And why, exactly, can't they afford to live within biking distance from work?
Because
1) You're not allowed to build mixed-use areas thanks to NIMBYs
2) You're not allowed to build high or mid-density areas thanks to NIMBYs
3) You're not allowed to build real bike routes (the kind you'd let your 8 year old cycle to school alone on) because of NIMBYs
4) You could cycle the long distances needed on the road, but the US has made it legal to kill people with your car so long as you're sober, so this is dangerous.
Nobody's driving from NYC to LA for their morning commute. The size of the country is not relevant.
It says a lot more about your worldview than the original poster's that you jump to assuming a 50 mile bike, rather than the simpler notion that people live close to where they work.
Is it really so shocking to live that close to a gardener? What is outlandish about that?
The "dynamics" of SoCal are atrocious, you get the privelege of wasting your life away in traffic to do the simplest things.
Public transit is a bad joke too, the light rail in LA waits for cars to pass at intersections! I've never seen that in other metros, as rail always gets signal priority, but it is a great way to drive away riders...
> Is it really so shocking to live that close to a gardener? What is outlandish about that?
I think it's not that people refuse to live next to a gardener, it's that the job of gardener does not allow for an income that someone could afford to live close by given the housing market. It might not be 50 miles, but there are areas of affluence where it would take awhile for a low-income person to reach. There are also areas of affluence right next to considerably run-down (but famous) areas, such as Hollywood. Then again, I'm not sure how much housing there is in the run-down portions.
Well of course not. That's exactly why the person you are responding to talked about zoning. Without NIMBYs, you could upzone and solve most housing cost issues.
Southern California is dense and sprawling. Not very vertically dense, mind you, but I'm not sure there's a lot of existing room for new development without displacing people, and I'm also not sure any new development would lower housing costs enough to support the workforce in question. It would take a massive amount of high-density housing to get costs low in certain areas, and low-cost housing doesn't exactly draw in the developers.
It may have started as NIMBY, but I think natural market forces eventually reinforce it to the degree that NIMBY isn't necessarily the largest factor at play at this point.
Given the 500 square miles of Los Angeles and the 4 million people population, that's about a 60' by 60' plot of land per person. Given that doesn't include roads, highways, industrial or commercial zoning, and that people will group in housing (families), I think that's fairly dense for the type of housing which is currently in place, which is homes homes with yards.
It's not dense relative to other types of metro areas, but I think it's probably fairly dense for single level housing in an industrialized nation.
My point wasn't to imply that Southern California was very densely housed, but that there may not be a huge amount of unutilized land left to build high density housing one, at least not enough to really change the dynamics. And once the conversation shifts from just what to build and where to also who to displace to build it, it's an much harder conversation.
I could be entirely wrong, I don't live in LA, but my impression every time I visit is that there's not a lot of unused land, even if the land that is used isn't used efficiently (population density wise). If that's true, it's not just a NIMBY situation (even if it might have traditionally been one), as it's also a "don't displace historical group X that's been living in this area for decades" situation (whether entirely accurate or not).
We have not been limited to single story buildings for thousands of years. Saying this is the kind of housing currently in place really is irrelevant, because that argument would apply to farming communities etc. Instead High density means something and nowhere in California applies which is why housing is expensive.
PS: It’s a question of underutilization, where it would be economically profitable to take each of these buildings down and replace them with more useful structures.
That has little to do with what I'm saying. I'm not saying development shouldn't happen, I'm saying it won't on any quick timescale because of the existing infrastructure and how people fight to avoid change. All I'm saying is that rezoning to allow different building types won't lead to enough new housing immediately starting, nor even the change a decade from now being sufficient. A lot of things are required to fix the problem, and new zoning is just one of them.
The assumption that increasing development leads to displacement is misplaced. Homeowners could turn a single family home into a triplex, adding two new units without displacing anyone. There are also always people trying to sell and move in any housing market. Building new housing leads to less displacement: http://cityobservatory.org/if-you-want-less-displacement-bui...
As a homeowner, I bought my home so I would not have to live in a goddamn apartment. Its going to be a very tough sell to have me rent to strangers, even with the equity boost. I value my space, therefore real estate is expensive.
In many areas like DC, poor streets are a few blocks from rich areas. Land is plentiful, and density is cheap. It’s only artificial constraints that cause high housing costs.
2) Expecting your groundskeeper to drive a century on top of his (or her) actual job is pretty sick and cruel too
3) I'm pleased you mention Southern California as it's a useful case study of how to turn a pleasant area in to a dystopian hellscape. I've lived in Westwood (near UCLA), Santa Monica, and most recently San Diego (South Park - a fairly upscale neighborhood).
