This post was generated by Salon.com's 10 most segregated cities in America
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/03/29/most_segregated_cities/slideshow.html


Salon.com recently posted a great slideshow of the most segregated cities in America. The post had a map of the racial breakdown of each city as well as an explanation of the history of segregation in each city. Check out the slideshow in this link.

What's interesting is that even in some of the most segregated cities, there is a new trend of young affluent white suburbanites moving into back into the core of cities and working class and middle class city black populations moving into inner-rung suburbs. While this new trend is causing some existing places to become more diverse as one population slides into a new neighborhood as the group is leaving, what's fascinating is that the new trend is still reinforcing the old trend of segregation. The shifts in population among races are not quite coexisting with each other as they are displacing one another.

And this displacement is causing a lot of ugly fights between new and existing populations throughout urban America. In Philadelphia and Washington D.C., historically black neighborhoods are trying to protect their community's identity from white and now black gentrifiers and in suburban Detroit, elite black suburbs or worried about the waves of working class blacks from inner-city Detroit moving into their communities.

These new tensions are now issues that planners now have to listen to and address. These tensions are no longer just a sensitive issue for the inner-city but now affect suburban planners as well. In my jurisdiction, my office worked on an historic black community (historic in culture but not in the building preservation sense) that began as a segregated community and had faced decades of discrimination. Their struggles in overcoming these obstacles helped cement the community's identity and it was very important that we preserve and honor that community's history. But from a strictly planning sense, none of their history of segregation was going to greatly affect how we planned and designed their future housing developments and open spaces. We could not ignore their history but we could not plan around their history either without a historical landmark or building. There was a disconnect between the community and the planners. To the community, their history was the number one concern. For the planners, designing safe spaces was our number one concern.

This disconnect between preserving the people's history in a community over the preservation of buildings is one of city planning's biggest challenges and up to now one of it's biggest failures. As a whole, city planners do not know how to at least help a community on the wrong side of gentrification. As city planners we almost always side with the gentrifiers because our number one goal is to create better designed spaces and buildings. The influx of gentrification helps remove and redevelop empty debris filled lots, rehabilitates vacant buildings and brings commercial vitality back into neighborhoods. Who wouldn't want that?

Newcomers into gentrified inner-city neighborhoods are often dismayed when they find out that it is the existing long term residents who do not want the positive changes of gentrification. The standard answer for newcomers to existing long-term residents is that they should be thanking them for improving their neighborhoods. The issue for long-term residents is not that they want to live in sub-standard conditions but they are seeking a permanent stake in their community in which they felt they established. Whether that neighborhood is an affluent community or a poor community, long term residents feel that it is their neighborhood in large part because of the history of segregation. A lot of older black inner-city neighborhoods were purposefully segregated and became the only neighborhoods blacks could live in within a metropolitan region.

Despite their struggles these older black communities formed identities that were important not only to the psyche of blacks that lived in that community but to urban black America as a whole...for that time. Over time, these communities have often lost their identities as segregation slowly ended and middle class blacks moved out, leaving some of the working class blacks who couldn't afford to leave feel abandoned. But even with all that said there is still some high reverence for some of these communities no matter how poverty stricken or crime riddled they have become. While saying you are from Harlem or the Southside of Chicago or the 9th Ward of New Orleans may be looked down upon by some, for some in urban black America it is still a source of pride.

And this source of pride, which is wrapped around decades of segregation, self-empowerment, decline and then decades of poverty is what gentrification threatens to end. These communities have seen the life cycles of the black community within those cities and while they may be dying, those that still live in those communities do not want to see it end. So how do we as planners preserve that sense of pride? We all know that cities and neighborhoods go through changes, death and rebirth. Do we interfere with the natural life cycle of neighborhoods? Or is it important to maintain the cultural identity of a place like Harlem from becoming just another nice gentrified neighborhood?

What are your thoughts?

My thought is that there is no right for individual communities to "protect" themselves as minority/majority exclusive territories, "character" or whatsoever. There is no right to keep a place as "working class Hispanic" or as "bedrock of Asian immigrants".

The only right that exists is to protect identities on a national level, but this is not the discussion of the post.

I actually think it is awesome to see places once plagued by violence and ghettoization being dismantled in terms of their demographics, as long as the change is market driven and no violence is involved.

So I couldn't care less is a place is losing its "historical demographic dynamic".

Finally, I found very, very outrageous the implicit suggestions of the text - that middle class and even elites from minorities who climbed the social ladder are sort-of betraying their communities by moving away in search of better housing etc., as if they "owed" anything to the ghettos they grew in. It is VERY positive when those who fared batter in life leave a crime and decay-ridden place, because it helps destroy the poisoned roots of violence, drugs and a ghetto mentality (lawlessness, fatalism, parents not involved with schools etc.) that is very detrimental to society as a whole.

It's true that Gentrification never seems to be addressed from the point of view of long term residents, who are guaranteed to be displaced in significant numbers. Wealthy gentrifiers seem to have little interest or sensitivity to the culture and history of these neighborhoods, and rarely do they patronize the existing local establishments, preferring the comfort of a new Starbucks or Wine bar it seems.
Although aesthetically gentrification does improve neighborhoods, it also only relocates typical urban problems (poverty, lack of education, violence) to peripheral areas that are cheaper.
If we really want to reduce the black-white gap and improve urban America, I think there needs to be a true emphasis on equal access to quality education

I've read some articles about gentrification and I think it's suck.

You grow some area it is your home, you aren't rich you have many problems and then some rich people moving your neighborhood your rent are going up and then, maybe landlord renovate building and forced you to leave. Not fair.

It's true that Gentrification never seems to be addressed from the point of view of long term residents, who are guaranteed to be displaced in significant numbers. Wealthy gentrifiers seem to have little interest or sensitivity to the culture and history of these neighborhoods, and rarely do they patronize the existing local establishments, preferring the comfort of a new Starbucks or Wine bar it seems.
Although aesthetically gentrification does improve neighborhoods, it also only relocates typical urban problems (poverty, lack of education, violence) to peripheral areas that are cheaper.
If we really want to reduce the black-white gap and improve urban America, I think there needs to be a true emphasis on equal access to quality education

You need good city planning therefore. The aim is not to turn a 100% poor neighborhod into a 100% rich one. Neighborhoods have to establish a mix. That means more cost efficient blocks mingled into wealthy neighborhoods. While there will be still wealthier and poorer districts this really helps reducing some of the problems and also contrasts.

Thats what authorities in Vienna seem to try at least and I think its a reasonable aim.

I've read some articles about gentrification and I think it's suck.

You grow some area it is your home, you aren't rich you have many problems and then some rich people moving your neighborhood your rent are going up and then, maybe landlord renovate building and forced you to leave. Not fair.

This wouldn't be a problem if people dared to save and buy the derelict properties they live in and renovating them for their own benefits. If you rent, at least in America, your rights are rather few and limited. But people, unwilling to bet their scarce income in their blighted and doomed neighborhoods, prefer to rent than buy derelict housing. So I have much sympathy for outsiders that put skin (aka money) in the game and renovate areas full of trash, crumbling buildings, dilapidated streets and so on. They are taking the risks and should reap the benefits (higher rents, multiplied selling value for their properties)

You need good city planning therefore. The aim is not to turn a 100% poor neighborhod into a 100% rich one. Neighborhoods have to establish a mix. That means more cost efficient blocks mingled into wealthy neighborhoods. While there will be still wealthier and poorer districts this really helps reducing some of the problems and also contrasts.

Thats what authorities in Vienna seem to try at least and I think its a reasonable aim.

I don't like this approach, unless it is natural, market-driven. I prefer, as our other colleague said, to focus on providing good education for all children, so that they have a chance in life. In some countries/cities there is more or less resistance to live close to people with greater income disparity, not for the income disparity as well, but because of the fact unless there is government intervention higher income areas will put pressure on any viability for commercial enterprises catering for poorer people.

Wealthy gentrifiers seem to have little interest or sensitivity to the culture and history of these neighborhoods, and rarely do they patronize the existing local establishments, preferring the comfort of a new Starbucks or Wine bar it seems.

But people should be free to patronize whatever legal business they want, shouldn't they? There is no moral obligation to spend your money in a food parlor you don't like or a corner store whose design, assortment and display you find outdated just because their owner have been there on business for 40 years. If people prefer another business, they are free to spend their earned income as they want - even if it means bankrupting local stores. It's called freedom.

Although aesthetically gentrification does improve neighborhoods, it also only relocates typical urban problems (poverty, lack of education, violence) to peripheral areas that are cheaper.


I don't think so. I guess it is fair to decompose the ghettos problems in those that are related to any poor area and some specific compounded effect resulted from the moral and social breakdown of some specific areas. If you take a sample of many different areas with high concentrations of people on the bottom 10% of income distribution, you'd still find many differnences - all will have likely higher than average crime, but some will have civil war-worth crime rates; all will have some degree of dilapidated housing and unkempt lots, but some will look like an abandoned place full of trash and debris; all will have lower educational achievements of their children, but some will have graduation rates for HS below 20%.

So when you disband a ghetto, you break the poisoned social dynamics that kept already poor people in a nightmare, in a breakdown. You destroy the community ties from hell that made an already bad situation a total fiasco and give the good people there a chance to rebuild a better life, and you probably create a situation in which criminals and social scorn elements will soon find their way to jail instead of bringing a whole neighborhood down with them while hiding there.

Am I surprised that someone who calls themselves Suburbanist and praises Robert Moses disagrees with this post. No. But I appreciate the response.

As a planner, you have to be sensitive to a community's identity. In a lot of cases that community's identity is what may have helped shaped a city or a particular city's culture. A lot of times, there are still huge cultural landmarks in these communities like religious institutions, restaurants, specialty stores, etc... These communities often time have built up a lot of political clout over the years so to ignore their concerns would be to your own detriment as planner because you are supposed to work for them.

So if you have this community that is struggling with gentrification, should their issues and concerns be ignored suburbanist?

In a lot of cases these communities, especially in cities in the Northeast, have the cheapest affordable housing. The gradual removal of affordable housing with no aims of replacing it, just puts more pressure on any nearby poor community or transitional neighborhood. See its no only the fact the neighborhood is being gentrified, the amount of affordable housing is going away... permanently. Look at the DC metro. 15 years ago there were plenty of affordable neighborhoods in the metro region. Now there are almost none. So if you have a family were the breadwinners are a bus driver and a mailman, where are they supposed to live?

As far as the outrageous suggestions that minorities that have climbed the ladder have betrayed their community - you need to re-read that again. That belief is not held by the author but by a good number of minorities over the past several decades who felt they were stuck in the ghetto and cut off from the well-to-do minorities who left. There is definitely some resentment there. Many Af-Am scholars have written about this topic and how integration had some negative effects on the black community, including black flight.

[QUOTE=I don't like this approach, unless it is natural, market-driven. I prefer, as our other colleague said, to focus on providing good education for all children, so that they have a chance in life. In some countries/cities there is more or less resistance to live close to people with greater income disparity, not for the income disparity as well, but because of the fact unless there is government intervention higher income areas will put pressure on any viability for commercial enterprises catering for poorer people.[/QUOTE]


This is where I think you might be a bit naive. The reason planners strive for some type of mix of income (without getting too much in the way of the market) is because market driven real estate will ALWAYS self separate itself by class ensuring that people who will be poor will be clustered together. Outside of a few exceptions where a community was created specifically to mix incomes like Columbia, MD or Oak Park in Chicago, the real estate market will always separate itself by class. There are countless examples of exclusionary deeds and HOAs, redlining and communities building walls, removing sidewalks and removing transit to ensure that there is community is protected from others.

As far as providing a good education for all children, that's great. Everybody's for that but school funding is dictated by property taxes. If you live in a poor neighborhood, your school will most likely have poor resources. And guess what, even if you sent the poor or working class kid to a better school in a better neighborhood, the parents of that school would fight that from happening because they are afraid of lower test scores from kids who they think can't achieve and they do not want their children to be mixed up with another kid from a less than stellar background.

These communities often time have built up a lot of political clout over the years so to ignore their concerns would be to your own detriment as planner because you are supposed to work for them.

So if you have this community that is struggling with gentrification, should their issues and concerns be ignored suburbanist?

These should not be concerns of any political officer, but left for the market to sort them out. I agree with basic zoning like making a distinction in commercial activities between a grocery store, a restaurant, a professional office, a laundry and a nightclub, nothing wrong with that. However, I disagree with any intervention that seeks not to determine which category of business can open shop in an area but also to which income levels they should cater. For instance, I'll find unacceptable any zoning that suggests that restaurants in a given street should have "affordable meals for people earning 70% of the federal poverty level", or that a grocery store should have "50% of its retail area dedicated to items that are of primarily consumption of children that have free school lunch vouchers".

If a low-profile hot-dog parlor can open shop in a given address, nothing should preclude a trendy fusion cuisine restaurant for taking over the establishment.

In a lot of cases these communities, especially in cities in the Northeast, have the cheapest affordable housing. The gradual removal of affordable housing with no aims of replacing it, just puts more pressure on any nearby poor community or transitional neighborhood. See its no only the fact the neighborhood is being gentrified, the amount of affordable housing is going away... permanently. Look at the DC metro. 15 years ago there were plenty of affordable neighborhoods in the metro region. Now there are almost none. So if you have a family were the breadwinners are a bus driver and a mailman, where are they supposed to live?
Further away on Maryland, maybe? There are always cities with decaying industrial bases, particularly in the Northeast, that would eagerly accept any development, even if it is catered for low-income people.

Think of Paris: there is a lot of affordable housing there, but not on the central districts, nor in the outlying suburbs, but in between: there is a "ring of poverty" that separates nicer areas in its central and outlying areas, which makes easier to impose order, crackdown on crime without completely destroying the nearby areas, because there is a "through" flow of middle class people in and out the inner city (heavily gentrified) to the outskirts. Something akin happens in London.

In US case, you can find, up to a certain point, that dynamic in New York Metro and San Francisco Metro: inner areas are more or less gentrified, then you have the poor, then on the very edge of those metro areas you have again nicer housing.


