> The outskirts of cities have better roads & less traffic. I regularly travel cross country & find traffic jams to be rare. There are slowdown in construction areas & traffic jams in the cities during rush hour, but for the most part, the highways more than match capacity. You might not be able to drive as fast as the autobahn, but given there are many traffic fatalities, that's not a good idea here.
Yes of course the 20-lane highway is mostly empty. And your experience is fine, but in terms of actual statistics, of how long actual people are stuck in traffic it is actually very relevant. There is constant political demand and pressure to expand capacity, to add more lanes and so on. Because when most people see the roads they are full.
The problem is that you are forcing poor workers, who need to go to the city, in order to live the have to go to ever further sub-developments and travel ever further, forcing them to have a car and to spend a lot of money on gas.
This is why the Living&Transport share of peoples income is ever rising. You have land that is worth insane amounts with the best companies in the world having office close buy, but many that work there have to do a 1-2h commute to get there.
> There's a rising home schooling network...spurned on by the spirit of independence, political conditions, technology, covid, work from home, etc.
Maybe in the US, not in most of the world. And even if you do school at home, I think childhood where you are in car depended suburb and you never get to leave sounds horrible. There is a reason so many movies get made in the US about teenagers stuck in suberibia, and only hoping to get a car so they can finally do something.
If in general its a good idea is questionable, most countries in the world don't want this. Kids actually walking to school is also health. Of course getting dropped up in your moms 5t SUV isn't as healthy.
> Many people do not want nor can afford rising property taxes. The property values are largely fueled by the now ending long cycle of inexpensive credit. There's plenty of land here, much of it is unavailable due to large institutions & government owning it. This also drives the prices & taxes up. As a result, many independent-minded people are fleeing densely populated areas to be able to own a home in a safe & friendly area.
This analysis is just totally wrong. Sorry, its just factually wrong. Property values might influenced a little by credit but the relative prices are mostly fine.
And the idea that most land is owned by large institutions and government is wrong. Unless you mean like McDonald and Walmart. But they do pay property taxes and the reason its not available is because of bad zoning laws.
Those people that are fleeing these areas for their own home are not actually paying for the infrastructure that they need to support it. This is crystal clear in the data, these 1-family home subburbs are economic kills for their cities, they are getting subsidies massively by the poor and the city center. The taxes of a typical Cul'de'sak parley even finance the road replacements, not to mention everything else.
> The US cities are broke for spending. Transportation is one line item & any improvement will help. However, there is also manipulated credit-heavy markets coupled with political grift which seems to account for the majority of the spending.
You seem obsessed with credit markets. Short term credit market changes have nothing to do with it, these are systematic problems built in the pattern of development.
The cities are broke because they simply don't have enough income to maintain all their commitments. Its not just transport, its water, policing and so on. I have shown the data on this. You can listen to talks by Urban3 and Strong Towns on yt, they present this data in a very clear way.
> Again, I have not experienced many bad roads...except in some secluded areas & in some inner cities that don't seem to function very well on a whole. Note that these inner cities learn toward a decades long trend of heavy centralization as a "solution" to the problems...yet the problems keep on getting worse...due to centralized corruption.
Because you normally don't drive in all those suburb unless you live there. And partly why inner cities are so bad, is because while they make money they use that money to fix roads in the suburbs.
I'm not American, but given the constant complaints about road quality I hear everywhere I not sure this is up for debate. When I watch videos like Tesla Self Driving videos I regularly shocked about the state of the roads, and those videos are from a pretty broad amount of places. Many of those videos remind me of Ukraine more then Switzerland.
> Given that you are not American & from your statements, I doubt you have the broad & nuanced context of the American experience.
I have been to the US multiple times both on the East and the West coast.I read about US history for a long time. I listen to a lot of experts and city planners on this topic. And most important its based on data.
Some friends of mine that are not as well informed just came back from San Fransisco and they were absolutely shocked by the state of the city, the homelessness and so on.
There is simply no arguing with some of these facts:
1. Suburbs are economically terrible for cities and are subsidized
2. Property tax system gives intensive for low value building
2. The US road network is pretty unsafe
3. The US has incredibly low numbers of pedestrians and cyclists
4. The US has an incredibly badly develop public transit network
5. Suburbs measure badly when it comes to environmental factors, people that live like that have incredibly high rates of driving. With many trips being less then 5 miles.
6. US roads on avg are not as well maintained as countries with comparable GDP, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands.
7. US zoning codes with functional separation and overwhelming amounts of single family zoning, is a huge part of the homelessness crisis.
