# Is Dictated Smart Growth the Way to Go?



## Dahlis (Aug 29, 2008)

phattonez said:


> Just set market prices for everything so that there is fair competition. Set prices so that each mode gets the highest return that is the best combination of users and price. This is the fairest system and it would tell us where and what we should be producing next for transportation.


This doesnt work because it is dependant on city structure. A public transportation system can only be profitable in a dense city.


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

phattonez said:


> Just something to get out of the way, I don't support the use of zoning laws to keep density low and artificially support an auto-dependent city, either. In fact, I don't like zoning to enforce any kind of city form. But since New Urbanism seems to be heavily favored on this site, I thought that this would be an interesting thread.


This graph is seriously flawed. Why? Because of the density numbers. Those average densities depend on a lot of things. They don't consider large unsettled areas within the urban limits nor do they consider different ways of setting a city border. They also do no consider how density is distributed. I think there are few numbers which can be more misleading than these overall density numbers. 

Furthermore even if a more representative way of showing densities could be found, density is only a precondition for efficient alternatives to the car. Its not a sufficient condition by itself if no efficient alternative to the car exists.


If those numbers of modal split are only somewhat related to reality they are really bad as well. In Vienna city proper (1.6 mio) car has only a share of 32% or so. (all the trafic, but I can't imagine that commuter traffic would have a bias toward the car)


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## phattonez (Sep 14, 2006)

hammersklavier said:


> Then you haven't dug deep enough. Keep digging. A good example of a direct attack is here.


And then O'Toole responded at the end. I'll read more into it, but Shoup isn't really convincing either. I agree that minimum parking requirements should be abolished, though. 



> _A chacun son goût_. As I already said, I advocate a libertarian solution in periurban areas (i.e. the suburbs and exurbs), which means the tract owner has the right of development, whether I personally prefer what he wants to put in or not. I'd be living in an older part of town anyway, so it doesn't matter to me too much. The market really is the grand arbiter--perhaps what's most telling about my sig quote is the implication of imbalance in the transportation market. (I would support freeway privatization--surprised much?)


I would greatly support that. But people usually argue induced demand against building new freeways. It's an argument that doesn't sit well with me.


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## phattonez (Sep 14, 2006)

Dahlis said:


> This doesnt work because it is dependant on city structure. A public transportation system can only be profitable in a dense city.


Then we probably shouldn't be building transit in suburbs and exurbs. I don't see the problem.


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## phattonez (Sep 14, 2006)

Slartibartfas said:


> This graph is seriously flawed. Why? Because of the density numbers. Those average densities depend on a lot of things. They don't consider large unsettled areas within the urban limits nor do they consider different ways of setting a city border. They also do no consider how density is distributed. I think there are few numbers which can be more misleading than these overall density numbers.


If you consider that, then Los Angeles would have even greater densities because it has huge swaths of land that are very sparsely settled. 



> Furthermore even if a more representative way of showing densities could be found, density is only a precondition for efficient alternatives to the car. Its not a sufficient condition by itself if no efficient alternative to the car exists.


At which point we have to ask why we are making up all these rules if people are so adamant about their low-density neighborhoods. I mean, should we really go so against what people want? Not that I support subsidies for that kind of lifestyle, but I don't support subsidies for the alternative either.



> If those numbers of modal split are only somewhat related to reality they are really bad as well. In Vienna city proper (1.6 mio) car has only a share of 32% or so. (all the trafic, but I can't imagine that commuter traffic would have a bias toward the car)


Different strokes for different folks.


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## Dahlis (Aug 29, 2008)

phattonez said:


> Then we probably shouldn't be building transit in suburbs and exurbs. I don't see the problem.


We shouldnt be building suburbs. And the ones that are already there should be densified.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

Dahlis said:


> We shouldnt be building suburbs. And the ones that are already there should be densified.


Why are you saying suburbs should not be built altogether?

Why people who are WILLING to be car-dependent and live in bigger houses (you know, for some folks a PRIVATE garden where THEIR kids can play WITHOUT STRANGERS AROUND is more important that "vibrant street life" or "urban lively scene") should not be able to buy houses in such developments?


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## Dahlis (Aug 29, 2008)

Suburbanist said:


> Why are you saying suburbs should not be built altogether?
> 
> Why people who are WILLING to be car-dependent and live in bigger houses (you know, for some folks a PRIVATE garden where THEIR kids can play WITHOUT STRANGERS AROUND is more important that "vibranttry street life" or "urban lively scene") should not be able to buy houses in such developments?


They can go live in the country, no problem. As long as they dont come and park their cars in the city. 

Public transport will always be needed for some and low density suburbs are not sustainable. You can build dense suburbs though, around train and metro stations.


