Re:Suburban sprawl is stifling the US economy
by bane on Sunday March 29, 2015 @09:28AM
(#9284732)
I've not been to Scotland specifically, but I've been to other parts of the U.K. and Ireland and most of Western Europe and I've observed this difference, in most of Europe, the cities tend to have an ancient core, often surrounded by a pre-car secondary core, surrounded by an post-car/post-war dreary apartment ring on the outskirts.
The two inner cores are pedestrian dreams, for obvious historic reasons, but automotive nightmares. The wealthier parts of town tend to be in these inner cores, and the low-end workers tend to live in the outskirts.
The outskirts areas of European cities are generally pretty abysmal by American standards. Unkempt, graffiti-filled, feel dangerous. This is where all the train yards are. They remind an American of what we call "inner-city" projects, only they surround their home city.
Because of the income levels that live there, and being tightly wrapped around the more prosperous inner cores, they are however, better informed by the pedestrian friendly natures of those inner cores. So they usually have great integrated bus service and passable mass-transit (if the city has it).
The reasons for this outer ring are numerous, but it's usually a mix of rapid construction after the war (people needed houses, FAST), mid-century social experiments (public housing projects), and the inertia created by those two things.
What's outside this ring? Generally farmland, dotted with small towns and villages. I've never seen density drop off in the states as quickly as I do in Europe. You're in a city and then you're immediately in the countryside -- there's very little transition. It's not true everywhere in Europe. But it's fairly consistent.
Cities in Europe are also pretty close, Glasgow to Edinburgh is ~1hr driving. Glasgow to Manchester is ~3.5hrs, to London in 6.5, and Paris in 11. If they weren't so close, inter-city transport would be unbearable. But because they're so close, national rail ends up working like commuter rail and you can hop a train from Glasgow to London in 4 hours.
Heck, Glasgow to Kiev is 31 hours, or about 4 days of driving.
Or here's a trip I did once in Ireland. Dublin to Belfast to Dublin to Galway. It crosses the entire country a couple time and the whole thing takes around 6 hours.
Virginia has 3 major urban areas, the North (near Washington D.C.), the Capital at Richmond, and the South Eastern Coast around Norfolk.
The North of Virginia is a bit like London, a continuous conglomeration of several adjacent areas and small towns and cities. It has about 3 million people in it, but it's worth looking at a piece at a time:
Arlington, VA has about the density of Glasgow, has several interesting neighborhoods, is highly walkable, has subway service, buses, is bikable.
A walk from Celtic Park to Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow will take you about 1.5hrs. While a similar length walk in Arlington from the Potomac Overlook Park to the National Cemetery takes you about 1.5 hrs. Here's what the core looks like from the air (the circles are areas around the subway stations) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Arlingto...
It only has about 1/3 of the population of Glasgow, but most purposes it's a fair approximation of a place like Glasgow in the U.S. If you figure in Neighboring Alexandria, VA (also part of the North), you get even closer to an American Glasgow. It's every bit as reasonable a place as most European cities.
But Arlington and Alexandria aren't particularly important areas in the U.S. They're just parts of the Washington D.C. metro area, which has around 6 million people, the 7th largest in the U.S.
Now drive 2 hours South to Richmond, which by American standards is old, founded in 1737 (before the U.S. existed!) And even though it's half the density of Arlington and Glasgow, is still highly walkable in most of the city. It doesn't have a subway, but it has extensive bus service, a major university, government buildings, etc. It feels like a small European city in those ways.
Go 2 hours East and you end up in Norfolk, which is basically a conglomeration of military bases and ship builders. With about as much thought put into city planning as that sounds. It's not very walkable, suffers from all of the criticisms ever levied against American cities, requires a car to get around etc.
Now what's in the rest of the state? Farmland, small towns, villages. But Virginia doesn't have to rely on Virginia for farming. There's a million square miles in the middle of the U.S. that do nothing but grow food, and most of that land sits unused, and unfarmed.
So most of Virginia's farmland is nonproductive. It sits there unused and non-productive. So what do you do with a bunch of cheap land that's only costing farmers money? You sell it, chop it up and offer houses to people who want to raise families outside of a city, but don't want to live in the isolation of the wilds. You create suburbs.
So 2 out of 3 ain't bad. I've just described 2 minor American urban areas that are as reasonable as most places in Europe. You can even take a train between them.
Suburbs are not a uniquely American thing. As European agricultural productivity and economic integration has increased, American style suburbs are also becoming popular in Europe.