Witch of these facts would you disagree with?
> There's many foreign interests who want to influence & in cases degrade American life, largely through corporitization, closing of small & local businesses, credit markets, & buying up land that they don't live on.
Here is an idea. If to have a continent store you need to buy a full block, have minimum parking for 200 people attached to 6-lane strode, your not gone get many 'small & local business' operating those stores.
If to buy a coffee you have to go into a huge parking lot and then wait at the Starbucks drive threw for 10 min, then you are not gone have many 'small & medium' business operating those business.
If your commercial zoning plots are 80x80m and your not allowed to develop it in a mixed use way, your not gone get many local and small business.
Land use where you have single family homes with absolutely no local economy connected with 6 lane strodes to commercial districts with big box stores and big box fast food joints simply simply isn't environment where small and local business do well.
Stop blaming foreign considerations, credit markets, those are all things directly related land use policy. Many cities in the US have 80% single family non-commercial zoning, but yet you believe that its foreign cooperation and big institutions that buy up all the land that is the problem?
> There's many foreign interests who want to influence & in cases degrade American life
These are choices made by Americans, by American planners and American governments. Foreign interest didn't do any of those things, and foreign interest are not trying to destroy America.
I would actually like to visit the US more, as I like the US, but in most places without a car is simply not very practical and I can't drive.
Suburbs do not work because are too dense and they are totally separate from workspace. A distributed economy is like French riviera witch happen to be very well also today. You live and work here and there at short distance, so you do not need to travel for 30' to buy something, nor to go to school, but you are also not stuck in traffic nor being tied to public transports.
A small personal example: back when I was living in a dense city a 4km trip means half an hour in many hours of the day, here a 40km trips means the same amount of time. In such timeframe I have access to similar set of services (from groceries to theater to hospitals and leisure etc) of a big city, with the notable difference that here there is no parking issues, no traffic, far less waiting times for anything etc AND more important being spread there is room for renewables. Actually my main car witch is now an EV eat MUCH LESS energy from the grid that the same in a city since there I have room for p.v. and most people WFH being the tertiary sector the most common set of works in the developed world. Not only: poor peoples exists both in cities and outside, but in low dense area they tend to live far better, it's easier to give them some small jobs and they are not too much to assist. As a result here crimes are far less then in all dense nearby areas. In the past quality of life was less than now, now quality of life in cities goes down, outside goes up. Just as an example I get a better connection here (2Gbps down, 860Mbps up) here than in a big city.
> Yes of course the 20-lane highway is mostly empty. And your experience is fine, but in terms of actual statistics, of how long actual people are stuck in traffic it is actually very relevant. There is constant political demand and pressure to expand capacity, to add more lanes and so on. Because when most people see the roads they are full.
I've been through many cities including Nashville, Atlanta, NYC, Miami, Chicago, LA, LV, Dallas, Houston, etc. & have not encountered a 20-lane highway...but yes, some are very wide at junctions. I used to live in LA & the traffic was bad during rush hour, which encouraged me to avoid the commute...or any commute for that matter since I now WFH. The main issue re: traffic is with the junctions where people have to change lanes & going into/out of cities.
> The problem is that you are forcing poor workers, who need to go to the city, in order to live the have to go to ever further sub-developments and travel ever further, forcing them to have a car and to spend a lot of money on gas.
I'm not forcing anyone to do that & am in favor of public transportation. I'm not in favor of discouraging car traffic, as the United States is very large, federated, & has varied geography. Many people live in the country & small towns as well. Public transportation is an option in many of these areas but not really used because it is far more practical & cost effective to own a vehicle. Many people in the country also have trucks to haul goods & engage in trade.
> This is why the Living&Transport share of peoples income is ever rising. You have land that is worth insane amounts with the best companies in the world having office close buy, but many that work there have to do a 1-2h commute to get there.
The high prices of housing are largely due to speculation & easily available credit. If there can be a solution to home ownership close to the corporate office & a WFH policy, then less commuting travel would be required.
> Maybe in the US, not in most of the world. And even if you do school at home, I think childhood where you are in car depended suburb and you never get to leave sounds horrible. There is a reason so many movies get made in the US about teenagers stuck in suberibia, and only hoping to get a car so they can finally do something.
I think you are making too much out of suburbia. I for one do not want to live in the burbs as there are building restrictions & it requires large amounts of credit to own a home. Home schooling does not necessarily mean being cloistered in the house. It means freedom to choose the method of schooling, which includes getting together with other children/families of your choosing. I've been through the public school system and it was heavily institutionalized & felt like a prison. I would never subject my child to that psychological torture.
