And the reason people often move out with kids is that it's too expensive to own a large-enough property for most people due to the high demand for walkable places.
If only it were so simple. Building walkable places is illegal almost everywhere in the US due to onerous parking minimums, regulations about street design and restrictive zoning. It's still possible to build walkable places with highrises, but low-rise walkable areas like https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9181247,-87.6517955,3a,60y,7... are almost lost art in the US. There are entire major metro areas in the US with no street like this.
Exactly. And it's those policies that need to change. But because this is such a lost art, and because Americans have been raised to believe in the car-centric suburban dream, most people don't even know that this is an option. It's a policy issue, but also an awareness issue.
I wonder why nobody just changes these regulations. Sure it's difficult and you won't get a majority in most places, but I find it hard to understand why not at least some cities designate a small area as a "model community" and relax zoning and parking requirements.
This is happening to some extent (e.g. Chicago removing parking minimums near transit stations, Houston removing parking minimums in two downtown-adjacent neighborhoods) but mainly only in large cities. Parking minimums are especially onerous since they almost ensure you can only build strip malls for retail.
Walkable places are inherently more expensive because they lack economy of scale. It's why Dunkin Donuts can sell a dozen for $10 but it costs ~$20 for half a dozen at my local walkable place. Granted, there is a quality of ingredients difference but not 4x the cost.
No, it's the suburbs that lack economy of scale. The walkable areas contribute far more per acre in taxes than the suburbs. They also require fewer resources to maintain per person because they're physically smaller. The suburbs have such a paucity of "economies of scale" that municipalities around the country have gone into debt to support them.
The reason donuts cost more at your local walkable place is because real estate prices are higher in walkable places, because walkable places are so in-demand that as a nation we've bid the prices of those places to the moon. So we ought to change our zoning rules so that the market can build more of them. That's the whole point of Strong Towns idea.
Plus the Dunkin Donuts was gifted expensive public infrastructure since, in all likelihood, they have a 10 year tax incentive that prevents them from paying almost any property taxes.
Dunkin Donuts also doesn't bake their donuts on premises (with a few exceptions). Surprise, you can get even cheaper (and shittier) donuts at the dollar store!
>No, it's the suburbs that lack economy of scale. The walkable areas contribute far more per acre in taxes than the suburbs. They also require fewer resources to maintain per person because they're physically smaller. The suburbs have such a paucity of "economies of scale" that municipalities around the country have gone into debt to support them.
Yes, Strong towns loves to say this too despite it being obviously not true.
Infrastructure stuff like roads and pipes and so on is cheap. Usually 10-15% of the budget. The real cost of government is in providing services to people. And those are invariably more expensive in the cities than the suburbs.
Show me even one city in the US that has lower taxes and spends less per Capita than the surrounding suburbs.
That's not the right metric though. Cities and suburbs are not comparable in terms of overall experience. The extra services you cite are one of the reasons why.
For one, suburbs are pretty economically difficult for low-earning households. Low earners are more likely to live in cities, therefore cities tend to have more social services.
You need to do an apples-to-apples comparison, which unfortunately is not easy.
At least in Illinois, valuations are determined at the county level, and the majority of sales tax is also county-level. All things being equal, more commercial property (and tourism) moves some of the burden to taxpayers outside the city. Comparing Chicago to the neighboring suburb of Oak Park, sales tax in Chicago is 10.25% vs. 10% in Oak Park, but property taxes are nearly double in Oak Park. Maybe things like rental cars or hotels are taxed less, but that's not a big impact.
Of course property tax rates are inversely correlated with property values so it's a bit tricky to compare, but the point is it's not always true that suburbs have lower taxes than the central city. Transportation costs are also typically much lower in cities (transit fares/passes are typically significantly cheaper than car ownership).
You have it completely backwards. Suburbs aren't scalable. That's why back in the 50s-70s when they were first built, they were amazing, but today, they are rife with traffic problems, noise pollution, and crumbling infrastructure.
There are plenty of Dunkin Donuts stores in walkable places. I have a Dunks across the street from my condo and another one around the corner (and several others several blocks away). (I live in this area, which is VERY walkable: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8822495,-87.6254941,1122a,35...)
It's true there are also other, superior, options, but that's a bonus!
Is that actually true? That's absolutely true in SF, but the Bay Area is bonkers for lots of reasons, housing prices is a well known one so I want to be careful about extrapolating from there.
It's true. The Not Just Bikes channel has a video on walkable neighborhoods in the US. They're all massively expensive because of the high quality of life.
