How Suburban Development Makes American Cities Poorer [ST02]
Not Just Bikes1 HN recommender · recommended in 1 month, 2021-2024
1.2M views · 5 years ago · explainer · evergreen
Not Just Bikes contrasts traditional and suburban development in North America. It looks at the financials behind each pattern and argues that suburban development leaves cities unable to pay for their own infrastructure.
Cited in urban planning threads as an accessible explanation of why low-density suburbs cost more to maintain than they bring in.
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11:01How Bankrupt American Cities Stay Alive - Debt [ST04]
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5:32The Truth about American Cities - Part 1 - Strong Towns [ST01]
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10:16Suburbia is Subsidized: Here's the Math [ST07]
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15:27America Always Gets This Wrong (when building transit)
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12:14Why We Won't Raise Our Kids in Suburbia
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15:49The Trains that Subsidize Suburbia - GO Transit Commuter Rail
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10:40This Ponzi Scheme Might END Suburban Prosperity
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7:19The Lively & Liveable Neighbourhoods that are Illegal in Most of North America
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15:43Business Parks Suck (but they don't have to)
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8:10The Houses that Can't be Built in America - The Missing Middle
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18:20Even Small Towns are Great Here (5 Years in the Netherlands)
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8:44The Suburban Traffic Contradiction
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5 comments from Hacker News
Holy shit, talk about reading things out of context. You, dear sir, have absolutely nothing in common with the average North American who lives in the suburbs. The question was not directed at you. If you want to at least try to understand the context before jumping to give your opinion and share with us your psycho issues, try watching ▶ this video
The problem is that low density urban areas are subsidsed by high densisty urban areas: link ▶ this video etc They are also terrible for the planet.
Not Just Bikes is a great channel on urban development, and he did a series on Strong Towns' ideas specifically. I like this one, "How Suburban Development Makes American Cities Poorer". ▶ this video
It breeds efficiency and self sufficiency. Less wasted resources on virtually every metric. Suburbia on the other hand makes us all worse off. ▶ this video
That's a problem with suburbia. You need a lot of road per house. The tax money you receive doesn't cover maintenance. Even the worst city blocks bring in enough tax revenue to maintain their roads. ▶ this video