When housing units are close together (town-homes, multi-unit buildings) the cost of infrastructure (sewer, water, roads, sidewalks, etc.) are shared by more units, and thus by more taxpayers. If the houses are farther apart, the cost per unit goes up.
So its fine if you want to live in the suburbs, be we should have an honest accounting of the costs so suburban households are paying the full price of their spacious lifestyle.
See this StrongTowns post about this issue: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/7/6/stop-subsidizin...
With regard to the United States, you’re not even close. 80% of the US population live in cities. [0]
[0] https://pac.org/impact/rural-americans-vs-urban-americans#:~....
For purposes of this discussion thread, we're just using "living in the cities" as shorthand for "high-density living with convenient mass-transit and walkable amenities". E.g. downtowns or multi-family housing near the city center where people can walk to the grocery store.
The majority of USA citizens do not live in that arrangement. Instead, most Americans live in areas that depend on cars.
The web page you're citing is using "cities" as shorthand for "downtowns + suburbs i.e. metroplexes" - vs - "rural farms".
Sounds like the suburbs are counted as urban wrt the census.
The simple answer relates to raising kids - both in terms of safety/enrichment and in terms of basic things like school catchment areas, distance to young peoples amenities, and distance to the average friends house based on school catchment.
Suburbs aren't for standard of living, but affordability. You take the most available labour, the most available construction, and connect it with the most available transportation and you get suburbs. All without the need for much effective planning, organization or innovation.
But eventually someone else does those things. And then suburbs are expensive in comparison.
I want more space, both in my home and in my yard, than I can get in the city. I want a 2+ car garage where I can build and drive a go-kart with my kids, fix my own car and have a little workshop to do woodworking.
I want a garden that isn't blanketed by city air, and room for some fruit trees. I want room for a fire pit, and enough trees that I don't have line of sight into my neighbors windows.
I don't want a farm. I don't need country living. Somewhere between 0.25 and 0.5 acres is about right for what I want to do, and that means the suburbs.
I live in a Cologne, Germany right now. I have lived in Sao Paulo in the past. Big cities with lots to offer. I know big cities and their conveniences, and they're fine. But for the life I want to live, suburbs offer a better standard of living.
I don't want to rant to much, but most people don't like woodworking. They even less like doing woodworking on their own. It is something they conclude they should do because they can and don't have many alternatives. I'm sure it is covered somewhere online.
Your second point is invalid, as you're arguing against his assumptions. It's only possible to argue againt someone's logic, arguing someones assuptions is the same as calling names. I like woodwork and have alternatives.
I'm not arguing against their assumption. I said most, that isn't them. This is exactly why I didn't want to elaborate, so I won't.
But there's also a difference between surburbs in Germany vs US: In Germany, there's usually some form of public transport in the suburbs. It might be a little inconvenient at times, but you can live without a car. In many US suburbs, it's flat out impossible to live without a car.
I live in an ideal mixed-use walkable neighborhood with a 2.5 car garage (that only holds one electric car). Not every house has that nor should it, but we can certainly build those features for those who want them and maintain walkability and good transit practices alongside mixed use.
The problem with the suburbs isn’t the existence of the single family home, the problem is the zoning and design of the homes.
> Man, this almost made me throw up because your post reaks of selfishness and privilege. Anyways, I hope you're at least aware of your extreme privilege.
This doesn’t convince anyone of anything and it doesn’t help us with building better transit and walkable neighborhoods. When you tell someone that what they want is “extreme privilege” and “selfish” you turn them away from the conversation. Instead we should focus on showing them how their lifestyle isn’t actually incompatible with good urban planning and good transit, because it’s not.
The future of American cities isn’t NYC, which I love and adore. We won’t have the density for that and skyscrapers and that level of density have their own problems too. Instead, we should look at mid-sized European cities and towns as a better model. We may have more single family homes and cars, but we can still build at the appropriate level of density and build different types of dwellings to meet people where they are in their life. Today it’s illegal to build an apartment building, coffee shop, restaurant, or small grocery store in the suburban neighborhood and we can’t build small, affordable units for folks either. This creates pricing imbalances and other issues.
Your close-mindedness of the opinions that others are allowed to have makes me almost want to throw up.
The person you are responding to isn’t displaying a lack of empathy for people that can’t afford to live in the suburbs. They are explaining the very real and understandable reasoning behind a behind their preference.
That’s not selfish and privileged. That’s a preference.
