The Suburbs are Bleeding America Dry | Climate Town (Feat. Not just Bikes)

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by edale

You can always add a racial lens to any discussion of American urban development, but that too is not the primary driver for suburban development. As we're seeing with the documented "Black flight" in Chicago and Detroit., the rise of the 'ethnoburbs' around immigrant gateway cities, etc, this preference for space and detached housing crosses racial lines. Suburbia hasn't been synonymous with white for a while now.

i'm in general agreement with you overall, but what is a little interesting about black flight in chicago is that a large chunk of it is now coming from outer bungalow belt areas like austin on the far west side and roseland on the far southside. these are already very "detached SFH with a yard streetcar suburban" areas and were fairly stable black middle class areas decades ago. the working theory is that these neighbrohoods started getting more destabilized 20 years ago when all of the CHA's highrise projects were ripped down and many of the people that lived in them were dispersed across the city on section 8 vouchers, bringing the gangs, drugs and other social dysfunctions that led to the downfall of the projects with them to these new areas, causing many old time residents to choose to leave as crime/violence rose and schools got worse, and thus the downward spiral began.

at the same time, most of the more classically urban "black belt" neighborhoods along the inner south lakefront of the southside are actually the ones that are starting to repopulate after decades of emptying out, thanks in part to "black gentrification".

so it's not always just a simple clear-cut answer of "more space" for why someone (of any race) might choose to move out to the burbs. that's absolutely a big part of it for many, but there are a whole host of various push/pull factors at play that end up tipping the scales in favor to leave for many families.

[SFBruin]

Originally Posted by edale

The car is not what caused the suburbs. As I mentioned up thread, suburbs were being built around train and streetcar lines before the car was invented or popularized. If we banned cars tomorrow, I would imagine new suburban development would still be built, albeit organized around whatever technology replaces the car.

Sure, the car didn't cause the suburbs. Easy transportation did.

And I get your point about people wanting more space. So maybe easy transportation enabled the suburbs.

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by SFBruin

Sure, the car didn't cause the suburbs. Easy transportation did.

And I get your point about people wanting more space. So maybe easy transportation enabled the suburbs.

A lot of things cause suburbs in the US, Canada, Australia, or Europe, and a lot of people have various reasons for why they move:
- more space
- closeness to more nature/greenery
- general mismanagement in cities
- want more quite areas/less people

In my opinion, if cities want to attract people, instead of guilt shaming them, they just have to compete. In theory, a city, and an urban environment in general, has a lot of advantages over a suburb. In the US context, it is mostly local mismanagement that completely screwed things up for cities. You can even demonstrably empirically see it - US cities that have managed to somewhat keep crime under control and schools semi-decent, have huge demand when it comes to population and it is reflected in those cities' housing prices.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Gantz

In my opinion, if cities want to attract people, instead of guilt shaming them, they just have to compete. In theory, a city, and an urban environment in general, has a lot of advantages over a suburb. In the US context, it is mostly local mismanagement that completely screwed things up for cities. You can even demonstrably empirically see it - US cities that have managed to somewhat keep crime under control and schools semi-decent, have huge demand when it comes to population and it is reflected in those cities' housing prices.

This isn't true.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Gantz

A lot of things cause suburbs in the US, Canada, Australia, or Europe, and a lot of people have various reasons for why they move:
- more space
- closeness to more nature/greenery
- general mismanagement in cities
- want more quite areas/less people

In my opinion, if cities want to attract people, instead of guilt shaming them, they just have to compete. In theory, a city, and an urban environment in general, has a lot of advantages over a suburb. In the US context, it is mostly local mismanagement that completely screwed things up for cities. You can even demonstrably empirically see it - US cities that have managed to somewhat keep crime under control and schools semi-decent, have huge demand when it comes to population and it is reflected in those cities' housing prices.

I pretty much disagree with all of this.

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

This isn't true.

Originally Posted by Crawford

I pretty much disagree with all of this.

Great! Can you both please elaborate?

[iheartthed]

The playing field isn't level. U.S. national housing policy is designed to support suburbs. U.S. national transportation policy is designed to support suburbs. The only places where dense pre-war cities didn't deteriorate into bombed out Hellscapes are in states/regions that deliberately implemented anti-sprawl measures to counteract federal subsidization of suburbs.

[SFBruin]

Delete.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Gantz

Great! Can you both please elaborate?

Urban vs. suburban valuations are more tied to macro factors like regulatory framework, demographics and immigration than stuff like open space, quiet, crime, mismanagement, etc.

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The playing field isn't level. U.S. national housing policy is designed to support suburbs. U.S. national transportation policy is designed to support suburbs. The only places where dense pre-war cities didn't deteriorate into bombed out Hellscapes are in states/regions that deliberately implemented anti-sprawl measures to counteract federal subsidization of suburbs.

