
Why American cities are weirdly shaped - pseudolus
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/12/22/why-american-cities-are-so-weirdly-shaped
======
chrisseaton
My understanding is that a city boundary in the US is a big deal. The police
force on either side can be completely different, things that can get you in a
lot of trouble like gun laws can be different on either side, prices and taxes
can be very different.

In the UK a city boundary doesn't really mean anything. There might be a nice
'Welcome to X' sign but nothing really changes as it would in the US. I'm not
even sure there is a legal boundary for cities here? There is for
parliamentary constituencies and for local government areas, but not for
cities unless they happen to overlap, that I know of.

So city boundaries in the UK don't really matter so aren't rigid, where in the
US they are important and so rigid and so carefully designed.

~~~
mikestew
_My understanding is that a city boundary in the US is a big deal._

I’d be hard-pressed to think of a time it made a lick of difference to me,
having lived in the U. S. my entire life. “Don’t carry a handgun to Chicago”,
okay, file that one away. “If you’re black”, and I’m not, “don’t stop for gas
in Martinsville, IN”. Though that one might not still be true, I’d still stay
away from Elwood, my Afro-American friend.

Other than that, with the caveat of being a white male, I can’t say I’ve ever
had need to pay attention.

~~~
chrisseaton
A good example is that the Las Vegas Strip is actually very carefully just
outside Las Vegas, in order to avoid the control of the city.

If you search you can easily find examples of people being arrested for doing
something inside a city, which (presumably) have been legal if they'd done it
just outside of the city.

[https://www.jcolaw.com/discharging-a-weapon-within-city-
limi...](https://www.jcolaw.com/discharging-a-weapon-within-city-limits.html)

~~~
mikestew
That’s my point: why do I care where the strip is legally located? Casinos
have reason to care, I don’t.

And if you’re discharging a firearm, yeah, you better make for damned sure
you’re allowed (what was my _one_ example that wasn’t related to race?). Your
linked example calls out towns I’ve lived near (lived in Gastonia), and the
reason there’s a need for such lawyers is due to morons that think ownership
of a firearm and a box of ammo is all they need to shoot in their suburban
backyard. But that’s not city-specific, it’s a safe bet that if you’re within
city limits anywhere in the U. S. you best assume discharging a firearm is
illegal (it probably is) until proven otherwise.

~~~
daveFNbuck
> it’s a safe bet that if you’re within city limits anywhere in the U. S. you
> best assume discharging a firearm is illegal (it probably is) until proven
> otherwise.

That's an example of you having to care about which city you're in. You can't
just rely on your knowledge of federal or state law there.

~~~
darkpuma
> _" That's an example of you having to care about which city you're in."_

Not really. If you're worried first and foremost about common sense, then you
don't need to worry about the law. Common sense would preclude discharging a
firearm in any urban or suburban area, unless you are inside a commercial
firing range. It doesn't matter which city you're in, because you shouldn't be
doing that in any city no matter what that particular city's laws are. Even if
through some oversight that city neglected to create any laws concerning
discharging firearms, common sense should still prevent you from doing it.

If you're on some deep rural farm and want to know whether it's legal or not
to set up a private firing range, then you definitely need to consult your
local law; there may be unintuitive laws about the distance you need to be
from other property, roads, etc. But as far as shooting guns anywhere near a
city is concerned, common sense should be enough to keep you on the safe side
of the law.

------
macleginn
For totally different reasons, Moscow, the capital of Russia, has recently
acquired a magnificently weird shape after annexing a huge tract of land
shooting out roughly in the southern direction (nos. 11 and 12 on this map
[1]). In Russia, city and region boundaries are important, but Moscow city
limits are insanely important in terms of pensions, taxes, schools, and
healthcare (it's much better to be inside than outside). The main motivation
for this land grab, however, was to give housing developers more space to
build new houses, and newly minted burgesses are torn between being happy
because of imminent social spending hikes and being terrified of the total
redevelopment of what they used to call their home area.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_divisions_of_Mo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_divisions_of_Moscow#/media/File:Msk_all_districts.svg)

~~~
pavel_lishin
Huh, I wonder if this means the subway map is going to look like a figure-8
soon.