As far as the outrageous suggestions that minorities that have climbed the ladder have betrayed their community - you need to re-read that again. That belief is not held by the author but by a good number of minorities over the past several decades who felt they were stuck in the ghetto and cut off from the well-to-do minorities who left. There is definitely some resentment there. Many Af-Am scholars have written about this topic and how integration had some negative effects on the black community, including black flight.

If then, it is just another demonstration that these communities are socially unsustainable. If you resent that after desegregation other folks from your background climbed the social ladder, got richer and moved out, something gotta be wrong. It shows that some people still held a distorted perception that they need leaders from their own backgrounds to fight for them and protect them, in a certain way. These more assertive members of minorities took advantage of desegregation and put the "divided but equal (sic)" era behind, whilst some always keen on playing the race card and blaming others for their condition got stuck.

Your ideology is trumping reality

I don't like this approach, unless it is natural, market-driven. I prefer, as our other colleague said, to focus on providing good education for all children, so that they have a chance in life. In some countries/cities there is more or less resistance to live close to people with greater income disparity, not for the income disparity as well, but because of the fact unless there is government intervention higher income areas will put pressure on any viability for commercial enterprises catering for poorer people.

Good education is a pre condition anyway. If you don't do anything against extreme segragation and ghettoisation however it will become increasingly harder to get the effected people decently educated.

You will always have a lower class, no matter what. While overall education levels tend to increase it will be fore the foreseeable future always like that. Markets can have the tendency to segregate these groups extremely. This leads to major ghettoisation and detoriation of parts of the cities. In the worst case you end up with exploding crimm rates and a vicious cycle of misery in some areas which can become self enforcing. Costs to society caused by such excessive segragation can rapidly supercede the costs of limiting such segragtion in first place.

You can either trust and wait for the markets to something about it, or instead you can prevent that segragation from getting too extreme. I am not talking about planned economy, some not even excessively large subsidies and good urban planning should do the job halfway decent. I expect that you don't like that idea but I do and I think most people here would not want to see an ideologic laisez faire capitalism approach either.

Think of Paris: there is a lot of affordable housing there, but not on the central districts, nor in the outlying suburbs, but in between: there is a "ring of poverty" that separates nicer areas in its central and outlying areas, which makes easier to impose order, crackdown on crime without completely destroying the nearby areas, because there is a "through" flow of middle class people in and out the inner city (heavily gentrified) to the outskirts. Something akin happens in London.

Weird world view. Crime is not a epidemy which has to be or can be contained in some controlled zone. First of all, it can't be effectively contained and the more you concentrate misery the more crime you get, even with the same overall amount of poor people in town. You create vicious cycles of misery, areas where it is getting increasingly harder for police to do their work at all, increasing gang formation... and that all increases the misery even more, makes the potential of local education even worse which leads to even more misery more crime, worse education...

Great concept.

The article about Milwaukee was in some ways a joke. Blaming a County Executive who was in power for only 8 years?

I have no doubt though that Milwaukee is the most segregated city in the county.

Sorry kids, had to be done...

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The article about Milwaukee was in some ways a joke. Blaming a County Executive who was in power for only 8 years?

I have no doubt though that Milwaukee is the most segregated city in the county.

As a matter of fact you guys just replaced Detroit as being the US's most segregated city according to the 2010 US census although most of it has to do with many Detroit residents moving to the suburbs.

http://cmsimg.detnews.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=C3&Date=20110329&Category=METRO&ArtNo=103290372&Ref=AR

Anyways "ethnic neighborhoods" are becoming a thing of the past anyways although I would say it is important to have some affordable housing for some of the original residents just to give the neighborhood a sense of place.

And this displacement is causing a lot of ugly fights between new and existing populations throughout urban America. In Philadelphia and Washington D.C., historically black neighborhoods are trying to protect their community's identity from white and now black gentrifiers and in suburban Detroit, elite black suburbs or worried about the waves of working class blacks from inner-city Detroit moving into their communities.

1. So that identity thing is much more about rich/poor than about black/white then?
2. I can see the gentrification effect with richer/middle class folks buying up affordable stuff in the "hip" downtown areas, but about Detroit: how can those working class folks afford to move into an expensive suburb? Is that some sort of six persons per room thing?
3. What are those long term inner city people saying themselves? I could see some concern, in the "what about me?"/"what about us?" sense, but don't people usually enjoy it when "their" neighborhood improves?

1. So that identity thing is much more about rich/poor than about black/white then?
2. I can see the gentrification effect with richer/middle class folks buying up affordable stuff in the "hip" downtown areas, but about Detroit: how can those working class folks afford to move into an expensive suburb? Is that some sort of six persons per room thing?
3. What are those long term inner city people saying themselves? I could see some concern, in the "what about me?"/"what about us?" sense, but don't people usually enjoy it when "their" neighborhood improves?


To the first question I think it started out black/white but today I think it is more about rich/poor. What makes things complicated is the underlying history of race behind rich/poor for the long term residents that remained in the inner-city. I think a lot of the older generation of urban black folks and some younger that define their identity and the black experience through inner-city struggles. They have also built a strong political power base around this definition as well. They see a new population coming in as a change in their identity but the funny thing is there is now a wave of black gentrifiers who are really no different than the white gentrifiers. So at the end of the day, it really has more to do with class than race. And this belief that class trumps race is definitely fracturing the old inner-city political base in the black community. Mayor Corey Booker in Newark and former DC Mayor Fenty are prime examples of how the old inner-city political base has fractured.

2. For Detroit, housing values have plummeted so much that working class folks can now afford to buy into elite neighborhoods. The Housing prices in Detroit are ridiculous. Someone can buy a mansion for 200K in Detroit. In DC, 200K can get you a tiny rowhouse fixer-upper in a bad neighborhood.

3. To be honest, some of the inner-city residents are working against themselves and their interests by fighting improvements in their areas. I've been to meetings where they can get nasty and you wonder, why bother even helping. But at the same time, some of these long term residents where victims of long term discrimination for decades and they can't shake off the decades of feeling inferior. But at some point they got to move forward and be positive toward change. Some of those folks have to understand that being angry is not a plan for change.

Think of Paris: there is a lot of affordable housing there, but not on the central districts, nor in the outlying suburbs, but in between: there is a "ring of poverty" that separates nicer areas in its central and outlying areas, which makes easier to impose order, crackdown on crime without completely destroying the nearby areas, because there is a "through" flow of middle class people in and out the inner city (heavily gentrified) to the outskirts. Something akin happens in London.


The concentration of poverty and segregation is what creates a cultural of crime and violence which you clearly despise. You should know this, it's not rocket science.
Why should only the wealthy and tourists be allowed to appreciate the beauty, the museums, parks, and culture of inner Paris, while the poor are stuck with crummy housing projects and a poor transit infrastructure that keeps them stuck in their neighborhoods and exacerbates an 'us vs them' mentality. Did the poor not help build most of Paris anyway? For someone who hates crime and ghettos, you're example of Paris as some kind of ideal is hypocritical to say the least.

3. To be honest, some of the inner-city residents are working against themselves and their interests by fighting improvements in their areas. I've been to meetings where they can get nasty and you wonder, why bother even helping. But at the same time, some of these long term residents where victims of long term discrimination for decades and they can't shake off the decades of feeling inferior. But at some point they got to move forward and be positive toward change. Some of those folks have to understand that being angry is not a plan for change.

Yeah I think there is still a lingering mistrust of outside influences that attempt to "regenerate" or improve a neighborhood, particularly in historically black neighborhoods in the U.S. There is one such black neighborhood in San Francisco called the Western Addition which was once home to thriving businesses and streets full of Victorian housing that is typical of the city.
For some reason the whole area was deemed a slum in the 50s by the federal government, which then used tax dollars to raze the historic housing stock and replaced it with low rise housing projects, effectively destroying the social fabric of the neighborhood. We all know the ills of inner city housing projects, so one can imagine that the place got much worse after the "regeneration" efforts.
People will only support change if they feel they are directly involved in the efforts and that they themselves will benefit. Gentrification in its present form does nothing to solve the issue of segregation or concentrated wealth.

People will only support change if they feel they are directly involved in the efforts and that they themselves will benefit. Gentrification in its present form does nothing to solve the issue of segregation or concentrated wealth.

I think this is a really good point. If a government or some type of other institution is redeveloping a neighborhood, it would be imperative of them to get the neighborhood involved so that they can feel they apart of the changes.

When the market dictates redevelopment, the neighborhood can feel invaded because they can't see the rhyme or reason to why their neighborhood is redeveloping so fast. And it is always going to be some panic when people feel they are not in control of their own neighborhood.

The concentration of poverty and segregation is what creates a cultural of crime and violence which you clearly despise. You should know this, it's not rocket science.
Why should only the wealthy and tourists be allowed to appreciate the beauty, the museums, parks, and culture of inner Paris, while the poor are stuck with crummy housing projects and a poor transit infrastructure that keeps them stuck in their neighborhoods and exacerbates an 'us vs them' mentality. Did the poor not help build most of Paris anyway? For someone who hates crime and ghettos, you're example of Paris as some kind of ideal is hypocritical to say the least.

Not to mention the fact that cities such as Chicago long have figured out that concentrating poor people into housing projects (such as the infamous Cabrini-Green) leads to a huge increase in crime which is why they have dismantled their housing projects and instead are building mixed income developments.

Even the riots that took place in the HLM's back in 2005 illustrate why they do not work.

The ideas that Suburbanist are advocating regardng housing projects has already been tried and failed miserably.

^^ I am not advocating, necessarily, the building of massive high-rise housing projects, and I usually manifest myself in favor of the swift demolition of commieblocks and social housing high-rises in this forum.

What I question is the approach of forcing middle-class people to live near the poor so that the latter can take a free ride on the civil commitments and political clout of the former. This is what I found outrageous.

In that sense, I think market alone should determine prices of housing in a given area. While I am not adamantly opposed to social housing schemes, I do not think it is right to force developers to build artificially low prices houses next to nice condos or villas just so that those on the lower wage scale in the area can live within the same area. I'd even support a broad scheme that requires developers to supply a number of low-cost units, but not necessarily next to the expensive ones on prime areas - maybe within a 20km radius, for instance, would suffice -.

I also think nicer social housing, particular the use of row houses or semi-detached houses, works better for social control than big high-rises, as it gives families room to call theirs and more accountability on their maintenance.

What I really oppose is the idea that poor have have a default right to live in a given area just because: (a) poor people (even if identified by a ethnic/linguistic/religious background...) have been living there for decades; or (b) it is close the the places they work; or (c) it is a place with its own social dynamics - usually corrupted and misguided as, for instance, a place plagued by eternal mistrust of police.

=======

Now back to regeneration schemes, there is an impossible to solve catch-22 situation in regard of bad neighborhoods turned into good ones. If a government decide to address the problems of the community and goes investing on building renovation/reconstruction, street cleaning, intensified policing and the likes, with its own money, the area will naturally increase its value and, as it is usually the case, homeownership is woefully low in those areas and as soon as the are is turned better landlord will, sooner or later, push rents up - it might take 20 years in place with rent control laws, but it will happen, eventually. Commercial real estate suffers first, as disparity on retail value for a given area between a shoddy deli store or a nice sushi bar is much higher than that of the patrons of each establishment. This is the most classical scenario for gentrification.

On the other hand, if government embarks on programs based on condemning derelict properties through eminent domain, reconstructs the neighborhood and resells the renovated properties in affordable conditions to the long-term residents and business owners (an approach meant to avoid the expulsion by higher rents), you suddenly make long-term residents rich(er). They now own a property n-fold more valuable than before because of improvements in the buildings/neighborhood. Sooner or later, some long-term residents might find that they are better off "cashing in" their small (but now valuable) apartment and move out with their family to a suburban house they can now afford if they trade for their renovated apartment. The owner of a corner store might find too tempting not to take US$ 1,5 million for the point and retire in some comfort.

No matter the route chosen, when a neighborhood is improved, demand to live in the area will sudden go up, which will push prices up and, in that scenario, someone will benefit.

There is also the third option: social housing rented out on basis of income by government, but then it has its own sets of problems, there are political priorities and you will just fill the place with social elements you invested to get rid of in first place.

Living next to poor people? Outrageous! :laugh:

Fucking poor people. I like to hit them with sticks as I walk to work (that's right, walk! :O) just to remind 'em who's boss.

Frankly any middle class person who had some problem living near those poorer than him/her would not be welcome in this city to me. In fact, any planning or architectural scheme which seperates people based on lower, middle or upper class, or is an attempt to "upgrade" the filthy wretches at the bottom of the social ladder is purely disgusting. Not only is the notion of class increasingly outdated in a modern, equal society, but I'd bet money that mixing people, rich and poor, together (in the same building if possible) will reduce tension between those of a different background. (that's what this thread is about, remember? Not delusional utopian mega-suburbs)

I'll piss Suburbanist off even more by adding that apartments/flats are much better for this purpose that single-family homes. ;) Apartment buildings will always have "shared space" in stairways and shared back gardens. When people have to share stuff they'll usually shut up and not hate each other.

Suburbanist will probably say this is "social engineering" but so is the idea that social housing should be kept well away from the rich folks just so that those with money have full control over an area.

Suburbanist,

You keep arguing against these extreme positions that you have created and that no one has proposed. No one is proposing restaurants to have reduced meals for the poor or force retail stores to lower their prices of force the middle class to live next to the poor, who you obviously have disdain for.

What most folks are proposing is having reasonable affordable housing in a neighborhood. Which means that if someone is building a huge new development in a gentrified neighborhood, a certain percentage say 20% should be at a reduced rate. Why would I propose this, because it has actually were in reality...and not just in some utopian vision that I have in my mind.

It seems that while you are for deconcentrating poverty you have no realistic plan on how to do that. I brought up in a previous post where would a bus driver and mailman live and you said further away from the city. How elitist is that? Living in a city where you work should not be a privilege. And the further away working class people live, the less resources they will like access to public transit. In your scenario, you would not be mixing different classes of people but displacing those who are at the bottom. Your scenario would have the opposite effect of your intentions because you would only displace the poor and working class people in segregated communities outside the city. That's not a solution.

