My suburb does as much as it can to make itself walkable. There are crossings and sidewalks everywhere, but it's still a low density suburb so it doesn't make much sense to walk almost anywhere (my kid does walk to school as it happens to be close, but that's it). So while they are trying to address this problem, very few people actually walk.
But all of this said, I want low density. Having lived many years in a high density ant colony (aka "walkable city"), I want nothing to do with that. Keep your high rises to yourself. I think that high density living is inhuman. I respect your opinion, but we don't think alike. And I promise to not mess with your lifestyle if you don't mess with mine, we can all live together many miles apart.
I want the convenience of a drivable suburb with wide roads where everything I care about is just a 5-10min drive away and I'm willing to pay for these roads and the electricity/gas to take me where I want to go. I exercise every morning by walking around for 45 min in my cookie cutter neighborhood; the air is pure and it's a joy to walk around trees, ducks and birds instead of buses, cabs, people sneezing etc.
Curious, have you considered the in-between here? Consider medium-density European cities, which still have massively higher density suburbs, but rarely the density -- combined employment and population densities -- of the urban core of most American cities.
I hated living in Seattle, but I'm now an American finding I enjoy living in London. I walk around trees and birds every day, because I have good park access, and I can walk to them without having to worry about car traffic.
For what it's worth, by the way, you almost certainly AREN'T willing to pay for the infrastructure that supports you: Suburbs are almost overwhelmingly economically supported by cities. I hate NotJustBikes (his self-righteous attitude is just awful), but he does have a great video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI
Your theory about "suburbs are supported by cities" is controversial. I already know the video you shared and it isn't very convincing. But arguing about this will basically be the usual link exchange (I'm not an urban planner or state accountant and I assume you aren't either). I have some data for you though:
- My county doesn't have any medium-sized or big cities, so all the county maintained roads (most of our roads) are fully paid by our property taxes, which are relatively low percentwise but, as a high-income county, adds up to a pretty penny. I do most of my driving inside my county.
- A lot of road maintenance comes from the gas tax, which I pay plenty and is used inside and outside the county.
- As a tech worker, my state income tax bill is WELL above the median (like 3x-5x+). And the same applies to the suburban county I live in - these suburbanites pay a TON in state income tax. The county only receives a small fraction of the state taxes, which also goes to subsidize - guess what - city living programs.
- My federal tax bill is also huge, well above the median, as is the case with my fellow suburbanites, so I think I'm paying for all my use of federally funded highways in my state and the next 3 or 4 states to the north (if not more).
Suffice to say, I do pay a lot for this benefit, and I'd pay even more if it came to that. And if it was that much more expensive, land in the suburbs would be a lot cheaper than it is now, which would even the math.
To each their own. His attitude seemed to me like finally, someone, somewhere actually gave a damn about the fact people are killing us and our kids, and stealing our cities, instead of abstracting it away.
Reading this discussion I can't help but get reminded of the whole discussion around free-range chicken. Just in your comment, you talk about how tou have "access" to a park. Sounds like a little pasture area meant to distract you from the urban "farm" you are in, and you get a little slice of free range grassland to keep you happy. Dangling it infront of you to keep you productive. Does this not disturb anyone?
If you want to live in the country, live in the country.
I, though, like living in my neighborhood of single-family homes & small/medium size apartment buildings, with four coffeeshops, two independent grocery stores, restaurants, local shops, and more within walking or biking distance. I like being able to take a walk to pick up some bread and eggs and buy a present for a family member (no car) and bike to a major river area where I can hike for tens of miles if I like, or even go swimming and drown (it's wild enough for that if that's what you value).
People are driving in risky ways these days, running red lights much more than they used to, but it still does feel that in my city neighborhoods, folks are more conscious of pedestrians and bikes than in the suburbs I sometimes visit for friends/kid stuff/work. In the suburbs there seem to be many wide roads (4 lanes) separating areas of cul de sacs, with 35 mph speed limits but people actually going 50. Part of this is that the city streets are packed with parked cars and there are people visibly carrying out activities of daily living, while the suburban wide streets give this impression of being cars-only.