------
robteix
> The county is home to 88 incorporated cities, ranging in population from 76
> (Vernon) to 3.9m (Los Angeles itself). Beverly Hills (population 34,506) is
> its own city, with its own police force, fire department and school
> district. So is Santa Monica (92,495). Even Vernon has a police department,
> with some 50-odd staff.

Am I misreading this? How/why does a city of 76 have a police dept with 50
people?

~~~
nivertech
_" Leonis Malburg, the mayor for fifty years, was convicted of voter fraud,
conspiracy, and perjury in December 2009."_ [1]

Wow! Trying to spread democracy in the world, when you have little dictators
in your own backyard.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon,_California#Elections_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon,_California#Elections_of_2006)

~~~
DFHippie
So.... you're opposed to democracy if neighbors of its advocates are impure?
Or was the mayor one of the advocates spreading it abroad? Maybe they
shouldn't have convicted him in order to keep their record clean?

I'm having trouble getting at the meat of your criticism.

~~~
nivertech
The accent was on "the mayor for fifty years".

Local government is still a government. Things like this and the Electoral
College make US an archaic democracy. Maybe it's better to fix your own
system, before trying to teach others?

The fact that you had a banana republic with a life-long dictator just 5 miles
from downtown LA - speaks something.

No criticism, more like a surprise. I don't care about politics and even if I
did, I'm from a country which is a strong US ally.

~~~
DFHippie
It's notable that when the U.S. tries to help install democracy in other
countries they don't attempt to install their own presidential system. Among
its flaws is that it is exceedingly difficult to amend.

It's fun but not helpful to pretend other countries are ignorant of their own
problems and have monolithic opinions (in which case, why vote?).

~~~
8bitsrule
I think it's clear that the US political system isn't exactly serving the
people. Personally, I'd wish for recall elections or 'votes of confidence' for
the presidency ... say, to replace the 'State of the Union' mirror.

------
brudgers
The Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 established precedents for geometric
subdivision in the Americas independent of geographic facts and prior to
survey. It is highly expedient. Geometric subdivision enabled Portugal and
Castille to reach agreement quickly solely on the basis of Columbus's first
voyage while his second voyage was underway.

In the US, geometric subdivision is overlaid with Lockeian concepts of private
property. There's no general substrate of alloidal, ecclesiastic and manorial
subdivisions. Birmingham Alabama's shape was established in the industrial
age. Birmingham England's in the feudal. Birmingham Alabama's shape reflects a
history of land _sales_ in the age of rail not royal charters from the Norman
era.

------
mc32
The article implies that if cities could unilaterally annex twrritory they
would and that presumanly would result in nicer city shapes (boundaries) as
well as more importantly better and cheaper services due to elimination of
redundancies. Interestingly the article claims both rich and poor people are
reluctant to give up their enclaves/ independence due to power, momey, and
other aspects such as education.

~~~
robertAngst
My city is one of the best in our area.

Best schools, safe, and has a high property tax.

10 miles south of us is Detroit. Where the Detroit voters re-elected Kawammi
kilpatrick despite having constant public corruption.

Do I want those voters to impact my schools? Do those voters want to spend
9,000$/yr on property taxes?

Its far too simplistic to think that there is only redundancies at play.

~~~
dayofthedaleks
Glad that the Voice of White Flight Suburbs could chime in.

Edit: Also, it looks like Kwame Kilpatrick hasn't stood for office in more
than a decade.

Exactly what axe are you grinding, here?

