> if city centers were more affordable to live in, many fewer would choose to live so far away from work. Myself included.
I agree, and would personally do the same too if possible. But I've watched us artificially inflate property values for literally my entire life. Even in my tiny US Midwest city in the middle of nowhere, city center prices have never been remotely affordable.
We should take it for granted that it's too expensive to live in US/CA/AUS/NZ cities -- because that's the honest truth. That's been the current state for decades, and there's very little chance that any major city center ever becomes affordable again in our lifetimes.
Obviously, we should still try to fix this. I fully support trying. But every facet of our society is wholly dedicated to preventing city centers from ever becoming affordable. Affordable city centers just are not likely to happen. We should not assume regular people live in a situation that doesn't exist, and likely never will.
>You accept the trade offs of living in a dense city, but not everyone should be expected to feel the same way about the crime rates, poor schools, traffic, noise pollution, or SF style feces/needle filled streets.
City centers shouldn't be expected to subsidize other people's ideal life styles. Crime rates and poor schools wouldn't be a problem if we took a fraction of the money we spend on infrastructure of suburbs and pointed it towards maintaining and improving city centers.
>or SF style feces/needle filled streets.
I'm sorry, what was that about patronizing? None of the characteristics you mentioned are inherit or even a common quality of city centers.
> Of course, if having choice everybody would prefer living in walkable distance to downtown, this is why normally it is so expensive, and you can only make it affordable by making it a miserable experience.
Well, yes, you answered your own question right there.
The US has a massive shortage of housing in desireable areas. Because of that, as soon as an area is at least a little desireable, people will start moving there in droves, driving the prices up and pricing out any attempts to put cost-efficient housing there. You can see exactly the same pattern in small towns that suddenly become popular for one reason or another and go through massive increases in pricing.
The only really practical solutions here at this point would take state- or national-level action to override the decades of municipality-level bullshit that's kept enough housing from actually being built to meet demand.
> the problem you're calling out is that it is unaffordable to live in a downtown metro after it reaches a certain density.
I don't know where you got that. Affordability downtown isn't really what is keeping people away (and it is not like rental buildings have lots of vacancies, nor are close to downtown condos, towhomes, and SFHs difficult to sell), but retail and restaurant choices have been decimated over the last decade, it isn't thriving from the point of view of someone going there to do things.
>There have always been very expensive parts of town.
Historically, yes. But I'd argue that there are a lot of US cities that got pretty hollowed out by white flight and other factors to the degree that there were essentially no desirable parts of town. What's happened is that any number of those cities now have a revitalized urban core (however small) and living in that small core with the dozen or so restaurants you can walk to, maybe some small markets, new condos, etc. is pricey.
I've either worked in or spend a fair bit of time in a few of those places. The few dozen square blocks on gentrified core is pretty nice as a visitor but it's pretty small.
> That doesn’t mean they don’t have optimal capacities.
> The metrics you’re optimizing for are not necessarily high density and high population — like a dinner party, which would be impossible to scale and would ruin the experience if you tried.
You continue to crudely reason by analogy without mentioning what these scaling limits might be.
> You’re ignoring all other negatives to living in a city and high population density.
> Crime.
What about cities are intrinsically more crime ridden?
> No need for community involvement;
What?
> everything is provided by paid municipal services.
False, even if I wish it were :P
> Not knowing your neighbors.
Again not intrinsic at all
> Not having space to breath, or to have a woodshop, or to garden.
You are confusing floor area per capita vs land area pre capita. Even gardens can be in boxes on balconies, see New Orleans.
> The list is endless. You might not care about optimizing for those properties, but lots of other people do.
> > Then why aren't rents lower?
> They are in plenty of places, you just don’t want to live there.
Hey buddy, if "weird city apologists" like me are not representative, then we can't bid up the the rent.
Clearly a lot of people are trying to live in the major cities or they wouldn't be as high.
------
This is one of the worst comments I've ever responded to on HN. All vague NIMBY vibes, no actual reasoning whatsoever. Get that shit out of here.
>This is also why all high density cities are all expensive and housing is unaffordable and everything from water to power is expensive and public services are woefully inadequate.
No, they aren't. I live in Tokyo; it's very high-density, quite affordable compared to anything in America, and public services are all excellent. High density is how you get high efficiency.
>Shouldn’t every American city deserve top notch infrastructure that the states only reserves for high density unaffordable cities where jobs are concentrated.
No, because spreading everyone out means your infrastructure cost per capita balloons, and it's unaffordable for the government. If you want "top notch" infrastructure, you need to live near other people, not out in the boonies.