Look, I understand that the fringe groups you might associate yourself with throw around the word “privilege” as an insult at anyone that does something not inline with the group’s thinking, but it’s just not the insult that you think it is outside of those fringe groups.
I've lived in both and prefer the suburb. Inner city has all sorts of issues, from very little space, smokers puffing away as you try to enter/exit buildings, endless harmful noise & smells.
Actually I prefer rural over either of these..So many of the things people love about cities are the things I want to get away from, and would sacrifice a huge amount of income to do so.
The suburbs offer people a little taste of that magic and it's no suprise people want that.
I live in Brussels and every time I welcome new American friends here and show them around, their mind is blown that it’s even possible to live in a city center at an affordable rate within walking distance to groceries, restaurants and activities.
Even in the very heart of the city centre you have full sized German discount supermarkets like Aldi/Lidl, or Asian/E.European foodmarekts. A far cry from the food deserts and bodega pricing endemic in American cities.
Even in the midst of a generational defining housing crisis, in what most people in Ireland would deem unfathomable HCOL, you can buy a 2 bed apartment around 70-80m2 in the CBD for less than €500,000.
https://www.daft.ie/property-for-sale/ireland/apartments?loc...
This is in the middle of the Silicon Docks for example, @ 90m2 with dedicated parking space underground, and a concierge service open 7 days a week. 10 minutes walk to Meta/Google/AirBnB/LinkedIn HQ.
https://www.daft.ie/for-sale/apartment-13-hill-of-down-spenc...
I have friends who left Brussels city and moved out to avoid the high housing CoL, crime and drunk/homeless/junkies.
I feel like you're overselling it.
Mostly 4-6 story tall buildings clustered around a major transportation hub like a metro or train station (which also hosts shops, restaurants and groceries), with row-homes or single-home detached houses farther away.
You happen to have a source for this? This is definitely not the case in many place I lived.
And living in the suburbs here doesn’t mean you have to use your car to buy milk, unlike the US. Stuff is still walking distance there.
Cost of life is average. Belgium is actually pretty great for that. It’s just the weather that’s shit.
Current market price or grandfathered contract?
My kids like to play in our yard. I do woodwork as a hobby. My neighbors spend summer by their pool. I like my privacy. I like quiet and space. I like strong community.
I spent 15 years apartment living all over the world, and couldn’t be happier moving to the suburbs.
It is just apartments are much cheaper and you can often not have a car if you live in an apartment.
Where? Appartements in downtown Munich cost as much as in San Jose but salaries are one third of that.
My ex originally is from there and I used to work there and my colleagues from the Texas office had more purchasing power at local real-estate than their counterparts from the Munich office.
Or just come visit a bit and be another name on the list of Americans who had their mind blown.
I’m not American (but live here), and have lived in Europe and traveled most of it.
This HN hivemind if believing there is one type of person and one type of lifestyle is absolute lazy nonsense. I’m guessing you already know why I don’t need to drive a large pickup truck too?
Just like in America, living in a proper house in Europe does usually mean moving further away from city center into suburbs. The main difference is that those suburbs do have better public transportation.
Not everyone who lives in a city is in a highrise downtown, most aren't. Not everyone that lives in a city is in an apartment. You wouldn't know that by reading this thread. The two options seem to be a large house in the suburbs or a highrise downtown.
It would cost double what I pay for me to live with 1/4 of the space in a city.
I made a pretty intentional decision about what I wanted, and actually have far more space than where I grew up. I was actually taught to live on less, but have gone in the far opposite direction.
Now, can suburban homes offer you MORE space? Absolutely! And if I had the kind of hobbies that merited that additional space I'd probably want to live there. However, as someone who grew up in the suburbs, has friends in the suburbs, etc - the number of friends I have who actually use that space for enjoyment and not junk storage is literally just 1 guy who has a sweet CNC and metal working space in his garage and basement. Everyone else has a garage used for cars + storage and a basement rumpus room with maybe a tiny 8x8 workshop somewhere near the mechanicals (HVAC and Water heater)
I do tend to be the one neighbor out in the yard the most by an order of magnitude.
I also have a 60 acre rural property because even a quarter acre in the suburbs doesn’t give me enough space to play.
No, I haven't built a cedar strip canoe (nice flex), but I do have the room in my 2.5 car garage if I wanted to. Partly because we only need one car in the city for a 4-person family (which is also part of the "cost" calculation). I could also use my basement, if I was inclined.
