I didn't move because I'm white, I moved because I wanted peace and quiet. Most of the people I know who live around me moved away from the city for the same reason. Amazingly, non white people feel this way too...
Part of the reason the trend is called "white flight" is that for a long time and in many places non-white people were prevented by bank, municipal, real estate office and HOA policy from purchasing houses or even getting mortgages in the suburbs.
Calling it white flight isn't always an accusation of racism against the people who were fleeing, more against the people who openly prevented people of color from leaving as well.
The phrase "white flight" refers to a 1970s phenomenon where white people repeatedly moved from one suburb to another (often in circular patterns) in order to avoid POC after desegregation and civil rights legislation made suburbs accessible to POC for the first time. This was exacerbated by real estate agents engaging in a race-baiting, unscrupulous practice called "block busting".
>"The phrase "white flight" refers to a 1970s phenomenon ..."
No, the 1970s may have seen a recirculation of the original phrase but it is commonly understood that "white flight" refers to phenomenon around the war years.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight
[2] https://priceonomics.com/the-great-migration-the-african-ame...
Your generic suburbs have their own problems – massively artificial, claustrophobic rows and rows of almost identical houses, with zero character and nowhere to go without a car.
> Amazingly, non white people feel this way too...
On this note, almost the entire Asian population of the Dallas area lives in the suburbs, and those who can afford it are starting to move to the exurbs. Only people without the means to leave are staying in the city because the city sucks.
Something simple like setting up a toll to use city streets to reduce congestion is completely off the table. We end up highly taxing corporate zoned housing to try to kinda indirectly tax the work place of the suburbanites that are making a mess of our city, but it's only a partial fix and it's distortionary.
Meanwhile, people that actually live in Toronto pay way more in income tax than people that live outside of it, and our taxes are indexed to inflation, unlike the petrol taxes. Add in the three way split of the left vote and the FPTP system and we end up with a vindictive moron in charge of the province fucking up representation by changing our riding map in the middle of a city election.
Cars have ruined so many things. The amount of times a car has honked at me for not putting my own life in danger because I need 5 seconds to get to a safer place to pull over with my bike is crazy. I'm not "taking a lane" I'm just keeping myself from getting doored.
Imagine if cars had never been invented and we could have stuck with trains for everything? Way more green space. Way healthier population. Way more 4 or 6 story buildings. Way more parks. Way less time wasted behind the wheel. Fewer deaths. No road rage.
And what would we have to give up?
3000 sqft suburban houses and their shitty pools that get used 5 times a year. Instead of watching TV at night alone at home people could walk over to their friends place or go out to a cute restaurant or well groomed park.
I don't necessarily think suburbia is the culprit for traffic though. It probably is in North America where suburbs often means "not even public transport available to the city". They were planned for and built for cars! My suburb was not. People lived here before cars too.
I use public transport for most of my needs (including commuting) and drive very few miles per year - but I use my car many times for short distances, mostly things like picking up kids from daycare etc.
Also, speaking of daycare, that's another thing I really think is essentially stupid. Imagine two different situations.
First situation: Normal family sends 2 kids to daycare. About $50k here in Toronto. Cool. The daycare workers pay their taxes, the family pays theirs after claiming a $6k tax credit. At the end of the day the government gets around $30–40k more in income tax.
Second situation: Family A has two kids and so does Family B. They take turns watching each others kids, reducing each family's working hours by 25%. Assuming both parents earn the same base income in both families, but that only one of them wants to raise kids all day, the government loses about $11k in tax revenue per family, or $22k total.
The only thing that stops this practice from being widespread is that most employers want full-time workers.
In my case (Sweden) the daycare subsidy is much more significant, 2 kids is $3700 (Canadian) so the incentive to work full time is absolutely massive in comparison.
As a city parent, every morning I walk with my kid to the daycare and have to cross traffic mostly from suburbanites whose kids are A-OK while they put my kid at risk on their way to work. Thank you for taking public transit!
No thank you. As much as I like my home town, I don't want to pay a fortune (that could buy a castle or another absurdly large property elsewhere) for a crappy house or condo in the densest part of Toronto and never enjoy personal peace and quiet again. Not everyone wants to live in miserable close quarters paying exorbitant rent for the freedom to walk to convenient overpriced services.
A home and a yard allows those who need it to live with a measure of dignity. It's pants and you're trying to argue that everyone would be fine with shorts.
Ironically I live in NYC right now which is even worse in most of those respects, but at least the pay/COL ratio is better. Public transportation is better too. In the end if I buy a home it isn't going to be in either city.
A lot of freedom to travel.
Many of the cities in the US that are dense enough to be reasonable walkable/bikable are also incredibly expensive in those areas.
The car still gets used outside work to get groceries, pick up kids from schools and of course at the weekends.
Inside cities that is. One must remember that a lot of the people that move around in a city every day don't live in the city. And for many of them a car is a requirement anyway. For me the car is a sunk cost - I have it for the rare times I need it (I don't need it to go into the city), but buying/maintaining/insuring it is mostly a fixed cost, meaning that the marginal cost of each mile driven is very very small. I wouldn't mind if my city was made car free tomorrow - but I still wouldn't drive any less.