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## phattonez (Sep 14, 2006)

Dahlis said:


> They can go live in the country, no problem. As long as they dont come and park their cars in the city.
> 
> Public transport will always be needed for some and low density suburbs are not sustainable. You can build dense suburbs though, around train and metro stations.


Why can't we build low-density suburbs? In what way are they not sustainable? If people pay the full cost (as in we get rid of subsidies), then why not?

This also means replacing the fuel tax with congestion pricing for freeways, since the fuel tax allows us to avoid paying for the negative externality we cause of traffic to other cars on the road. Congestion pricing takes care of that negative externality.


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## phattonez (Sep 14, 2006)

http://www.uctc.net/access/35/movingfigure1.jpg

Surprise surprise, lane miles have not kept up with population, GDP, or VMT. We're surprised then that traffic has increased?

http://www.uctc.net/access/35/movingfigure2.jpg

The real value of the gas tax has also decreased with time. The gas tax has become a sacred cow; it's time for congestion pricing if we want new roads built.



> Excessive per-capita driving is not the problem. Los Angeles and car culture are closely associated in popular discourse, with the relationship between Southern Californians and their cars often described as a love affair. Yet among the 14 largest metropolitan regions in the country, Los Angeles ranks just fifth in per-capita VMT, fifth in per-capita auto ownership, and ninth in the percentage of employees who drive to work alone.
> 
> . . .
> 
> Lack of transit service is not the problem. Los Angeles has an extensive transit system in comparison to many other urban areas. Of the 14 largest metropolitan regions, Los Angeles ranks second in total bus service miles, first in bus service miles per square mile, third in bus service miles per capita, fifth in total rail transit track miles (including commuter rail, light rail, and subways), seventh in rail transit track miles per square mile, and seventh in rail transit track miles per capita.


Quotes from a paper about why Los Angeles traffic is so bad.

This paper tries to claim that insufficient road capacity is not the problem because Los Angeles has the highest amount of lane miles per square mile. They disregard the fact (though they mention it) that Los Angeles is 8th of 14 in lane miles per capita. Combined with the parking requirements and polycentric city structure of Los Angeles (which leads to one of the highest daily VMT per capita number of any US city) and of course you'll have traffic problems. The real issue should be obvious; *insufficient supply to meet demand.*

Transit is nice and it has its place, but that needs to be dictated by the market. Simply saying that no new roads will be built doesn't make much sense considering how much people go through just to drive to work. If they could pay for less traffic they would, and if private companies owned the roads we would have seen many new roads built over the years.


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## phattonez (Sep 14, 2006)

I thought this was pretty interesting. I made a chart up in Excel of metropolitan area population density by transit use per capita.


New York metropolitan area	56,012.00	0.432
Greater Los Angeles Area	23,887.20	0.023
South Florida metropolitan area	20,267.10	0.017
Greater Boston	18,868.10	0.109
Chicago metropolitan area	15,378.20	0.067
Delaware Valley	13,749.10	0.061
San Francisco Bay Area	16,634.40	0.052
Pittsburgh metropolitan area	12,710.30	
Louisville-Jefferson County metropolitan area	17,036.00	
Providence metropolitan area	15,652.00	
Washington Metropolitan Area	13,038.50	0.178
Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex	11,911.30	
Buffalo-Niagara Falls metropolitan area	11,437.20	
Portland metropolitan area	11,061.50	
Metro Detroit	10,900.50	0.001
Greater Cleveland	10,208.50	0.013

Argue the numbers all you want (sincerely, because I was using a lot of sources), and this is what I get (notice that I couldn't find some transit numbers). R^2 value is 0.7349 and there is an obvious regression saying that with more density you get more transit use. 

Remove New York and I actually get a negative regression line saying that more density actually leads to less transit use, though the real interpretation for that graph would be that density seems to have no effect on transit use because its r^2 value is 0.0038 (about as close to 0 as you can get).


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

^^ New York is a conceptual outlier in any transit/transportation discussion. Not only for transportation but also for any analysis like real estate patterns/price, and so on.


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## hammersklavier (Jan 29, 2010)

phattonez said:


> Why can't we build low-density suburbs? In what way are they not sustainable? If people pay the full cost (as in we get rid of subsidies), then why not?


You know, I fully support that proposition, but I wonder how far we are willing to go in tabulating what "full cost" is (cf. Jared Diamond's "tragedy of the commons" in _Collapse_). In any event, it's fairly clear that the American suburban organism is far too heavily subsidized.

To give an extreme example: _drivers who do not use the Interstate in daily commutes still subsidize its maintenance through the gas tax_. What...? 

My guess is that a full liberalization of the economy and elimination on all building controls would lead to an immediate densification of new suburban construction in any event (due to the development paradigm of maximizing salable product, and due to the American predilection to put up with an inferior product, i.e. a new suburb lacking in external amenities, e.g. a yard)...it would also entail a full privatization of the freeway networks, and leave under public competence only very basic roadway maintenance, up to the U.S. highway network, but exclusive of their limited-access bypasses.