Movies don't necessarily reflect reality for many people. My wife grew up in the country on her grandfather's farm & she loved it. The people were friendly & the air was good. I grew up on Maui. The environment there is very nice & there are things to do outside.
> You seem obsessed with credit markets. Short term credit market changes have nothing to do with it, these are systematic problems built in the pattern of development.
I mention credit often because having easily attainable credit drives up home costs leading to your dreaded suburbs as the only option to afford a home while commuting to work. When I had to do it, I took BART from Oakland to SF & it sucked. There are violent people there, I saw shootings, & was attacked while riding my bike. It was far more economical than driving into SF but it would have been better to WFH.
> And the idea that most land is owned by large institutions and government is wrong.
To clarify, I said most of the unavailable land is owned by large institutions & the government. For example, some states such as Utah have a sizable & of land owned by the government & made into the park system. This land is unavailable for home ownership.
> Because you normally don't drive in all those suburb unless you live there. And partly why inner cities are so bad, is because while they make money they use that money to fix roads in the suburbs.
No...these inner cities have a poorly functioning government & are rife with corruption. If they operated more efficiently, then the facilities would improve. For example, SF has a large tax base, yet has bad roads & a high crime rate. Much of the money is spent on cleaning up poop, handing out needles to drug addicts, high government worker salaries, etc. Seattle has riots & even had an "autonomous zone"...all while crime increased.
The suburbs in the Bay Area were a relatively sane place to live. I went to high school for a couple of years in Pleasanton in the East Bay. Having a car was very beneficial. It had a bus system & I rode on it, but it was not something that was very desirable. I commuted from Stockton, CA to San Jose, CA. I got up early a few times to ride the Ace Train but it was about an hour faster to drive...during rush hour...I could wake up later.
> 1. Suburbs are economically terrible for cities and are subsidized
Suburbs have a large tax base. I'm not aware if they are any more subsidized than cities.
> 2. Property tax system gives intensive for low value building
Low income people in Texas are bitterly complaining about the tax increases from the increases of property value largely caused by the inflow of people coming from states such as California.
> 2. The US road network is pretty unsafe
I agree that the road network is unsafe. On my recent trip with a camper, I had to cut across to make the left turn on a junction a few times. Driving through Atlanta metro reminded me of a video game. It was very intense.
> 3. The US has incredibly low numbers of pedestrians and cyclists
For good reason. The US is very large, people want to own land, & there is plenty of land available. We still hike, ride our bikes, & walk, but it's not to travel places...it's simply to get out into the fresh air.
> 4. The US has an incredibly badly develop public transit network
It does. It can improve. It would be great to have a bullet train network travel the US. I hear that there is an underground network of high speed rail but that's considered "conspiracy theory" at this time. Passenger rail would be great to improve. Amtrak receives federal funding but it's badly managed by the government. I have used Amtrak, the NJ rail, & NYC metro subway system from NJ to NYC. That was probably the the most extensive system I have used in the US. It's not very good, it's dirty, & there's crime, but it worked. It works well in NYC & parts of NJ such as Jersey City, but as you go farther from NYC, you still have to drive to the train station because the transportation network cannot handle the bifurcation of supporting everyone's housing preferences.
> 5. Suburbs measure badly when it comes to environmental factors, people that live like that have incredibly high rates of driving. With many trips being less then 5 miles.
Since WFH, there are days where I don't drive even though I live in a rural area. When I lived in Texas, trips to a decent grocery store (Whole Foods) took over an hour. We stocked up & made the trips as infrequently as possible. Again it mainly comes down to cost. People don't like commuting, but are forced to commute to afford rent or home ownership. Again, credit drives up the price of the housing market.
> 6. US roads on avg are not as well maintained as countries with comparable GDP, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands.
This is mainly a phenomenon of geography & politics. The USA is a much larger company. Also the US provides military to these countries among other costs of Empire. There also an entrenched bureaucracy which has counterproductive environmental laws (that don't actually help the environment) & other expensive requirements. Once the US Empire declines, it will look inward & focus on improving infrastructure.
> 7. US zoning codes with functional separation and overwhelming amounts of single family zoning, is a huge part of the homelessness crisis.
I disagree. Many homeless people are drug addicts & have psychological issues. Many people cannot afford to leave their situations in the city. Rent is very high in metro areas. There is inexpensive land available, but it's difficult to find & expensive and/or disruptive to change one's life to find the right area to live in.