Yeesh that's a dystopian view of the world. Some of us like living in cities due to proximity to other humans, and amenities like running water and sewage systems with toilets that flush, and don't want to live like ancient humans in the wilderness.
The whole high rise situation in almost every U.S. city you described (i.e. small central cluster of high-rises) is more a result of insane zoning policies, not traffic safety. High density and peace and quiet really aren’t mutually exclusive, although admittedly 99% of towns and suburbs in the U.S. fail to build such places, largely, in fact, because of traffic engineering.
For example, I lived in a town of around 100k in the Netherlands called Delft for a while - high density, walkable, and far quieter than the two suburbs I lived in the United States.
Not saying the situation will ever change here. But it is possible.
Implementation definitely matters. There's plenty of quiet to be found in the Tokyo metro area for example, which is quite dense relative to US cities. The residential areas are pretty tranquil all day and aside from nightlife hotspots, big chunks of the inner city are absolutely dead at night.
It is unrealistic to expect this lifestyle in the long term. The era of the car will come to an end, likely in the next few decades. The personal car is a profligate use of materials and energy. We can afford them at the moment only thanks to market distortion and a massive one shot energy surfeit. When the real costs are priced in, very few people will be willing or able to pay. Had the real costs been priced in from the beginning, we might not have designed an entire way of life around them.
Your cookie cutter neighborhood (mine too) depends on circumstances which are unlikely to last. I say this with the utmost respect, and as an SUV owner!
I disagree with your claim that cars will be gone, as the rare non-SUV owner (and as someone who also answered parent to argue.) Cars don't cost that much when you drive reasonable cars for occasional trips. They're expensive, but certainly not as much as, say, food.
When there is enough momentum to push most cars out of town centers and to slow those not removed (10mph is ample to do the heavy lifting which should be the domain of cars), there will still be a place for asynchronous, on-demand high-speed travel. It will probably be a return to the family car for those with families, and other efficient arrangements for others.
When that happens, the relative free-loading of tractor trailers on interstates will be more exposed, plus the big box stores won't be as popular without daily car trips for all. By some highly suboptimal taxation scheme, we'll push logistics off the roads, except, once again, for high value uses where asynchronous, on-demand roads are worth the price.
Edit: I learned that the 2013 Odyssey is 19lb. over the minimum GVWR, so I am, in fact, a truck driver.
That's fine, but lower density requires lower level of service: narrower roads, some gravel, etc.
> I'm willing to pay for these roads
I'm not saying that it's impossible that you wpuld want to spend that much, but you couldn't possibly know if you live in the US, because you've never paid for it.
I don't mean to suggest that you're in the wrong for taking resources someone has dangled in front of you for something that looks nice; the malpractice lies with the people who designed and perpetuate those systems. But those systems are sucking rural places dry and preventing the creation of new urban places.
There is a middle ground; I live in a detached, standalone house in small east coast city, and I am within a 10 minute walk to a really good coffee shop/bakery, a pharmacy, small public library, a few restaurants, small boutique kitchenware and fabric/clothing shops, etc. I'm also a couple of blocks away from a bus stop that can take me to the train station.
The neighborhood is dense, but there are no high-rises, and I actually know my neighbors.
Similar. Englewood, Colorado. 5-10 minute walk from the grocery store, barber, bar, several good restaurants, and the theater. Really can't complain, why aren't more places like this?
Probably in nearishby highrises or in detached homes with roommates, by either car or bus, because it's an east coast city so those things most likely exist.
Contrast with Houston, say, where in most areas streets are not really crossable.