~~~
ghaff
Detroit has some of the highest public school spending per student in the
country with some of the worst outcomes even for an urban area. It's a pretty
common pattern that cities spend more per student than suburbs and the schools
are "worse" (by just about any quantitative metric). And, yes, it's
historically been a big reason for families who could afford to do so to leave
cities; the alternative in their minds was to put their children in private
schools.

~~~
monocasa
So I have several family members who work in under privileged schools, and
what they pretty unequivocally say to this argument is that it's one of those
"it's expensive to be poor" kind of things.

These kid's parents work two or three jobs, so we give them subsidized after
school programs. Their housholds are food insecure, so we give them breakfast
and lunch so they can focus on schooling and not their empty stomachs.

So much of this spending is just to try and bring these students closer to
parity in the moment, but despite all of that, they don't get any that before
they enter school in kindergarten, so they're sort of perpetually behind. It
has next to nothing to do with government waste, or throwing good money after
bad despite what that terrible "Waiting for Superman" movie told all the white
flight parents looking for validation.

~~~
ghaff
To be clear, there are all manner of reasons why the schools for a poorer
population often _need_ to spend more money per student than an upper middle
class suburb. At the same time, as you suggest, the best money can probably do
is to bring students and the school as a whole closer to parity. It's not
surprising that many people who can afford to do so opt out of urban public
school systems one way or another.

~~~
devdas
It would be interesting to include all private/parental expenditure on
children in the cost of schooling as well.

------
jellicle
The reasons are pretty simple: taxes and racism.

They use Birmingham as an example. Many of the pieces of land that seem like
they "should" be part of Birmingham were racist enclaves founded specifically
to avoid desegregation. The land was restricted with whites-only restrictive
covenants, and if they incorporated as a separate city, why, no one would
force one city to bus their kids to an entirely separate school system run by
an entirely separate city. Which meant that your schools, theoretically
integrated, stayed fully whites-only (still are today). The Economist's
bafflement at how this came to be is easily explained if you look at the
history.

I also see a bunch of carve outs where specific land owners have removed
themselves from the city to avoid taxes.

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/Qqqtv](http://archive.is/Qqqtv)

------
ztetranz
Auckland, New Zealand has gone to the opposite extreme. When I first lived
there in the late 1970s there were about 25 municipalities with the central
one called Auckland, each with their own mayor and council. I guess it wasn't
as bad as the US because schools, police, fire, ambulance are a central
government thing in NZ but the local governments do everything else that a
town normally does.

Throughout the last few decades there have been several amalgamations. Finally
we have one "super city" called Auckland. Its boundaries extend way beyond the
metro area so it's kind of inside out compared to other cities.

Now I live in Southern New Hampshire in the US. It feels a bit like Auckland
long ago. Lots of little towns, each with their own local government and
services. They share some things like the a 911 emergency call center and
police and fire do "mutual aid" when something big happens in a neighboring
town but it still seems like a lot of duplication. If there is no sign, you
can usually tell when you've crossed a boundary because the road surface
changes because they have different maintenance schedules.

------
gumby
Despite the LA example, California isn’t as extreme as portrayed. But it has
interesting oddities.

For example, in Redwood City in Silicon Valley there is a small bubble of only
a few streets that is _not_ part of the city (or any city). However unlike
most unincorporated areas, buildings there do get municipal water, police, and
access to he schools. Why is this? Because that zone has an auto paint shop,
and other businesses that would not be allowed under the city’s strict
environmental and labor laws. But people still need a way to get those
services.

But fundamentally, California is comprised of counties, not cities; “towns”
are largely simply customary ways to refer to a place. Some counties have only
unincorporated towns and a number of counties themselves have no charter but
are rather just run by the default rules in the constitution.

High-density regions like LA county or Santa Clara county are more like the
European model with county governments, incorporated cities, school, water,
fire etc districts, but even they have many unincorporated areas...and why
not?

------
pseudolus
Not entirely pertinent to the discussion of city boundaries but Mark Stein
wrote an interesting book a few years ago called "How the States Got their
Shapes" [0]. It was apparently also made into a show on the History Channel.

[0]: [https://www.amazon.com/How-States-Got-Their-
Shapes/dp/006143...](https://www.amazon.com/How-States-Got-Their-
Shapes/dp/0061431397)

------
jeromebaek
Surprised this article doesn't talk at depth about the one obvious reason why
American cities are shaped like something a deranged computer spat out.

Racial segregation, obviously, is the biggest reason and perhaps the source of
all other reasons. City planners in the early 19th and 20th centuries had
racial segregation as their overriding goal to the detriment of common sense
or logic.

------
EGreg
I want libertarians and anarchists to read this kind of stuff and start to
consider that maybe cities are organizations that compete and cooperate, just
like companies and unions.

Disneyworld is a city owned by a corporation, next door is a democratically
run city. The Disney corporation has a sort of democracy of sharholders too,
which elects a board etc.

Businesses renting space in DisneyWorld are not much different than businesses
setting up a taxable nexus in a city or state. In both cases, force is used by
the “landlord” to extract rents/taxes and if you don’t like it, you can go
somewhere else. It is a “free market” of cities and states.

The exception is states where you are not allowed to leave. That is indeed a
major difference.

But overall, libertarians and anarchists often single out “THE STATE” or “THE
GOVERNMENT” for special thrashing, when governments are simply management
teams of organizations, and the difference is mostly of scale. If anything, a
democratically run city is more benign than a city which is run top-down.

