A Decade of Urban Transformation, Seen from Above(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
A Decade of Urban Transformation, Seen from Above
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/27/upshot/america-from-above.html
45 comments
Just to be clear: the article and analysis are interesting.
The presentation detracts massively from them.
The presentation detracts massively from them.
American Exurbia/Surbubia reminds me of this song by Malvina Reynolds
Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky tacky Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes all the same,
There's a pink one and a green one And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses All went to the university Where they were put in boxes And they came out all the same
And there's doctors and lawyers And business executives
And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same.
And they all play on the golf course And drink their martinis dry And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school, And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university Where they are put in boxes And they come out all the same.
And the boys go into business And marry and raise a family In boxes made of ticky tacky And they all look just the same,
There's a pink one and a green one And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same.
Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky tacky Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes all the same,
There's a pink one and a green one And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses All went to the university Where they were put in boxes And they came out all the same
And there's doctors and lawyers And business executives
And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same.
And they all play on the golf course And drink their martinis dry And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school, And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university Where they are put in boxes And they come out all the same.
And the boys go into business And marry and raise a family In boxes made of ticky tacky And they all look just the same,
There's a pink one and a green one And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same.
I'm an urbanist and hate this sort of condescending BS.
Like, sure single family homes in suburbia tend to look the same. You know what also looks the same from the outside? Apartments. Literally all you can see for each one is a window and maybe a balcony, and they all look identical.
The problem with American suburbia is not that houses are similar looking, or that the people in them raise families, go into business, or go to university. The song seriously reads like r/im14andthisisdeep material.
Like, sure single family homes in suburbia tend to look the same. You know what also looks the same from the outside? Apartments. Literally all you can see for each one is a window and maybe a balcony, and they all look identical.
The problem with American suburbia is not that houses are similar looking, or that the people in them raise families, go into business, or go to university. The song seriously reads like r/im14andthisisdeep material.
>Like, sure single family homes in suburbia tend to look the same. You know what also looks the same from the outside? Apartments. Literally all you can see for each one is a window and maybe a balcony, and they all look identical.
It really kind of depends. People focus on the "And they all look just the same" element of the song and glance over the fact that they're "made of ticky-tacky."
In an urban setting large solidly built structures slowly form accretions and extensions to them that slowly help a neighborhood develop character and personality over time. Large apartment blocks that don't permit something like that, as you see in lots of East Asian countries where they had to throw up tons of housing REAL fast, can also end up looking really bland and dehumanizing.
But then you go to a place that has had time to really develop character as multiple generations of residents have written over them without ever fully erasing what came before and you end up with beloved urban centers like New York or Paris.
The suburban development model doesn't really allow for that. The houses can get extensions in theory, but often deed restrictions or HOAs insist on things adhering to specifically defined code about how they can look and what they can do. The conformism is a willful aesthetic choice rather than just a pragmatic shortcut.
It really kind of depends. People focus on the "And they all look just the same" element of the song and glance over the fact that they're "made of ticky-tacky."
In an urban setting large solidly built structures slowly form accretions and extensions to them that slowly help a neighborhood develop character and personality over time. Large apartment blocks that don't permit something like that, as you see in lots of East Asian countries where they had to throw up tons of housing REAL fast, can also end up looking really bland and dehumanizing.
But then you go to a place that has had time to really develop character as multiple generations of residents have written over them without ever fully erasing what came before and you end up with beloved urban centers like New York or Paris.
The suburban development model doesn't really allow for that. The houses can get extensions in theory, but often deed restrictions or HOAs insist on things adhering to specifically defined code about how they can look and what they can do. The conformism is a willful aesthetic choice rather than just a pragmatic shortcut.
Grown 'organically' within constraints of geography, climate, and local customs over large times vs. industrially stamped out mass products modelled after contemporary design fads.
Famously so! That song was about houses on a hill in Daly City, outside San Francisco.
Personally, I've always found it a great example of irony. The condemnation of sameness and uniformity, from someone self-consciously countercultural and generally trotted out by others who are self-consciously counterculture stereotype compliant. A song lambasting people for their smug and thoughtless conformity from the perspective of someone thoughtlessly smug and superior for their conformity who marks the difference by sneering.
It's really a remarkable piece.
Personally, I've always found it a great example of irony. The condemnation of sameness and uniformity, from someone self-consciously countercultural and generally trotted out by others who are self-consciously counterculture stereotype compliant. A song lambasting people for their smug and thoughtless conformity from the perspective of someone thoughtlessly smug and superior for their conformity who marks the difference by sneering.