There is a middle ground. Walkable cities are not a cluster of high rises and this is mostly the result of poor zoning (we lack the appropriate "missing middle")
I pay more than $3462 in property taxes alone. So I'm good? The majority of people in my county pays more than that, so it's pretty clear to me that the city isn't subsidizing us... More likely, we're subsidizing the city in our income taxes (in my state a significant chunk of income taxes are spent on welfare services for city dwellers).
Usually, if you are out in the suburbs, your infrastructure costs way more than you are paying in taxes, just because of the distances involved. I don’t know your specific situation. Strong Towns has some info about this if you want to know more.
I hear you, and I've seen these videos and claims around, but I don't believe them. They don't make sense. I've seen the public financial statements of my suburban county (which, again, has no big city in it), the average income and funding source of roads, schools etc in my county/state.
The numbers don't add up to the city subsidizing the suburbs - quite the opposite instead. The rich suburbs pay a TON in state, local and federal taxes. So while I suppose it's possible that the cities pay relatively more than they should in the road construction category, all other categories are subsidized by the suburbs on a per capita basis (roads are just a small fraction of overall state expenses, which are dominated by health services and other type of welfare vastly subsidized by the richer suburbs).
Interestingly, this just reminded me of the situation in a nearby county that includes both a large city in a wealthy suburb. The suburb at one point wanted to secede from the city and create their own county because of the massive transfer of funds within the county towards the city.
Which is laughable because for most of human history, we've lived extremely close to each other. Cavemen didn't have acre plots separate from other cavemen.
>I want the convenience of a drivable suburb with wide roads where everything I care about is just a 5-10min drive away and I'm willing to pay for these roads and the electricity/gas to take me where I want to go
Your lifestyle requires a massive subsidy from the federal government, so you aren't really willing to pay for it. Suburbs generally require other places around them to also have massive parking lots and roads to accommodate the car lifestyle. If suburbanites just stayed in their bland community, it'd be fine, you all want to drive really fast through other people's communities and you clog up our roads.
Assuming https://ourworldindata.org/land-use is reliable data, the world currently has about 1.5 million km^2 of built-up land usable for human dwelling. If we further assume it isn't a viable option to just remove even more of the land currently in use for things like farming, rainforests, and polar ice caps and what not, if we try to divide that land evenly among 8 billion humans, we get roughly 187.5 m^2 per person.
The problem is that is all built-up land, including commercial and industrial use and the roads themselves, including whatever small amount of urban greenspace might exist like parks, including schools and courthouses and everything else we need to just run human society. If we conservatively estimate this takes up maybe half of built-up land use, then we're down to more like 90 m^2 per person.
Let's assume a family of four, so now you get 360 m^2 or about 3875 ft^2. According to https://www.census.gov/construction/chars/sold.html, the average lot size of a single-family house in the US has gone from 18760 ft^2 in 1978 to 13896 ft^2 in 2020. We're talking now something like a quarter of current lot sizes if we wanted everyone to live in a single-family home.
So, as it stands, sure, live how you want, but don't forget that your ability to live the way you want is predicated upon the vast majority of humans on the planet living in much higher density, which you apparently consider to be not living like a human at all, in spite of it being the condition most humans find themselves in.
>I'm willing to pay for these roads and the electricity/gas to take me where I want to go.
Except you aren't, nearly all infrastructure that your using will need to be bailed out and paid for by the Federal Government because otherwise your taxes would need to at least double.
But all of this said, I want low density. Having lived many years in a high density ant colony (aka "walkable city"), I want nothing to do with that. Keep your high rises to yourself. I think that high density living is inhuman. I respect your opinion, but we don't think alike. And I promise to not mess with your lifestyle if you don't mess with mine, we can all live together many miles apart.
I want the convenience of a drivable suburb with wide roads where everything I care about is just a 5-10min drive away and I'm willing to pay for these roads and the electricity/gas to take me where I want to go. I exercise every morning by walking around for 45 min in my cookie cutter neighborhood; the air is pure and it's a joy to walk around trees, ducks and birds instead of buses, cabs, people sneezing etc.