YSK Why American-style suburbs are a Ponzi scheme
3 years ago by fadhl3y to c/youshouldknow
The financial unsustainability of traditional, car-centric American suburbs, consisting mainly of single-family units, is a critical aspect of the problem of urban sprawl. The design of these suburbs necessitates constant expansion into undeveloped land. This is because the initial infrastructure costs, such as roads, utilities, and public services, are often subsidized by development fees and future property taxes from new construction. However, as these communities age, the costs of maintaining and replacing this infrastructure can significantly exceed the revenue from property taxes, creating a financial shortfall. This is often referred to as a "growth Ponzi scheme" – new development brings in a temporary influx of revenue, which is used to pay for the cost of existing liabilities, but in the process, incurs even more long-term liabilities.
Moreover, the dispersed, low-density nature of these suburbs compounds the issue, leading to inefficient public service delivery and increased per capita costs. The reliance on private vehicles, due to large distances between residences, workplaces, and essential amenities, also places a heavy financial burden on families, particularly those in lower income brackets. Affordable housing options are limited, contributing to socio-economic segregation. Furthermore, the conversion of natural and agricultural land into residential and commercial areas can lead to losses in ecosystem services, the costs of which are often not accounted for. Thus, from both a municipal and a resident perspective, traditional American suburbs present a financially unsustainable model for urban development.
This youtuber is friends with NJB :)
It's not really a ponzi scheme... it's a desire for affluence and social exclusion from people who are different than you.
People love conformity, hence why every new development is in a HOA.
This is all true, but doesn’t offer much of a solution or any alternatives. If I think about the concept of essentially living in a megabuilding from cyberpunk, I wouldn’t trust my fellow man to be clean enough to keep it from looking like the mega buildings from cyberpunk. Plus, cramming people into close quarters accelerates the transmission of disease, which would be problematic given how unclean I would expect such a place to be. It’s not that I disagree with these statements, urban sprawl is a problem.
The concept you're looking for is called the 'missing middle'. People assume the only two options are single family home suburbs or inner city mega apartments.
What's missing are small mixed areas (which are illegal to build in most of the US) that have single family homes, duplexes, small apartment buildings, all mixed in with commercial spaces like grocery stores and restaurants.
I actually live in one of these, in a county with absolute dedication to sprawl and hellish suburbs. A neighborhood, yes? Apartments by the river, houses and with restaurants and gas station and drugstore within walking distance and without crossing a main road. About 3 miles from downtown and the other main business district. Uptown, sort of? Not fancy but same sort of location.
But to buy a not new house right now, in my neighborhood of average houses, would cost half a million dollars. To rent, unless you are old and can get into the rent controlled senior highrise, 2k-3k a month for an apartment, 4-6k a month for a house. That is not reasonable for average pay here at all.
It isn’t “illegal.” I work in development as a civil engineer and there is a ton of mixed use development. The 5 over 1 building, with retail in the lower level and several floors of apartments are huge right now.
But it doesn’t solve a lot of issues. We still need cars to get to work and get services we can’t get locally. Consumer preferences drive a lot of it as well. While some people prefer living car free, many do not. Many prefer single family homes with yards
There's no way you are not a troll lmao
(((Inner city crime))) (((wealthy cosmopolitan elites)))
Usually, the multiple parenthesis are used to dog whistle "Jews", but this guy was dog whistling "black people".
I'm not sure if there's a way to sarcastic indicate that form of stupidity...
Anyway, for those who don't know, "white flight" to the suburbs started almost exactly the same time that segregation was ended. What a coincidence. Particularly the desegregation of schools.
Speaking of the desegregation of schools, the forced desegregation of certain white only universities was the start of the religious right in politics, not Roe v Wade, which was decided some 7 or so years earlier.
He was dogwhistling both I think, “the wealthy elites landowners are promoting racemixing tricking good people to move back into the crime filled cities” is pretty explicit even for this type
So much bullshit I don't even know where to begin.
I suggest that anyone interested in this topic watches this playlist which goes into the economics (and much more) about why current American planning doesn't work and is destroying the US:
I'll never understand how anyone could say cities are ableist in the slightest. Less cars means you're more free to just go places, walking or otherwise, so it's safer for people with vision or hearing disabilities. More public transit means it's easier for everyone else to get places. If you can't use your legs, you can't drive anyway... Now you don't have to. Plus public transit costs a lot less to the user to do because you don't need to pay for a whole car and so on which is great for people with limited money options due to having a disability.
It's really dumb to say public transit and walkable cities is capitalist stink given that there's a really long recorded history of capitalist stinks trying to ban cities from being walkable... And it working... It's a big reason American cities suck so bad now.
I mean they’re not strictly speaking more accessible in an absolute sense because everyone has different, often conflicting, accessibility needs. What I need may be less accessible for you etc, but overall they are more accessible in that there’s far more options that provide far more opportunities for different strategies toward accessibility.
For example stairs might not be accessible for me, but if I go just fifty meters or so an elevator is right there, and there’s a ramp etc.
But everyone can't drive. I just don't see how cities=capitalism? What makes a suburb more socialist than a city?
The videos look at the facts and sources their claims, like actual budgets and where the money is coming from is shown.
If you aren't willing to look at the facts then maybe you shouldn't be talking about the subject?
Cities where stuff is close together and there's public transport is obviously better for disabled people than being stuck far away from everything and having to drive(which many people can't) to do anything?
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I’ll have to watch this later. At first I thought it was from the Not Just Bikes channel, which has a similar message.
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