~~~
stale2002
This argument only works if you are a person who believes that every inch
should be effectively owned by governments.

So it is _not_ competition. When you _purchase_ land, it doesn't really belong
to you. It belongs to the government, as you still have to pay their fee,
which can increase at any time without you having a choice.

It would be wonderful if it were possible to buy land, and that land actually
belonged to you. This is unfortunately impossible, though, so it makes no
sense to talk about _competition_. It is not a free market.

~~~
EGreg
Not exactly. Land is owned by organizations, governments are just who is
running the organizations — a chess club is not the same as its president and
secretary.

When Walt Disney World purchased land, it could actually administer an entire
city there.

What you are talking about is called Sovereign Ownership (alloidal title).
Like the Royal Family in England has a bunch of grounds where there is no
higher landlord. Theoretically they can murder people there and the police
can’t do anything about it. States on the other hand don’t own land in the way
that you’re saying. There are overlapping jurisdictions and laws, and
compacts, in practice. Many of the states were commonwealths (eg Virginia) of
cities before they joined the union. The history of states is just people and
organizations joining forces into larger legal organizations.

~~~
stale2002
If at any point in time a different group can force you to pay them money for
the privilege of living on a plot of land, then you don't own that land.

Instead, the group that is charging you rent is the one who owns the land. And
this true even if they call that "rent" by a different name, such as "property
taxes".

Using the examples you give, Walt Disney does not own that land, as a
different entity could raise rent in them at any point in time.

> The history of states is just people and organizations joining forces into
> larger legal organizations.

It doesn't matter. If this super organization has the ability to charge rents
on all of the group under it, then the super organization is the one who owns
the land. The smaller organizations do not.

~~~
EGreg
If that’s how you choose to define ownership, fine. So what?

~~~
stale2002
Your original argument was about libertarianism and how cities are like
landlords that compete against each other.

That idea is ridiculous. This is not compatible with libertarianism, and is a
bad analogy.

This is because it is not even close to a free market.

A free market would be one where people actually _can_ truly purchase land and
compete. But that's not possible. At the end of the day the land is not owned
by you, it is owned by the super owner.

That's all. It is not actually compatible with libertarianism or anarchism,
because there was never any choice involved in this.

Nobody can truly decide to pick up and leave, and form their own competing
government. You can call this good or bad, just please don't pretend like this
is a market.