Realistically, I don't see what can be done about gentrification. Who is to decide who can live in what neighborhood? The cure is worse than the disease. Rent control is a classic example of how regulating the price of housing below its optimum value actually makes its real price go up and ends in a shortage, all caused by a lack of investment due to no potential for return.

Maybe the real issue is when the divide between social classes is growing, there is a gap between where affordable housing is available and where there are reasonably paying jobs, and governments are running out of funds to provide public services.

If I was in charge, I'd fight for a balanced economy, growth, and plans to fix marginalized inner ring suburbs while ensuring new suburbs are designed to be adaptable in the future. While there is no guarantee that a few neighborhoods which were extremely desirable wouldn't become expensive and others went downhill, it would all be relatively manageable. If poor people are being displaced out of the inner city and into some run down older suburb, then the things like public transit they rely on should also be redirected.

Suburbanist,

You keep arguing against these extreme positions that you have created and that no one has proposed. No one is proposing restaurants to have reduced meals for the poor or force retail stores to lower their prices of force the middle class to live next to the poor, who you obviously have disdain for.

What most folks are proposing is having reasonable affordable housing in a neighborhood. Which means that if someone is building a huge new development in a gentrified neighborhood, a certain percentage say 20% should be at a reduced rate. Why would I propose this, because it has actually were in reality...and not just in some utopian vision that I have in my mind.

It seems that while you are for deconcentrating poverty you have no realistic plan on how to do that. I brought up in a previous post where would a bus driver and mailman live and you said further away from the city. How elitist is that? Living in a city where you work should not be a privilege. And the further away working class people live, the less resources they will like access to public transit. In your scenario, you would not be mixing different classes of people but displacing those who are at the bottom. Your scenario would have the opposite effect of your intentions because you would only displace the poor and working class people in segregated communities outside the city. That's not a solution.

Funny how suburbanist hates the idea of the poor having a say about where they want to live, but says nothing about the wealthy feeling entitled to live where ever the hell they want and living close to their place of work. I wish he would just admit to everyone that he hates poor people and be done with it. What is it about poor people that scares him so much?

Besides if you have poor people living nearby or adjacent to more middle class areas or wealthy people it benefits everyone including business owners since they now have a supply of labor and they benefit because of easier access to employment.

City planners should just enforce that every new estate has at least 10 or 20% affordable units for poor and lower middle class people.

I say let the market dictate who lives in an area. Here in downtown KC it seems all the units are either too expensive or they where built using tax credits so people like me don't qualify because I make to much money so I am forced to rent to live in this area due to government interference with the market.

Realistically, I don't see what can be done about gentrification. Who is to decide who can live in what neighborhood? The cure is worse than the disease. Rent control is a classic example of how regulating the price of housing below its optimum value actually makes its real price go up and ends in a shortage, all caused by a lack of investment due to no potential for return.

This is absolute nonsense. There is no housing shortage in Vienna and in large new developments a reasonable share of low rent homes is expected or even obligatory.

It is not about controlling the rent, but making sure that affordable class apartments are also getting built and not only luxury homes. If the market were to refuse building it, the city itself builds it. Call that socialism if you like, but it works. Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding, it is not about offering below costs it is about offering low cost housing also in more central locations.


Maybe the real issue is when the divide between social classes is growing, there is a gap between where affordable housing is available and where there are reasonably paying jobs, and governments are running out of funds to provide public services.

If I was in charge, I'd fight for a balanced economy, growth, and plans to fix marginalized inner ring suburbs while ensuring new suburbs are designed to be adaptable in the future. While there is no guarantee that a few neighborhoods which were extremely desirable wouldn't become expensive and others went downhill, it would all be relatively manageable. If poor people are being displaced out of the inner city and into some run down older suburb, then the things like public transit they rely on should also be redirected.

It is probably easier to change the nature of neighborhoods than to entirely reroute heavy capacity public transport every 10 years to a large extend. Moreover PT works best in mixed urban environments, not in cities where lots of people are doomed to work in the centre and sleep somewhere else in the middle of nowhere.

I say let the market dictate who lives in an area. Here in downtown KC it seems all the units are either too expensive or they where built using tax credits so people like me don't qualify because I make to much money so I am forced to rent to live in this area due to government interference with the market.

And who is going to pay for the costs forced onto the whole society caused by ghettoisation due to market dictate?

Yeah I think there is still a lingering mistrust of outside influences that attempt to "regenerate" or improve a neighborhood, particularly in historically black neighborhoods in the U.S. There is one such black neighborhood in San Francisco called the Western Addition which was once home to thriving businesses and streets full of Victorian housing that is typical of the city.
For some reason the whole area was deemed a slum in the 50s by the federal government, which then used tax dollars to raze the historic housing stock and replaced it with low rise housing projects, effectively destroying the social fabric of the neighborhood. We all know the ills of inner city housing projects, so one can imagine that the place got much worse after the "regeneration" efforts.
People will only support change if they feel they are directly involved in the efforts and that they themselves will benefit. Gentrification in its present form does nothing to solve the issue of segregation or concentrated wealth.

Very well stated.

The dissapointing census results from NYC & Chicago clearly demonstrate that gentrificatioon doesn't necesarily equal re-growth.

San Francisco managed a slight increase.

But you can't walk ten feet without running into some of those who've displaced. Their living on the streets.

Not a very pretty picture.

Frankly any middle class person who had some problem living near those poorer than him/her would not be welcome in this city to me. In fact, any planning or architectural scheme which seperates people based on lower, middle or upper class, or is an attempt to "upgrade" the filthy wretches at the bottom of the social ladder is purely disgusting. Not only is the notion of class increasingly outdated in a modern, equal society, but I'd bet money that mixing people, rich and poor, together (in the same building if possible) will reduce tension between those of a different background.

I am not proposing mandated "class" segregations, just pointing that, left unchecked, this will be a natural arrangement brought by the market, and a good one.

For a start, there is different demand for building amenities and level of service in a given building (assuming a multi-story one with lifts, underground parking and so). Richer families might afford 24/7 heating on public areas, whilst poorer ones might prefer colder aisles and entrance hall to lower the energy bill. More affluent families can afford frequent renovations and upgrades to lifts, painting and maybe even that new smell-proof trash room, whereas low income families would rather not spend that much on retrofitting the lift and would even prefer one of the lifts to be shut down on quieter times to save money.

In a market-driven situation, either the more wealthy move out because they are dissatisfied with the building below their standards or the poorer move out because they can afford the common utility and service bills. When you mandate that some units in a building are kept perennially as affordable units, you are compelling the common dwellers not on "affordable housing" schemes to subsidize, indirectly, services and amenities for those living there on the cheap. It is almost a forced transfer of income.


Suburbanist will probably say this is "social engineering" but so is the idea that social housing should be kept well away from the rich folks just so that those with money have full control over an area.

Money is amoral (not immoral). It is a vehicle to determine the power you have when it comes to buy scarce resources. There is nothing inherently wrong in having poorer people pushed out of an are because richer people outbid them for rents and mortgages.


What most folks are proposing is having reasonable affordable housing in a neighborhood. Which means that if someone is building a huge new development in a gentrified neighborhood, a certain percentage say 20% should be at a reduced rate. Why would I propose this, because it has actually were in reality...and not just in some utopian vision that I have in my mind.

Assuming such a law exists, it has unintended consequences and some expected (and unfair IMO) consequences.

First, the developer will not want to build "cheap-looking" units to fill the quota because that would hurt the value of the fake Victorian condos nearby. So it is likely the developer will have to subsidize those affordable units building them, at least on the façade, to fit the upscale mood of the whole area.

Meanwhile, you get a problem: who is entitled to live in such affordable units? If some housing is sold/rent below market value, somebody is getting a windfall and somebody is getting a handicap. If this is done on an income-basis and there are fair waiting lists, it is ok, but if you have obscure selection procedures or ad-hoc committees (like many British cities have) to decide who is entitled to affordable/social housing, you got a problem.

Realistically, I don't see what can be done about gentrification. Who is to decide who can live in what neighborhood? The cure is worse than the disease. Rent control is a classic example of how regulating the price of housing below its optimum value actually makes its real price go up and ends in a shortage, all caused by a lack of investment due to no potential for return.

Such laws and regulations are problematic. Rent control creates disincentives to have rental units in an area in first place, and also disincentives to good building keeping (why a landlord would invest in a building beyond the barely minimum demanded by law if such investment would just have the unwanted effect of keeping protected rent dwellers in your unit for longer period of times?). It also reduces overall real estate investment.

In a ripple effect, it created higher demand in other areas, meaning people there will also demand protected rents and the vicious cycle continues. Think of San Francisco bay area, probably the most dysfunctional real estate market in US (worse than NYC).

Funny how suburbanist hates the idea of the poor having a say about where they want to live, but says nothing about the wealthy feeling entitled to live where ever the hell they want and living close to their place of work. I wish he would just admit to everyone that he hates poor people and be done with it. What is it about poor people that scares him so much?

I am not "scared" by poor people or anything like that, I just don't think people have a "right" to live close to their workplaces. They have a sort-of right to live somewhere with objective good conditions like sanitation, heating, earthquake-proof structures (if the case), minimum are per person, but not necessarily within walking distance to their jobs.

Besides if you have poor people living nearby or adjacent to more middle class areas or wealthy people it benefits everyone including business owners since they now have a supply of labor and they benefit because of easier access to employment.

Pay a slightly higher salary and people will commute 2 hours for a menial job.


The dissapointing census results from NYC & Chicago clearly demonstrate that gentrificatioon doesn't necesarily equal re-growth.

San Francisco managed a slight increase.

But you can't walk ten feet without running into some of those who've displaced. Their living on the streets.

Not a very pretty picture.

It all depends on the profile of the area being gentrified. It is happening on former industrial grounds, population will certainly increase for obvious reasons. If it is happening on former ghettos, it will almost certainly decrease, because ghettos usually have unhealthy high occupancy density per apartment/unit (think of those dysfunctional families with 2 working parents + grandma + 4 kids, some of each single parents at age 15, all living in a cramped apartment). When you have higher income household moving on, you will automatically have less people living in the same space, and population will go down if no substantial change happens to the building stock (higher buildings).

I also dispute the assertion that displaced people move to the streets. Only the most dysfunctional members of a run-down neighborhood can't hold their feet and rebuild their lives. Usually you will find some homeless people, but they were the ones that were a "carried burden" for former communities, like someone with mental disease that instead of getting treatment and therapy got, for 20 years, the pity of the community who'd give him/her free meals, used clothes and the like - once you break the community, the true problem (mental health) is exposed and, of course, people have no obligation to "take care" of someone who's mentally ill just because he/she is a neighbor living there for 40 years. Therapy and treatment, instead, are the solutions (decades due).

I am not proposing mandated "class" segregations, just pointing that, left unchecked, this will be a natural arrangement brought by the market, and a good one.

For a start, there is different demand for building amenities and level of service in a given building (assuming a multi-story one with lifts, underground parking and so). Richer families might afford 24/7 heating on public areas, whilst poorer ones might prefer colder aisles and entrance hall to lower the energy bill. More affluent families can afford frequent renovations and upgrades to lifts, painting and maybe even that new smell-proof trash room, whereas low income families would rather not spend that much on retrofitting the lift and would even prefer one of the lifts to be shut down on quieter times to save money.

In a market-driven situation, either the more wealthy move out because they are dissatisfied with the building below their standards or the poorer move out because they can afford the common utility and service bills. When you mandate that some units in a building are kept perennially as affordable units, you are compelling the common dwellers not on "affordable housing" schemes to subsidize, indirectly, services and amenities for those living there on the cheap. It is almost a forced transfer of income.


In such a hypothetical building though, the wealthier residents aren't being adversely affected by this though are they? The lifts and paint-jobs would still be there, even if the building still has a few lower income residents. Even then, a freshly painted hallway or 24 hour lift service doesn't mean said lower income residents are living like kings! It's a pretty minor addition to their lives (with a pretty low cost anyway, in terms of overall household bills) and isn't really the same thing as the higher income residents buying them food or TVs or something.

I also dispute the assertion that displaced people move to the streets. Only the most dysfunctional members of a run-down neighborhood can't hold their feet and rebuild their lives. Usually you will find some homeless people, but they were the ones that were a "carried burden" for former communities, like someone with mental disease that instead of getting treatment and therapy got, for 20 years, the pity of the community who'd give him/her free meals, used clothes and the like - once you break the community, the true problem (mental health) is exposed and, of course, people have no obligation to "take care" of someone who's mentally ill just because he/she is a neighbor living there for 40 years. Therapy and treatment, instead, are the solutions (decades due).

What?! That makes no sense! Don't over analyze it; if a family didn't seek proper treatment for a mentally ill person, that's the fault of the family, not the community. Of course people don't have to look after someone, but (shock horror) maybe they want to help look after the person? You know, because some people are nice? Because some people don't let every little point of their lives be dictated by market-led economics and personal ideology? Thats what your arguments are, just personal ideology, and it just isn't backed up by logic, sense, or experience of the real world.

All that ugly, a-cultural, boring suburban sprawl so commonly found in American cities causes for people to be segregated not only by race but as a society... I was in a mostly white area and it's depressing how there is 0 interaction among people.... no one talks to no one and every one is in a car alone going to the shopping mall.

I was in Raleigh NC and boy what a nightmare... couldn't even go for a walk because there are no sidewalks and since I was there as a visitor I didn't have a car as a result I was confined to a suburban nightmare, watching TV, eating and the internet!!!!
I was so thankful when I left and came back to my public transportation oriented, outdoor cafes, public parks filled with people city.... the first thing I did when I got home was WALK!!!!!

Plus America is sort of a very race oriented society where race is in fact a lot of times synonymous with being an individual inside the society.... the LATINO guy, the WHITE guy, the BLACK girl, some Americans claim is due to multiculturalism but honestly I doubt there is a country left on this planet that is not filled with different ethnic groups and foreigners!!!!

Most people over there tend to care a lot about race and placing everyone orderly into race, mark your race in the blank, what race are you?, what percentage of whiteness blackness mexicaness do you have etc. are actually very common topics in America.

I have an American friend who told me once.... Race obsessing, beating the dead horse of republicans versus democrats, and shopping are America's favorite pastimes.

