Economics is to urban planning like structural mechanics is to architecture. It's a way of describing a justification ("we need a beam to hold up the floor, and the math shows why") not a justification in and of itself. It's also a way of bridging differences in subjective preferences "whether we have a post or a cantilever, we need to hold up this awning, and the math shows why").
Most Americans don't live in cities. To a degree that stands in stark contrast to Europe. Over 60% of the population of Germany's capital lives in the city proper. Just 11% of the population of America's capital lives in the city proper. To Americans, quite reasonably, pedestrians are just in the way of the offices and businesses they need to drive to. Economics helps explain in concrete terms why they might prefer to support policies that on their face seem to be against their interest.
> To a degree that stands in stark contrast to Europe. Over 60% of the population of Germany's capital lives in the city proper. Just 11% of the population of America's capital lives in the city proper.
Eh, D.C. is an outlier due to its special legal/territorial status. And the numbers are uneven in Europe as well. In Los Angeles, 3,976,322/13,131,431 (30.3%) of the population of the metro area lives in L.A. proper. Compare to Paris, where only 2,206,488/12,405,426 (17.8%) of the population of the metro area lives in Paris proper.
Out of the 10 largest U.S. cities, only San Antonio has a majority of the population of its metro area. Most aren't even close, at 20-30%. Out of the 10 largest EU cities, only three have less than half the population in the core city: Madrid, Paris, and Hamburg. And Madrid is close to the line--48%.
You can't use political borders in this way. You're trying to make an argument about population differences between cities and their suburbs, but every city defines these borders differently (to sometimes include almost all of their "suburbs", sometimes none, and everything else in between).
The key to recognizing how absurd this is: your argument would have to drastically change if each city moved its political borders +/- 15 miles in either direction, but nothing on the ground would actually be any different (that is, there wouldn't suddenly be more people living in one kind of environment and fewer in the other, although, definitionally, that would appear to be the case).
These lines are politically drawn. They don't support arguments of the kind you're making.
Why does San Antonio have a much larger share of its metro's population than does San Francisco? Because the borders of San Antonio extend to cover ~465 square miles to San Francisco's ~44. What does that tell us about these two cities? Basically nothing. (In fact, this information directly misleads us into thinking all sorts of things that aren't true (for example, that San Antonio might be bigger than San Francisco).
Paris is also an outlier, and the administrative distinction between Paris and the «petite couronne» is kind of artificial. In an urbanistic point of view, there is not much difference between inside and outside the «périphérique ».
When you say "don't live in cities", you mean "live outside of city centers", right? Because the overwhelming majority of Americans live in major metro areas.
A lot of people enjoy their quiet suburban neighborhoods and don't have any particular desire to live in a dense city so to convince them these guys need to start talking about dire economic consequences.
>The median house in Lafayette costs roughly $150,000. A family living in this house would currently pay about $1,500 per year in taxes to the local government of which 10%, approximately $150, goes to maintenance of infrastructure (more is paid to the schools and regional government). A fraction of that $150 – it varies by year – is spent on actual pavement.
>To maintain just the roads and drainage systems that have already been built, the family in that median house would need to have their taxes increase by $3,300 per year. That assumes no new roads are built and existing roadways are not widened or substantively improved. That is $3,300 in additional local taxes just to tread water.
I've seen these figures before, and they don't make sense. It looks like he gets that $3300 figure by assuming that payments on infrastructure will double and infrastructure will remain at 10% of the city budget. But the more reasonable assumption is that payments on infrastructure will increase to become a larger proportion of the city budget -- particularly when we're talking about, say, sewers, which won't generate additional demand for policing or schools (or at least won't double it). If his claims were accurate, no suburbs so defined could have been built in the first place. At the very least it's annoying that he doesn't show more of his work, which is easy to blame on the fact that he obviously wants to destroy our way of life.
Uh huh... "our way of life" that really only came into existence after WWII. Strong Towns focuses a lot on how cities used to be in the US, and points to that as a pretty good model. They grew incrementally, both up, in, and out. They mostly grew thanks to local, smaller efforts rather than mega projects.
No one is against people living in rural areas; people who want that are welcome to it.
The focus is more on suburbs, which are more of a recent invention, especially the US-style ones where no one can live without a car and all the subsidies that accompany them.
Realistically, not everyone is going to live in some dense urban core, and there'd be a gradation from that to rural, like there always has been. The point is that should probably be a bit more natural curve, rather than having tons of burbs that don't really pay for themselves, long term.
Some people would, sure. You'd expect that in a free market, right? Part of the point of all this is that the market we have now is very, very far from free: vast areas of our cities are zoned exclusively for single family homes.
I don't think that's very realistic in many cases - they could sell the land for a lot more money for housing.
But in any event: a few hard-core libertarians would like to completely throw out zoning, but most people just want to bring it back in line with things that are actual nuisances - or bring back actual nuisance laws in some cases.
We've gone from legit things like trying to keep factories away from houses and schools to people losing their marbles about a duplex being built in their neighborhood. It's gone way too far.
As to why markets are generally a good way of solving complex problems with lots of moving parts, I did mention that in the article.
> A lot of people enjoy their quiet suburban neighborhoods and don't have any particular desire to live in a dense city
I don't think there is any limited supply for suburban neighborhoods.
But there is a supply problem for dense urban living with lots of services within a short walk, and public transport to work. Demand is higher than supply, which has made prices high.
A trend I expect to continue is apartment complexes and little developments set up around them that are near commuter rail. But realistically a lot of people still want houses.
Everything is economics, brother. Even humanities.
No. The human being is more like an oligarchy or a board. (Or, as one of Carrie Fisher's characters put it, a "committee.") Economics is something like a 30% shareholder. Philosophy, culture, and mental models are something like 40% -- there is no absolute majority shareholder, but culture has a plurality.
Economics can gang up with the base instincts to overwhelm philosophy/ideology/culture, but economics just by itself would be overpowered by philosophy/ideology/culture. The situation here in SF is a great example of this. Ideology causes SF to pass laws and have regulations which work to SF's economic detriment.
Everything started out in the humanities. It's sort of like a primal trunk or root. I think philosophy, history, and art still have a lot to tell us about the human condition. I think some of the key questions to be asked are still waiting to be asked. However, I do think that science will deliver the final answers. (Giving more fodder for additional questions.)
>Everything is economics, brother. Even humanities.
Not even this pithy, wrong, six-word statement avoids its grounding in the humanities. Consider the baseless gender assignment you made: pure humanities.
> Consider the baseless gender assignment you made: pure humanities
That was absolutely economics on my part.
Not the most PC, but I took a chance.
A disproportionately high number of HN users identify as male. I also noted the users name was Roy, which I'd gander is also disproportionately highly male identifying.
The two combine to create a likelihood I'd bet the house on.
The content of your explanation after the fact does use quantification, but the personalization you originally wrote is pure humanities.
Further, the story you've told about what care went into your six-word comment: also pure humanities.
And let's not overlook the other humanities-based flaw in your six allegedly deeply considered words: if "everything is economics" then why is economics the study of the world using models? By their definition, models fail at being "everything" they model.
Depends on how you define economics. It's the study of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services, which absolutely includes common goods like green space, pedestrian access, and other factors that are becoming even more important parts of city planning.
Even if you look at some of these elements as purely aesthetic or quality of life factors, that's still something economists regularly analyze, even when it might not have traditionally been the case.
Yes, the argument this article makes is the only reason we have such streets. It's a good thing this article was written 200 years ago so we can benefit from its wholly economic insights today.
