Quote:
Originally Posted by Utah_Dave
You feeling ok Hatman?
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I guess my point was incomplete.
I've spent a lot of time on my bike rides this year watching old houses get demolished to make way for apartments - and it seems pretty obvious to me that in another ~80 years all the new wood-and-stucco houses that look so new and shiny now will also be in pretty shabby shape, and will be getting cleared away for something new. The huge garages in front will look very silly in an age where cars are autonomous and no longer social status symbols. We really don't build much in this country that is intended to last. From the perspective of one life time it may look pretty permanent, but as time goes on, the trend toward density will be unstoppable.
Build like the Romans - a first draft in wood, a second draft in brick a century later, and finally the real thing in marble, concrete, or stone.
As to the point about Europe, they have developed differently for many socio-cultural reasons, but also because they are doing exactly what I said about economic incentives: driving in Europe costs a lot of money - so much that trains and buses are *more* economically viable.
Example:
meanwhile, here in Utah, nearly a third of our road subsidies are pulled from income tax revenue - meaning that drivers and non-drivers alike pay 1/3 the cost of a driver's commute (compared to a transit rider, who's commute is subsidized about 90%+ by non-transit riders, but I digress).
We could do something similar here. My dream is that instead of the government providing different levels of funding to different modes of transportation, that they would create a 'funding by receipt' style subsidy. If a road carried X amount or people between points A and B (A and B have value based on a land-value tax, which is a different but highly relevant topic to this thread), in Y amount of time, then that road is funded to the degree of Z. If a train carries the same number of passengers between the same points in the same amount of time, it gets exactly the same amount of subsidy.
Basically, it makes the funding mode-agnostic, which is something that's never existed before. Something little like that would drastically change our land-use patterns, and it would do so without heavy-handed politics.
Another point - when people freak out about the suburbs growing on to the ends of the earth, it is because they are projecting current trends at current rates into the future. I do not believe current trends are sustainable, and so I do not think they will continue for long. I also think things like autonomous robo-buses and robo-taxis will drastically change the equation. Imagine no more parking downtown, and all existing lots filled with towers. Imagine no more traffic jams to get downtown. Imagine buses that come on demand, with wait times of less than 5 minutes. Imagine train service so frequent that waiting for your train is like waiting for an elevator to arrive. When this level of service is achievable - either sometime late in this decade or early in the next, depending on the mode - it will completely change the desirability of the city and the suburbs. I can't imagine that many office parks on the side of the freeway will survive as-is. I hope they can be converted to housing.
TL;DR, my point is that I don't think there is any point in taking sides in this urban vs suburban debate, because 1) the current trends are about to change significantly, and 2) people will still chose urban and suburban based on their own quality-of-life metrics, and the only moral way to help influence that decision is to put a fair price on the thing being consumed. The future of planning and legislation is not banning things outright - it is placing an appropriate tax on the unsustainable thing, be it land, transportation, or fuel use vs clean air.
Anyway, I've rambled too long, and I don't really belong on this thread anyway. so, uh.... Look at this picture I took from City Creek a few weeks ago!