It's really a remarkable piece.
IIRC, she was inspired to write the song by the rows of identical square houses with identical rectangular picture windows on the hillside of daly city south if san francisco.
Also the theme song to Weeds
Great! :-)
I'm from Minnesota originally and still have family there, so I visit regularly. It looks both the same and very, very different from when I lived there. It almost feels like an alternate reality. I grew up primarily south of the river in what would probably have been considered exurbs. There were farms and vast areas of undeveloped land. They're all quite suburban now (a lot of this was happening when I was growing up) and the populations have exploded.
This same thing seems to have happened in many other cities around the U.S. as indicated by the 'bullet wound' pattern all over the map.
This same thing seems to have happened in many other cities around the U.S. as indicated by the 'bullet wound' pattern all over the map.
http://archive.md/NrnL8
(Doesn't have the 'after' images though.)
(Doesn't have the 'after' images though.)
Just don’t try to scroll back to see any of them again, or you will end up somewhere else on the page.
Soccer, Baseball, Basketball being replace by Asian sports. Should be titled The Great Replacement.
Which is more likely to end the suburban madness: land war / security breakdown or carbon tax?
High cost of fuel to income ratios. People aren't going to give up single family detached homes with garages and yards until they have to. And they're sure as hell not going to vote for it.
Alternatively, sufficient numbers of people stop having children altogether, and then don't mind living in dense cities.
Alternatively, sufficient numbers of people stop having children altogether, and then don't mind living in dense cities.
I gladly have given up single family homes with garages and yards, in order to raise my kid in a dense city. There is nothing inherently family-unfriendly about cities or density.
You're approaching the idea from a perspective that has been tainted by a false consensus bias. If the desire for single family homes was really as pervasive as you believe, then heavily restrictive zoning that is intended to preserve SFH zones wouldn't be necessary in the slightest...you could dismantle the zoning system completely and nothing would change. It would never make financial sense to tear down single family homes and build apartments and condos if nobody wanted to live in them and everybody wanted to live in single family homes.
In reality, increases in allowable density are almost always accompanied by increased actual density.
You're approaching the idea from a perspective that has been tainted by a false consensus bias. If the desire for single family homes was really as pervasive as you believe, then heavily restrictive zoning that is intended to preserve SFH zones wouldn't be necessary in the slightest...you could dismantle the zoning system completely and nothing would change. It would never make financial sense to tear down single family homes and build apartments and condos if nobody wanted to live in them and everybody wanted to live in single family homes.
In reality, increases in allowable density are almost always accompanied by increased actual density.
Single family detached homes require wealth, and are an easy way to discriminate between those with well heeled families and those without. This results in school districts where children in the well heeled suburbs have greater chances of “success” than those in urban neighborhoods.
Even if one doesn’t desire the actual quality of life of less dense areas, they rarely want to sacrifice the chances of their children’s future. See what is happening with NYC public education currently. Hence, the zoning requirements against high density housing is to keep certain socioeconomic classes of people out, especially as it would allow their children into the school system.
Even if one doesn’t desire the actual quality of life of less dense areas, they rarely want to sacrifice the chances of their children’s future. See what is happening with NYC public education currently. Hence, the zoning requirements against high density housing is to keep certain socioeconomic classes of people out, especially as it would allow their children into the school system.
>People aren't going to give up single family detached homes with garages and yards until they have to.
That housing stock will eventually rot away as people age and their local governments can't afford to maintain the infrastructure anymore. Entropy will win eventually as future generations can no longer afford to live so far away from job centers.
Plus, it's not as if you can't have urbanism and still have garages and yards. They just end up being smaller. Plenty of places have yards and garages in urban Pittsburgh or Philly. The template for density doesn't always have to be Manhattan or Hong Kong.
That housing stock will eventually rot away as people age and their local governments can't afford to maintain the infrastructure anymore. Entropy will win eventually as future generations can no longer afford to live so far away from job centers.
Plus, it's not as if you can't have urbanism and still have garages and yards. They just end up being smaller. Plenty of places have yards and garages in urban Pittsburgh or Philly. The template for density doesn't always have to be Manhattan or Hong Kong.
That’s what I mean. High fuel costs are going to be the reason local government can’t afford to maintain infrastructure, and people can’t afford to commute. And not just cost in terms of money, but also environmental damage and whatnot, however it ends up being felt.