I was in Raleigh NC and boy what a nightmare... couldn't even go for a walk because there are no sidewalks and since I was there as a visitor I didn't have a car as a result I was confined to a suburban nightmare, watching TV, eating and the internet!!!!
I was so thankful when I left and came back to my public transportation oriented, outdoor cafes, public parks filled with people city.... the first thing I did when I got home was WALK!!!!!
You could have just rented a car, got a taxi, caught a bus, etc. Its your own fault you didn't get out.

You could have just rented a car, got a taxi, caught a bus, etc. Its your own fault you didn't get out.

Exactly...and when you decide to stay in the suburbs of any city you're pretty much in the same boat. Suburbs are suburbs, cities are cities - it's really not fair to compare the suburbs of one city to the central city of another.

^^some cities are more 'suburban' by nature than others though. Many American cities are in fact quite dead and unstimulating compared to many cities around the world

I have an American friend who told me once.... Race obsessing, beating the dead horse of republicans versus democrats, and shopping are America's favorite pastimes.
:lol:well you're friend is absolutely correct unfortunately. But I would also add reality tv and other television programming and then yeah that sums it up as typical American pastimes

You could have just rented a car, got a taxi, caught a bus, etc. Its your own fault you didn't get out.

In some suburbs buses are not really an option. Relying on taxis as general mode of transportation is something which only people who don't know how to burn their money will do. So renting a car seems to be the best option which proves however the point that something is going terribly wrong in these neighborhoods if the only option you have is driving by car.

Exactly...and when you decide to stay in the suburbs of any city you're pretty much in the same boat. Suburbs are suburbs, cities are cities - it's really not fair to compare the suburbs of one city to the central city of another.

Not its not the same everywhere. In the suburbs of Vienna you face few to no major obstacles for pedestrians. Pretty much all suburbs do have some local subcentres which tend to be walkable and are not cut off from the surrounding neighborhoods. Many suburbs do have railway stations those that have not have regular bus service. And thats the real suburbs outside of Vienna proper. Those suburbian style areas within Vienna often have a subway close, some have trams, the rest good and frequent bus connections.

So not all suburbs are the same. I guess many European cities are more like Vienna in this regards than the US.

Exactly...and when you decide to stay in the suburbs of any city you're pretty much in the same boat. Suburbs are suburbs, cities are cities - it's really not fair to compare the suburbs of one city to the central city of another.

Dude, suburban areas are like 95% of American cities.... most downtowns in the USA are either dead and filled with homeless and gangs (like raleigh NC), or they are overpriced sterile over-gentrified areas that smell like fresh paint and are so perfect that they look like a movie set instead of a real city (like the downtown of San diego)

I love riding my bike around the city, I like to walk, gaze at people passing by, I love to sit in a park in the spring and watch street artists perform, I love to sit in a cafe bar on a square filled with people passing by..... my idea of a city is a place full of color, contradictions, culture, vibrancy, where people congregate and communicate, a city is a place for people to live and interact with one another.

America's idea of cities is MASSIVE SPRAWL OF SUBURBIA that looks EXACTLY the same, mile after mile!!! no a soul on the street, no human interaction, every one is busy driving and on top of that the downtown of the cities which in the rest of the world are often filled with color and excitement in America are pretty much abandoned and crowded with homeless, prostitutes and dangerous types of people.

How can not a country like that be segregated? every one is segregated, Americans can live decades in a house and never get to know their neighbors!!!

I've visited several American cities and my impression is that most of them are just oozing in boredom!!! what do we do today? LET'S GO TO THE SHOPPING MALL!!! WOOHOOO!!!

sorry I don't mean to bash the US but American cities are simply horrible and perhaps the cause of why the American society is so dysfunctional and people are often so scared of human interaction to the point of paranoia because people have a closer relationship with their cars, than with other human beings!

In some suburbs buses are not really an option. Relying on taxis as general mode of transportation is something which only people who don't know how to burn their money will do. So renting a car seems to be the best option which proves however the point that something is going terribly wrong in these neighborhoods if the only option you have is driving by car.

European suburbia is a crowded downtown compared to American suburbia... in Europe you can live in suburbia and catch a public bus that will take you to the downtown area in a matter of minutes and many times up to 2 or 3 AM.

I live in a suburbia but we have still outdoor cafes, bars, restaurants, squares, people passing by..... we even have a metro station that takes me to the city center in 18 minutes! (you don't get that in your typical American suburbia, not even in most American cities!!! it's so bad many cities dont even have public transortation and if they do, the schedules are terrible like in San diego, where the bus passes every 3 hours and then it takes one hour and a half for it to cover a distance of 10 miles.) I know because I took it.... and many Americans think that using public transportation is either very dangerous (OMG BE CAREFUL WITH THE BLACK LADY SITTING NEXT TO YOU!!! :-O)
or a thing only complete losers will do. (don't ask me where they got those perceptions from....)

I also think nicer social housing, particular the use of row houses or semi-detached houses, works better for social control than big high-rises, as it gives families room to call theirs and more accountability on their maintenance.

This "solution" has been tried (and has failed miserably) here in Sydney. Entire neighbourhoods of rowhouses were built in the 1970s for public housing purposes, today these neighbourhoods look terrible, boarded up windows, graffiti, unkempt gardens and abandoned cars everywhere. The Government is planning to demolish many of these estates, and build new mixed housing on them.

Many experts believe that neighbourhoods looking like this contribute to the "broken window theory". I don't know if this is true or not, crime is high in these areas, but that could also be attributed to the social problems that exist, such as unemployment and lack of parental supervision for children.

I believe in mixed housing, that is, not "ghettoising" the poor, as I believe that causes social problems, and disadvantage for the people living in "poor" areas.

^^ When you are impeding markets to work and forcing middle-class people to live near the poor, you are essentially creating a "social draft", an obligation-of-sorts that middle class and upper class (but not the very rich) "accept" living with people who couldn't otherwise afford to live in those areas and benefiting them because of the former higher civic commitment, political clout etc.

Not its not the same everywhere. In the suburbs of Vienna you face few to no major obstacles for pedestrians. Pretty much all suburbs do have some local subcentres which tend to be walkable and are not cut off from the surrounding neighborhoods. Many suburbs do have railway stations those that have not have regular bus service. And thats the real suburbs outside of Vienna proper. Those suburbian style areas within Vienna often have a subway close, some have trams, the rest good and frequent bus connections.

So not all suburbs are the same. I guess many European cities are more like Vienna in this regards than the US.

I didn't say that all suburbs are the same...my point was that it isn't fair to chastize a city for being suburban when you're staying in the suburbs, then exhault your city for being ultra-urban.

Dude, suburban areas are like 95% of American cities.... most downtowns in the USA are either dead and filled with homeless and gangs (like raleigh NC), or they are overpriced sterile over-gentrified areas that smell like fresh paint and are so perfect that they look like a movie set instead of a real city (like the downtown of San diego)

I love riding my bike around the city, I like to walk, gaze at people passing by, I love to sit in a park in the spring and watch street artists perform, I love to sit in a cafe bar on a square filled with people passing by..... my idea of a city is a place full of color, contradictions, culture, vibrancy, where people congregate and communicate, a city is a place for people to live and interact with one another.

America's idea of cities is MASSIVE SPRAWL OF SUBURBIA that looks EXACTLY the same, mile after mile!!! no a soul on the street, no human interaction, every one is busy driving and on top of that the downtown of the cities which in the rest of the world are often filled with color and excitement in America are pretty much abandoned and crowded with homeless, prostitutes and dangerous types of people.

How can not a country like that be segregated? every one is segregated, Americans can live decades in a house and never get to know their neighbors!!!

I've visited several American cities and my impression is that most of them are just oozing in boredom!!! what do we do today? LET'S GO TO THE SHOPPING MALL!!! WOOHOOO!!!

sorry I don't mean to bash the US but American cities are simply horrible and perhaps the cause of why the American society is so dysfunctional and people are often so scared of human interaction to the point of paranoia because people have a closer relationship with their cars, than with other human beings!

Wow, a post full of immature stereotypical generalizations about American cities. Surely you realize that you can't paint all of them with the same brush, nor can you speak in such general terms about an entire city. It's not even worth going any further with you. I live in an American city and I assure you that it is far from boring. If a location is boring to you, it's almost always your fault.

I have found several European cities to be "simply horrible" but I know better than to assume that they are ALL horrible...but that is a grown-up perspective. :)

European suburbia is a crowded downtown compared to American suburbia... in Europe you can live in suburbia and catch a public bus that will take you to the downtown area in a matter of minutes and many times up to 2 or 3 AM.

I live in a suburbia but we have still outdoor cafes, bars, restaurants, squares, people passing by..... we even have a metro station that takes me to the city center in 18 minutes! (you don't get that in your typical American suburbia, not even in most American cities!!! it's so bad many cities dont even have public transortation and if they do, the schedules are terrible like in San diego, where the bus passes every 3 hours and then it takes one hour and a half for it to cover a distance of 10 miles.) I know because I took it.... and many Americans think that using public transportation is either very dangerous (OMG BE CAREFUL WITH THE BLACK LADY SITTING NEXT TO YOU!!! :-O)
or a thing only complete losers will do. (don't ask me where they got those perceptions from....)

My experiences have led me to conclude that, in general, Europeans are much less comfortable with different races than Americans. The U.S. is so much more diverse than most of Europe, so we are very much used to the idea. I lived in Europe for a year and experienced the racism first hand...much more than I ever encountered in the U.S.

The 95% figure isn't that far off, in population terms. I'd certainly choose to live in less than 5%. Many entire metros have only very localized areas with enough urbanity and connection coupled with good services. Even the best metros don't have a ton. Greater New York might be 20% like this. Seattle maybe 10%, with less density but more prosperity than most.

And whatever our percentage is, an extremely low amount has the general pleasantness of many standard places in Europe.

Not that European countries don't have their bad parts. In Greater London for example the figure would be half or two-thirds but certainly not all.

I didn't say that all suburbs are the same...my point was that it isn't fair to chastize a city for being suburban when you're staying in the suburbs, then exhault your city for being ultra-urban.

As I've said, living in a Viennese suburb might be more urban than living in some of the worse central neigbhorhoods of an American city. But you have a valid point of course people boasting about how ultra urban their city is should not live somewhere in middle of nowhere.

I have found several European cities to be "simply horrible" but I know better than to assume that they are ALL horrible...but that is a grown-up perspective. :)

Horrible in which sense? And which cities are you talking about? Some major ones?

Maybe Pripiat, or Middlesbrough?

Maybe Pripiat, or Middlesbrough?

Antwerpen, Malmo and Glasgow are example of cities falling off a cliff because of some very, very dangerous area populated by gangs outright hostile to outsiders and increasingly full of blight, trash, run-down areas and patrols of gangs.

Malmö? I am surprised. Does anyone else confirm Suburbanists claim here? Or is it just the claim of a single SSC member?

Malmö? I am surprised. Does anyone else confirm Suburbanists claim here? Or is it just the claim of a single SSC member?

Not the whole city, but large swaths of it. Even the Swedish police use special gear when cracking down on problematic areas in Mälmo

Not the whole city, but large swaths of it. Even the Swedish police use special gear when cracking down on problematic areas in Mälmo

I see someone buys into the right-wing propaganda machine that as sought very hard to label Malmö as the ultimate example of the "Islamification[sic] of Europe". Fox news has run reports on this topic a lot along with many other right wing commentators due to its high immigrant population (anti-immigrant parties love pointing out the higher than average for the city crime rates in Rosengård). The funny thing is, this rhetoric surrounds ONE problem area in a miljonprogram suburb (Rosengård). Malmö, internationally speaking, has a low crime rate and a low murder rate.

Of course, this would defy Suburbanists claims about it being a lawless problem area. Technically, Rosengård has a lower crime rate than similar areas in London and a far, FAR lower crime rate than no-go areas in US cities. You can actually walk around Rosengård quite during the day for one thing, unlike true "problem areas". The suburb is also getting a huge facelift due to improving economic conditions in Sweden and Skane in general with new construction occurring in the area.

As for increasing "urban blight" Malmö doesn't have "urban blight" in the traditional sense at all. If you don't believe me, check out Google Street View as it covers the whole of the city. Even the bad areas of the city are, generally, well kempt overall.

Antwerpen, Malmo and Glasgow are example of cities falling off a cliff because of some very, very dangerous area populated by gangs outright hostile to outsiders and increasingly full of blight, trash, run-down areas and patrols of gangs.


Antwerp? Where have you been in antwerp? I agree that some part of the city center are a bit run down and not very clean but gangs? Have you visited neighborhoods like Borgerhout and Linkeroever maybe? Those neighborhoods have the 'normal' immigrant gangs you can find in almost any Euro city.

I suggest you take a look a this (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=756508) thread and see what you have missed!

^^ To analyze blight in rich countries like SE, DE, FI, NL, D etc., you have to consider it relatively to the country/region, not only in terms of security but also street and parks cleanliness, respect for urban ordinances etc.

Antwerp? Where have you been in antwerp? I agree that some part of the city center are a bit run down and not very clean but gangs? Have you visited neighborhoods like Berchem and Linkeroever maybe? Those neigborhoods have the 'normal' immigrant gangs you can find in almost any Euro city.

I am not talking about downtown Antwerpen (1h-1h15 from my city), but some eastern areas I've driven by and was too afraid to park the car and walk because of the unwelcoming looks I got my driving slowly in residential areas (something I like to do to get to see a place: drive, park, walk a bit, take pics, drive again to some other random urban area, walk a bit etc.)

Those areas between the airport and the university looked quite run-down for Benelux standards and dangerous at a Saturday afternoon. I definitively consider "dangerous" a place where older teenagers in a group start following me in 2 scooters while I drive by their area (the incident happen in 2009, and looking upon the Internet I found that carjack and assaults are common in the area)

^^ To analyze blight in rich countries like SE, DE, FI, NL, D etc., you have to consider it relatively to the country/region, not only in terms of security but also street and parks cleanliness, respect for urban ordinances etc.