==It would cost double what I pay for me to live with 1/4 of the space in a city.==
This is impossible to say without knowing how much you pay and how much space you have.
I moved from Brooklyn NYC to NJ suburbs and my 15 year mortgage on 4 bed 2 bath decent yard was about the same as a 1 bed 1 bath 3rd floor walk up that was pretty snug once you had two people and two cats.
Americans like space. They like big houses. They like not hearing their neighbors. They like to live on a street that is quiet.
Even the ones that don’t like driving are willing to do it as a trade off for all those things.
Most of the young people I knew in SF who lived there in their 20’s - about 90% moved to the suburbs when they got older. Being close to bars or restaurants doesn’t matter much for most older people. What matters is low crime, space and good schools. They can drive to the city if they need to.
> Look at the most expensive places to live in the Bay Area - it’s not the urban centers, it’s the suburbs.
Sure the mansions in Pacific Heights are more, but they are mansions.
Compare like for like.
> A small plot of land in a desirable location is $4M in Palo Alto.
Also, my comparison spoke of price per sq.m. Is there a better way to compare housing costs in different locations?
Are you talking about land only? Or land and house?
If you look at the most expensive sales in SF or the Peninsula, they aren't all that different - just shy of $50M.
Regardless, my comment was more directed to middle to upper-middle class housing, not the $20M mansions in SF or 1,000 acres estates in the Peninsula.
Compare a large single family home in SF to a large, single family home in Peninsula.
Family homes in city centers (in the US) are either very expensive or bad neighborhoods
I am going off of the study described here [0]. I'm happy to view anything you have to provide which proves it is a lie.
[0] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/7/6/stop-subsidizin...
You pay taxes were you work instead of were you live? That is very unusual, typically you pay income taxes where you live. I don't see how paying taxes were you work could even work, what pays for your school or roads if all the money goes to another area?
Some bigger US cities have a city income tax which is applied regardless of where you live.
I had family living in NJ and working in NYC. They paid NYC income taxes, NY income taxes, NJ income taxes, and federal income taxes.
> Some bigger US cities have a city income tax
> If you are a New York State nonresident you must file Form IT-203, Nonresident and Part-Year Resident Income Tax Return, if you meet any of the following conditions:
> . You are a nonresident with New York source income and your New York adjusted gross income Federal amount column (Form IT-203, line 31) exceeds your New York standard deduction.
IANAL, this isn't tax advice, I'm going by what I'm reading and what I was told by people who lived and worked there, but looking at this if you have an income made from working a job in the state of NY and ended up with more than $21k of income you need to file for NY state income taxes.
There are a number of cities with income taxes. Detroit, Baltimore, Columbus, Cleveland, Louisville, Toledo, and many more. Of those I bothered looking in to, they apply if you work in that city regardless of wherever you live.
The vast majority do not.
Of course. There are also people who enjoy walkable pedestrian and bike friendly places with lots of small local businesses to patronize.
That doesn't require living in a "big dirty city", it really just means making actual towns with dense downtown centers where people can work, live, shop, and dine.
Based on my experience with real estate prices, where townhomes near such thriving downtown developments can cost easily double of one in a suburban neighborhood a 15 minute drive away, the demand for that kind of living currently exceeds supply in many places.
The answer isn't to remove all suburbia and replace it with dense walkability, the answer is to stop preventing the dense walkable development with strict single-family-detached zoning laws, parking minimums, etc. and let the supply of such places increase to meet demand. Nobody will come take your suburban house away from you, they just want to have as much freedom in choosing what they want as you get to choose what you want.
And those that do prefer to live in big cities are just advocating for making those places better. The US has a lot of places that are definitely "city" but are still also car-dependent or at least not as friendly to walking, cycling, and mass transit as they should be. We can improve those without changing your suburban life one bit.
we really can have our cake and eat it, nice cities for the people who prefer them, suburbs for the others, so much room.
As a New Yorker, I'm totally fine with people choosing a suburban life. Do you, I don't care. But don't kill congestion pricing and think you're entitled to drive into the densest part of the United States and park for free in my neighborhood just because. Don't block funding for public transit for 40 years and then complain you need your car because the train is scary to you the two times a year you use it.
Gross stuff.
