Re:We've Built Cities We Can't Afford
by danans on Saturday April 18, 2020 @01:38PM
(#22909432)
> I live in a suburban development in Seattle, packed row to row with the single family houses with yards and garages that Strongtowns says is a bane to long term finances. The median age of the house is probably something like 50 years, with a good amount over 100 years old — it’s a relatively old neighborhood. When will the road costs will finally kill our budget?
"Packed row to row" and "50 years, with a good amount over 100 years old" isn't nearly descriptive enough to say whether it is financially sustainable. How packed? How dependent on long highway commutes? And importantly, how prosperous are the residents (the suburban Seattle area is pretty prosperous)? All of that matters a lot for how soon the financial pictures turns unsustainable.
> the infrastructure costs story simply doesn’t add up.
Roads aren't the only bit of infrastructure. Water lines, electricity distribution, land maintenance, and more. The unit costs of all these thing scale up rapidly with decreased density. The leading edge of the failures will be in places where the property tax base has already collapsed and the government is forced to make infrastructure maintenance trade-offs with bad consequences (i.e. Flint, MI), but the fragility is there in lots of cities, just perhaps not yours at this time.
"Packed row to row" and "50 years, with a good amount over 100 years old" isn't nearly descriptive enough to say whether it is financially sustainable. How packed? How dependent on long highway commutes? And importantly, how prosperous are the residents (the suburban Seattle area is pretty prosperous)? All of that matters a lot for how soon the financial pictures turns unsustainable.
> the infrastructure costs story simply doesn’t add up.
Roads aren't the only bit of infrastructure. Water lines, electricity distribution, land maintenance, and more. The unit costs of all these thing scale up rapidly with decreased density. The leading edge of the failures will be in places where the property tax base has already collapsed and the government is forced to make infrastructure maintenance trade-offs with bad consequences (i.e. Flint, MI), but the fragility is there in lots of cities, just perhaps not yours at this time.