Okay, I shall analyse it. Malmö used to be run down in the 1970's, yes. However, recently the city has undergone a renaissance with investment ploughed into it - look at the new citytunneln for example and the proposal for light rail in the city, investment into developing the västra hamn area and limhamn too. The poorest areas of the city are also being renovated like I said in my first post, an example in that "dangerous" suburb of the renovation work and planning for improving the quality of life there (currently under construction):

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/9255/20110303gard03.jpg

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/6282/20110303torg01.jpg

If the area was as bad as people make it out to be, there would not be this kind of investment in it. Couple this with a new proposal for a full train link through Rosengård to make a city train loop as well as the light rail to this suburb (yes, Rosengård is one of the first on the list) and you get a proper picture of how the city is developing and improving.

Don't necessarily believe the media hype over a few disgruntled immigrants or a couple of anti-semitic attacks that have occurred in the past (as events such as these tend to hit home with people and sell papers), but investigate the truth for yourself.

I am not talking about downtown Antwerpen (1h-1h15 from my city), but some eastern areas I've driven by and was too afraid to park the car and walk because of the unwelcoming looks I got my driving slowly in residential areas (something I like to do to get to see a place: drive, park, walk a bit, take pics, drive again to some other random urban area, walk a bit etc.)

Those areas between the airport and the university looked quite run-down for Benelux standards and dangerous at a Saturday afternoon. I definitively consider "dangerous" a place where older teenagers in a group start following me in 2 scooters while I drive by their area (the incident happen in 2009, and looking upon the Internet I found that carjack and assaults are common in the area)



^^I agree on that particular side of the city. Those are the immigrants neighborhoods, the ones you can also find in Brussels, Liège and Charlerloi. They are run down and dangerous. I suggest next time you go there you don't take anything of value with you.
Morrocs are mostly the cause of all violence and crime.

@Svartmetal

Thanks for the informative response. Seems like my suspicion regarding Suburbanists claims was justified. So Malmö has a problematic sort of ghetto neighborhood, which still is somewhat safe and clean numbering about 20000 inhabitants. Whereas major investments in that area are planned or already undergoing.

Antwerpen, Malmo and Glasgow are example of cities falling off a cliff because of some very, very dangerous area populated by gangs outright hostile to outsiders and increasingly full of blight, trash, run-down areas and patrols of gangs.

Of the three I have only been to Glasgow and while there are certainly rough parts I don't know if they are 'increasingly' so, those areas have had bad reputations for decades.

Dude, suburban areas are like 95% of American cities.... most downtowns in the USA are either dead and filled with homeless and gangs (like raleigh NC), or they are overpriced sterile over-gentrified areas that smell like fresh paint and are so perfect that they look like a movie set instead of a real city (like the downtown of San diego)

I love riding my bike around the city, I like to walk, gaze at people passing by, I love to sit in a park in the spring and watch street artists perform, I love to sit in a cafe bar on a square filled with people passing by..... my idea of a city is a place full of color, contradictions, culture, vibrancy, where people congregate and communicate, a city is a place for people to live and interact with one another.

America's idea of cities is MASSIVE SPRAWL OF SUBURBIA that looks EXACTLY the same, mile after mile!!! no a soul on the street, no human interaction, every one is busy driving and on top of that the downtown of the cities which in the rest of the world are often filled with color and excitement in America are pretty much abandoned and crowded with homeless, prostitutes and dangerous types of people.

How can not a country like that be segregated? every one is segregated, Americans can live decades in a house and never get to know their neighbors!!!

I've visited several American cities and my impression is that most of them are just oozing in boredom!!! what do we do today? LET'S GO TO THE SHOPPING MALL!!! WOOHOOO!!!

sorry I don't mean to bash the US but American cities are simply horrible and perhaps the cause of why the American society is so dysfunctional and people are often so scared of human interaction to the point of paranoia because people have a closer relationship with their cars, than with other human beings!

What an absolutely stupid post. Way to generalize the American people as dysfunctional and American cities as bland, dead, and filled with criminals/bums.

Yes, obviously American cities don't match most cities in Europe or Asia in terms of urbanity. The cities of the U.S. are newer and the country boomed at the same time as the car culture did. People in this country value houses with lawns in quiet, affordable neighorhoods. The idea of having to plan a lifestyle around the schedules of mass transit is a foreign concept to most Americans. This has nothing to do with being dysfunctional, rather the comfort, options, time tables, speed, and uses of a car that mass transit can never match.

That being said, you can have cars and still be a vibrant, urban city. Ever been to San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, Portland, etc? I can vouch for Milwaukee too--a city that you probally have never been too that offers dense, walkable neighorhoods and vibrancy. And we are the most segregated city in the U.S! Pedestrian activity is not the sole indicator of vibrancy.

What an absolutely stupid post. Way to generalize the American people as dysfunctional and American cities as bland, dead, and filled with criminals/bums.
I agree

Yes, obviously American cities don't match most cities in Europe or Asia in terms of urbanity. The cities of the U.S. are newer and the country boomed at the same time as the car culture did. That is partially true for the US but what about Asia? While Asian cities also have often long heritage far beyond the car age its now in this modern age that they are really growing intensively and while many of them are traffic hells dominated by car they are also very dense and seem to catch up very fast with public mass transportation.

Regarding European cities and American cities. Its not quite correct regarding the east coast and even Chicago. Their major development was happening in similar time frames as many European cities and while they differ from the more modern American cities they also differ from the European ones.


People in this country value houses with lawns in quiet, affordable neighorhoods. The idea of having to plan a lifestyle around the schedules of mass transit is a foreign concept to most Americans. This has nothing to do with being dysfunctional, rather the comfort, options, time tables, speed, and uses of a car that mass transit can never match.

I live in Vienna. I don't plan my life around time tables. Not within the city at least. The next, bus, tram or subway is coming within minutes anyway. It has nothing to do with comfort, if the PT system is good. It is merely a different philosophy. At rush hour within city limits, the car has a hard time being faster than PT btw.

That being said, you can have cars and still be a vibrant, urban city. Ever been to San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, Portland, etc? I can vouch for Milwaukee too--a city that you probally have never been too that offers dense, walkable neighorhoods and vibrancy. And we are the most segregated city in the U.S! Pedestrian activity is not the sole indicator of vibrancy.

Only if the central parts have the pedestrian accessebality, vertical mixture of use and public transport at a sufficient level. Nonetheless most inhabitants of larger NYC don't live near the urban heart but what resembles more typical east coast suburbia. I think pedestrian activity is not the only but a very important indicator of urban vibrancy. Otherwise it feels if there is any vibrancy more suburban kind of. With lots of parking lots around.

Of the three I have only been to Glasgow and while there are certainly rough parts I don't know if they are 'increasingly' so, those areas have had bad reputations for decades.

It's also interesting to note that the areas with really bad reputations are generally the post-war housing schemes (think Easterhouse, Drumchapel, Pollock and other usually peripheral areas) built often at a lower density and with a lower range of dwellings than the 'traditional city fabric' which the planners comprehensively destroyed where they could. Where these tenement areas were refurbished they became very popular, and are now some of the safest and most mixed areas of the city, inhabited by a range of incomes and backgrounds.

I certainly can't deny that gang violence and crime have been issues for this city that go on to this day, but the crime rate is dropping and gang membership has started to drop too. These improvements, however, are being made through education and participation in society, not constant dispersal and segregation of the population.

In the mid-20th century Glasgow 'fell off a cliff' as Subby put it due to rapid economic decline caused by over-reliance on heavy industry which was collapsing. The gangs and crime were a symptom of that.

That is partially true for the US but what about Asia? While Asian cities also have often long heritage far beyond the car age its now in this modern age that they are really growing intensively and while many of them are traffic hells dominated by car they are also very dense and seem to catch up very fast with public mass transportation.

I think it's just a population, timing, and land space thing. The boom of nations like China are coinciding with enviromentalism, peak oil fears, and rapid population growth in the cities there. Not to mention that some of these nations simply could not afford American lifestyles if they wanted to. This of course evidenced by the massive, numerous, and characterless apartment blocks that are everywhere in that part of the world. A suburban, car oriented lifestyle is still cheap in the U.S. and in some cases is more inexpensive than living in a major city.


Regarding European cities and American cities. Its not quite correct regarding the east coast and even Chicago. Their major development was happening in similar time frames as many European cities and while they differ from the more modern American cities they also differ from the European ones.

Well that's true and you can see there major differences between new and old cities in the U.S. Cities like Chicago, New York, Boston, and Philadelphia are very dense, urban places. Same goes with cities that are now in the Rust Belt.

The difference to me between the U.S./Europe though seems to have been the population boom that occured here after WWII combined with the inexpensive, glamorous suburban/car lifestyle. Expressways allowed people to live further away in nicer neighborhoods and they continued to expand to what we have today. I don't know if Europe ever experienced the same thing or had it's governments/business push a car lifestyle like ours did in the 1950's. Not to mention the whole difference in space with the U.S./Canada/Australia vs. Europe.


I live in Vienna. I don't plan my life around time tables. Not within the city at least. The next, bus, tram or subway is coming within minutes anyway. It has nothing to do with comfort, if the PT system is good. It is merely a different philosophy. At rush hour within city limits, the car has a hard time being faster than PT btw.

It depends on how short your commute is. I think people would have to drastically change their lifestyles and plan around time tables. A short, point A to point B commute is one thing, making a long journey with numerous transfers is something else. Then again, you live in a extremely dense city like Vienna that has existing mass transit infastructure. To match that in most American cities, it would require untold billions of investment. With how the cities here are laid out, I don't think it's possible.

And I know that some mass transit systems offer comfortable buses/trains, but it really can never match a car. With cars, you can control the heat/AC, carry large loads from stores, listen to music, have private conversations with passengers, not have to fight over finding somewhere to sit, don't have to listen or see the various riff raff that populated mass transit systems, and can drive whenever or wherever you please. Many train systems in cities shut down early forcing people to take less frequent buses. I noticed that in London. It's a major step back and change for people who lived their entire lives behind the wheel. But then again, that's me speaking as a spoiled American. I suppose it all comes down to a difference in culture and lifestyle.


Only if the central parts have the pedestrian accessebality, vertical mixture of use and public transport at a sufficient level. Nonetheless most inhabitants of larger NYC don't live near the urban heart but what resembles more typical east coast suburbia. I think pedestrian activity is not the only but a very important indicator of urban vibrancy. Otherwise it feels if there is any vibrancy more suburban kind of. With lots of parking lots around.

Yeah, most people live out in lower density suburbs but I honestly don't notice too much of a difference in vibrancy. Maybe not the high profile locations and entertainment districts but every major city has these quiet residental areas and plenty of dead industrial/business areas after certain hours.

I am not a fan of parking lots myself, but I think a place can be vibrant so long as there are people around. I don't have to see the people walking around. Crowded stores, shopping malls, lots of car traffic, restaurants, movie theaters, etc. These things might not be as great as a crowded street filled with pedestrians---but they still are a sign of vibrancy in my opinion.

I think it's just a population, timing, and land space thing. The boom of nations like China are coinciding with enviromentalism, peak oil fears, and rapid population growth in the cities there. Not to mention that some of these nations simply could not afford American lifestyles if they wanted to. This of course evidenced by the massive, numerous, and characterless apartment blocks that are everywhere in that part of the world. A suburban, car oriented lifestyle is still cheap in the U.S. and in some cases is more inexpensive than living in a major city.

Thats a funny claim especially as most American cities, say they can't afford a subway network, and I am not even starting to talk about a Shanghai scale network. Environmentalism can't be felt very strongly in China yet, so I am not sure where you got that from. It is true that China is discovering environmentalism as a big issue, but this is not due to some current fashions but a simply a logical next step which also the western countries faced during heavy industrialization.

Architecture is indeed numerous, and characterless. I guess thats a consequence of large developer's architecture. It reminds me to be the big appartment brother of American suburbia.


Well that's true and you can see there major differences between new and old cities in the U.S. Cities like Chicago, New York, Boston, and Philadelphia are very dense, urban places. Same goes with cities that are now in the Rust Belt.

The difference to me between the U.S./Europe though seems to have been the population boom that occured here after WWII combined with the inexpensive, glamorous suburban/car lifestyle. Expressways allowed people to live further away in nicer neighborhoods and they continued to expand to what we have today. I don't know if Europe ever experienced the same thing or had it's governments/business push a car lifestyle like ours did in the 1950's. Not to mention the whole difference in space with the U.S./Canada/Australia vs. Europe.

Oh, Europe had its car enthusiastic days as well. Luckily they went by and nowadays its not as car fanatic but more reasonable and balanced. That does not mean that everything is well planned however.

This living further away, far from pretty much everything is the basic problem the US faces today. It will take decades to significantly change that again but I have little doubt that it will change back again to a more condensed mixed typology of urbanism. This will be a gradual process. The US won't be able to afford that excessive car culture forever. And as PT infrastructure is gradually rebuilt again, old and new corridors will strengthen again, public life will move back to PT hubs again, not all at once but gradually. And in a few decades time American cities could feel a lot different from nowadays. Suburbs will be still suburbs but at the same time their nature might have changed more towards eg European suburbs (without the historic architecture though). And regarding the good ol space argument. If you own a tiny real estate You have your bathroom pretty close to your sleeping room, if you have a huge real estate it might be somewhat further away but not a mile, just because you could put it that far away. Would it? Just because you can spread everything, does not mean that it makes sense.

It depends on how short your commute is. I think people would have to drastically change their lifestyles and plan around time tables. A short, point A to point B commute is one thing, making a long journey with numerous transfers is something else.

Within the city the length is not that decisive. It matters more how good your connection is. But you need a PT oriented way of thinking for that indeed. Maybe that concept is hard to grasp for people used to the car only. Transfers can cost time, but usually don't make any time tables necessary either, at least in Vienna. So the point is, you don't have to plan anything around time tables. Even during the deepest night you have at least every half an hour a night bus here.


