Re:The people the suburbs were built for are gone
by hakfoo on Sunday January 24, 2021 @04:19PM
(#25896184)
I think we've been sold the suburbanized, car-and-home-ownership-centric, "American Dream" for so long, that other options have been actively neglected if not sabotaged.
* Stability is poor. You can lock in a 30-year fixed rate mortgage with a predictable payment (effectively hedging against inflation), but there's little to no recourse against landlords doubling your rent next year or refusing to renew your lease.
* Fully pedestrianized, live-work development is still a scattershot novelty, often requiring heroic efforts to get zoning and incentives set up, but the 1000-hectare, 900 houses and 4 golf courses, 700 km of roads that curley-Q and cul-de-sac, master-planned community, has been raised to an art form.
* Attempts to support public transit are not just forgotten, but aggressively fought, in part because buses/light rail/subways are considered services for undesirable groups.
* The whole urban-renter situation tends to be treated either as a "well, it's just poor/minority/etc." as a subconscious motivation to allow stagnation, or handwaved as a transient situation for the "successful professionals" -- they'll eventually move out to a McMansion so it doesn't matter that their experience is lousy for a few years while they save a down payment.
Unless the wealthy/successful/influential embrace this lifestyle, there will be limited momentum to improve it for anyone else.
* Stability is poor. You can lock in a 30-year fixed rate mortgage with a predictable payment (effectively hedging against inflation), but there's little to no recourse against landlords doubling your rent next year or refusing to renew your lease.
* Fully pedestrianized, live-work development is still a scattershot novelty, often requiring heroic efforts to get zoning and incentives set up, but the 1000-hectare, 900 houses and 4 golf courses, 700 km of roads that curley-Q and cul-de-sac, master-planned community, has been raised to an art form.
* Attempts to support public transit are not just forgotten, but aggressively fought, in part because buses/light rail/subways are considered services for undesirable groups.
* The whole urban-renter situation tends to be treated either as a "well, it's just poor/minority/etc." as a subconscious motivation to allow stagnation, or handwaved as a transient situation for the "successful professionals" -- they'll eventually move out to a McMansion so it doesn't matter that their experience is lousy for a few years while they save a down payment.
Unless the wealthy/successful/influential embrace this lifestyle, there will be limited momentum to improve it for anyone else.