I'd advocate for the opposite... I think everyone should own an acre or two, planted with as many trees as possible to stave off climate change.
There are many more mental health issues in densely populated areas, much less biodiversity, more pollution, etc.
>Alternatively, sufficient numbers of people stop having children altogether,
We tried that, it was called billed as a "aging population crisis" and used as justification to import millions of people from other failed countries into the US.
There are many more mental health issues in densely populated areas, much less biodiversity, more pollution, etc.
>Alternatively, sufficient numbers of people stop having children altogether,
We tried that, it was called billed as a "aging population crisis" and used as justification to import millions of people from other failed countries into the US.
> much less biodiversity, more pollution
There's not more pollution, it just seems so because it's more concentrated. The pollution per capita in major US cities is quite a bit lower than the US average.
Similarly, there's plenty of biodiversity in the spaces that people are leaving free by spreading less.
There's not more pollution, it just seems so because it's more concentrated. The pollution per capita in major US cities is quite a bit lower than the US average.
Similarly, there's plenty of biodiversity in the spaces that people are leaving free by spreading less.
Lots of people living far away from each other - this is the recipe for mental health issues related to loneliness. Young people are voting with their feet by moving from such areas to urban areas and they're staying there.
For literally millions of years humans would have known well only a handful of other people, and likely met less than ~100-200 other humans at all throughout an entire lifetime. Crowds are a new thing under the sun.
Anyway, I like Christopher Alexander's "Interlocking Fingers" pattern: It seems someone has posted it here: http://iwritewordsgood.com/apl/patterns/apl003.htm
> People feel comfortable when they have access to the countryside, experience of open fields, and agriculture; access to wild plants and birds and animals. For this access, cities must have boundaries with the countryside near every point. At the same time, a city becomes good for life only when it contains a great density of interactions among people and work, and different ways of life. For the sake of this interaction, the city must be continuous - not broken up. In this pattern we shall try to bring these two facts to balance.
> ...
> Therefore: Keep interlocking fingers of farmland and urban land, even at the center of the metropolis. The urban fingers should never be more than 1 mile wide, while the farmland fingers should never be less than 1 mile wide.
Anyway, I like Christopher Alexander's "Interlocking Fingers" pattern: It seems someone has posted it here: http://iwritewordsgood.com/apl/patterns/apl003.htm
> People feel comfortable when they have access to the countryside, experience of open fields, and agriculture; access to wild plants and birds and animals. For this access, cities must have boundaries with the countryside near every point. At the same time, a city becomes good for life only when it contains a great density of interactions among people and work, and different ways of life. For the sake of this interaction, the city must be continuous - not broken up. In this pattern we shall try to bring these two facts to balance.
> ...
> Therefore: Keep interlocking fingers of farmland and urban land, even at the center of the metropolis. The urban fingers should never be more than 1 mile wide, while the farmland fingers should never be less than 1 mile wide.
It’s not like urban areas are not associated with mental health issues: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/feb/25/city-stress-m...
I'm one of those people.. and I hate it in the city. But I like making six figures and that's not currently possible where I'm from originally.
>mental health issues related to loneliness
Citation? It's a fact that urban living is associated with higher levels of mental illness, not just conjecture.
>mental health issues related to loneliness
Citation? It's a fact that urban living is associated with higher levels of mental illness, not just conjecture.
I don't have a citation for loneliness per se, but suicide rates for young people are much higher in rural areas, "even after controlling for a broad array of county-level sociodemographic, economic, and health care system characteristics."
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
Of course, there's always the issue about whether suburbs and exurbs count as rural or urban, which leads to people talking past each other.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
Of course, there's always the issue about whether suburbs and exurbs count as rural or urban, which leads to people talking past each other.
I can't see where they controlled for distance needed to travel to reach emergency departments after a suicide attempt. I'm sure they did, because it's a pretty big factor for how many people die from some methods, but it would have been nice to see this more clearly described.
Well, even if that accounts for part of the effect, it's still a benefit from urban living!
Urban living might be associated with mental illness, but so is poverty. Not because poverty causes mental illness, but because mental illness causes poverty. Mental illness also causes people to live in cities, because their needs are better met in cities.
I agree with you, but I think people should still live densely but surrounded by combined acreage that not only staves climate change but also makes cities sustainable.