And I know that some mass transit systems offer comfortable buses/trains, but it really can never match a car. With cars, you can control the heat/AC,
Depends. Heating is never a problem in my experience. If it needs cooling it depends, modern subways and trams also have AC and you don't have to sweat at all.

carry large loads from stores
Thats a matter of life style. You can organize your life without a lot of hassles so that you don't need a car for your supermarket trips. If you buy bulky stuff, like furniture etc you can let it deliver to you. For things like bottled water and stuff, you can buy some hand trolleys specialized for carrying your shopping goods. And in case you really need a car, you can still rent or borrow one.


listen to music,
They evented a cool thing lately: ear phones. Incredible stuff.
have private conversations with passengers
People nowadays talk their most private stuff in public via mobile phone so I wonder who is still bothering about that but then I was not aware that cars where the favourite place for really important private talk. Makes me a bit worrying about traffic safety in fact.

, not have to fight over finding somewhere to sit,
You don't have to sit, unless you are so old, sick, pregnant, etc in which case you have the right to sit and will have no problem to find a place even in a full carriage. Sure maybe some lazy ass people consider that a lack of comfort, but I consider that some healthy necessity of not sitting the whole day. Maybe Americans would do well if they did set less than they are doing now.
and can drive whenever or wherever you please. Many train systems in cities shut down early forcing people to take less frequent buses. I noticed that in London. It's a major step back and change for people who lived their entire lives behind the wheel. But then again, that's me speaking as a spoiled American. I suppose it all comes down to a difference in culture and lifestyle.
Usually I only need night lines when I am going out. When I am going out I often use to drink something. I am not sure how Americans handle it, but driving alcoholized is a major offense here and you can ruin your whole life with it if you cause an accident. Getting home by PT from going out is less of a hassle than doing so by car that you are not allowed to drive.

Yeah, most people live out in lower density suburbs but I honestly don't notice too much of a difference in vibrancy. Maybe not the high profile locations and entertainment districts but every major city has these quiet residental areas and plenty of dead industrial/business areas after certain hours.
A filled strip mall is not my definition of vibrancy but is pretty much all you could hope for in many suburbs. It lacks the attractive public space, the attractive space for pedestrians.

I am not a fan of parking lots myself, but I think a place can be vibrant so long as there are people around. I don't have to see the people walking around. Crowded stores, shopping malls, lots of car traffic, restaurants, movie theaters, etc. These things might not be as great as a crowded street filled with pedestrians---but they still are a sign of vibrancy in my opinion.

Pedestrians are fully capable of social interactions with each other. Car drivers are not. In a pedestrian, public transport, bicycle oriented city people have the chance of far more social interaction, also not planned one.

Thats a funny claim especially as most American cities, say they can't afford a subway network, and I am not even starting to talk about a Shanghai scale network. Environmentalism can't be felt very strongly in China yet, so I am not sure where you got that from. It is true that China is discovering environmentalism as a big issue, but this is not due to some current fashions but a simply a logical next step which also the western countries faced during heavy industrialization.

I think most cities could afford to build these systems, but there is too much opposition. People here freak out about any sort of tax being raised, even if it's a minor one. Doesn't help that most people have a bias against mass transit here because most people don't use it.

As for the enviromentalism thing, I think the Chinese government has seen that it needs to clean up for it's future. There is a big difference between the type of pollution they have and what it's like in the U.S., despite all the car usage. Just look at that whole debacle about the pollution and the 08' Beijing Olympics! :lol:



Oh, Europe had its car enthusiastic days as well. Luckily they went by and nowadays its not as car fanatic but more reasonable and balanced. That does not mean that everything is well planned however.

I have read that Europe has experienced it's share of urban sprawl and increasing car usage. There seems to be better balance there though. I could be wrong about this but the relationship between European cities and their surrounding areas is more harmonious. The divisiveness between those in the city and those in the suburbs can be pretty extreme here. Politically and culturally.

This living further away, far from pretty much everything is the basic problem the US faces today. It will take decades to significantly change that again but I have little doubt that it will change back again to a more condensed mixed typology of urbanism. This will be a gradual process. The US won't be able to afford that excessive car culture forever. And as PT infrastructure is gradually rebuilt again, old and new corridors will strengthen again, public life will move back to PT hubs again, not all at once but gradually. And in a few decades time American cities could feel a lot different from nowadays. Suburbs will be still suburbs but at the same time their nature might have changed more towards eg European suburbs (without the historic architecture though). And regarding the good ol space argument. If you own a tiny real estate You have your bathroom pretty close to your sleeping room, if you have a huge real estate it might be somewhat further away but not a mile, just because you could put it that far away. Would it? Just because you can spread everything, does not mean that it makes sense.

I agree. I think that it will be a difficult transition but it will happen over time. The younger generations seem to be rediscovering the urban cores that their parents fled. I think this will be a more in vouge lifestyle, just as the autocentric suburb was post-WWII.

The biggest issue facing this is the cities themselves. American cities need to clean themselves up and change for the better. I think people would be more receptive to moving back into them if they didn't fear the existing residents. This is where race comes into play in many cities. And frankly, I don't blame those in the suburbs in many instances. What is acceptable in the urban core of American cities is horrifying to those in the suburbs. People will not move back if they fear putting their kid in an urban public school or constantly worry about crime.

There is nice housing stock in most American cities too, which is a future incentive towards moving back. Here is an example of the kind of housing you can find all over Milwaukee.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/123/386022026_a50e1bd725.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/repowers/386022026/)
Milwaukee houses (http://www.flickr.com/photos/repowers/386022026/) by repowers (http://www.flickr.com/people/repowers/), on Flickr

Within the city the length is not that decisive. It matters more how good your connection is. But you need a PT oriented way of thinking for that indeed. Maybe that concept is hard to grasp for people used to the car only. Transfers can cost time, but usually don't make any time tables necessary either, at least in Vienna. So the point is, you don't have to plan anything around time tables. Even during the deepest night you have at least every half an hour a night bus here.

It depends on how widespread the system is too. That's the problem with trying to get people to buy into this lifestyle. Everything is so spread out in the U.S. Because of this, using mass transit is a pain. Not to mention time consuming. Even in places with good transit though, you have to abide stopping at every train station/bus stop--which is a headache.


Depends. Heating is never a problem in my experience. If it needs cooling it depends, modern subways and trams also have AC and you don't have to sweat at all.

Well, maybe not on the train/bus but it is everywhere else. I could never imagine waiting for a bus in the frigid winters we have here. The car is much more comfortable for that reason. Instant AC for hot days and pretty quick heat for cold days.

Thats a matter of life style. You can organize your life without a lot of hassles so that you don't need a car for your supermarket trips. If you buy bulky stuff, like furniture etc you can let it deliver to you. For things like bottled water and stuff, you can buy some hand trolleys specialized for carrying your shopping goods. And in case you really need a car, you can still rent or borrow one.

Thats the big lifestyle difference. People like their trunk space and hauling as much as possible. Whether thats purchased goods or their children. I just bought a flatscreen the other day. Threw it right in the backseat and still had room for my golf clubs. Doing that would be much more difficult with no car. It allows for multi-tasking without any extra planning.

They evented a cool thing lately: ear phones. Incredible stuff.

It's not the same. It's nice just listening to the music/talk radio on the car speakers without the ambient sound. Not to mention that constant earphone use is bad for your hearing. :lol:


People nowadays talk their most private stuff in public via mobile phone so I wonder who is still bothering about that but then I was not aware that cars where the favourite place for really important private talk. Makes me a bit worrying about traffic safety in fact.

Oh man, we have the best conversations in cars! It's hard and awkward having conversations on a public bus or a train. Especially if you are talking about something controversial or private. It's quieter and people are more prone to say things they woundn't when they are around strangers.


You don't have to sit, unless you are so old, sick, pregnant, etc in which case you have the right to sit and will have no problem to find a place even in a full carriage. Sure maybe some lazy ass people consider that a lack of comfort, but I consider that some healthy necessity of not sitting the whole day. Maybe Americans would do well if they did set less than they are doing now.

I would just hate standing for long periods of time with the abrupt way a train or bus stops. Especially before and after a long day of work. I stand for the entire time at my job. A comfortable car seat is much more inviting than a hard bus/train seat. I hate all the standing all the time just being in Vegas for a weekend!

Usually I only need night lines when I am going out. When I am going out I often use to drink something. I am not sure how Americans handle it, but driving alcoholized is a major offense here and you can ruin your whole life with it if you cause an accident. Getting home by PT from going out is less of a hassle than doing so by car that you are not allowed to drive.

Yeah, thats probally the biggest reason why I would use mass transit. I love to drink, but don't want to get busted for a DUI. I have to limit my beer/alcohol intake, which sucks. More PT would probally lower the DUI/car accident rate here in the U.S. and especially in Wisconsin. People want to drink but they don't have good options for doing so safely.

A filled strip mall is not my definition of vibrancy but is pretty much all you could hope for in many suburbs. It lacks the attractive public space, the attractive space for pedestrians.

It's not ideal, but it's still vibrant if there are people working there and visiting.

Pedestrians are fully capable of social interactions with each other. Car drivers are not. In a pedestrian, public transport, bicycle oriented city people have the chance of far more social interaction, also not planned one.

That may be true, but do you really think people are more apt to talk to each other if they are using PT? Everytime I have used a bus or train, everybody is minding their own business, listening to Ipods, and trying not to make eye contact with that one goof, gangbanger, or bum riding along. :lol:

Oh, and you can for sure have social interactions in a car! Sure, they may only be dudes trying to get with chicks or angry people shouting obscenities---but they are still interactions. :lol:

I have read that Europe has experienced it's share of urban sprawl and increasing car usage. There seems to be better balance there though. I could be wrong about this but the relationship between European cities and their surrounding areas is more harmonious. The divisiveness between those in the city and those in the suburbs can be pretty extreme here. Politically and culturally.

Maybe, the suburbs have somewhat decent regional bus connections here, some even rail. The change is also a gradual one.

Well, maybe not on the train/bus but it is everywhere else. I could never imagine waiting for a bus in the frigid winters we have here. The car is much more comfortable for that reason. Instant AC for hot days and pretty quick heat for cold days.
Thats not quite true. Using the car in winter is a pain in the ass. Its damn cold inside at first, the freezing, cleaning and whatever is a real hassle, than you have the humidity which might reduce your sight through the windows... When you compare that to using the PT system I can't see an overall inferiority of the latter. Not to forget that PT has a slightly better record during difficult winter conditions even if it isn't perfect either.


Thats the big lifestyle difference. People like their trunk space and hauling as much as possible. Whether thats purchased goods or their children. I just bought a flatscreen the other day. Threw it right in the backseat and still had room for my golf clubs. Doing that would be much more difficult with no car. It allows for multi-tasking without any extra planning.

If you can carry it, carry it. If not let it be delivered. Maybe you order it at amazon or so, than its not even more expensive. Thats not really more difficult at all.

And while car centric suburbs might doom the parents to make 101 rides fr their children in a city like Vienna, they can get where they have to go to on their own. Even if Americans might freak out at that very idea.

I think you seriously overestimate the planning extend needed for using PT. I pretty much don't plan anything at all regarding mobility, I just use it as I need it spontaneously.

It's not the same. It's nice just listening to the music/talk radio on the car speakers without the ambient sound. Not to mention that constant earphone use is bad for your hearing. :lol:

Yep, its not the same. Good ear phones are better than bad car radios. But anyway, I am not a good person to debate this with. I don't even own an ipod or anything equivalent. Listening to music at home and when going out is perfectly enough for me. I also think loud musc is dangerous in traffic, no matter if you are a pedestrian or sitting in a car. Only if you are sitting in a bus or train its no danger but then you might disturb others if its too loud.

Oh man, we have the best conversations in cars! It's hard and awkward having conversations on a public bus or a train. Especially if you are talking about something controversial or private. It's quieter and people are more prone to say things they woundn't when they are around strangers.
Thats a cultural thing I guess. Europeans talk a lot of private things in semi public or public. Not necessarily in PT but in cafés for example.

I would just hate standing for long periods of time with the abrupt way a train or bus stops. Especially before and after a long day of work. I stand for the entire time at my job. A comfortable car seat is much more inviting than a hard bus/train seat. I hate all the standing all the time just being in Vegas for a weekend!
Sounds very American to me ;)
In Vienna at least you don't use to need to stand for a long time usually however in most situations. Seats aren't that rare, at least as soon as you leave the very centre. But I actually often stand voluntarily even if I would not have to. No, really.
quote]
Yeah, thats probally the biggest reason why I would use mass transit. I love to drink, but don't want to get busted for a DUI. I have to limit my beer/alcohol intake, which sucks. More PT would probally lower the DUI/car accident rate here in the U.S. and especially in Wisconsin. People want to drink but they don't have good options for doing so safely. [/quote]
This is a real issue here on the country side as well. Many rural areas introduced disco buses actually to offer an alternative to the youth.

It's not ideal, but it's still vibrant if there are people working there and visiting.
Maybe it works, but I would not like it. Call it a cultural thing.

That may be true, but do you really think people are more apt to talk to each other if they are using PT? Everytime I have used a bus or train, everybody is minding their own business, listening to Ipods, and trying not to make eye contact with that one goof, gangbanger, or bum riding along. :lol:
Just an example. When you are leaving your work with some colleagues on your way home. Everyone lives somewhere else. If everyone is there by car, thats it but if you use PT chances are high you share some lines at least for some time, have to wait together etc. This is a common chance for some chats.

Oh, and you can for sure have social interactions in a car! Sure, they may only be dudes trying to get with chicks or angry people shouting obscenities---but they are still interactions. :lol:
Thats as valuable for social interaction as a McDonalds meal is valuable for a healthy nutrition.

On public transport I usually talk to people I know already and tourists, rarely other commuters, though it does happen sometimes.

Many American professionals related to the architecture/planning field overstate and overestimate the differences between the average housing and transportation patterns in both sides of the Atlantic. This is especially visible in students or recent graduates who spend 3/4 weeks in a downtown-only city hopping and then extrapolate their conclusions for the whole continent or entire countries.

It would be like someone for Europe spending a week in NYC and other in SFO and making a picture of how American cities work based on that (or going for a 15 days vacations shared between Orlando theme parks and Las Vegas and drawing lasting conclusions about the cultural life of US).

Car usage for commuting, in Europe, is not much lower than that of US, if you consider countries, not only a very limited area on 2 or 3 major cities per country.