> Here is an idea. If to have a continent store you need to buy a full block, have minimum parking for 200 people attached to 6-lane strode, your not gone get many 'small & local business' operating those stores.
Small towns have plenty of small businesses & they are great. They have soul & the people are far more pleasant. Also people can operate a business out of their homes. There are regulatory hurdles one must overcome to own a business, especially wrt food. Some states are better than others. California makes it particularly difficult to start a small business for example. Business friendly states such as Texas, Tennessee, Florida enable more small businesses. Also, the cost of rent of a store front, electricity costs, commodity costs also affect the feasibility of a small business.
> If to buy a coffee you have to go into a huge parking lot and then wait at the Starbucks drive threw for 10 min, then you are not gone have many 'small & medium' business operating those business.
There are many cafes that are small businesses. I have not had a Starbucks in years. I prefer organic cafes myself. The large chains tend to not be as healthy or tasty.
I've even bought home cooked meals & meals cooked on a neighborhood grill outside the house. Not legal because there was no commercial kitchen, but it was very tasty & I wish it was legal.
> If your commercial zoning plots are 80x80m and your not allowed to develop it in a mixed use way, your not gone get many local and small business.
I would love more mixed use zoning & I think most people in the USA agree. It would reduce the need to commute. Business friendly states, communities, & unincorporated/low regulatory towns tend to allow more mixed used housing/businesses. There are large interests who don't want such freedom though as it would affect local/regional markets.
> Stop blaming foreign considerations, credit markets, those are all things directly related land use policy.
I don't need a lecture. I'm just stating facts. You may not like them but they are still here whether you want me to acknowledge them or not.
> These are choices made by Americans, by American planners and American governments. Foreign interest didn't do any of those things, and foreign interest are not trying to destroy America.
Not true. There's plenty of money from foreign entities that are influencing the media, politics, land ownership, etc. Large tracts of farmland are bought by Americans & foreigners with no intention of the owners living on the land. BlackRock among other multinational companies own huge swaths of property to rent...leading to an increase in rental prices. People who buy a bunch of AirBnB's & now prices are going astronomical.. This is more of an American phenomenon but there's also foreign capital involved. Much of the rental owneship is leveraged with credit, making it more expensive to rent & to one to own one's own house.
Don't get me wrong, I love people from other countries, but there are high net worth people who influence the state of affairs with their money from all over the world.
This will probably correct in a more favorable direction once the USD stops being the world reserve currency. It is far less expensive to buy property in Italy or India than it is over in the US, but there is still plenty of inexpensive land available which can be bought without credit.
> I would actually like to visit the US more, as I like the US, but in most places without a car is simply not very practical and I can't drive.
You might like NYC. You don't need a car there. Uber/Lyft is available in other areas. The SF Bay Areas has BART & the bus system, though I would steer clear of some parts of Oakland. Downtown LA or Venice, CA are doable without a car. Chicago, parts of Miami, Austin, Nashville, etc. are nice. Smaller towns with a nice downtown area & a college scene tend to also be good. I guess it depends on what you like.
I really like the Asheville NC area...it's magical here in nearby small towns outside of the city. But having a car is nice. I'll need to look more into the public transportation options. Ashland, OR, Shasta, CA, Boulder, CO, or Colorado Springs are really nice & doable without cars if you like nature, good water, & you get to know people there. I know people in those areas & I think you would do well there.
If you like hiking, there are long trails such as the Appalacian trail or the High Sierra tail.
Take a look at Eva Zu Beck, who is a German national. She has a converted Land Rover but has some great stories about traveling up & down North & South America.
Yes of course the 20-lane highway is mostly empty. And your experience is fine, but in terms of actual statistics, of how long actual people are stuck in traffic it is actually very relevant. There is constant political demand and pressure to expand capacity, to add more lanes and so on. Because when most people see the roads they are full.
The problem is that you are forcing poor workers, who need to go to the city, in order to live the have to go to ever further sub-developments and travel ever further, forcing them to have a car and to spend a lot of money on gas.
This is why the Living&Transport share of peoples income is ever rising. You have land that is worth insane amounts with the best companies in the world having office close buy, but many that work there have to do a 1-2h commute to get there.
> There's a rising home schooling network...spurned on by the spirit of independence, political conditions, technology, covid, work from home, etc.
Maybe in the US, not in most of the world. And even if you do school at home, I think childhood where you are in car depended suburb and you never get to leave sounds horrible. There is a reason so many movies get made in the US about teenagers stuck in suberibia, and only hoping to get a car so they can finally do something.