This is why governments _do_ indeed deserve special thrathing, criticism, and
to be specifically singled out, where as private groups do not.

~~~
EGreg
Private groups are just smaller. Cities are larger and have more things going
on.

I can go live in this building or that. I can go live in this city or that.

Can I buy an apartment in a building and own it 100% without the building
having any say?

What if the building is a condo? I own the apartment, in a sense. I bought it.
But I still have to abide by the rules of the building. Does this make
apartment housing not a market?

You’d have to define the term “free market” before others can independently
verify whether something is a “free market” or not.

It seems to me that if you rigorously defined your terms and entertained
direct analogies between what privately administered jurisdictions and
publicly administered ones, you’d find there isn’t anything uniquely special
about a democratic city government vs disneyworld’s management.

~~~
stale2002
Sure. A free market for this kind of stuff would be the ability to purchase
land without anyone in the entire world being able to raise the rent on you,
or take it away after the fact.

No matter if this "rent" is called taxes or not.

The entity that has the ability to take away your land, or raise the rents at
any time, is the group that actually owns that land.

Governments deserve special criticism because they make what I laid out to be
impossible. Disney world is not the party to blame for why people can't own
land. That blame goes to the government.

It is because of this idea, that it is impossible to ever truly own land, that
governments do deserve special criticism.

So yes, that is what is special/different between a private group and
governments. If I discovered an island, owned by no one, or bought an island,
governments would still be able to raise the rent on me, but Disney world
wouldn't be able to.

The group that has the ability to raise rents on you is the true owner of
whatever land you are on. And it is only governments that have that power,
ultimately.

~~~
EGreg
Just tell me what is a free market exactly defined!

~~~
stale2002
I answered that question in literally my first paragraph.

A free market for this would be defined as when everyone has to ability to
actually own land, without anyone else in the world being able to charge
additional rent on it.

So you buy land, and you own it. And no one can decide to charge you more rent
for this, would be the definition of a free market.

Governments do not have this property of being a free market because they can
change their mind and charge you money for it later. Therefore they are the
ones who own the land and it is not a free market.

A free market would be defined as when you owe zero rent to anyone in the
world, no matter if the rent is called taxes or not, and you actually own the
land.

------
Redoubts
Wow, I think they marked Culver City as Beverly Hills on their map.

------
huffmsa
Can't read the article because the economist Saya I've read my free monthly
limit.

If the article is about governmental districts, it's because Americans are
predisposed to having lots of small localized governments.

Don't like what the guys 5 miles over are doing? Incorporate a township and
run your own government.

~~~
em-bee
load the page. hit esc before it's fully loaded. works for me, although, it
maybe because i have a slow internet so it takes a while for the page to fully
load...

~~~
fbonetti
Or open the page in incognito.

~~~
em-bee
true, that works too, and is even easier

------
cfv
That paywall just led to me blacklisting the entire economist.com domain at
extension level.

Too bad.

Don't do paywalls like that please.

~~~
chrisseaton
HN guidelines ask that you don't complain about paywalls. It's explicitly off-
topic.

~~~
huffmsa
Then it's a bad rule and we need to petition our benevolent overlord's to
strike it from the charter.

~~~
chrisseaton
Ok - but until you've done that, please follow the rules of the site.

------
suddenstutter
The answer is simple: Theyre weirdly shaped because transportation systems are
not privatised. This forces businesses to accomodate to older routes and
geographical layouts, making cities not only weirdly shaped but also
monotonous in progress and boring.

~~~
pfdzm
Did you read the article? In fact it claims that part of the reason for the
lack of good public transport in the US is due to the extreme fragmentation
present in some counties. Cooperation between neighboring cities is lacking,
making planning and securing sensible infrastructure projects a much harder
task compared to a ‘monolithic’ city.

~~~
sudden
What youre saying has nothing to do with my comment.

------
xte
A different question: can we build a manageable city for modern era? I think
not.

More in details we have already accepted that our constructions (roads,
bridges etc included) do not last forever even with proper maintenance but I
still have to see plans about how to rebuild buildings and infrastructure when
they'll reach their EOL...