Sometimes I think certain urban planners suffer from loneliness in their social lives. I'm kidding, but it amazes me how they think people need to adopt certain urban patterns to "socialize", and how socialization is only "genuine" if it involves casual meetings on the condo entrance hall or the local corner playground. I also think they need a reality check when they assume Europeans would be highly engaged with their local communities and neighborhoods. They aren't, for most of it. The average suburban development in US will have far higher community activity like local boards, parental involvement with the local public school etc. than the average European neighborhood, for a variety of reasons.

And the whole notion that a geographically narrowly defined "community" is, or should be, the most important societal bond of a household and its inhabitants its outdated, useless as of 2011 and sometimes dangerous IMO.

What makes you say that urban planners know the city, or the metropolitan area based on the downtown? Besides, why are you against socialization of neighbors? You seem to forget that urban planning has changed for the better, and we are not stuck in the 1950's/60's auto centric mentality.

Many American professionals related to the architecture/planning field overstate and overestimate the differences between the average housing and transportation patterns in both sides of the Atlantic. This is especially visible in students or recent graduates who spend 3/4 weeks in a downtown-only city hopping and then extrapolate their conclusions for the whole continent or entire countries.

It would be like someone for Europe spending a week in NYC and other in SFO and making a picture of how American cities work based on that (or going for a 15 days vacations shared between Orlando theme parks and Las Vegas and drawing lasting conclusions about the cultural life of US).

Car usage for commuting, in Europe, is not much lower than that of US, if you consider countries, not only a very limited area on 2 or 3 major cities per country.

Sometimes I think certain urban planners suffer from loneliness in their social lives. I'm kidding, but it amazes me how they think people need to adopt certain urban patterns to "socialize", and how socialization is only "genuine" if it involves casual meetings on the condo entrance hall or the local corner playground. I also think they need a reality check when they assume Europeans would be highly engaged with their local communities and neighborhoods. They aren't, for most of it. The average suburban development in US will have far higher community activity like local boards, parental involvement with the local public school etc. than the average European neighborhood, for a variety of reasons.

And the whole notion that a geographically narrowly defined "community" is, or should be, the most important societal bond of a household and its inhabitants its outdated, useless as of 2011 and sometimes dangerous IMO.

Sorry for expecting SOMETHING other than what appears to be your opinion but what source of information are you privy to which imparts you with such wisdom as to know what the "average" American neighborhood "socialization" and "community engagement" is VS. the "average" European neighborhood?

I am going to go ahead and call BS on this topic as I can safely assume you have NO authority or superior knowledge to know what you claim in this poor post.

I am not going to attempt to refute you with anything more than drawing attention to the fact that no individual can surmise such a conclusion without extensive research and data mining which I am sure you did none of before proclaiming your flimsy ideology of "suburbanism" :puke:

Many American professionals related to the architecture/planning field overstate and overestimate the differences between the average housing and transportation patterns in both sides of the Atlantic. This is especially visible in students or recent graduates who spend 3/4 weeks in a downtown-only city hopping and then extrapolate their conclusions for the whole continent or entire countries.

It would be like someone for Europe spending a week in NYC and other in SFO and making a picture of how American cities work based on that (or going for a 15 days vacations shared between Orlando theme parks and Las Vegas and drawing lasting conclusions about the cultural life of US).

Car usage for commuting, in Europe, is not much lower than that of US, if you consider countries, not only a very limited area on 2 or 3 major cities per country.

Vienna proper has a mode split of about 34% PT and 32% motorized individual transport if remember properly, the rest being walking and cycling more or less. Vienna proper includes about 1.7 mio people and is a bit more than just downtown, actually its every fifth Austrian.

Compare that to lets say LA and there is no way you could overestimate the difference. The statistics are very clear about it, compare both urban areas and the difference is impossible not to see.

Of course, things look differently in rural areas but then, PT is best suited for intra and inter urban mobility, where it is a really powerful alternative. In Europe mostly a real one, in the US more often than not a Utopian one.

PS: You can grow up in rural areas depending mostly on PT. Even if you might not believe it.

What makes you say that urban planners know the city based on the downtown? Besides, why are you against socialization of neighbors? You seem to forget that urban planning has changed for the better, and we are not stuck in the 1950's/60's auto centric mentality.

But thats what bothers him in first place. He thinks every step away from "1950's/60's auto centric mentality" is a terrible thing.

I forget to say that despite the higher community "involvement" in American suburbia, most people from my experience don't really care. I don't really see the point since most suburban neighborhoods are the same crap you see nationwide.

But thats what bothers him in first place. He thinks every step away from "1950's/60's auto centric mentality" is a terrible thing.

The 1950s and 1960s laid the foundation for progress in terms of mobility as much as the 1890s and 1900s laid the foundation for progress in terms of high-rise construction and electricity.

Fortunately - for me - the appeal of "new urbanism" extreme positions is somehow contained to technical circles and a minority of population. I do my job informing people of its totalitarian, communist-inspired and anti-individualistic propositions.

More totalitarian than urban planners of 50's and 60's pushing auto centric developments, forcing everybody to drive for everything?

The 1950s and 1960s laid the foundation for progress in terms of mobility as much as the 1890s and 1900s laid the foundation for progress in terms of high-rise construction and electricity.

I am not a rabid car hater as much as you are disgusted by the concept of PT. Of course it was progress when barely any car infrastructure was improved. But at the same time a lot of areas were completely destroyed. Not only in urban areas, also village centres were massacred. The 50's and 60's overshoot in their utopian views of entirely car dominated societies where little though was wasted for the general quality of life if it collided with the needs of the car.

Many of the biggest sins are nowadays corrected again and it helped a lot in making city centres much more of a place which people can enjoy and use.

Fortunately - for me - the appeal of "new urbanism" extreme positions is somehow contained to technical circles and a minority of population. I do my job informing people of its totalitarian, communist-inspired and anti-individualistic propositions.

Are you a Tea party member? You sound like one. Of course, propagating a no choice and entirely car dominated society for everyone is not totalitarian at all. I am always impressed by those funny communist analogies. The Communists were as car mad as the western capitalists. It was only that they could not afford to abandon PT as easily and sometimes also so it as useful addition to the car. That does not mean they were any less of car fanatics as the west though.

Suburbanist is the most "commie" guy here. He'd love a totalitarian world.

Actually most walkable communities in the US fared better than the more car orientated ones from the real estate crash.

So the market is actually in favor of New Urbanist developments. :smug:

More totalitarian than urban planners of 50's and 60's pushing auto centric developments, forcing everybody to drive for everything?

Nobody is "forced to drive". But those who don't want to drive would be marginalized or taken as exotic as those who, nowadays, don't want to live in a house with electricity or those not willing to have an e-mail and cellphone while on a job hunting ("nah, you can just send me a letter in case you want to hire me"). Driving should be an integral, indissociable part of modern living, whose withdraw entails additional hurdles you can take, but don't blame anyone else for them. It realizes the individualism in transport decisions, fostering far greater choice of jobs, entertainment and housing. It also allows people to decide what it best in terms of mobility vis-a-vis what they can afford - an old car without a/c to a brand new Mercedes. On PT, particularly urban PT, you don't even have a seat guaranteed and even if you could pay more, you couldn't get marginally more comfort. It is either the same subway for the beggar and the university professor and the CEO or no PT. PT is restrictive of choices.

But we discussed this in other thread.

Nobody is "forced to drive".

In those car centric developments you are "forced to drive" and you make it pretty clear that you'd like to see a world where one would not find anything else than that. That is pretty tolitarian because those who want to can take the car also in pedestrian or PT friendly neighbourhoods. Why don't you just stay in your suburbian heaven and let the others live like they want even if that means a car free urban life. To claim just because someone does not own a car he is somehow retarded is beyond hilarious.

Nobody is "forced to drive". But those who don't want to drive would be marginalized or taken as exotic as those who, nowadays, don't want to live in a house with electricity or those not willing to have an e-mail and cellphone while on a job hunting ("nah, you can just send me a letter in case you want to hire me"). Driving should be an integral, indissociable part of modern living, whose withdraw entails additional hurdles you can take, but don't blame anyone else for them. It realizes the individualism in transport decisions, fostering far greater choice of jobs, entertainment and housing. It also allows people to decide what it best in terms of mobility vis-a-vis what they can afford - an old car without a/c to a brand new Mercedes. On PT, particularly urban PT, you don't even have a seat guaranteed and even if you could pay more, you couldn't get marginally more comfort. It is either the same subway for the beggar and the university professor and the CEO or no PT. PT is restrictive of choices.

But we discussed this in other thread.

:rofl: You're seriously comparing people who don't want to drive with not wanting electricity and any form of modernity? You are beyond ridiculous. Please tell me how a suburban development where all the houses look the same and everyone has to drive, even to get a carton of milk, is less totalitarian or "communist" (you love using that word even though it's beyond cliche) than an environment where car, PT, and bicycle options are equally accessible, as well as a variety of housing types?
Your worldview is so hilariously archaic and black and white. It's as if you don't want to live in a 'perfect' car-centric suburban environment, than the only other option in the world is a crumbling Eastern-European style apartment block.
And it's funny that you of all people would accuse urban planners of having loneliness and social problems, when you're the one who's afraid of getting out of your car and thinks that vibrant street-life is akin to "third world" living conditions:lol:

I've read quite a lot of Suburbanist's comments but I think that the most interesting one was on a crime thread on the New York forum where he revealed that he and his family had been the victim of four violent attacks. I believe that he is still living out the trauma although he tries to hide this with his faux intellectual approach.

I fully understand why, in the circumstances, he would be drawn to the safety and security of the suburban lifestyle with its leafy streets, business parks, shopping malls and travel everywhere by car - a sanitised lifestyle where you don't have to rub shoulders with disadvantage people - often referred to as 'white flight'. The problem is though that in removing the danger of 'downtown' you are also removing the social and cultural benefits of these areas.

The sort of society that Suburbanist advocates seems very close to that of the fictional Stepford or Truman's hometown in the Truman Show - worlds that are superficially free but impose a rigid lifestyle on the people who live in them. Sure you can choose which shopping mall you want to visit but, as they will all be identical, what is the point?

Making downtown areas into healthy, vibrant areas that we know they can be is not easy but it is worth doing - compare the suburban shopping malls and business parks to the streets of Manhattan, Chicago or San Francisco. Just no contest.

^^ Again, I have no problem with the existence of different areas in a given metro area large enough to accommodate different housing typologies.

My issue is that, today, those vowing to develop downtown all the time talk about "curbing" sprawl, "restricting" new office parks on the outskirts, "limiting" strip malls on the edge of urbanized areas, "imposing" affordable housing requirements in new subdivisions, "fixing" an urban growth boundary and many other negative verbs/actions. Restrict, limit, forbids, impose... all things that constrain the free activity of developers and their clients, the home buyers.

Interesting enough, and what utterly annoys me, is the fact "downtown advocates" are usually very much concerned with what happens way outside downtown in the edge of the city, in adjacent farmland etc. It is all about limiting every other urban arrangement so that they can preserve artificial, non-free market attractiveness of downtown housing, shopping etc.

Meanwhile, those advocating suburban development do not interfere much with business going on downtown. Maybe there will be some conflict about parking or urban freeways, but that is it: if people make downtown unfriendly to car commutes, suburbanites will shop elsewhere and, in the long term, job centers will move close to them if they are on average richer/more educated to the ones left at the car-unfriendly downtown. But you don't see, nowadays, people on suburban communities advocating "restriction" on height limits downtown, "mandatory minimum areas" for retail operations in central areas and the like.

Is that difference in the way suburbs can prosper ignoring most of the stuff going on downtown whereas downtown needs to impose, limit, restricts what goes on on the outskirts that irritates me and tells me that, left to free market, most (just most, not all, not even almost every one) downtown development schemes will fail to attract buyers, shoppers and the like. And, in my book, if a place cannot draw dwellers, business and shoppers without leashing restrictions of every type on competing models, it should be left to fail. Even it means having more cities going the way of Detroit (the city, not the metro area).

As for the mention of Manhattan, what is the point of living in a place where the average cost of housing, be it for rent or buy, per sq. ft. costs, on average, 430% more than the US average, even considering Manhattan has dangerous areas north of CEntral Park and at its northern tip (Inwood, Hamilton HEights etc.), unless you earn a truck load of money? You cannot have any decent space (I'm talking of 1000 sq. ft. apartment, 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom for a family of 4, not a big detached house) in the above-poverty areas of Manhattan with an average Manhattan salary.

With such high costs, there is no reason to keep housing projects in Manthattan. NYC should sell all social housing in Manhattan and enter agreements to build new complexes in Jersey City for their dwellers.

In any case: if some folks living in San Mateo couldn't care less about who San Francisco manages its policies to attract offices and so, why should San Francisco try to limit growth in nearby areas to "preserve" the attractiveness of the real estate market within its limits? Double standards for me...

So you're amoral. All creation is yours to sprawl over. Overuse every resource. Screw everything. Holy moly.

^^ Again, I have no problem with the existence of different areas in a given metro area large enough to accommodate different housing typologies.
That contradicts with earlier statements of yours where you expressed your wish that over the long every non suburban style neighborhood should be torn down and replaced with something "modern", ie car centric neighborhoods as well. As everything else is equivalent to opposing electricity.

Interesting enough, and what utterly annoys me, is the fact "downtown advocates" are usually very much concerned with what happens way outside downtown in the edge of the city, in adjacent farmland etc.
Funny to hear you saying that because you seem to be concerned the other way round.

Meanwhile, those advocating suburban development do not interfere much with business going on downtown.
So you want effective segregation of downtown and suburbs from each other instead of good integration of both with various mobility choices (As for the latter you'd have to be concerned about both) . I guess it is to keep those nasty downtowners out of you suburbs and the suburbians out of down, is it? Nothing new there.

Maybe there will be some conflict about parking or urban freeways, but that is it: if people make downtown unfriendly to car commutes, suburbanites will shop elsewhere and, in the long term, job centers will move close to them if they are on average richer/more educated to the ones left at the car-unfriendly downtown.
I think that describes some of your fears pretty well. You fear that the wealthy and also middle class are increasingly rediscovering the centre, choosing increasingly a more urban lifestyle again. Or as you would put it "car-unfriendly downtown".