I routinely attended meetings of the planning group for South Park, where the attendees, all of whom were homeowners aside from me (and elderly), opposed ANY new housing of ANY sort ANYWHERE. They were blunt about their reasoning - it might hurt their home values. Of course, keeping homes expensive is a great way to ensure your groundskeeper can't live near work.
They also hated bike lanes, because they thought it would affect parking. It's rather sickening they cared more about places for cars to sleep than for people to sleep.
Over your own property, yes, Don't tell me I have to pay for your "free" (aka taxpayer subsidized) on-street parking. Or stop me from turning a lovely old 4 bedroom home in a nice neighbourhood in to two apartments because you want to live on a skidpad.
Plus, you can’t just go into an area with infrastructure capable of supporting 10k people and Just Add Housing™. What about the electric grid? Water and sewer? Schools, parking, trash pickup, etc. You have to have a plan to update all of these. The simple solution of just building urban apartment blocks everywhere won’t work.
>What about the electric grid? Water and sewer? Schools, parking, trash pickup, etc.
Property taxes can pay for these updates once the additional housing is built, it's self-financing. (Of course this won't work in CA, due to Prop 13. But then again, it was a ballot initiative, and those crazy folks in California voted for it. It's all self-inflicted pain on their part.)
We’ve built cities before, we can do it again. Infrastructure is cheaper with economies of scale than in sprawl. Remember, the people you don’t house still exist and live somewhere.
I commute 25 miles on-way around Chicago. I used to be an avid cyclist and would have loved to bike to work. I don't for a variety of reasons. My current job doesnt have any shower facilities, so I cannot clean up after the ride in. I also have arthritis in my neck & back that makes my head & arms go numb after less than 5 minutes of riding. I would move closer, but that puta me prohibitively far away from my step kids.
The size of the country is relevant; not everything is as dense as LA, NYC, SFC. Chicago being the 3rd largest metro area is also probably one of the least dense. I cannot reasonnnably bike from my home into the Loop. Between shit roads, bad neighborhoods and generally not wanting to die. Not to mention, it is infeasible at least 3 months of the year.
Also, your argument 4 is just wrong and FUD. It is no where legal to just hit a cyclist and kill them. Probably the slightest you will get is negligent vehicular manslaughter, if you are found to be at fault with no other extenuating circumstances. If you are not at fault, you might likely not face charges.
Obviously not dead, but I was the victim where a car ran a stop sign and T-boned while I was on a bike. The driver, who did stop and offer assistance, was ticketed (I think failure to yield right of way, failure to yield to avoid an accident), faced court, around $500 in fines and had to pay my medical costs (about $20k) amd to replace my bike (about $3500). His insurance took most of the brunt, but I was fully compensated for my losses.
>4) You could cycle the long distances needed on the road, but the US has made it legal to kill people with your car so long as you're sober, so this is dangerous.
No, the US accepts that traffic accidents happen, and absent irresponsible behavior like drunk driving, drivers should not be held responsible for accidents. When these accidents involve collisions between cars, they're usually simple fender-benders. When similar collisions happen between cars and bicycles, they often lead to serious injury or even death.
It's an extremely dangerous idea to have bicycles and cars travelling side by side in such close proximity with such narrow bicycle lanes. What we need is proper bike lanes with lane separators protecting them from traffic.
I think operating your car in a way that kills a cyclist, where there could be cyclists (anywhere not the freeway) should be criminal negligence, not an "accident". Presumed liability laws exist in places that are nice to cycle so drivers know they could face real legal consequences.
I can't go accidentally shooting people on the street and expect just a fine.
>I can't go accidentally shooting people on the street and expect just a fine.
On the other hand if a gun range built a pathway for people downrange right by the targets, you wouldn't be the one responsible if you accidently shoot someone. It would be the gun range's fault for creating such a dangerous setup in the first place.
Very true. The designers of modern roads are culpable for many, many deaths. People were outraged much as we are by school shootings when drivers first started killing people. http://thedollop.libsyn.com/193-when-the-cars-came
Because 1) You're not allowed to build mixed-use areas thanks to NIMBYs
2) You're not allowed to build high or mid-density areas thanks to NIMBYs
3) You're not allowed to build real bike routes (the kind you'd let your 8 year old cycle to school alone on) because of NIMBYs
4) You could cycle the long distances needed on the road, but the US has made it legal to kill people with your car so long as you're sober, so this is dangerous.
Nobody's driving from NYC to LA for their morning commute. The size of the country is not relevant.
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