In any event, our current playing field is far too _un_balanced to call it a "free" market. It can only be free if (1) roads are privatized like the railroads or (2) railroads are nationalized like the roads. Considering our current political climate, option (1) seems more feasible.


> This also means replacing the fuel tax with congestion pricing for freeways, since the fuel tax allows us to avoid paying for the negative externality we cause of traffic to other cars on the road. Congestion pricing takes care of that negative externality.


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## klamedia (Nov 21, 2005)

Suburbs were popularized as the Great Migration of African Americans began moving into the Northeast industrial cities and whites (white flight) began to move out. The suburbs due to redlining within the inner cities and the urban tax base were able to survive *READ:* _subsidized living for whites_ since suburbs also followed the practice of racial discrimination in housing. So the inner city residents payed taxes to build suburbs(an area that they weren't even allowed to live) and increased city services until the paradigm shifted and the city was gutted of its institutions. 
That Libertarian Ron/Rand Paul bullshit that assumes we are commencing from a level playing field and fairness really shows up the intelligence and knowledge of the folks that purport this type of lazy ideology. Address and _redress_ the inequalities perpetuated by all levels of government in housing, land use and transit and only then can we begin to discuss letting the market run loose. If these failings of our system and our supposed Constitution that says in words only that "all men are created equal" are not mitigated then the market will always work to advantage those that have historically been advantaged and against those that the system has historically discriminated against.


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## hammersklavier (Jan 29, 2010)

klamedia said:


> Suburbs were popularized as the Great Migration of African Americans began moving into the Northeast industrial cities and whites (white flight) began to move out. The suburbs due to redlining within the inner cities and the urban tax base were able to survive *READ:* _subsidized living for whites_ since suburbs also followed the practice of racial discrimination in housing. So the inner city residents payed taxes to build suburbs(an area that they weren't even allowed to live) and increased city services until the paradigm shifted and the city was gutted of its institutions.
> That Libertarian Ron/Rand Paul bullshit that assumes we are commencing from a level playing field and fairness really shows up the intelligence and knowledge of the folks that purport this type of lazy ideology. Address and _redress_ the inequalities perpetuated by all levels of government in housing, land use and transit and only then can we begin to discuss letting the market run loose. If these failings of our system and our supposed Constitution that says in words only that "all men are created equal" are not mitigated then the market will always work to advantage those that have historically been advantaged and against those that the system has historically discriminated against.


I am well aware of what you're talking about (although suburbanization in America is as old as American cities themselves--witness the Northern Liberties, Philadelphia's oldest suburb). The sea change in the built form was clearly rooted in the Garden City theory of Ebenezer Howard (a Brit), but repurposed for mass production by the Levitt brothers (among others). Redlining was one of the many physical and social effects that accelerated the emptying-out of American urban areas. (For example, Northern Liberties was redlined).

The massive income inequities and spatial segregation minorities continue to face in America appears to be an intractable problem, but, surprisingly enough, Houston is one of the most integrated cities in the nation, whereas many older cities remain heavily segregated.

So yet again, here's another incalculable subsidy for American suburbia, namely, the continued structural social benefits enjoyed by suburbanites (and wealthy urbanites) but denied to urbanites, due to, among other things, disinvestment of the urban educational system and entrenched cultural and social interests that maintain that disinvestment, continued real estate "steering", and perhaps worst of all, the ongoing trend of the "gated community" (which sounds like hell on earth to me). Now I'm a progressive in terms of my ideals, but sometimes more libertarian solutions are more practicable, especially when you spin out the consequences beyond where libertarians-in-name-only like Rand Paul, or even true ideological libertarians like Ron Paul, are willing to go, and into how the consequences of rebalancing the economic system (which is, as you know, unbalanced at several very fundamental levels, such as healthcare, transportation, and finance) would end up, in long run, eliminating the "suburban subsidy" (part of which is a continued long-term effect of redlining) and how it would undermine the egregiously consumerist society--which does flaunt its economic superiority even over the underclasses--we see today. Think beyond ideologies, my friend--spin consequences out--and see how short-term actions that may seem counter-intuitive to your personal ideology may actually be an aid to bringing about what you want to see come about.

Oh yes, before I forget, you may find this link useful: http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/explorer?hp?hp. Sometimes it misloads, but it shows the most current (pre-Census) information on America's racial makeup.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

I don't see a problem with "white flight" or whatever group that LEAVES one place. Problems are to forbid people to live in a place if they can afford that place (there is no such "right to live" if you can't rent/buy a house in a given neighborhood) and redlining, of course.

