What If Urban Sprawl Is the Only Realistic Way to Create Affordable Cities?

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by Minato Ku

It's like there were just two opposites, either building tall residential high-rises downtown or building low density sprawl in far away suburbs.
What about all the areas between downtown (and its close surroundings) and the far away suburbs.
What about medium density ?

What about the densification of older inner suburbs or inner city districts ? Replacing old townhouses with small appartment buildings, replacing old detached houses with large gardens covering large lot with more dense townhouses.

The key for cities facing huge population growth is precisely what you've outlined. Cities need to meet demand with a combination of high rise, mid rise, and other intensification efforts.

It bears mentioning that cities like Portland have seen spikes in real estate values because they're desirable cities not because they built high rises. One can build sprawl onto cheaper land which is reflected in the price of those houses but the real cost of that house is reflected in the municipal bill to service it. All those roads and sewers stretching km after km are subsidized by governments (and tax payers).

There's also the hidden cost to the environment when people need to drive back and forth from that house in the middle of nowhere just to get some milk.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

No city can grow forever. If a city has policies to subsidize sprawl then one day it will run up against the population. If there is no policy to address slower growth phases then it will start to have Detroit-like issues.

Detroit is surrounded by perfectly developable land, it could grow to a mega city if the economy called for it, just like Chicago can keep growing as well. These cities on the West Coast like San Francisco can't, they're bound by geography which is why they'll always be expensive and have severe housing issues unless they face decline. The original point was how sprawl helps make cities affordable which is absolutely true, obviously overgrowing sprawl is detrimental but Detroit's sprawl wasn't just a simple "Oopsy daisy! We built too much!" It was done with a goal to get away from people of color.

Sprawl limitations would have made a huge difference (Canadian cities did a much better job with this than the U.S.) but it wasn't the cause, sprawl was a symptom of the real problems.

[llamaorama]

Can't we just build better greenfield suburbs?

Maybe you'd accomplish this with infrastructure planning, since infrastructure is the "bones" the "meat" grows around.

Why do we have be like "welp cities are expensive now, so everyone should go live on a cul-de-sac in a bland suburb now, you dumb hippies!". This is the kind of broken black-and-white logic that has ruined politics.

[Ant131531]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

No city can grow forever. If a city has policies to subsidize sprawl then one day it will run up against the population. If there is no policy to address slower growth phases then it will start to have Detroit-like issues.

I don't get this at all. Detroit's situation was caused by extreme white flight from the urban core. Also a lot of the black middle class also fled Detroit before it has slowly became what it is now. How is Houston sprawling going to all of a sudden make it become Detroit?

Houston along with the other two big southern boomtowns(Atlanta, Dallas) sprawl to meet the massive demand of a incredibly large amount of people moving to these metro areas. If they didn't meet the demand, housing would rise at very very rapid rates and they would sort of lose the allure they have now which is low cost of living.

I mean, you can see it right now with the amount of housing permits issued year to date for July 2016.

http://www.census.gov/construction/b...t3yu201607.txt

Dallas - Nearly 32.6k housing permits issued. 14.3k of those are apartments. Only NYC has more apartment permits issued(14.9k) and barely more so it's not like Dallas or Atlanta which has 8.6k apartment permits issued is lacking in multi-family building, but it would be no where near enough to meet the demand of all the new people moving to these areas so that's where the single family home permits come in at. Both of them are top 5 in apartment permits issued.

Plus right now, in most cities, the permit process for building apartments is way too complex and difficult, not to mention costly. 100 years ago, it was much easier to build apartments than it is now.

[Jonesy55]

Originally Posted by Minato Ku

It's like there were just two opposites, either building tall residential high-rises downtown or building low density sprawl in far away suburbs.
What about all the areas between downtown (and its close surroundings) and the far away suburbs.
What about medium density ?

What about the densification of older inner suburbs or inner city districts ? Replacing old townhouses with small appartment buildings, replacing old detached houses with large gardens covering large lot with more dense townhouses.

This. No reason at all why the options have to be limited to an either/or choice between two extremes of 400m2 detached homes and giant downtown skyscrapers, there's so much in between that can also play a part in the mix.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by Ant131531

And if density can keep home values low, why are european and some Asian cities like Tokyo still so expensive?

