Quote:
Originally Posted by windypeg
The main point (which you're trying to sidestep) is that Riverman claimed downtown neighbourhoods cost us more than the suburbs because of EMS costs associated with poverty/addiction/whatever. My point is that those costs are not associated with downtown per se - they are not a function of urbanism, they're a function of any society that has poverty which is all societies. Here they just happen to be concentrated downtown because that's where we've stuck all our shelters. There's no question that limiting sprawl by encouraging density in the city centre saves us all money in the long run.
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But now we're off topic. It's not stupid to suggest that the city centre has its disproportionate share of costs in places because it does. And it doesn't just house a disproportionate number of frequent flyers because of shelters, it houses most of those same individuals who are living in low rentals and rooming houses and hotels functioning as rooming houses and everything else that goes along with being 'the wrong side of the tracks'. All of this is largely a function of a hollowed out core as people's preferences drove them to the suburbs. And perhaps there's a bit of chicken and egg here, but that's for another day.
I would never argue your main point about density being key to city's more efficient and sustainable development because you're right. But this idea of urbanism as a panacea
for everything is becoming oversold. Nobody was claiming a causal relationship between urbanism and a disproportionate consumption of emergency services resources. But apart from a few cities, the poor tend to gather in the core, or what one might consider our more urban landscapes. Not on a cause and effect basis, but only you suggested that. It's a fair point to make that the downtowns most cities know are not the assumed free lunch urbanists would like to contend. And since that's indicative of most people's choices - and we've had this debate before - it's not a meaningful discussion to have when in a city of ~700k people, barely 2% of them live downtown.
This isn't unlike somebody suggesting that emissions are a serious threat and as good stewards of the environment, we should be commuting by bike year round. I mean, yeah, it's a solution; but it's not a practical one when virtually nobody is interested in it. Instead, one might talk about car-pooling as an example. Or as in the development of newer subdivisions, the introduction of 25' and 33' lots which are becoming more and more common - something we haven't seen in probably 50 years. A conversation of minimization is far more productive than a conversation about eradication.