However, that above-average citizens (not necessarily rich we must say) decided to leave en-masse for new cities so their tax dollars would be diluted with booming utterly poor and uneducated population fleeing plight on other parts of the country is not, in itself, an issue.

I do understand there were racial components to it, but I guess the race card is overplayed. At the end of the day, the issue middle-class families where facing in the late 50s/60s were:

- a LOT of poor folks whose families have a lot of children and limited urban labor skills are moving into our town

- we want to keep our standards of living

- as they don't have much income to pay taxes, if any income at all, we will have to either pay more taxes or downgrade school and other public services because we will have to share those facilities with people well below our income level and severely disfranchised in the place they come from

Conclusion: let's get the hell out of here to a place where we can keep our standards of living without having to share our local tax dollars (It was wrong to forbid non-whites living in some suburbs as it happens, though, but massive internal migrant masses couldn't afford most suburban houses anyway). 

15 years later, inner cities fully into urban decay due to lost of tax base, employers also started fleeing where they workers are. After all, lower-wage workers, struggling to keep families, are less mobile and less likely to ditch jobs just because they have to do a reverse commute to a brand-new office park than middle-echelon ones (those now decimated by off-shorting, downsizing etc.)

Sad, even a little brutal, but true. "Taxpayer solidarity" principle works well on a national level, or state level. It doesn't work so well in a local level.


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## klamedia (Nov 21, 2005)

Unfortunatley the above comment is all skin and bones but no guts. IOW the Libertarian shortsighted ideology assumes that it was just a matter of economics but it wasn't. The nation became urbanized in let's say late 30's to around the ending of WWII where there were now more Americans living in urban settings than rural. The Great Black Migration mimicked this trend, IOW as the nation became urbanized blacks became urbanized as well and actually a little earlier than whites as they left farms in the South. So both whites AND blacks were pouring into the cities at the same time en masse both uneducated and both poor. There wasn't some huge white tax base that already existed, admittedly you had some established wealthy classes but the Okies and the Arkies that were leaving the dust bowl arrived at the same time as did the blacks from the South. Whites didn't earn to live in the suburbs and have access to better schools, the system was skewed in their favor. An FHA loan that was given to Tom to move out to Scarsdale but wasn't given to Ray because a) Ray is black and b)Ray can't live in Scarsdale anyway is just a piece of a cornucopia of inequalities that never should have happened in this supposed land of the fucking free. Also the "white" immigrants from Europe were also dirt poor and just as uneducated as the blacks and had a language barrier to hurdle. There was deliberate and preferential treatment _by design_ given to whites and those that would become "white" later e.g. (Irish and Italian) over blacks and it wasn't based on education or economics, it was pure racism. Many people get prejudice and discrimination mixed up with what real acts of racism are. Racism is the deliberate design and _action _of advancing one "race" over another purely because of ideologically held beliefs. It has no scientific basis. What happened as blacks arrived into the industrial centers was pure unabated unadulterated racism. What happened as whites began to leave the cities and others weren't allowed to follow but supported those folks through the urban tax base (e.g. new roads to get one to and from the suburbs) was again pure and unadulterated racism. Again before one begins to talk about allowing the market to run free grievances and inequities that are built into the system must be meted out. Before any Libertarian adventure begins there would have to be land and wealth redistribution.


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

phattonez said:


> If you consider that, then Los Angeles would have even greater densities because it has huge swaths of land that are very sparsely settled.


Sure. Los Angeles is also in large parts substantially more dense than what this graph would suggest. Which only adds to the worthlessness of that graph.

LAs primary problems are not its density, its the layout and lack of alternatives to the car. Yes there is a growing PT system and the city is changing in my opinion to the better but still. As I have said, density is only a precondition, 



> At which point we have to ask why we are making up all these rules if people are so adamant about their low-density neighborhoods. I mean, should we really go so against what people want? Not that I support subsidies for that kind of lifestyle, but I don't support subsidies for the alternative either.


Huh? People are ready to pay substantially more for Homes/apartments next to PT hubs and in more central/urban locations than for detached homes with bad PT connections in the very periphery. This would make little sense if your statement above were true 


So to sum it up. I made my point that this graph above is a waste of time and proofs nothing. It seems you have not come up with any argument in defense of it. So, do you agree with me on this?


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## klamedia (Nov 21, 2005)

hammersklavier said:


> I am well aware of what you're talking about (although suburbanization in America is as old as American cities themselves--witness the Northern Liberties, Philadelphia's oldest suburb). The sea change in the built form was clearly rooted in the Garden City theory of Ebenezer Howard (a Brit), but repurposed for mass production by the Levitt brothers (among others). Redlining was one of the many physical and social effects that accelerated the emptying-out of American urban areas. (For example, Northern Liberties was redlined).
> 
> The massive income inequities and spatial segregation minorities continue to face in America appears to be an intractable problem, but, surprisingly enough, Houston is one of the most integrated cities in the nation, whereas many older cities remain heavily segregated.
> 
> ...