Firstly, Tokyo isn't that dense. Especially by East Asian standards. It's peak densities are nowhere near what you find in any Chinese city, Seoul, New York, or Paris. Floor densities are much higher though.

Secondly, only 12% of Japan's land territory is arable, of which 8% is farmland. Over 50% of the country lives on just 2% of the land. The rest is mountains. That comes out to just under 70 million people living in an area smaller than Delaware. Cost savings from building dense cannot compensate for the lack of available land to build on in the first place.

Thirdly, Japanese sprawl is in no manner like American sprawl: population densities in Sprawlville JP top 10,000 pp sq mile; Spawlville JP is guaranteed to have at least one major commuter rail station serviced by multiple lines (which go cross-town and not just hub-and-spoke), fed by bus coverage denser than you'd find in the core of any American city; Sprawlville JP has natural urban growth boundaries (see above about land scarcity and mountains). This all costs money to upkeep, and some of these costs get passed to homeowners in the form of taxes and annual fees.

[10023]

I think the problem you need to solve is to analyze what has changed (in terms of technology, zoning, building codes, etc) over the past 100+ years to make sprawl the de facto built environment of the "free market". Cars are an obvious one, but there are other factors.

It's not like New York was a planned city, aside from laying out the street grid. And London was mostly privately developed, especially the prime neighborhoods, many of which were big landed estates that developed their rural land during the 18th and 19th centuries.

That's actually why the road layout is such a mess... the different "planned communities" (to use the modern term) that were developed at this time didn't have a coherent street layout, and it was only the big country roads (e.g., King's Road, Fulham Road, Brompton Road) that existed before that land was developed that continue for any distance. And the architecture generally identifies them as well - red brick mansion blocks, white stucco terraces, Victorian rows, etc.

But the late 19th century "subdivision" of Cadogan Square (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadogan_Square) was developed to look like this:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.49...7i13312!8i6656

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by The North One

It was done with a goal to get away from people of color.

That was only a factor but not the cause. The cause was FHA and GI Bill lending policies which were limited to single-family home buyers.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Ant131531

I don't get this at all. Detroit's situation was caused by extreme white flight from the urban core. Also a lot of the black middle class also fled Detroit before it has slowly became what it is now. How is Houston sprawling going to all of a sudden make it become Detroit?

If population growth suddenly shuts off in Houston then it will definitely become Detroit. It really is simple math. The high population growth rates of Detroit shut off pretty much over the course of a decade. Not sure why this would be unfathomable in Houston or any other high growth rate city.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

If population growth suddenly shuts off in Houston then it will definitely become Detroit. It really is simple math. The high population growth rates of Detroit shut off pretty much over the course of a decade. Not sure why this would be unfathomable in Houston or any other high growth rate city.

one of these cities might take it in the throat...maybe not as bad as detroit.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

one of these cities might take it in the throat...maybe not as bad as detroit.

On the other hand... What eventually happens could end up being worse than Detroit. If any of those cities go through a period of slow growth and don't have the appropriate policy response then I don't see how they would have a result that isn't Detroit-reminiscent. Detroit was a crisis without an appropriate policy response. It isn't the only city that had dramatically lower growth rates... Pretty much all of the major cities in the northeast quadrant of the country became low growth cities in the latter half of the 20th century.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

On the other hand... What eventually happens could end up being worse than Detroit. If any of those cities go through a period of slow growth and don't have the appropriate policy response then I don't see how they would have a result that isn't Detroit-reminiscent. Detroit was a crisis without an appropriate policy response. It isn't the only city that had dramatically lower growth rates... Pretty much all of the major cities in the northeast quadrant of the country became low growth cities in the latter half of the 20th century.

detroits industrial decline corresponded with massive decentralisation. that process has slowed or reversed (depending on what you include) in most regions.

this time you might get colossal swaths of junk-frame low lying pre-war, and inner/middle-ring suburbs/1990s junk subdivisions or whatever overtaken with kudzu and mosquitos in say houston. meanwhile favored quarter suburbs and large areas of favored central areas do okay, even thriving. thats kind of how st. louis, and even chicago operate right now.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

If population growth suddenly shuts off in Houston then it will definitely become Detroit. It really is simple math. The high population growth rates of Detroit shut off pretty much over the course of a decade. Not sure why this would be unfathomable in Houston or any other high growth rate city.