>Zoning rules exist for a reason.
No, they don't: they just make everything far away from everything else and prevent density. Here in Japan, schools, light industrial, residential, and commercial all coexist in mostly the same spaces. So it's not that hard to live within walking distance of work.
Maybe you should try traveling outside America sometime.
> Honestly, having had lived in mixed-income neighborhoods, the wealthy are missing out.
I cannot understand why cities in the US are built the way they are.
I live in a relatively big city in Germany in a somewhat dense neighborhood (most buildings have 3-5 stories). I have two grocery stores within five minutes of walking, a great Italian restaurant around the corner. If I want to go to the city center it is a ten minute train ride, going to the lake is a 12 minute ride. I can quickly get around the city center by using the subway and all of this for a fraction of the cost of owning a car.
I grew up in a more rural area and personally, living in a denser cities feels more "luxurious" than living in a town where I can't get anywhere if I don't drive. The cities are still far from perfect, but this is mostly because they desperately try to accomodate the car obsessed public (but not as desperately as American cities)
> But you missed my point. All those perks of living in a city are great, if you need to be there to earn what you earn. without that, the high cost of living simply isn't justified.
I am not missing anything. I just deeply disagree.
City life is enjoyable in and of itself. I don’t live there because I have to for my work. I live there because I find it inherently better than living somewhere else.
If I was living in a normal city and not the capital of my country, it would not even be more expensive than living in the countryside. It would probably actually be cheaper. Gas is expensive here and our cities are built like proper cities.
I think you are projecting your value on the situation and conclude that cities are doomed. Personally I think we are just going to witness a shift away from cities where life is expensive towards cheaper cities.
> Any cursory reading of history will reveal that cities are and always have been where humans go to die.
(I'm honestly not sure if this is a troll comment or not. I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt though.)
Alternatively one could say any cursory reading of history will reveal that cities are and always have been where humans go to prosper and innovate.
Also, and more importantly, the majority of dense, walkable cities do not have high costs of living - e.g. Berlin, Barcelona, Istanbul, or even much of Chicago. Just because the most expensive major global cities are dense and walkable that does not mean that all dense and walkable cities are expensive.
If you look at the most expensive zip codes in the US [1] you'll see that eight out of ten are in low-density suburban or semi-rural areas. Does that mean that low-density suburban areas are all super expensive?
>A 45-story building is much more expensive than 9 5-story buildings
Including land costs, is that really true? I sort of doubt it, since those sorts of high rises are built in cities where land prices aren't that high.
> You really want your housing, jobs, education, retail, and leisure spread around such that people can conduct most or all of their daily affairs on foot.
Don't you want the opposite of that? If it is spread, you spend more time traveling. Public transit that is spread out is very hard to accomplish. Cities with that stuff all spread out are car cities.
> I am open-minded about the notion of housing as a human right. I completely reject the notion of housing wherever one most prefers[2] as a basic human right (or any kind of right whatsoever).
I won't make the overly broad claim that nobody ever demands housing in popular districts, but I don't think this reflects the reality of many housing decisions; usually it's about convenience; convenient commute to work, convenient access to schools and hospitals, convenient shopping for necessities (food, etc), convenient utilities. I know that some people get a thrill out of living in hip areas (my brother lived in a popular section of Chicago for years and paid outrageous prices for a hole in the wall), but more often than naught people just want a convenient location with the ability to perform their daily tasks without undue stress.
Living abroad, it's possible for me to have an hour commute because the public transportation is reliable and cheap and there are ample options for shopping at virtually every transit stop. This was not the case when I was in the US and my car was destroyed by a drunk driver; having lived in Tacoma, I enjoyed their transit system, but it was not convenient, as missing your bus even slightly after peak hours meant a 45 minute wait in the rain just for an hour commute and then another 15-30 minutes walking.
The cost of living in the US isn't just reflected in the rental price on the apartment or the cost of the house/condo; it's also with how livable the area actually is and what you need to live well in an area.
My experience is that typically this is what people are frustrated with and concerned about, not so much having fantastic apartment or homes at the coolest place. Bringing up such a concern just seems like focusing on an edge case and diluting the main concerns when it comes to difficulties with housing. I was lucky enough that the worst rent increases I had were to the tune of $30 every other year - that was as simple as deciding not to get takeout once or twice a month when I may otherwise had done so. This was in Tacoma in a relatively stable part of the city; but as Tacoma continues to try and shake off it's former reputation, many of the neighborhoods at the time were being bought up and rebuilt, and I had friends who lived near such areas whose rent shot up much more, and what was a place where they could live rapidly became beyond their means and they had to seek new housing. It's easy (relatively) to move when you have even a small amount of financial freedom, but when you are restricted financially, adjusting to rapidly increasing rental prices is very difficult. It has long reaching effects and leaves an already trouble part of the population without options as they are forced to move further and further away from the things they depend on into situations which aren't good for their situation.