Thanks I like that link and have been looking over since it came out, I guess a week or two ago. Using counter-intuitive solutions to problems have been spun before though. Booker T. Washington used lots of counter-intuitive tactics (self determination)in contrast to more of Dubois approach(although DuBois was for self determination ideology as well). For instance more of a Washingtonian ideology would state that instead of demanding integration into a larger society that didn't want to be integrated let us build "our own". The system of historically black colleges was built on this principle. The problem is one of externalities that were harder to control. As some blacks created all-black townships they were attacked and burned completely down by white terrorist organizations like the KKK. Also self-determination was seen as a threat to whites and was usually squashed wherever it sprung up. So yes, counter-intuitive actions have been tried only to be historically met with resistance. Even more recently during the 60's after suburban white flight happened black activists in the inner cities who were influenced by Marxism and Central American liberation theology ideology created organizations such as The Black Panthers that actually had strains of Libertarian type thinking at least from of social standpoint of less government since the government was seen as not very interested in the inner city, self-determination. These organizations were all about creating an internal economy and self sustenance and no real need for integration and were subsequently destroyed and seen as subversive and as a threat. 
So yeah much of what you're hinting at has been tried before, resistance to integration and resistance to self-segregation and self-determination has been the history. The only thing that hasn't been tried is all-out guerilla warfare based on class/race inequities, something that nobody seems to want.
It's very interesting how one can't honestly discuss the history of land use policies in the US without including class and race/immigration. Mostly every decision that has been made regarding land use and zoning includes one of those above three. I'm not sure if that's novel or disdainful.


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## klamedia (Nov 21, 2005)

Slartibartfas said:


> Sure. Los Angeles is also in large parts substantially more dense than what this graph would suggest. Which only adds to the worthlessness of that graph.
> 
> LAs primary problems are not its density, its the layout and lack of alternatives to the car. Yes there is a growing PT system and the city is changing in my opinion to the better but still. As I have said, density is only a precondition,
> 
> ...


The graph is very important and very accurate. In building a PT system one needs to know where population centers are on a regional basis. What the graph is showing is that over the region LA is much more dense than NY. It may not have any effect on NY but it means everything for LA in expanding its transportation system. Also usually not mentioned but LA has a pretty amazing bus system that is not just citywide but is regional with 13 other inter agencies working congruently with the MTA throughout the region. Have you come to LA and rode the PT system? Where did you stay? Where did you go that you felt you couldn't get there without a car?


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## hammersklavier (Jan 29, 2010)

Suburbanist said:


> I don't see a problem with "white flight" or whatever group that LEAVES one place. Problems are to forbid people to live in a place if they can afford that place (there is no such "right to live" if you can't rent/buy a house in a given neighborhood) and redlining, of course.


That you don't entails a general ignorance of race relations in the United States and the consequences thereof. They are, to say the least, incalculable.


> However, that above-average citizens (not necessarily rich we must say) decided to leave en-masse for new cities so *their tax dollars would be diluted with booming utterly poor and uneducated population fleeing plight on other parts of the country is not, in itself, an issue.*


How so? I would say that the naked classism of that remark--which in American society is often a veiled racism--is very much an issue.


> I do understand there were racial components to it, but I guess the race card is overplayed. At the end of the day, the issue middle-class families where facing in the late 50s/60s were:
> 
> - a LOT of poor folks whose families have a lot of children and limited urban labor skills are moving into our town
> 
> ...


1. It isn't so much true that the race card is being overplayed so much as misplayed. Every time people like Al Sharpton use it on every little quibble, however, it weakens its power. Unfortunately, the race card remains unplayed where playing it could yield the most power.

2. Your bullets can be deconstructed.

a. "Poor folks whose families have a lot of children and limited urban labor skills are moving into our town" was the case in American society since the Gilded Age. The response to this was not a built-form response, the way you are suggesting, but rather massive changes in immigration policy, to the extent that it is now very difficult to become an American citizen if you were neither born in America nor married to an American. May I remind you that in the nadir of American race relations Italians encountered _heavy_ prejudice--as did the Irish before them--not only because they were Catholics, but because of their swarthier appearance as well.

b. "We want to keep our standards of living" is a surprisingly accurate--if misstressed--way of putting it. I would prefer something that suggests the power of the American myth of "progress" and in particular how the postwar suburbs caught the _Zeitgeist_ of "progress". Unfortunately, all these notions do you little good without coming to terms with the biggest driver of suburban construction--the FRA loan guarantees and the terms and conditions that came with them, which, among other things, insisted on the provision of a hierarchical street system, the technical name of the most common platting pattern of suburbia--as well as an ignorance of other key amenities, such as the provisioning of a neighborhood center (doesn't have to be anything fancy) as well as multi-modality of transportation within the plat. I must stress that these features were all part of proto-automotive-suburbia, such as can be seen in Radburn, N.J., but were dropped as part of New Deal building programs due to the relative difficulty of implementation and never restored. Radburn is now one of N.J.'s wealthier enclaves, due in no small part to these fallen-by-the-wayside "little details".