Is that difference in the way suburbs can prosper ignoring most of the stuff going on downtown whereas downtown needs to impose, limit, restricts what goes on on the outskirts that irritates me and tells me that, left to free market, most (just most, not all, not even almost every one) downtown development schemes will fail to attract buyers, shoppers and the like. And, in my book, if a place cannot draw dwellers, business and shoppers without leashing restrictions of every type on competing models, it should be left to fail. Even it means having more cities going the way of Detroit (the city, not the metro area).
Ridiculous claim. Central living space is in high demand in Vienna, because its central. There is actually an overdemand for such locations and its not because suburbs would be disadvantaged by evil politics. Hence there are some major urban development projects going on here and those which are not urban rely to a big part on PT access for their attractiveness because contrary to your caims it seems people also in the periphery want to have alternative options to the car.
(I'm talking of 1000 sq. ft. apartment, 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom for a family of 4, not a big detached house)
Three bathrooms for a family of 4 might be a requirement for you but I don't know a lot of other people who would rely on such excessive demands. I guess it is also rarely found in suburban style homes here.

^^ Again, I have no problem with the existence of different areas in a given metro area large enough to accommodate different housing typologies.

My issue is that, today, those vowing to develop downtown all the time talk about "curbing" sprawl, "restricting" new office parks on the outskirts, "limiting" strip malls on the edge of urbanized areas, "imposing" affordable housing requirements in new subdivisions, "fixing" an urban growth boundary and many other negative verbs/actions. Restrict, limit, forbids, impose... all things that constrain the free activity of developers and their clients, the home buyers.

Interesting enough, and what utterly annoys me, is the fact "downtown advocates" are usually very much concerned with what happens way outside downtown in the edge of the city, in adjacent farmland etc. It is all about limiting every other urban arrangement so that they can preserve artificial, non-free market attractiveness of downtown housing, shopping etc.

Meanwhile, those advocating suburban development do not interfere much with business going on downtown. Maybe there will be some conflict about parking or urban freeways, but that is it: if people make downtown unfriendly to car commutes, suburbanites will shop elsewhere and, in the long term, job centers will move close to them if they are on average richer/more educated to the ones left at the car-unfriendly downtown. But you don't see, nowadays, people on suburban communities advocating "restriction" on height limits downtown, "mandatory minimum areas" for retail operations in central areas and the like.

Is that difference in the way suburbs can prosper ignoring most of the stuff going on downtown whereas downtown needs to impose, limit, restricts what goes on on the outskirts that irritates me and tells me that, left to free market, most (just most, not all, not even almost every one) downtown development schemes will fail to attract buyers, shoppers and the like. And, in my book, if a place cannot draw dwellers, business and shoppers without leashing restrictions of every type on competing models, it should be left to fail. Even it means having more cities going the way of Detroit (the city, not the metro area).

As for the mention of Manhattan, what is the point of living in a place where the average cost of housing, be it for rent or buy, per sq. ft. costs, on average, 430% more than the US average, even considering Manhattan has dangerous areas north of CEntral Park and at its northern tip (Inwood, Hamilton HEights etc.), unless you earn a truck load of money? You cannot have any decent space (I'm talking of 1000 sq. ft. apartment, 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom for a family of 4, not a big detached house) in the above-poverty areas of Manhattan with an average Manhattan salary.

With such high costs, there is no reason to keep housing projects in Manthattan. NYC should sell all social housing in Manhattan and enter agreements to build new complexes in Jersey City for their dwellers.

In any case: if some folks living in San Mateo couldn't care less about who San Francisco manages its policies to attract offices and so, why should San Francisco try to limit growth in nearby areas to "preserve" the attractiveness of the real estate market within its limits? Double standards for me...

Suburbanist,
There is no point in trying to intellectualise your beliefs unless you address the fundamental reason why you hold those beliefs. I've never read any of your posts and felt that there was a scrap of objectivity or honesty in them - except perhaps that on the New York forum that I mentioned yesterday. I wonder how honest you are with yourself? Do you really love shopping malls and seeing mile after mile of countryside disappearing under suburban sprawl or do you just pretend that?

^^ I don't love any specific form of urban arrangements. I like (road) infrastructure and find, as a personal matter of taste, a 3-level stack interchange much more of a cool place than a 200m building.

This being said, I love to see the invisible hand of the market and how apparent chaos of thousands of agents buying, selling, building and demolishing can alter the landscape, change patterns and produce booms and busts of inhabited places without any formal, centralized coordination. So if shopping malls are the product of modern aspirations of Western middle-class, I think of their early developers as geniuses who could produce tectonic shifts to cater for changing social, financial and costumer expectations.

I also like most stuff that is detached of local representations, e.g., not tied to a certain place, be it electronic music, airplanes, most cars, Internet and buildings/stores that would fit in Durban, Anchorage, Paris or Tokyo without being associated with any of them. So shopping malls are a sort of universal, global solution for shopping that can be theoretically build in most countries in the World without becoming typical of any of them :cheers:

Incidentally I like malls because I hate the excessive historical preservation fuss we have in the West, and I'd rather have 80% of what we deem "historic" torn down for good and replaced with anything that is designed and fit for 2011, not 1811 (let alone the countless fake 1950 buildings resembling those destroyed by WW2, the ultimate architectural hypocrisy). But that is another discusson.

^^ I don't love any specific form of urban arrangements. I like (road) infrastructure and find, as a personal matter of taste, a 3-level stack interchange much more of a cool place than a 200m building.

This being said, I love to see the invisible hand of the market and how apparent chaos of thousands of agents buying, selling, building and demolishing can alter the landscape, change patterns and produce booms and busts of inhabited places without any formal, centralized coordination. So if shopping malls are the product of modern aspirations of Western middle-class, I think of their early developers as geniuses who could produce tectonic shifts to cater for changing social, financial and costumer expectations.

Your views are very fascinating indeed. You seem to be not only a car only supporter but also a radical laissez faire supporter. People like this must be a pretty tiny minority in Europe in its good that way.

I also like most stuff that is detached of local representations, e.g., not tied to a certain place, be it electronic music, airplanes, most cars, Internet and buildings/stores that would fit in Durban, Anchorage, Paris or Tokyo without being associated with any of them. So shopping malls are a sort of universal, global solution for shopping that can be theoretically build in most countries in the World without becoming typical of any of them :cheers:

What makes you hate non-generic things? People need icons, places and styles for identification. You seem to be the first one who is almost allergic to it. Weird.


Incidentally I like malls because I hate the excessive historical preservation fuss we have in the West, and I'd rather have 80% of what we deem "historic" torn down for good and replaced with anything that is designed and fit for 2011, not 1811 (let alone the countless fake 1950 buildings resembling those destroyed by WW2, the ultimate architectural hypocrisy). But that is another discusson.

Your views always remember me at those 50s utopias where all people live in car centred sprawl, pedestrians where found at all have to walk in dark tunnels and even in the centres only few spread out ruins of outdated old buildings are left over...

Incidentally I like malls because I hate the excessive historical preservation fuss we have in the West, and I'd rather have 80% of what we deem "historic" torn down for good and replaced with anything that is designed and fit for 2011, not 1811 (let alone the countless fake 1950 buildings resembling those destroyed by WW2, the ultimate architectural hypocrisy). But that is another discusson.

Yeah your views aren't totalitarian at all::|:

Yeah sound exactly like Le Corbusier. i.e Everything modern is good, evrything historic gets in the way of so-called progress

This was his vision of what he wanted Paris to look like. I say, thank God for these historic preservationists. I wonder how many billions of dollars in tourism revenue Paris would get if all its historic neighborhoods were demolished.
http://www.affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/Le_Corbusier_vision_Paris_small.jpg
Cities like Boston, San Francisco, Paris, Vienna, etc. are all beautiful cities precisely because of their mostly well preserved cultural and architectural heritage. I'm not saying every old building should be preserved, but your rather totalitarian claim (go figure) that 80 percent of historic buildings should be replaced, just like that, is crazy. In fact your world view sounds a lot like what happened in communist Europe with all the mass social housing that replaced the traditional architecture. But noooooo, you're not a commie:nuts:

And btw most modern suburban housing developments are of shoddy workmanship and quality and barely last a few decades thanks to the notion that profit motivated developers are more important in building housing as opposed to architects and people who actually know what they're doing

^^ I never claimed suburban houses are well-built. To a certain extent, it is good they are somehow "disposable" because it will foster reconstruction withing few decades.

Le Corbusier was an extremely intelligent man, but he used his talent for evil sometimes and used to fend with social engineering through architecture.

Commieblocks in communist countries were most low-cost structures built to house people like cattle. I don't advocate creating 300 identical buildings side by side, but modern, avant-grade design.

Just imagine a city where a whole neighborhood is planned by Zaha Hadid, other by Libeskind, other by Norman Foster, other by Massimiliano Fuskas, other by Oscar Niemeyer, all with complete disregard for whatever previous vernacular traditions might have been in place on the vicinity and so on... a monument to modernity that could be built over some farmland in a not-so-populated European area like Northwestern Germany or Central Spain.

^^

And why the hell should we do that. Give more reasons than just a vanity ego trippin thing.

^^

And why the hell should we do that. Give more reasons than just a vanity ego trippin thing.

Because in the West we are not building, today, anything worth of a game-changing like Haussmann transformations of Paris in the mid-19th Century or ambitious projects like building new capital cities from scratch like they did in Washington or Tokyo. We are not doing ANYTHING to leave a legacy of something that swept whatever existed to replace with new, cool stuff, contemporary of 2011 and not 1811. We are becoming a society overfixated on the past, on the "unique heritage" even of individual neighborhoods, at the same time in which there is all that fuss about converting green areas and farmland into new urbanized areas - sum both, and you have very few major construction schemes in large European and US cities.

All the cities that are "famous" today experienced, in the past, voluntarily (reconstruction) or involuntarily (war, sieges, natural disasters) massive and sudden changes to the built-up environment that erased their primitive form. Paris was demolished half-way to make room for beloved boulevards that didn't exist in 1850 in a city that, at the time, was already very populous. London had its share of fires. Many major American cities had old quarters from colonial times demolished to make ways for wide promenades and boulevards in the 19h Century. However, these days the idea of razing anything older than 100 years seems like it was a crime because of the "unique b.s." of something related to that building.

Even as a general contractor, I'm appalled that anyone suggests buildings should be disposable so we can build more. That's the mindless blathering of a 20 year old who doesn't know anything beyond his own philosophy. As if the world, or our ability to supply materials, wouldn't be streched way past the breaking point by such a thing.

Because in the West we are not building, today, anything worth of a game-changing like Haussmann transformations of Paris in the mid-19th Century or ambitious projects like building new capital cities from scratch like they did in Washington or Tokyo. We are not doing ANYTHING to leave a legacy of something that swept whatever existed to replace with new, cool stuff, contemporary of 2011 and not 1811.


Because contemporary architecture and planning realizes that sudden, comprehensive redevelopments are ultimately stupid and inneffective, compared to the slow gradual expansion, development, and replacement of the existing urban fabric as and when required. This may not be "cool", as you put it, but it is far healthier for the city in the long run. This is generally accepted academic fact.

Is Haussmanns Paris a beautiful and fantastic city? Yes, generally many would agree. Does that mean that it is completely fine that the "old" city was swept aside to make way for it? Absolutely not. Times change... we know this is wrong now, and you need to roll with it.

^^ I don't love any specific form of urban arrangements. I like (road) infrastructure and find, as a personal matter of taste, a 3-level stack interchange much more of a cool place than a 200m building.

This being said, I love to see the invisible hand of the market and how apparent chaos of thousands of agents buying, selling, building and demolishing can alter the landscape, change patterns and produce booms and busts of inhabited places without any formal, centralized coordination. So if shopping malls are the product of modern aspirations of Western middle-class, I think of their early developers as geniuses who could produce tectonic shifts to cater for changing social, financial and costumer expectations.

I also like most stuff that is detached of local representations, e.g., not tied to a certain place, be it electronic music, airplanes, most cars, Internet and buildings/stores that would fit in Durban, Anchorage, Paris or Tokyo without being associated with any of them. So shopping malls are a sort of universal, global solution for shopping that can be theoretically build in most countries in the World without becoming typical of any of them :cheers:

Incidentally I like malls because I hate the excessive historical preservation fuss we have in the West, and I'd rather have 80% of what we deem "historic" torn down for good and replaced with anything that is designed and fit for 2011, not 1811 (let alone the countless fake 1950 buildings resembling those destroyed by WW2, the ultimate architectural hypocrisy). But that is another discusson.

That is quite interesting. What you are saying brings to mind the 'International Style' ideas of the 1920s - the idea that buildings performed the same function whether they were in Delhi, Anchorage, Paris or Istanbul and should therefore look the same.

That argument was popular in those days because of the immense trauma of WW1 and the belief that if people lived more alike then they would be less likely to want to fight each other.

I think that your personal traumas have brought about that way of thinking. If a bland uniformity is imposed on society then bad things will not happen.

Suburbanist, you worry me sometimes, luckily you are a lone voice in the wilderness :laugh:

Suburbanist, you worry me sometimes, luckily you are a lone voice in the wilderness :laugh:

That would really suck if every building in every city had the same architecture style. That would pretty much take the fun out of traveling to different cities.

^^ I never claimed suburban houses are well-built. To a certain extent, it is good they are somehow "disposable" because it will foster reconstruction withing few decades.

Its not a bug, its a feature? Building quality of many suburbian developments are as shitty as their urban planning is. But that certainly won't bother you.


Just imagine a city where a whole neighborhood is planned by Zaha Hadid, other by Libeskind, other by Norman Foster, other by Massimiliano Fuskas, other by Oscar Niemeyer, all with complete disregard for whatever previous vernacular traditions might have been in place on the vicinity and so on... a monument to modernity that could be built over some farmland in a not-so-populated European area like Northwestern Germany or Central Spain.

That would be a terrible dysfunctional place. Star architects are good for building white elephants, iconic modernist buildings, but not for decent urban planning and functioning buildings.