I am not aware of any big pre-war cities such as Boston or NY implementing anti-sprawl measures. Maybe I am uninformed, can you please provide a few examples in these cities?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The only places where dense pre-war cities didn't deteriorate into bombed out Hellscapes are in states/regions that deliberately implemented anti-sprawl measures to counteract federal subsidization of suburbs.

chicago, as whole, didn't "deteriorate into a bombed out Hellscape", but i can't think of any particular anti-sprawl measures this state/region implemented to prevent the outward flow of people and their wealth.

chicago seemed to survive the urban dark ages mostly through the sheer weight of its own massive gravity more than anything done deliberately by the powers that be.

because if you like sprawl, and i mean vast, unceasing, cornfield-gobbling sprawl spreading all the way out to the horizon in all directions, man does chicagoland have you covered!

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Urban vs. suburban valuations are more tied to macro factors like regulatory framework, demographics and immigration than stuff like open space, quiet, crime, mismanagement, etc.

Are there any urban big cities that have relatively low crime and good schools that are cheap?

[SFBruin]

I don't know what we're talking about.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

chicago, as whole, didn't "deteriorate into a bombed out Hellscape", but i can't think of any particular anti-sprawl measures this state/region implemented to prevent the outward flow of people and their wealth.

chicago seemed to survive the urban dark ages mostly through the sheer weight of its own massive gravity more than anything done deliberately by the powers that be.

because if you like sprawl, and i mean vast, unceasing, cornfield-gobbling sprawl spreading all the way out to the horizon in all directions, man does chicagoland have you covered!

Chicago has yet to come close to recovering its all-time high population. It definitely is an example of how suburbanization and policy has undermined a city.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Gantz

Are there any urban big cities that have relatively low crime and good schools that are cheap?

There are at most a dozen places in the U.S. could be described as urban big cities. None are particularly cheap and none have good schools or low crime compared to be the burbs (without controlling for apples-apples factors, in which case there's little difference).

But if you're saying Philly proper has lower prices than SF proper bc it has worse schools and higher crime, I don't buy it. Crime and school differences are pretty marginal, and SF would still be expensive if it had the crime and schools of Gary.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Chicago has yet to come close to recovering its all-time high population.

but that's a function of smaller household sizes. ditto for boston, DC, and philly.

of the bos-wash biggies, only NYC has reached (and surpassed) its 1950 population peak.

chicago has more households today than it did in 1950, or at any other point in time in its history. EVER!

my mom and dad both grew up in 1950s chicago, where families routinely had 4+ kids. those days are gone.






besides, the phrase you used was "deteriorate into bombed out Hellscapes".

that's quite a bit different than "haven't surpassed their 1950 population peak".

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

but that's a function of smaller household sizes. ditto for boston, DC, and philly.

of the bos-wash biggies, only NYC has reached (and surpassed) its 1950 population peak.

chicago has more households today than it did in 1950, or at any other point in time in its history. EVER!

my mom and dad both grew up in 1950s chicago, where families routinely had 4+ kids. those days are gone.






besides, the phrase you used was "deteriorate into bombed out Hellscapes".

that's quite a bit different than "hasn't surpassed its 1950 population peak".

I don't think Chicago having more households contradicts the fact that Chicago has substantially fewer people now than it did between 50 and 90 years ago. And the reason Chicago has fewer people now is because of suburbanization.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

And the reason Chicago has fewer people now is because of suburbanization.

no, as the chart i posted clearly shows, chicago has fewer people today than it did in 1950 because PPH plummeted from 3.19 to 2.36.

if families in chicago were still having 4+ kids like they did back in my grandparent's generation, chicago would have more people today than it did in 1950.

but american families don't have 4+ kids anymore.

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by Crawford

There are at most a dozen places in the U.S. could be described as urban big cities. None are particularly cheap and none have good schools or low crime compared to be the burbs (without controlling for apples-apples factors, in which case there's little difference).

But if you're saying Philly proper has lower prices than SF proper bc it has worse schools and higher crime, I don't buy it. Crime and school differences are pretty marginal, and SF would still be expensive if it had the crime and schools of Gary.

A lot of SF burbs are just as expensive as SF proper apples to apples. But I give you that economic development/jobs is also another huge factor!

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

no, as the chart i posted clearly shows, chicago has fewer people today than it did in 1950 because PPH plummeted from 3.19 to 2.36.

if families in chicago were still having 4+ kids like they did back in my grandparent'ss generation, chicago would have more people today than it did in 1950.

but american families don't have 4+ kids anymore.

I don't think smaller household size is the reason that Chicago is down 1/3 the population. It sounds like more of a coincidence, tbh. If it were only reduction in household sizes then there'd be very little under-utilized space in Chicago. We both know that's not true.