c. "...[W]e will have to either pay more taxes or downgrade school and other public services because we will have to share those facilities with people well below our income level" again reeks of severe classism and is--again--totally wrong. It is wrong due to two reasons--(1) it ignores the importance of the institution of Catholic schools in the development of American education, and (2) _post hoc ergo propter hoc_. Coming from an Italian, I would have expected at least an awareness that Catholic schools played a surprisingly large role in the development of American educational institutions, not least because of their function as an "alternative" school where parents who did not want to deal with the public school system--for a variety of reasons--sent their children. Furthermore, in many major American cities, the perniciousness of Catholics (Boston Irish, New York and Philadelphia Italians...) in the political system effectively caused these cities' school boards to write their standards to be in line with what local Catholic institutions were already offering. In many cases, persistent underfunding of public education has left some of these effects vestigially intact. Furthermore, people did not leave the cities, at first, to avoid contact with poverty within the educational system--the two-tier public-Catholic school system effectively ameliorated that--but rather, only began to when the decline of urban educational institutions became pronounced _caused by_ mass suburbanization aka white flight. _Post hoc ergo propter hoc_? No: _propter hoc ergo post hoc_.


> Conclusion: let's get the hell out of here to a place where we can keep our standards of living without having to share our local tax dollars (It was wrong to forbid non-whites living in some suburbs as it happens, though, but massive internal migrant masses couldn't afford most suburban houses anyway).


1. "Tax dollars" is so badly wrong that...well...it's wrong. If "tax dollars" was the dominant reason why the cities emptied out, then how do you explain Staten Island? Queens? Northeast Philadelphia? Northwest Chicago? And any of a whole host of areas of unurbanized and, quite frankly, rural areas at the fringe of the urban parts of major American cities but within their boundaries--which were suburbanized along with the rest of the periurban landscape? Staten Islanders pay the same taxes as everybody else in New York City; Northeasterners everybody else in Philadelphia. Yet these areas prospered _in direct contradiction_ of what your claim would have us believe. If suburbanization really was initially driven primarily by the desire to save a few shekels on 1040(a)s, then why are these areas not still predominantly rural while surrounded by the periurban landscape (suburbia)?

2. Minorities did very much settle in the suburbs during the Great Migration, at, in fact, the same rate of urban/suburb preference patterns of everybody else (that is, about 50/50). The rise of _tract suburbia_ (i.e. Levittowns) and very real lending discrimination (i.e. redlining) undermined minority suburban home ownership in the postwar era, but it certainly did not eliminate it altogether. In fact (in accordance to the sector model) minority-dominated suburbia expanded out in the directions of least desire within the urban agglomeration. Hence areas like Delaware County, Pennsylvania. So your claim is a fundamental misunderstanding of the data--I suggest you mine the archives a bit deeper (it was reading technical papers I found all this out).


> 15 years later, inner cities fully into urban decay due to lost of tax base, employers also started fleeing where they workers are. After all, lower-wage workers, struggling to keep families, are less mobile and less likely to ditch jobs just because they have to do a reverse commute to a brand-new office park than middle-echelon ones (those now decimated by off-shorting, downsizing etc.)


The nadir of American cities in the main actually seems to fall in the same time period as the _gas glut_ (that is, from the end of the '70s-era OPEC embargoes to the mid-1990s. This is also the era of the onset of globalization, and hence of pronounced deindustrialization, as factories shipped jobs abroad. Fears associated with deindustrialization were in the _Zeitgeist_ most predominantly during the late '80s and early '90s--see, for example, films like _Jumanji_, _Roger and Me_, and _Tommy Boy_. These two factors together seem to have been a catalyst for--at the very least--a heightened public understanding of the urban issues _caused by_ the onset of suburbanization, and _exasperated by_ cities' loss of their traditional industrial job base (most prevalent in the Rust Belt).


> Sad, even a little brutal, but true. "Taxpayer solidarity" principle works well on a national level, or state level. It doesn't work so well in a local level.


A right answer, arrived at by all the wrong reasons. Typical.


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## Nexis (Aug 7, 2007)

Suburbanist said:


> I don't see a problem with "white flight" or whatever group that LEAVES one place. Problems are to forbid people to live in a place if they can afford that place (there is no such "right to live" if you can't rent/buy a house in a given neighborhood) and redlining, of course.
> 
> However, that above-average citizens (not necessarily rich we must say) decided to leave en-masse for new cities so their tax dollars would be diluted with booming utterly poor and uneducated population fleeing plight on other parts of the country is not, in itself, an issue.
> 
> ...


