem to enjoy living in? I submit that it is because they can't afford the land. The more desirable you make a neighborhood, the less likely a non-profit institution or business startup is to locate there if it isn't there already. Churches buy on the outskirts for the same reason moderate income workers do -- because richer people have bid up prices in the center.
Re: There's less property crime on cul-de-sacs too.
I've seem some straw-grasping before but this takes the prize!
Even if you can show a correlation (which I doubt) it's going to be an accidental one: most cul-de-sacs are found in newer, richer neighborhoods where there's less crime to begin with.
Meanwhile most property crime is committed by locals youths who need not flee the neighborhood, just get home a few blocks (or even just a few houses) away. Usually they're on foot too. And as such they can run just about any direction, hopping backyard fences as necessary. My step-mother, who lives at the end of a dead-end street, has been broken into three times. Twice the thieves were interrupted: once because she herself was home in bed, and once because I showed up late at night planning to spend the nite there while they were out of town (and was back in my home town visiting). On both occasions the thieves did just what I said: got away by hopping her fence.