Even without counting that we already seen that we can't predict the future
enough to build today something that can remain good, comfortable and useful
after 50/100+ years, for instance in "ancient" area (+50 years only) we do not
foresee today's need for parking, in today are many now try to imaging a
future with drone and perhaps flying cars and we have nearly no idea on how to
design today something that can work also for that future scenario.

The only think we know is that if we have abundant resources, space included,
we can evolve with difficulties, stress etc but we can, in dense area or
without much resources is practically impossible. That's why many not-much-
developed countries in eastern Europe have better broadband than far more
developed one, that's why the USA struggle to build hi-speed rails etc.

Many say that "riviera model" does not work, while I still to see definitive
proofs, but I do not see ANY real working alternatives. Developed Asia
scenarios like SK/metropolitan Japan are essentially nightmare if you have to
live in, not just visit as tourist.

~~~
lozenge
Japan's a nightmare to live in and spacing things out is the only way to plan
for the future? Sounds like you are judging by your own very blinkered
standards of what makes a city liveable.

~~~
xte
Try to live, really, not for short touristic period, in Japan with their
education, way of work and live. It's a developed country so you have all food
you want, all services you want, but you also have a neurotic, stressogen,
society in witch people live to work, not the contrary.

~~~
crooked-v
I don't understand how Japanese work culture is supposed to be a result of
their city designs.

~~~
xte
It's a result of Japan environment (not only natural), they are too much and
too concentrated as a result they can't live relaxed, they can only stress
themselves. Few that born or arrive to a "comfort position" tend to exceed in
any behavior, others whip themselves to the extreme.

That's why we read about people who die working too much, who close themselves
in their room for months or years, they use big load of antidepressants, even
more than the USA/UK (that are the top consumers of the western world) etc.

We develop any kind of things in response to our environment and we develop
our society accordingly; that's why in cold countries we tend to have good
welfare, reproduce less, are less violent than hot climate countries because
cooperation is needed to survive, low density is needed because of low foods
etc that's why in hot climate countries we tend to being far less cooperative,
more violent and reproduce far more. That's also why in cold countries people
tend to value space more than in hot one, that's why in some countries people
dream an attic on top of a giant skyscraper in the city center and in others
people dream a personal home immerse in the nature. And generally those
countries evolve themselves accordingly.

~~~
scarejunba
Not convincing. The inner boroughs of London are as dense as Tokyo and a dream
to live in. Your hypotheses have not faced adequate tests of falsification
yet.

~~~
xte
I was for a very short period of time in London and I do not see anything can
be dreamed, starting for super-poor quality of ANY buildings... Mean quality I
see resemble eastern-Europe ex-communist buildings of the poorer quality, just
covered with moquette to hide the disaster...

Without speaking, of course, about pollution, traffic, noise etc. Perhaps for
someone who have always live in a big town the level of service and public
transport can appear really good, but if you ever live in riviera...

~~~
scarejunba
Hmm, how interesting. It looks like you mostly encountered social housing.
Where did you stay and go?

~~~
xte
Islington (live) to Fitzrovia (work), I see wood slabs covered with lean
cement and moquette, buildings with only reinforced concrete directly painted
or naked instead of proper well-finished plaster, panels and furnishings used
as a quick way to cover unfinished/dirty things, moquette everywhere obviously
dirty and crumpled... And no, they aren't social houses.

Of course MANY countries, highly developed included, have poor buildings
quality and poor cleanliness in general, France where I live now is one of
these for my Italian eyes, Sweden is worse than France etc but worse than
London/Newbury/Carlisle (parts of UK a have visited a little bit more than a
touristic trip) mean building I only see few Easter European buildings...

Oh, I do not like Paris or Berlin anything more eh! They are not a place to
live IMO, however they have a less medium bad quality.

~~~
scarejunba
Interesting. I suppose I mostly lived in new build in by Tower Bridge and on
the other side in Kensington. Solid homes all.

Or in older homes in the midlands and those were fine.