The reason why the PTB oversell high density is because of high paying jobs and high property taxes.
Funny..in CA, only Bay Area has a high density general plan. Not Visalia or Healdsburg. Because high density has nothing to do with sustainability. It only promises sustainability for the care and feeding of public sector employees who are guaranteed a pension and are racking up unfunded pension liabilities in CA.
A 400k home in Visalia with 3 acres gets much less property tax than a 1500 sq ft 1.5 million dollar condo in Bay Area. So it is ok to stress the Bay Area resources. None of the services are cheaper. We are not gaining economies of scale due to the high density. What gives?
As we automate and find alternative renewable energy(the only solution is nuclear), two things will happen..UBI and sustainability.
From my POV, clusters of high density townships(Dunbar number is a good community head count) surrounded by enough land for sustainable closed loop systems networked and interconnected to other small townships to form a large townships and large townships clustered to network etc. This fractal design would ensure that cities are decentralized and yet the veins exist.
A good example is Paris. The city’s design of Paris with its snail shape is close ..but there are other issues, but from city design perspective, it is a good functioning example.
The problem with achieving sustainability goal is government.
Edited to add: also..schools are another example. After California instituted the general plan to build more, all tax monies went into a single pot and redistributed
https://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/fd/ec/documents/currentexpense1718...
Higher density areas get less money per student and lower density get more. But you can buy more in Oroville than in Berkeley. Or the value of a dollar is less in Berkeley than in Oroville. So people in high density areas.. usually highly educated with smaller family sizes and paying more taxes get less out of the public education system.
This is to say that California should have get equal opportunity for education regardless of economic status. Because in a strange world of progressive politics in California, a school in Bay Area doesn’t have a proper swimming pool or PT equip and AP classes are cancelled because of anorexic school budget. But a blue collar town in Southern California has new buildings and smaller class sizes. It’s just bizarro world.
The reason why the PTB oversell high density is because of high paying jobs and high property taxes.
Funny..in CA, only Bay Area has a high density general plan. Not Visalia or Healdsburg. Because high density has nothing to do with sustainability. It only promises sustainability for the care and feeding of public sector employees who are guaranteed a pension and are racking up unfunded pension liabilities in CA.
A 400k home in Visalia with 3 acres gets much less property tax than a 1500 sq ft 1.5 million dollar condo in Bay Area. So it is ok to stress the Bay Area resources. None of the services are cheaper. We are not gaining economies of scale due to the high density. What gives?
As we automate and find alternative renewable energy(the only solution is nuclear), two things will happen..UBI and sustainability.
From my POV, clusters of high density townships(Dunbar number is a good community head count) surrounded by enough land for sustainable closed loop systems networked and interconnected to other small townships to form a large townships and large townships clustered to network etc. This fractal design would ensure that cities are decentralized and yet the veins exist.
A good example is Paris. The city’s design of Paris with its snail shape is close ..but there are other issues, but from city design perspective, it is a good functioning example.
The problem with achieving sustainability goal is government.
Edited to add: also..schools are another example. After California instituted the general plan to build more, all tax monies went into a single pot and redistributed
https://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/fd/ec/documents/currentexpense1718...
Higher density areas get less money per student and lower density get more. But you can buy more in Oroville than in Berkeley. Or the value of a dollar is less in Berkeley than in Oroville. So people in high density areas.. usually highly educated with smaller family sizes and paying more taxes get less out of the public education system.
This is to say that California should have get equal opportunity for education regardless of economic status. Because in a strange world of progressive politics in California, a school in Bay Area doesn’t have a proper swimming pool or PT equip and AP classes are cancelled because of anorexic school budget. But a blue collar town in Southern California has new buildings and smaller class sizes. It’s just bizarro world.
There are only 16 acres per person world wide
Is that including ocean?
From: http://www.zo.utexas.edu/courses/THOC/land.html
(Apologies for miles instead of kilometers.)
> The total land surface area of Earth is about 57,308,738 square miles, of which about 33% is desert and about 24% is mountainous.
> we have not allowed for any amenities such as highways, schools, hospitals, shopping malls, stadiums, agricultural fields, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, parks, golf courses, etc.
(Apologies for miles instead of kilometers.)
> The total land surface area of Earth is about 57,308,738 square miles, of which about 33% is desert and about 24% is mountainous.