You can see at the voting district maps the city of Ottawa for example will 100% vote for a different candidate that all the distant suburbs attached to their municipality and the suburb candidate wins.
seattle is always a poster child for this stuff but it really isn't that bad for the upper middle class (anyone with a software job).
it's probably tougher now. but i started my career in seattle proper 10y ago and 2020 was a giant boon. low interest rates, 3k sqft house outside seattle (but still easily drivable to it thanks to reverse commute) for sub-$600k (went under asking) and sub-3% (-> inflation proof)..what a way to spend that salary the 2010s gave me to save up and enjoy the remote career I'd long established.
preparation meets opportunity isn't gonna stop being true even in a "bad" economy.
Having kids is a pivotal moment. Suddenly that rich urban life looks like danger for your little ones.
I was an urban kid and we stayed in the city when we had kids, so my kids got to go to a school where the janitor had to arrive early and remove the needles and broken beer bottles from the playground.
That's not the fault of the suburbs.
I grew up in my city when it was smaller, safer, and more economically varied. Now the middle has hollowed out and we're headed toward Manhattan, where hedge fund managers step over the homeless to get to their penthouse.
It pains me to think that this is inevitable. I don't begrudge anyone moving out of the city. I personally cannot stand the thought of getting in a car to do absolutely anything, but I know lots of people who live that way and are happy.
College kids hope to make it big, or at least big enough to afford a pampered expensive living among other such people. It's not an unreasonable hope to have. Some of course dream to live in a penthouse on top of a skyscraper, but that's much less realistic.
(Of course there are poor suburban areas with rundown houses and clunker cars, but it's not where the college kids aspire to go.)
Dense walkable cities are few in the US; they predate the advent of the car, and accepted a lot of immigrants when Ellis Island was still open for "the wretched refuse" [1]. After WWII, a lot of better-off families moved to suburbs, but the worse-off had to stay.
It does not help that some cities, in a misguided attempt to not trample on the rights of the destitute, or maybe out of incompetence, don't keep their streets clean, and even don't enforce the law. The authorities of San Francisco are, of course, way ahead of the pack; what they have done to their once-beautiful city tarnishes the reputation of cities as the form of living.
(Disclaimer: I live in NYC, take subway and/or buses every day, walk for my grocery shopping, don't own a car, etc, and love it. Politically not left-wing though.)
It’s been mentioned many times on HN in regards to Palo Alto, Atherton, Cupertino, etc… and often times not for altruistic motives either.
In the big picture, if you want single-family suburbs to continue to exist and be affordable it makes sense to allow at least some places to become dense. The more people who want density and can choose it, the less competition there will be for farther-out suburban houses.
And predict the actual ulterior motives of anyone advocating for such a change before it occurs?
They’re not automatons that can be fooled so easily.
I don't know the specific situation there, and I'm not saying that shouldn't ever exist, but it's worth considering why we are using zoning to preserve artificial anti-density in a place that has grown to demand higher housing density, and what the effects are of doing so on a widespread basis.
The immediate first order consequence would be higher housing prices, which seems to be the case across the US, with the cost of housing increasing much more rapidly than overall inflation or wages.
I'm not doing that. I really can't tell. Who are these people who want to ‘come take your suburban house away’, and how do they attempt to do so?
You seem to be referring to specific people in the Bay Area. I'm not in the Bay Area, and I don't really know the politics there as it relates to real estate. So, who specifically wants this, and what are they doing?
So this seems like a non sequitor…?
If you believe I, or anyone else, is making false pretenses one way or the other, on any subject, then list out the arguments for the case directly.
I will ask one more time: What, specifically, are you talking about?
That’s because American cities do their best to make themselves as car-dependent and unpleasant in downtown areas as possible. Of course American college kids want to move out to the suburbs, because American downtowns are not nice places to live. Offer people the choice to live in nice central walkable neighbourhoods like in Europe and they tend to take it.
The "value" is for the citizens that prefer suburbs style living.
People who prefer dense city living with mass-transportation and walkable errands like European cities or downtown NYC/Chicago are missing the fact that there's another group of people (possibly the majority) that actually prefer the suburbs. Yes, I know it seems illogical.
But don't suburbs have the dependency on cars, and those ugly "stroads", and the "parking lot deserts", and "soulless cookie-cutter housing", etc, etc?!? Yes, all of that is true and detractors can keep piling on more derogatory labels but it still doesn't change the fact that many people really like the suburbs. A lot of USA college kids living in dorms in the middle of a "walkable city" have aspirations of buying a nice house out in the suburbs and hope they can land a high-paying job so they can afford that dream. Why do so many of these young people who have actual experience of living in the city want to get away from that and live in the suburbs?