If in general its a good idea is questionable, most countries in the world don't want this. Kids actually walking to school is also health. Of course getting dropped up in your moms 5t SUV isn't as healthy.
> Many people do not want nor can afford rising property taxes. The property values are largely fueled by the now ending long cycle of inexpensive credit. There's plenty of land here, much of it is unavailable due to large institutions & government owning it. This also drives the prices & taxes up. As a result, many independent-minded people are fleeing densely populated areas to be able to own a home in a safe & friendly area.
This analysis is just totally wrong. Sorry, its just factually wrong. Property values might influenced a little by credit but the relative prices are mostly fine.
And the idea that most land is owned by large institutions and government is wrong. Unless you mean like McDonald and Walmart. But they do pay property taxes and the reason its not available is because of bad zoning laws.
Those people that are fleeing these areas for their own home are not actually paying for the infrastructure that they need to support it. This is crystal clear in the data, these 1-family home subburbs are economic kills for their cities, they are getting subsidies massively by the poor and the city center. The taxes of a typical Cul'de'sak parley even finance the road replacements, not to mention everything else.
> The US cities are broke for spending. Transportation is one line item & any improvement will help. However, there is also manipulated credit-heavy markets coupled with political grift which seems to account for the majority of the spending.
You seem obsessed with credit markets. Short term credit market changes have nothing to do with it, these are systematic problems built in the pattern of development.
The cities are broke because they simply don't have enough income to maintain all their commitments. Its not just transport, its water, policing and so on. I have shown the data on this. You can listen to talks by Urban3 and Strong Towns on yt, they present this data in a very clear way.
> Again, I have not experienced many bad roads...except in some secluded areas & in some inner cities that don't seem to function very well on a whole. Note that these inner cities learn toward a decades long trend of heavy centralization as a "solution" to the problems...yet the problems keep on getting worse...due to centralized corruption.
Because you normally don't drive in all those suburb unless you live there. And partly why inner cities are so bad, is because while they make money they use that money to fix roads in the suburbs.
I'm not American, but given the constant complaints about road quality I hear everywhere I not sure this is up for debate. When I watch videos like Tesla Self Driving videos I regularly shocked about the state of the roads, and those videos are from a pretty broad amount of places. Many of those videos remind me of Ukraine more then Switzerland.
> Given that you are not American & from your statements, I doubt you have the broad & nuanced context of the American experience.
I have been to the US multiple times both on the East and the West coast.I read about US history for a long time. I listen to a lot of experts and city planners on this topic. And most important its based on data.
Some friends of mine that are not as well informed just came back from San Fransisco and they were absolutely shocked by the state of the city, the homelessness and so on.
There is simply no arguing with some of these facts:
1. Suburbs are economically terrible for cities and are subsidized
2. Property tax system gives intensive for low value building
2. The US road network is pretty unsafe
3. The US has incredibly low numbers of pedestrians and cyclists
4. The US has an incredibly badly develop public transit network
5. Suburbs measure badly when it comes to environmental factors, people that live like that have incredibly high rates of driving. With many trips being less then 5 miles.
6. US roads on avg are not as well maintained as countries with comparable GDP, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands.
7. US zoning codes with functional separation and overwhelming amounts of single family zoning, is a huge part of the homelessness crisis.
Witch of these facts would you disagree with?
> There's many foreign interests who want to influence & in cases degrade American life, largely through corporitization, closing of small & local businesses, credit markets, & buying up land that they don't live on.
Here is an idea. If to have a continent store you need to buy a full block, have minimum parking for 200 people attached to 6-lane strode, your not gone get many 'small & local business' operating those stores.
If to buy a coffee you have to go into a huge parking lot and then wait at the Starbucks drive threw for 10 min, then you are not gone have many 'small & medium' business operating those business.
https://twitter.com/EclecticHams/status/1589281938530967552
If your commercial zoning plots are 80x80m and your not allowed to develop it in a mixed use way, your not gone get many local and small business.
Land use where you have single family homes with absolutely no local economy connected with 6 lane strodes to commercial districts with big box stores and big box fast food joints simply simply isn't environment where small and local business do well.
Stop blaming foreign considerations, credit markets, those are all things directly related land use policy. Many cities in the US have 80% single family non-commercial zoning, but yet you believe that its foreign cooperation and big institutions that buy up all the land that is the problem?
> There's many foreign interests who want to influence & in cases degrade American life
These are choices made by Americans, by American planners and American governments. Foreign interest didn't do any of those things, and foreign interest are not trying to destroy America.
I would actually like to visit the US more, as I like the US, but in most places without a car is simply not very practical and I can't drive.