
The era of cheap suburban growth and development is over - jseliger
https://www.citylab.com/housing/2017/05/the-new-suburban-crisis/521709/?utm_source=SFTwitter
======
notadoc
Maybe on the west coast and western USA.

But the suburban dream of middle class life at low prices is alive and well in
the midwest, south, and much of the NE too, where nice housing is still no
more than 2x-3.5x median income levels.

~~~
notadoc
A related thought...

Startups and tech companies should pick a few midwestern or NE cities and open
offices there.

Imagine if Cleveland Ohio was a tech hub and "cool" by any vague stretch that
a western city is, housing there is practically free by west coast standards.

[https://www.zillow.com/homes/cleveland-
ohio_rb/](https://www.zillow.com/homes/cleveland-ohio_rb/)

Even cities like Albany or Rochester NY are dirt cheap compared to any city in
a western state.

[https://www.zillow.com/albany-ny/](https://www.zillow.com/albany-ny/)

But instead everyone piles into San Francisco, bay area, Seattle, Portland,
LA, and overpays by small fortunes.

~~~
twiceaday
I left my home country to work in the bay area largely because I was going to
a well established company in an area dense with other work. The chance of me
moving to the middle of nowhere for a startup is exactly zero.

~~~
ryandrake
Yes, it's a chicken-and-egg problem. If there were plenty of good tech job
opportunities in Nowheresville, USA, tech people would move there. If there
were more tech people in Nowheresville, USA, companies would move there. Who
has to act first to bootstrap the next tech hub?

~~~
sid-kap
Google, Facebook, and Amazon? Many of my friends believe that Google's new
Austin office might lead to other tech companies to move here, but that's just
speculation.

~~~
sremani
Yawn, It will be a cold day in hell, when Austin has more tech jobs than
Dallas or Houston.

~~~
RhodesianHunter
But then you have to live in Dallas or Houston.

~~~
notadoc
Have you been to either? Texas is quite nice, and has great weather.

Cost of living is a small fraction compared to the bay area or west coast
cities too.

~~~
Arizhel
>Texas is quite nice, and has great weather.

No, it doesn't. It's hot. And the people are conservative; nothing nice about
that.

------
adrianmonk
> Across the nation, hundreds of suburban shopping malls are dead or dying;
> countless suburban factories, like their urban counterparts a couple of
> generations ago, have fallen silent.

OK, but those are not specific to suburbs, are they? Shopping malls are kind
of a trend that fell out of fashion, and it was partially replaced by internet
sales and other forms of brick and mortar shopping. Factories have gone
overseas, but I don't see how that's related to suburbia. Certainly the
suburban area I grew up in in the 70s and 80s never really had factories in
the first place.

------
jpadkins
self driving cars is going to resume the suburban boom. When commute time
becomes productive time, or TV time, then people will continue to expand
outwards to cheaper housing with more space. I would be betting against
density right now.

~~~
Fricken
Self driving cars will be quiet, electric, clean, shared and won't need the
parking space. They'll make living in high density areas that much more viable
and pleasant. I wouldn't be betting on sprawl right now. A long commute is
still a long commute.

~~~
astrange
The car form factor can't be shared because everyone needs one at the same
time (to commute to work). This is a major problem with making good cities in
America, would be solvable by reintroducing minibuses.

~~~
Fricken
Peak traffic on a typical weekday in Seattle is around 5:30, when 1/5th of all
daily use vehicles are on the road at the same time.

~~~
astrange
That's interesting, but how many daily use vehicles are rides that could be
replaced by bus trips? It sounds like a more general category.

------
akeck
Also on the topic (2016): [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-end-of-
sprawl/20...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-end-of-
sprawl/2016/07/29/2039a2b8-4d20-11e6-a422-83ab49ed5e6a_story.html)

------
mirimir
> During the mid-1980s, before anyone thought of the suburbs as being on a
> downward trajectory ...

Those of us paying attention knew in the late 70s that suburbs were a dumb
idea.

Edit: OK, so "dumb idea" unpacks to ecologically destructive, racist, socially
disruptive, and fundamentally incompatible with energy and resource
efficiency.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Efficiency is not the goal of human life. Why not put everybody in a dormitory
and feed them gruel? You could even run the bunks on three shifts. That would
be efficient, right?

~~~
mirimir
Sure, that would be efficient, in a limited sense. But not if you included
quality of life in the calculation. Or even productivity. And mainly, it's a
dubious _reductio ad absurdum_.

~~~
hueving
Quality of life is subjective. There are people that think cities are
absolutely oppressive due to the crowds. Similar to how you would feel about
sharing a bunk.

~~~
mirimir
People think many things. But reality may end up trumping all that.

Edit: What I mean is that, if negative externalities of energy and resource
use were priced in, most people couldn't afford to live in the suburbs. Or at
least, not in the manner that they've been accustomed to.

~~~
mvindahl
> if negative externalities of energy and resource use were priced in, most
> people couldn't afford to live in the suburbs

Depending upon the definition of "negative externalities", this may be true
for most of the developed world.

Maybe the Amish were right after all ..

~~~
mirimir
Well, they're on a path to stability, to sustainability.

Technological development is on a path to AI, I think. People have been
dreaming of it for at least a couple thousand years.

