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Originally Posted by iheartthed
Yeah, but urban footprint isn't the same thing as lot size. Detroit's urban footprint is large because of too much sprawl, not lot size. Boston has much less sprawl than Detroit, even if its suburbs are less dense. I have a feeling that the large lot sizes that exist in suburban Boston are just old farm plots that were converted to housing since they aren't large enough for modern farms.
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Yes, many of them are probably old farms. However, if Boston population keeps growing fast, eventually we'll have to see some densification there, otherwise it will keep sprawling into western MA or northern CT.
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Originally Posted by Crawford
The most environmentally sound thing to do is that everyone kill themselves and their families.
But, in the real world, we already have U.S. sprawl. The worst thing you can do is densify existing autocentric sprawl. There's zero benefit. The problem in Boston isn't leafy homes in the woods, and turning them into Phoenix-style subdivisions would be a nightmare.
Those homes in the woods are on septic/well, they're generally older and preserve the surroundings. Just building newer junk housing close together, requiring urban utilities like city water, sewerage, etc. isn't more environmentally sound or efficient. It's terrible for drinking water and drainage and focusing resources away from existing built form. It would also destroy tax base and natural beauty.
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Between "everybody die" and having everybody living in a 10 acre property because "we're Americans and we deserve it" I guess it's possible to find a middle ground, right?
But changing the subject a little, it's crazy how we cannot say anything remotely negative about Boston. Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami, New York are all up to scrutiny here, but somehow Boston is just perfect. Why's that?
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Originally Posted by JManc
Boston grew outward more organically; i.e. very few masterplanned suburbs platted from massive tracks of undeveloped land like in other metros. My neighborhood here did not exist before 1970 and today it has roughly 80,000 people. Up there, suburbs grew as people built their own houses on pieces of land they bought usually on old farm land broken up.
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As we having Boston booming lately, it's easy to forget, but Boston has one of the slowest growth rate in the US in the past 100 years. That definitely helped them not having to develop new areas.