Again, what ruined Detroit (and Flint, St. Louis, Baltimore, etc.) would not be a factor if Houston's population growth ground to a halt for whatever reason. Houston has a massive and diversified economy that can pretty much weather any economic downtown ..even the current collapse in the oil and gas sector which has taken a massive toll on the local economy but we are not becoming Detroit anytime soon. What wiped out Detroit probably won't rear its head again to claim another major city unless there is some unforeseen catastrophic economic or environmental calamity.

Detroit was victim to massive economic transformation (industrialization) coupled with institutionalized racism (redlining, white flight, etc)

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by JManc

Again, what ruined Detroit (and Flint, St. Louis, Baltimore, etc.) would not be a factor if Houston's population growth ground to a halt for whatever reason.

I think, if Houston's population ground to a halt long-term, then it would eventually be a Detroit-style situation. Metros like Houston need growth for the sake of growth. Absent growth there would be some massive regional harm.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by JManc

Again, what ruined Detroit (and Flint, St. Louis, Baltimore, etc.) would not be a factor if Houston's population growth ground to a halt for whatever reason. Houston has a massive and diversified economy that can pretty much weather any economic downtown ..even the current collapse in the oil and gas sector which has taken a massive toll on the local economy but we are not becoming Detroit anytime soon. What wiped out Detroit probably won't rear its head again to claim another major city unless there is some unforeseen catastrophic economic or environmental calamity.

Detroit was victim to massive economic transformation (industrialization) coupled with institutionalized racism (redlining, white flight, etc)

If tech ever took a sustained downturn, cities like Seattle would be devastated. Amazon alone occupies something like 30% of the Class A space in downtown Seattle, and Microsoft probably even more of Redmond, and then Google and Facebook and a bunch of other tech companies are heavily represented there, too.

[Centropolis]

again...i think the answer is somewhere in the middle between JManc and Crawfords comment above. probably shouldnt underestimate the elephant in the room...the titanic road/sprawl-construction machine in metros like Houston. I think there would be ruins between vacuum-like pulls inward and outward in certain quarters as this machine attempted to survive. Parts of metro Houston would fracture.

Its hard to say how that might be mitigated by the size/wealth of the city limits of houston proper. smaller municipalities in certain quarters might collapse like dominos.

[JManc]

^ already like that in many areas. The state pours billions in freeway/ road infrastructure in areas with high economic activity/ wealth where as areas (east of town) where there's little to no activity or wealth, there's virtually no improvement.

Originally Posted by Crawford

I think, if Houston's population ground to a halt long-term, then it would eventually be a Detroit-style situation. Metros like Houston need growth for the sake of growth. Absent growth there would be some massive regional harm.

All cities need some sort of growth to offset dying/ ageing/ migrating populations but no, Houston would not slide into Detroitism should it have an extended period of zero growth. Perhaps, if the city itself had little to no growth while the metro area outside continued to boom, maybe but since the city proper comprises much of the metro (both in population and physical area) that is unlikely to ever happen. I live in 40 miles north of downtown in very much of a Stepford suburb where every other car is an SUV with a 'my kid is an honor roll student' sticker...but still in the city limits.

Once again, it was white people fleeing black people 50-60 years ago that more or less sealed Detroit's fate. Why are we dancing around this?

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I think, if Houston's population ground to a halt long-term, then it would eventually be a Detroit-style situation. Metros like Houston need growth for the sake of growth. Absent growth there would be some massive regional harm.

This sounds like total bullshit. Who's to say this wouldn't happen with any other city that isn't bound by geography?

If Houston's growth stagnates they'll just build less suburbia. There's nothing to suggest the city would go into decline. There isn't a culture of flight in Houston city proper.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

That was only a factor but not the cause. The cause was FHA and GI Bill lending policies which were limited to single-family home buyers.

It was absolutely a major cause, you're deluding yourself otherwise. Lots of funny think pieces on Detroit except none of you really know any facts.

Policies encouraged sprawl but they're not solely responsible for it.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by emathias

If tech ever took a sustained downturn, cities like Seattle would be devastated. Amazon alone occupies something like 30% of the Class A space in downtown Seattle, and Microsoft probably even more of Redmond, and then Google and Facebook and a bunch of other tech companies are heavily represented there, too.

Seattle has an incredibly diverse economy (Costco, Starbucks, Boeing) if tech fell flat their boom would stop, but the city would not see a decline; "devastated" is very hyperbolic.