I honestly don't what to say......you don't seem to understand a thing about this issue.....hno: I'm sick and tired of you making assumptions on this site and thinking you know everything when you don't......this comment just makes me even more mad at you......open a book and read up some more.....and please don't move to this country.....


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## pesto (Jun 29, 2009)

First, ad hominem arguments against Suburbanist are not useful.

Second, I see very little to criticize in his latest post, above. I would only add that govt. policy and court decisions drove most of the people (white, Asian, Hispanic) out of town and school integration (bussing, in particular) was among the key drivers. You don't need statistics; it was on the news every day in the 60's and 70's.

In LA Hispanics interested in better education (including my parents) got out of LA and into Glendale, Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley, which were outside of the LA school district and did not have 1 1/2 bus rides in the name of improving education. This kind of policy aggravated the normal tendency for neighborhoods to deteriorate over time as newer ones are built. But more importantly it discouraged (and continues to discourage) families from moving back into the cities. (I believe the KC school district's issues are a recent example but I see it from personal experience in SF and SJ as well.)


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## klamedia (Nov 21, 2005)

Surely you're not wading into the waters of school busing and the forced desegragation of public schools in this country? But if you must. Let's keep it simple so that we can get to the heart of your defending of "suburbanist". *Why was busing ever considered or even enacted? Who was being bused? To where? And why?* 



pesto said:


> *I would only add that govt. policy and court decisions drove most of the people* (white, Asian,* Hispanic)* *out of town and school integration (bussing, in particular) was among the key drivers. You don't need statistics; it was on the news every day in the 60's and 70's.*


Note: Latinos who make up the overwhelming majority of LAUSD are not part of some "brown flight" out of LA because of busing. Who would they be fleeing from? Theirselves? Completely an unsubstantiated comment that has not even a lick of truth to it. You're also leading the reader to believe that "hispanics" left LAUSD because of African Americans, the only other large ethnic/"racial" group that you deliberately left out. Once again this has not even a nano of truth.


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## phattonez (Sep 14, 2006)

hammersklavier said:


> You know, I fully support that proposition, but I wonder how far we are willing to go in tabulating what "full cost" is (cf. Jared Diamond's "tragedy of the commons" in _Collapse_). In any event, it's fairly clear that the American suburban organism is far too heavily subsidized.
> 
> To give an extreme example: _drivers who do not use the Interstate in daily commutes still subsidize its maintenance through the gas tax_. What...?


Why the what? If you only drive on streets you still have to pay for interstates. But which one is cheaper to drive on? There's no incentive to drive on the cheaper one with a gas tax.



> In any event, our current playing field is far too _un_balanced to call it a "free" market. It can only be free if (1) roads are privatized like the railroads or (2) railroads are nationalized like the roads. Considering our current political climate, option (1) seems more feasible.


We're halfway to railroad nationalization. Only freight rail is comparatively free.


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## hammersklavier (Jan 29, 2010)

phattonez said:


> Why the what? If you only drive on streets you still have to pay for interstates. But which one is cheaper to drive on? There's no incentive to drive on the cheaper one with a gas tax.


Because it is one of the most ludicrous examples of the way the gas tax functions as a massive subsidization system rather than a per-user fee.


> We're halfway to railroad nationalization. Only freight rail is comparatively free.


Amtrak was only formed when the freight railroads figured out it effectively functioned as a way to jettison unprofitable and theretofore-required passenger rail service. And in any event, it rarely owns the tracks it runs on.

I am *not* a libertarian, at least in the American sense of the word. American "libertarianism" is profoundly anti-libertarian in that it is blind to certain economic inequities caused by government control of certain sectors of the economy--most crassly, the inequities caused by inequitable distribution of infrastructure investment. To be a "true" libertarian you would need to eliminate all of the governmental competencies amassed during the previous century (many of which were very necessary--read _The Jungle_ sometime). Even (most of) those aligned with American "libertarian" ideology would be unwilling to do away with all these competencies--the irony is, when I espouse a libertarian policy, I usually want to do away with a competency the ideological "libertarians" want to remain in the government's hands, while I usually want to retain competencies ideological "libertarians" want to dispose of.


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## Nexis (Aug 7, 2007)

phattonez said:


> Why the what? If you only drive on streets you still have to pay for interstates. But which one is cheaper to drive on? There's no incentive to drive on the cheaper one with a gas tax.
> 
> 
> 
> We're halfway to railroad nationalization. Only freight rail is comparatively free.


Freight companies are still subsidized or have there projects paided for by states just like the airliners...


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## phattonez (Sep 14, 2006)

Nexis said:


> Freight companies are still subsidized or have there projects paided for by states just like the airliners...