> Only a very narrow segment of the population values [great restaurants, coffee shops, music venues, and street art] when looking for somewhere to live.
Are you kidding? Why have people been urbanizing for the last few decades? Why do people value walkability? Why are small towns and rural communities losing population, even when people are able to work remotely? Why is all the most expensive real estate close to these things?
If you look at literally any research on the topic, the exact opposite is true. Only a small segment of people don't care about those factors[1]. Do you have any data to back up your assertion, or is it just your enlightened perspective that you're basing this on?
> Expand your perspective.
Expand your ability to make an argument other than implying that someone else is ignorant. That's a childish way to avoid actually supporting your argument. You have no idea where I grew up, where I live now, or what my perspective is.
People aren't automatically ignorant because they disagree with what your gut says or your own personal preferences.
> Dense housing doesn't result in traffic congestion.
Yes, it does. And the relationship is causal.
> If more people live closer together there is more population density, but as long as they can access commercial areas easily then they can do their shopping and work and recreational tasks without cars.
What a bunch of bullshit.
> Are you seriously arguing that adding more space for cars makes cities less congested?
Not quite. Nothing can help hellscapes like Manhattan. They just need to be slowly de-densified, it'll take generations, but it will be done eventually.
Cities should make sure that they don't rely on transit, and the rest will follow.
> Otherwise you'll just have all the big cities turn into places for the elites of the societies while the rest needs to live on the outskirts.
Why is that a bad thing? Not everyone has to live in one place. A more distributed economy across a web of smaller cities seems more desirable. The high cost of living is exactly what is supposed to discourage people from moving to an expensive place. If people want to put up with a high cost and live in the outskirts with a longer commute, then that is their choice - they are explicitly signaling that they accept such a trade off, and I don’t think any special accommodation should be made for them given that voluntary choice.
One reason I don’t feel much sympathy for that outcome is that in the US, there are numerous locations across the country that are affordable and good places to live. The problem is that many feel entitled to live in the most desirable and trendy (in demand) places, and then bemoan the expense. But why wouldn’t it be expensive? No one is entitled to live where they want at whatever price point they want, just as I am not entitled to get a beachfront property in Hawaii just because I desire it.
> Cities are subsidizing your excessive consumption and land use not the other way around.
You're making value judgments about me, and they're not even factual. I happen to live in the city. I just see the value of suburbs and the incredible waste, inequality, and ineptitude of cities.
Servicing suburbs isn't expensive. With wind and solar, they'll grow even cheaper. Suburbs often have their own municipal water supplies paid for by their tax base. Roads aren't as expensive to build or maintain, and many people own trucks that can drive on dirt, gravel, and potholes.
Cities have pollution that contribute to cancer and pulmonary diseases. Noise that increases stress. Busy people that have less sense of community.
Name a city where an average American can even afford to buy a home.
>> Plenty of people live quite well in denser environments
> Very few do.
So the people living in NYC, LA, Chicago, etc are not living well? That's news. Tell me how else I'm not living.
Outside of the very core of these cities, you can live, and live well while benefitting off of all the things large urban centers provide (culturally, financially, etc).
>I also don't buy that Americans don't want to live in walkable and bikable places either
The problem is that the walkable / bikable places are so few and far between that they're gobsmackingly expensive. Even on a FANG salary, getting a reasonable place in one of the few walkable neighborhoods is beyond what I'm willing to pay these days.
If you want more than 900sqft for your family, trading a 15min walk for a 25min drive just makes so much more sense with how American cities are laid out and how much competition there is over the desirable places.
Having to live without a backyard and in a small space, crowded with other people, and having to deal with constant traffic.
> In most cities, they are the most expensive places to live - they are the most expensive, nicest places to live in the world.
And that's EXACTLY what makes downtowns "misery centrals". An average person will NOT be able to afford a large comfortable apartment.
> Argument through condescending dismissal isn't persuasive, and doesn't prove anything.
The thing is, no city in the US managed to increase affordability by either building transit or increasing density. Not a single one.
I don't have data for all the world, but it also holds true for several European cities. Oh, and Tokyo in Japan.
reply