In [1]: total_land_surface_area_square_miles = 57308738
...: total_land_surface_acres = total_land_surface_area_square_miles / 0.0015625
...: non_desert_non_mountain_acres = total_land_surface_acres * (1.0 - (0.33 + 0.24))
...: acres_per_human = non_desert_non_mountain_acres / 7000000000.0
...: print '%f' % acres_per_human
...:
2.253052
> we have not allowed for any amenities such as highways, schools, hospitals, shopping malls, stadiums, agricultural fields, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, parks, golf courses, etc.
Yes.
The amount of land, excluding Antarctica, is less than five acres (about 2 hectares).
The notional "40 acres and a mule" threshold was crossed in 1800.
When you consider that land are translates directly to renewable energy flux, this becomes all the more interesting.
Some growth trends from a few years back:
https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/_bi5uhywbdyukhfy-eayjw
The amount of land, excluding Antarctica, is less than five acres (about 2 hectares).
The notional "40 acres and a mule" threshold was crossed in 1800.
When you consider that land are translates directly to renewable energy flux, this becomes all the more interesting.
Some growth trends from a few years back:
https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/_bi5uhywbdyukhfy-eayjw
our resources are limited. We have crossed carrying capacity 2 centuries ago.
The world population has doubled in the past 50 years. I would hazard a guess that 4 billion is bearable. Optimal would be 2 billion.
The world population has doubled in the past 50 years. I would hazard a guess that 4 billion is bearable. Optimal would be 2 billion.
s/land/are/area/
Edit window closed.
Edit window closed.
>Which is more likely to end the suburban madness: land war / security breakdown or carbon tax?
The hollowing out of the middle class will get there first. Already the outer ring suburbs and excessive McMansions are becoming concentrations of poverty. As the jobs go, so will go the young people and these suburbs without any real economic anchors will become ghost towns of lonely, elderly folks with nobody to take care of them.
They will be without the means to move elsewhere because they're stuck owning a house nobody wants to buy or rent. Their best bet is to hope someone builds a bus or metro line to the nearest job center so a real estate developer might come by and buy up a block.
The hollowing out of the middle class will get there first. Already the outer ring suburbs and excessive McMansions are becoming concentrations of poverty. As the jobs go, so will go the young people and these suburbs without any real economic anchors will become ghost towns of lonely, elderly folks with nobody to take care of them.
They will be without the means to move elsewhere because they're stuck owning a house nobody wants to buy or rent. Their best bet is to hope someone builds a bus or metro line to the nearest job center so a real estate developer might come by and buy up a block.
That's hard to say.
The US sure painted itself into a corner with suburbanization. I doubt that it's reversible. Or at least, that it would ever be reversed before it was far too late.
The US sure painted itself into a corner with suburbanization. I doubt that it's reversible. Or at least, that it would ever be reversed before it was far too late.
It already is too late for much of the of mass suburbanization in the US. They are not finanically sustainable.
https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme
A bit of a read in a 5 part series but well worth it.
Strongtowns.org refers to suburban sprawl as the "growth ponzi scheme". Low density sprawl requires more infrastructure with less density to pay for it. The density of suburbs can never hope to pay for the renewal of roads, water, sewers, schools without massive transfer payments from denser areas. By the time the bill comes and the illusion of growth has stopped, the center of development has already moved out to the next ring of farms to pave over for subdivisions, shopping plazas and highway expansions.
https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme
A bit of a read in a 5 part series but well worth it.
Strongtowns.org refers to suburban sprawl as the "growth ponzi scheme". Low density sprawl requires more infrastructure with less density to pay for it. The density of suburbs can never hope to pay for the renewal of roads, water, sewers, schools without massive transfer payments from denser areas. By the time the bill comes and the illusion of growth has stopped, the center of development has already moved out to the next ring of farms to pave over for subdivisions, shopping plazas and highway expansions.
Gas prices. We're really really dependent on a finite resource
Not if Elon Musk and Bill Gates have their way. Electric cars, using power provided by thorium reactors ... two massive game-changers for everybody.
[deleted]
There's a classic format for side-by-side image comparison. It's called "side-by-side image comparison".
Display both images (or all images in a series), and allow the reader's eye to move between them at will, picking out differences and similarities.
By scroll-hijacking and overloading, this is defeated. I cannot toggle between images, and instead have to scroll up some indeterminate and majickal amount before ... I'm parked several paragraphs or images above, or my viewing position simply jumps randomly about the page.
Some designer is having a fun time, but this is too clever by half.
Please stop.