The two inner cores are pedestrian dreams, for obvious historic reasons, but automotive nightmares. The wealthier parts of town tend to be in these inner cores, and the low-end workers tend to live in the outskirts.
The outskirts areas of European cities are generally pretty abysmal by American standards. Unkempt, graffiti-filled, feel dangerous. This is where all the train yards are. They remind an American of what we call "inner-city" projects, only they surround their home city.
Because of the income levels that live there, and being tightly wrapped around the more prosperous inner cores, they are however, better informed by the pedestrian friendly natures of those inner cores. So they usually have great integrated bus service and passable mass-transit (if the city has it).
The reasons for this outer ring are numerous, but it's usually a mix of rapid construction after the war (people needed houses, FAST), mid-century social experiments (public housing projects), and the inertia created by those two things.
What's outside this ring? Generally farmland, dotted with small towns and villages. I've never seen density drop off in the states as quickly as I do in Europe. You're in a city and then you're immediately in the countryside -- there's very little transition. It's not true everywhere in Europe. But it's fairly consistent.
Cities in Europe are also pretty close, Glasgow to Edinburgh is ~1hr driving. Glasgow to Manchester is ~3.5hrs, to London in 6.5, and Paris in 11. If they weren't so close, inter-city transport would be unbearable. But because they're so close, national rail ends up working like commuter rail and you can hop a train from Glasgow to London in 4 hours.
Heck, Glasgow to Kiev is 31 hours, or about 4 days of driving.
Or here's a trip I did once in Ireland. Dublin to Belfast to Dublin to Galway. It crosses the entire country a couple time and the whole thing takes around 6 hours.
Here's a comparison of Scotland vs. a state in the U.S., Virginia. https://mapfight.appspot.com/scotland-vs-us.va/scotland-virg...
Virginia has 3 major urban areas, the North (near Washington D.C.), the Capital at Richmond, and the South Eastern Coast around Norfolk.
The North of Virginia is a bit like London, a continuous conglomeration of several adjacent areas and small towns and cities. It has about 3 million people in it, but it's worth looking at a piece at a time:
Arlington, VA has about the density of Glasgow, has several interesting neighborhoods, is highly walkable, has subway service, buses, is bikable.
A walk from Celtic Park to Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow will take you about 1.5hrs. While a similar length walk in Arlington from the Potomac Overlook Park to the National Cemetery takes you about 1.5 hrs. Here's what the core looks like from the air (the circles are areas around the subway stations) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Arlingto...
It only has about 1/3 of the population of Glasgow, but most purposes it's a fair approximation of a place like Glasgow in the U.S. If you figure in Neighboring Alexandria, VA (also part of the North), you get even closer to an American Glasgow. It's every bit as reasonable a place as most European cities.
But Arlington and Alexandria aren't particularly important areas in the U.S. They're just parts of the Washington D.C. metro area, which has around 6 million people, the 7th largest in the U.S.
Now drive 2 hours South to Richmond, which by American standards is old, founded in 1737 (before the U.S. existed!) And even though it's half the density of Arlington and Glasgow, is still highly walkable in most of the city. It doesn't have a subway, but it has extensive bus service, a major university, government buildings, etc. It feels like a small European city in those ways.
Go 2 hours East and you end up in Norfolk, which is basically a conglomeration of military bases and ship builders. With about as much thought put into city planning as that sounds. It's not very walkable, suffers from all of the criticisms ever levied against American cities, requires a car to get around etc.
Now what's in the rest of the state? Farmland, small towns, villages. But Virginia doesn't have to rely on Virginia for farming. There's a million square miles in the middle of the U.S. that do nothing but grow food, and most of that land sits unused, and unfarmed.
So most of Virginia's farmland is nonproductive. It sits there unused and non-productive. So what do you do with a bunch of cheap land that's only costing farmers money? You sell it, chop it up and offer houses to people who want to raise families outside of a city, but don't want to live in the isolation of the wilds. You create suburbs.
So 2 out of 3 ain't bad. I've just described 2 minor American urban areas that are as reasonable as most places in Europe. You can even take a train between them.
Suburbs are not a uniquely American thing. As European agricultural productivity and economic integration has increased, American style suburbs are also becoming popular in Europe.
Here's Glasgow again
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Uddingston,+Glasgow,+Glasg...
and a listing
http://www.s1homes.com/Houses-for-sale/2015031712003303.shtm...
Even the architecture looks like an American suburb!