Hence the "comparatively free" and not "completely free."


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## phattonez (Sep 14, 2006)

hammersklavier said:


> Because it is one of the most ludicrous examples of the way the gas tax functions as a massive subsidization system rather than a per-user fee.


I realize it's a subsidy, I don't think we disagree here.



> Amtrak was only formed when the freight railroads figured out it effectively functioned as a way to jettison unprofitable and theretofore-required passenger rail service. And in any event, it rarely owns the tracks it runs on.


Required by what standard? If it's too expensive for you to live your life out in the boonies then maybe you shouldn't be living there. You don't deserve to have your lifestyle subsidized.



> I am *not* a libertarian, at least in the American sense of the word. American "libertarianism" is profoundly anti-libertarian in that it is blind to certain economic inequities caused by government control of certain sectors of the economy--most crassly, the inequities caused by inequitable distribution of infrastructure investment. To be a "true" libertarian you would need to eliminate all of the governmental competencies amassed during the previous century (*many of which were very necessary--read The Jungle sometime*). Even (most of) those aligned with American "libertarian" ideology would be unwilling to do away with all these competencies--the irony is, when I espouse a libertarian policy, I usually want to do away with a competency the ideological "libertarians" want to remain in the government's hands, while I usually want to retain competencies ideological "libertarians" want to dispose of.


Lol, the Jungle was a load of crap. A complete, unequivocal, load of crap.

As a libertarian, I really would like to get rid of most of these institutions. They serve no purpose.



> I wanted this thread to mostly be about how the FDA and pure food and drug act came about. Most point to publication of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. People read that and are appalled by how meat was handled back then. But should we really have kids reading this thinking that this is how things actually were? After all, The Jungle is a work of fiction. Theodore Roosevelt called Sinclair a "crackpot." In one of his correspondences, he wrote of Upton Sinclair, "Three-fourths of the things he said were absolute falsehoods. For some of the remainder there was only a basis of truth."
> 
> In terms of legislation, the real starting point was Neill-Reynolds Report. This was the report that was needed for the food safety regulations that were passed. But, of course, there were problems with it.
> 
> ...


http://www.debatepolitics.com/gener...get-history-food-safety-straightened-out.html


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## pesto (Jun 29, 2009)

Klam:

1. Hispanics did flee LA; the were replaced by new Hispanic arrivals who couldn't afford anything else. The result was higher income Hispanic in Glendale, parts of SGV, etc.,; lower income in LA (mostly undocumented). Race and ethnicity had nothing to do with it. Anyone who wanted a better education for their kids got out of LA or went private.

2. You are too fixated on ethnicity. Most people don't think like that. They look at the quality of education, physical appearance of a neighborhood and such. Very few LA or Bay Area neighborhoods are now anything other than a mixture of races, ethnicities, etc. The honest truth: my nearest neighbors are black, Iranian, Indian, Hispanic and Chinese and they all came here for the better schools.

3. More generally, Brown vs. BOE was a needed case because separate but equal was a complete failure. Some of the follow-up cases that tried to force housing integration, whatever the bona fides of their intent, were disastrous in their consequences. The usual result of social engineering. But this is thoroughly discussed in a million places and doesn't need further discussion.


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## hammersklavier (Jan 29, 2010)

phatonnez:

1. I realize we have no disagreement on the first point. I was restating it for clarity.

2. Until Amtrak was formed, the FRA had some very heavy regulations on passenger train running. All railroads were required to run mainline passenger trains (etc.) I forget the exact regulations, but the gist of it is that Amtrak "inherited" a gajillion passenger trains when it was formed, and by the end of its first decade, reduced these runs by 2/3rds or so.

3. I'm sorry, but the argument you posted about _The Jungle_ being a load of crap is _itself_ a load of crap. Here's why:

a. Positing that it was bad because Roosevelt didn't like Sinclair is _ad hominem_, false authority, and irrelevant example. Starting with a triplet of fallacies in one claim is never a good way to start an argument.

b. A total misunderstanding about muckraking and the fiction tradition. When you learn to write at more serious levels, you learn that _fiction always reveals the truth_. Not in the way nonfiction does, of course, but it reveals "hidden" truth. (This is the jumping-off point for the whole field of aesthetics, but the people who actually _do_ the art don't care about interpreting it too much.)

Between these, which seem to be the "strong" arguments the author puts forth, I am _highly_ dubious of the author's claim, even as points (c) and (d)--the rushed report, and the big meatpackers _wanting_ further regulation--are potentially verifiable, more relevant, and more interesting from an argumentative basis.

Also, I would recommend you actually _read_ this book you hate so much sometime. There is a direct reference to the government inspectors (and even a rabbi, declaring the product kosher) in the book's squickiest chapters. As the famous quote goes--"I aimed for the American people's hearts and I hit them in their stomachs."


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